The King spent his Christmas at Brighton, and as he was a full-fledged monarch, his ideas expanded as to his country residence, and the assembly-room of the Castle Tavern was absorbed into the building, and converted into a chapel. Then also was arranged the alterations which have made the Pavilion the extraordinary conglomeration of buildings it now is. The chapel was consecrated on January 1, 1822.
He left Brighton in April, went to Scotland in August, and returned to Brighton in October. In January, 1823, he had a terrible attack of gout, and he did not leave the Pavilion till April. Naturally, now that he was King, he had to spend much of his time in London; but he spent the Christmas of 1824 at Brighton, and stayed there till the following February. He never made but one more visit to Brighton--from January 23, 1827, to March 7--and Florizel's stupendous Folly knew him no more.
[93] 'The Journal of Mary Frampton from 1779 to 1846,' 8vo., pp. 264, 265; London, 1885.
[94] A turkey hung round with festoons of sausages is called 'an Alderman in Chains.'
[99] Sir Benjamin (afterwards Lord) Bloomfield.
The books by Nash and Brayley on the Pavilion--Description and history of the building--Its exterior--Entrance hall--Red Drawing-room.
He left behind him a more abiding monument of his 'folly' than the building itself in a magnificent folio volume of etchings, plain and coloured, a task which he entrusted to Nash, the architect, who employed the artistic assistance of Wilks, Moore, and the elder Pugin, especially the latter, and it took five years (1820 to 1825) to complete.
I have reserved the description of this building until the end of my book, because it ended only with the King's life. The Lord alone knows what it might have become had he lived longer! And I transcribe the best description, that of E. W. Brayley,[101] who in the spring of 1836 made a careful survey of the Pavilion, which had but very slightly been altered since the death of George IV.
'This Edifice, which, in respect to architectural form, has no parallel in Europe, nor perhaps on the globe, is indebted for its origin to his late Majesty GEORGE THE FOURTH, who, when Prince of Wales, first went to Brighton in the autumn of the year 1782 (?), on a visit to his uncle the late Duke of Cumberland, then residing at his house, near the south end of the Steyne, and not far from the cliff. The consequences of that visit have been extraordinary.