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GEORGE III. 



his own way was the true one, and that were it 

 followed all would go well. The friction which 

 soon became manifest between him and his people 

 was chiefly due to his determination to have his 

 own way. Pitt was the popular idol ; but the king 

 disliked Pitt and his policy, and the Earl of Bute 

 became prime-minister in the place of the Duke 

 of Newcastle. 'It was commonly believed that 

 Bute was both the favourite of the king and the 

 lover of his mother ; he was a Scottish nobleman 

 who dispensed patronage to his countrymen, arid he 

 was execrated on account of his birth, his position, 

 and his conduct. If he had been a strong man, 

 he might have justified his promotion, but, being 

 both timid and incompetent, he succumbed to popu- 

 lar clamour. His premiership lasted from May 

 1762 till April 1763. George Grenville, his successor, 

 was premier for two years. The Marquis of Rock- 

 ingham, who followed him, held the office for eleven 

 months, the Earl of Chatham for fourteen months, 

 and the Duke of Grafton held it for three years. 

 These short-lived administrations were due to 

 the king pitting one section of the Whig party 

 against the other, in order to escape falling; under 

 the domination of the great Whig families, the 

 result being that a party was formed which was 

 known as ' the king's friends.' George III. found in 

 Lord North a minister after his own heart, and Lord 

 North remained at the head of the government from 

 January 1770 till March 1782. During the adminis- 

 tration of Lord North the thirteen united colonies 

 proclaimed and achieved their independence, and 

 were acknowledged by France and Spain as the 

 United States of America. The determination of 

 the king not to grant any concessions to those 

 whom he deemed rebels caused the struggle to be 

 protracted, and shut the door against compromise 

 while compromise was possible. The subserviency 

 of parliament and the acquiescence of the country 

 enabled the king to have his own way. Lord North 

 was succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham, 

 Avho died after he had been three months in office. 

 Among his colleagues were Charles James Fox, 

 Burke, and Sheridan, three of the most brilliant 

 members of the Opposition, and three men whom 

 George III. detested. Lord Shelburne, who was a 

 member of the same administration, took Rocking- 

 ham's place, but the colleagues just named and 

 others refused to serve with him ; on the other 

 hand, he secured the services of William Pitt 

 as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The friends of 

 Charles James Fox and the followers of Lord North 

 coalesced, and overthrew the Shelburne adminis- 

 tration after it had been ten months in office ; and 

 the Duke of Portland became the head of a coali- 

 tion ministry which entered office in April 1783, and 

 was compelled to leave it, owing to the underhand 

 action or the king, in December of that year. In 

 the interval the definitive treaty of peace with the 

 United States of America was signed, and the India 

 Bill was brought before parliament, a measure of 

 which Burke was the chief author, Fox the warm 

 advocate, and George III. the irreconcilable foe. 



In December 1783 William Pitt, then in his 

 twenty-fourth year, formed an administration in 

 which he was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as 

 First Lord of the Treasury, and he remained in office 

 for eighteen years. The crushing victory of his 

 party at the general election in 1784 was a triumph 

 for the king as much as for Pitt. From that date 

 there was an end to the supremacy of the old Whig 

 families. The Tory party had been consolidated and 

 was prepared to give effect to the policy of George III. 

 The struggle had been long and severe. John Wilkes 

 had taken part in it, and by his audacious resist- 

 ance he had led to the abolition of general warrants. 

 The writer whose letters were signed Junius had 

 denounced the ministers whom the king trusted, 



and had warned the king himself that, as his title 

 to the crown ' was acquired by one revolution, it may 

 be lost by another.' That popular feeling ran high 

 against the sovereign for a time is unquestionable, 

 yet he gradually regained the affections of his sub- 

 jects ; hence, when it was announced in 1788 that 

 he had lost his reason, there was a widespread 

 sympathy with him. His eldest son had displayed 

 vices from which he was free, and the people did 

 not think the substitution of the Prince of Wales 

 for the king would be a gain to the country. Two 

 years before a mad woman, named Margaret Nichol- 

 son, had tried to stab the king, and the addresses 

 of congratulation upon his escape then showed how 

 general was the popular feeling. In 1765 he had an 

 illness lasting two months, in which his reason was 

 affected. On his recovery at that time there was 

 no rejoicing such as took place when, on 23d 

 April 1789, he went to St Paul's to render 

 thanks for his recovery. The Prince of Wales, 

 who had counted upon becoming regent, openly 

 displayed ill-humour at his father's reception. A 

 proof of public feeling was that a play in which Mrs 

 Siddons took a leading part had to be withdrawn 

 from the stage after one representation, because it 

 bore the obnoxious name of 'The Regent.' The 

 marriage of this son to Princess Caroline of Bruns- 

 wick gave the king much gratification. It took 

 place on 8th April 1794. Three years later the 

 Princess Royal became the wife of the hereditary 

 Prince of Wiirtemberg. The king's second son, the 

 Duke of York, had married the eldest daughter of 

 Frederick II. of Prussia in 1791. George III. had a 

 large family ; it numbered nine sons and six daugh- 

 ters, the first child, the Prince of W'ales, being born 

 in 1762, and the last, the Princess Amelia, in 1783. 

 The king had no fear of his children acting like 

 his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, when he mar- 

 ried Mrs Hortoii, or like the Duke of Gloucester, 

 when he married the Countess of Waldegrave. The 

 Royal Marriage Act, which was passed at his 

 instance in 1772, forbade the members of the 

 royal family marrying without the consent of the 

 sovereign, if under twenty-five, or doing so after 

 that age unless a twelvemonth's notice had been 

 given to the Privy-council, and parliament had not 

 expressed disapprobation within that period. 



Though George III. was averse to war, he 

 was strongly in favour of restoring the Bourbons 

 to the throne of France. When the union be- 

 tween Ireland and Great Britain was proposed 

 he wrote to Pitt characterising it as one of 

 the most useful measures of his reign ; but when 

 the union was effected, and Pitt proposed carry- 

 ing out his pledges with regard to the emancipation 

 of the Roman Catholics and the endowment of the 

 Roman Catholic priests, the king refused his assent, 

 saying, as Lord Eldon records, ' I can give up my 

 crown and retire from power; I can quit my palace 

 and live in a cottage ; I can lay my head on a block 

 and lose my life ; but I can not break my corona- 

 tion oath.' Pitt resigned ; George III. refused his 

 advice to form a strong administration, including 

 Fox. The king's hatred of Fox amounted to mania ; 

 he wrongfully attributed the bad conduct of the 

 Prince of Wales to association with the great Whig 

 leader. Hence the king entrusted Addington with 

 the task of forming an administration, which held 

 office till war with France was renewed, and the 

 necessity for a firmer hand at the helm was ap- 

 parent. Pitt resumed the office of premier, and 

 died in 1806. A ministry was formed on 5th 

 March 1806, in which Fox and Sidmouth held 

 office, and of which Lord Grenville was the head ; 

 it was reconstituted after Fox's death on 13th 

 September in that year, and it was succeeded in 

 1807 by one of which the Duke of Portland was the 

 head, and in which Perceval was Chancellor of the 



