Pains and Penalties Bill 1820 - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Queen considered it a victory. Crowds of Londoners celebrated exuberantly in the streets; the windows of government supporters were smashed, and the offices of newspapers that had supported the King were set alight. Similar scenes occurred throughout the United Kingdom. On 29 November, Caroline attended a service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral with the Lord Mayor of London, much to the dismay of the Dean of St Paul's. Vast crowds turned out to see her; estimates of the number in the crowd vary between 50,000 and 500,000. Nevertheless, she was still barred from George's coronation at Westminster Abbey on 19 July 1821. She fell ill and died three weeks later. Her husband did not attend her funeral, and her body was returned to Brunswick for burial.

With the failure of the bill, the radicals largely lost Caroline as a figurehead of the reform movement, since they were stripped of a cause and Caroline had no further need of them as allies. Once the scandal had died down, the loyalist pro-King party had a resurgence, and became more vocal. It took over a decade and the death of King George IV, for the reform movement to gain sufficient ground to force through Parliament the Reform Act 1832, which regulated the franchise throughout the United Kingdom.