Farmer George Volume I Part 11

Bute's resignation was said by his friends to be the natural sequence of his policy, and to have been determined before he accepted the seals of office. The n.o.ble patriot, so his henchmen insisted, had seen his country wasted by a pernicious, unnecessary war, and he had secured the office of prime minister in order to, and solely in order to, achieve peace. This done, they continued, his self-imposed task was complete, and he withdrew from public affairs, "without place or pension, disdaining to touch those tempting spoils which lay at his feet."[176]

These reasons for the surrender of office cannot, in the light of present knowledge, be accepted. Bute retired owing to dissension in his Cabinet. Indeed, for this there is his own admission. "Single in a cabinet of my own forming; no aid in the House of Lords to support me, except two peers [Lords Denbigh and Pomfret]; both the Secretaries of State silent; and the Lord Chief Justice, whom I myself brought into office, voting for me, yet speaking against me; the ground I tread upon is so hollow, that I am afraid, not only of falling myself, but of involving my Royal Master in my ruin. It is time for me to retire."[177]

[176] _Letter from a Gentleman in Town to his Friend in the Country, occasioned by a late resignation._

[177] Adolphus: _History of England_.

The failings of Lord Bute have already been discussed, and in taking leave of him some mention must be made of his good qualities. It has been said that his besetting fault was a l.u.s.t of power, his great weakness inability to use the power which his intrigues secured him; but he was a good husband, a kind father, and, what more concerns the public, a brave man, for he faced exceptional unpopularity without flinching, and, according to his lights, honest. It would be objectionable to say to-day of a living English statesman that he was honest in financial matters, for it is inconceivable that any other would be tolerated; but it must not be forgotten that the tone of political men was then very different. In Bute's day gross immorality was no bar to employment in the highest offices of state, nor was overt dishonesty a disqualification. We have seen how Lord Halifax was persuaded to accept the Admiralty because of the opportunities to acquire wealth, and it is notorious that the great and able Henry Fox acc.u.mulated a vast fortune during his tenure of office of Paymaster-General. Dashwood, who, according to Walpole, was a vulgar fool, who "with the familiarity and phrase of a fishwife, introduced the humours of Wapping behind the veil of the Treasury," was a thoroughly vicious scoundrel; Rigby, whose accusers have exhausted the terms of vituperation, was also a Paymaster-General, and left half-a-million of money; Grafton, a great-grandson of Charles II by the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland, was a notorious profligate. The list might be continued until it embraced a large proportion of the politicians on both sides. No reproach of this sort clings to Bute, who did not for himself appropriate public monies, and if the cynic contends that this was because he had no temptation to be dishonest, having married a wife who brought him 25,000 a year and nearly a quarter of a million in the funds, the fact must not be ignored that many of those who plunged their hands into the country's purse were possessed of greater wealth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a drawing by Jno. Smith_

WINDSOR CASTLE]

CHAPTER IX

THE COURT OF GEORGE III

Even before he ascended the throne George III had determined that his Court should be very different from that of his grandfather, and when he came into his kingdom he began at once a very drastic process of purification. He was a religious man, somewhat narrow in his views, and he held sacred things in great respect. At the coronation, after he had been anointed and crowned, when the Archbishop of Canterbury came to hand him down from the throne to receive the Sacrament, he told them he would not go to the Lord's Supper and partake of that ordinance with the crown on his head. The Archbishop of Canterbury did not know if it might be removed, and, after consulting the Bishop of Rochester, told the King neither could say if there was any order in the service for receiving communion with or without the crown. "Then there ought to be," said the monarch, and himself laid aside the crown.[178] Indeed he held very strong views as to the Sacrament, and when in 1805 Lord Chesterfield[179] prior to an Installation asked if the new Knights of the Garter would be required to take it, "No, My Lord," he replied severely, "the Holy Sacrament is not to be profaned by our Gothic inst.i.tutions. Even at my coronation I was very unwilling to take it, but they told me it was indispensable. As it was, I took off the bauble from my head before I approached the Altar."[180]

