20 KEW GARDENS 



especially in the matter of bringing up her 

 sons. Another matter influenced by him was 

 the development of Kew Gardens, he himself 

 taking a strong interest in botany and horti- 

 culture ; but the Gardens may best be treated 

 apart from the royal residences. 



The best-founded reproach made against the 

 Princess is that she brought up George III. and 

 his brothers in strict seclusion, entirely under 

 her influence and Bute's. A careful mother's 

 excuse might well be the manners of the 

 fashionable world. Bubb Doddington, admitted 

 to walks and talks with her in Kew Gardens, 

 reports her as anxious to keep the future King 

 out of bad society, and not knowing where to find 

 good companions for him among the dissipated 

 nobility. Our age can sympathise with this 

 desire more than did the factious scandalmongers 

 of the period, who soon raised a cry that the 

 Princes were being trained in principles of 

 arbitrary power. To Doddington the Princess 

 protested that she did not interfere with her 

 son's teachers. Between the contradictory state- 

 ments of friends and foes, it is difficult to judge 

 how far she was sincere in such professions ; but 

 it is clear that George loved her as sons of that 



