ABSTRACT
At least one of the royal physicians, Dr Richard Warren, was known to support the Prince of Wales and to have, therefore, an interest in the king's continuing insanity, though Baker and others were simply at a loss as to how to diagnose or treat the illness, or even how to approach their patient. The constitutional pause was mirrored by a professional and medical one, which was itself complicated by a pause in propriety. Accustomed to receive orders when called in to a royal consultation, physicians had no precedent for prescribing, still less for enforcing instructions of their own. Warren had to form his first opinion of the royal state of mind by listening at a keyhole when George refused to see him. Early in the crisis, Fanny Burney, then a lady-in-waiting to the queen, recorded: 'It seems, but Heaven, avert it! a threat of a total breaking up of the constitution. '4 Her concern is for the king's health, but she automatically expresses it in terms that reflect the threat to the political sanity of the entire nation.