[178] "The coronation is over, 'tis even a more gorgeous sight than I imagined," Horace Walpole told the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway. "I saw the procession and the hall; but the return was in the dark. In the morning they had forgot the sword of state, the chairs for the King and Queen, and their canopies. They used the Lord Mayor's sword for the first, and made the last in the hall; so they did not set forth till noon; and then, by a childish compliment to the King, reserved the illumination of the hall till his entry, by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hea.r.s.e." Indeed, the whole was a comedy of errors, crowned by the historic apology of the Earl Marshal, Lord Effingham, in reply to the King's complaints: "It is true, sir, there has been some neglect, but I have taken care that the next coronation shall be regulated in the exactest manner possible."

[179] Philip Stanhope, fifth Earl of Chesterfield (1755-1815).

[180] Wraxall: _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times_.

George had this deep feeling for religion from his childhood, and before he was six years old had without direction learnt by heart several pages of Doddridge's "Principles of the Christian Religion"; while, from the time he grew up to the end of his life, he devoted one hour in the early morning to reading the Scriptures and to meditation. He was well acquainted with the works of Andrews, Sanderson and Sherlock, and asked a fashionable preacher of the day if he, too, were acquainted with them.

"No, please your Majesty, my reading is all modern. The writers of whom you speak are now obsolete, though I doubt not they might have been very well at the time." The King looked at him, thinking of the man's own sermons, and replied: "There were giants on earth in those days."[181]

One day George missed an under-gardener, and inquired as to the reason of his absence. "Please your Majesty, he is of late so very troublesome with his religion and he is always talking about it." "Is he dishonest?

Does he neglect his work?" "No, your Majesty, he is very honest. I have nothing to say against him for that." "Then send for him again. Why should he be turned off? Call me Defender of the Faith!" he thundered.

"_Defender of the Faith!_--and turn away a man for his religion!"

[181] _Genesis vi_, 4.

George III was not so bigoted but that he would visit a Quaker, and he and his consort witnessed the Lord Mayor's Show in 1761 from the house of Robert Barclay, one of the sect; and he could speak kindly of Nonconformists. On one occasion at Windsor he saw a maid-servant in tears and learnt that her distress was occasioned by the refusal of a superior to allow her to attend a dissenting meeting, whereupon he sent for the housekeeper and admonished her severely: "I will suffer no persecution during my reign!" "The Methodists are a quiet good kind of people and will disturb n.o.body; and if I can learn that any persons in my employment disturb them, they shall be immediately dismissed," he said when an attempt was made to interrupt the service at a Methodist chapel; and when a Bible Society was formed at Windsor, and the name of the Independent minister omitted, he desired that the name of "that good man" should without delay be added. But though George III could tolerate Nonconformists, on the other hand nothing could induce him to abate his prejudice against the Roman Catholics, and when urged to make concessions to them: "Tell me who took the coronation oath, did you or I? Dundas, let me have no more of your Scotch sophistry. I took the oath, and I must keep it."

After George's accession Dr. Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster, thought, by flattering him in a sermon delivered in the Chapel Royal, to ingratiate himself with the new King, only to be summoned to receive, to his great surprise, a stern rebuke: those who preached before him, the monarch warned Dr. Wilson, must remember "I go to church to hear G.o.d praised and not myself." George had, indeed, a high ideal for those in clerical orders, and this he enforced on all cla.s.ses. "I could not help giving you the notification of the grief and concern with which my breast was affected at receiving an authentic information that routs have made their way into your palace," he wrote to Archbishop Cornwallis, when in 1772 he was informed by the Countess of Huntingdon that the prelate's wife had given a ball. "At the same time I must signify to you my sentiments on this subject, which hold these levities and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pa.s.s in a residence for many centuries devoted to Divine studies, religious retirement, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence--I add, in a place where so many of your predecessors have led their lives in such sanct.i.ty as has thrown l.u.s.tre upon the pure religion they professed and adorned. From the dissatisfaction with which you must perceive I behold these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and still more pious principles, I trust you will suppress them immediately; so that I may not have occasion to show any further marks of displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner. May G.o.d take your Grace into His Almighty protection."

