King George IV and Caroline of Brunswick possessed one of history's most disastrous marriages. Having met for the first time just days before their 1795 wedding, they found each other utterly repulsive. After producing a single heir, they separated permanently.
Caroline relocated to Europe, where she lived a lavish, uninhibited lifestyle, eventually employing a charismatic Italian named Bartolomeo Bergami. Rumors of an affair spread rapidly. When George ascended the throne in 1820, he was determined to prevent Caroline from becoming queen.
Fearing a traditional trial would drag his own promiscuous laundry into the open, the King tasked Parliament with passing the Pains and Penalties Bill of 1820—a legal maneuver designed to strip Caroline of her title and dissolve the marriage without a formal court conviction. What followed was a spectacle. The House of Lords effectively put the Queen on trial, cross-examining former servants about bedroom keyholes and intimate traveling arrangements.
However, George IV underestimated public sentiment. The working class viewed Caroline as an underdog hero standing up against a hypocritical, extravagantly wasteful king. Protests erupted in the streets, and mob energy heavily favored the Queen.
Public outrage grew so severe that the government feared a full-blown revolution. Although the bill narrowly passed its third reading in the House of Lords, the government recognized it would never survive the House of Commons and abruptly withdrew it. Caroline had won in the court of public opinion, but her victory was short-lived: she was physically barred from attending George IV's coronation in July 1821 and died mysteriously just weeks later.