24 KEW GARDENS 



a great part in moulding the future King's 

 mind, and that they were really fond of each 

 other. It is said that they took an incognito 

 tour together through England, and as far as 

 Edinburgh and the Isle of Bute. 



At eighteen, when the Prince was considered 

 fit to have done with tutors, in the new household 

 formed for him, Waldegrave being shunted as a 

 persona ingrata, the Kew influence availed to 

 have Bute made his official mentor as Groom of 

 the Stole. The King offered him quarters at 

 Kensington, with a royal allowance ; but the lad 

 declared that he would stick to his mother, 

 which seems only a way of speaking, as by this 

 time he had a home of his own at Saville House 

 in Leicester Fields. He was at Kew, at all 

 events, when, starting for London on horseback 

 one morning, he met a messenger with the news 

 of George II.'s sudden death, confirmed presently 

 by the appearance of the Prime Minister's 

 carriage on its way westwards to the new 

 fountain of power and pensions. 



We know with what fair prospects George III. 

 ascended the throne, "glorying in the name of 

 Briton," as Bute is said to have prompted him in 

 addressing a people of whom the majority would 



