1 The Queen’s House is today part of Buckingham Palace, as the royal residence was rechristened when enlarged in the 1820s.
2 The King’s agonizing abdominal pain and his mania were almost certainly both symptoms of an acute attack of porphyria, a hereditary metabolic disorder which was then unknown to medical science.
3 On New Year’s Day 1806 the Elector of Württemberg was proclaimed King, and later that year the Holy Roman Empire was abolished, being replaced by Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine. The Holy Roman Emperor renounced his ancient title and became known as emperor of Austria.
4 The precarious peace established between Britain and France by the treaties of Lunéville and Amiens in 1801-2 soon broke down, and Napoleon – after failing to invade Britain – tried to wage economic war by means of his Continental System, which was designed to squeeze British trade. France’s attempt to enforce that policy in the Baltic led to British military activity in Denmark.
5 France’s declaration of war on Portugal in 1807 in support of her Continental System and her invasion of Spain the following year started the Peninsular War, with the British backing nationalist risings against the French invaders, who were in turn backed by Russia.
6 This was Mr Caesar Henry Hawkins, grandson of Sir Caesar and one of Queen Victoria’s surgeons. He was a great-nephew of Mr Pennell Hawkins, who inoculated Princess Mary against smallpox in 1779 and a nephew of Mr Charles Hawkins, who treated her arm in 1788.