"I wish that every poor child in my dominion shall be able to read his Bible,"[182] he said rightly enough; but sometimes his fervour led him into excesses, such as the striking out in his copy of the Prayer-Book in the prayer for the Royal Family the words "our most Gracious King and Governor," and subst.i.tuting an "unworthy sinner." It was this and similar examples of misdirected fervour that prompted Byron to write:

"All I saw further, in the last confusion, Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one; And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practising the hundredth psalm."[183]

[182] Southy: _Memoirs of George III_.

[183] Byron: _The Vision of Judgment_.

The King in later years would sometimes visit the book-shop of Charles Knight at Windsor, and there was accustomed to sit on a high stool at the counter to glance at the latest publications. One day he saw there Bishop Watson's "Apology for the Bible," the t.i.tle of which volume excited him. "What!--what!--what!--Apologize for the Bible!--what--what--what!" On another occasion he was startled to find among the latest acquisitions a copy of Paine's "Age of Reason." He sharply rebuked Knight, and quitted the shop, never again to enter it.

One of the first acts of the King was to issue a proclamation for the "encouragement of piety and virtue, and for preventing and punishing of vice, profaneness, and immorality," which was especially commended to the notice of "judges, mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and all other our officers and ministers, both ecclesiastical and civil."

"GEORGE R.

"We most seriously and religiously considering that it is an indispensable duty on us to be careful above all things to preserve and advance the honour and service of Almighty G.o.d, and to discourage and suppress all vice, profaneness, debauchery, and immorality, which are so highly displeasing to G.o.d, so great a reproach to our religion and government, and (by means of the frequent ill examples of the practices thereof) have so fatal a tendency to the corruption of many of our loving subjects, otherwise religiously and virtuously disposed, and which (if not timely remedied) may justly draw down the Divine vengeance on us and our kingdoms: we also humbly acknowledging that we cannot expect the blessing and goodness of Almighty G.o.d (by Whom Kings reign and on which we entirely rely) to make our reign happy and prosperous to ourself and to our people, without a religious observance of G.o.d's holy laws: to the intent thereof that religion, piety, and good manners may (according to our most hearty desire) flourish and increase under our administration and government, we have thought fit, by the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our royal proclamation, and do hereby declare our royal purpose and resolution to discountenance and punish all manner of vice, profaneness, and immorality, in all persons of whatsoever degree or quality, within this our realm, and particularly in such as are employed near our royal person; and that for the encouragement of religion and morality, we will, upon all occasions, distinguish persons of piety and virtue, by marks of our royal favour.

And we do expect and require that all persons of honour, or in place of authority, will give good example of their own virtue and piety, and to their utmost contribute to the discountenancing persons of dissolute and debauched lives, that they, being reduced by that means to shame and contempt for their loose and evil actions and behaviour, may be therefore also enforced the sooner to reform their ill habits and practices, and that the visible displeasure of good men towards them may (as far as it is possible) supply what the laws (probably) cannot altogether prevent. And we do hereby enjoin and prohibit all our loving subjects, of what degree or quality soever, from playing on the Lord's day at dice, cards, or any other game whatsoever; and we do hereby require and command them, and every one of them, decently and reverently to attend the worship of G.o.d on every Lord's-day, on pain of our highest displeasure, and being proceeded against with the utmost rigour that may be by law...."

Practical measures followed this proclamation, and first, as was to be expected from so regular a church-goer, George announced that the Sabbath Day must not be profaned even by so harmless an entertainment as a reception, and abolished the Sunday Drawing-rooms. This was followed by the discouragement of gambling at Court. When George discovered that at the Twelfth Night celebrations at St. James's Palace hazard was played for heavy stakes, he was horrified. First, he restricted the number of tables, later limited the hours of play, and subsequently refused to permit this amus.e.m.e.nt in his palaces. Then cards were inst.i.tuted, only in turn to be forbidden, and it was announced that no game for money would be permitted among officials, under penalty of forfeiting their situations.[184]

[184] "Their Majesties not being accustomed to play at hazard, ordered a handsome gratuity to the Groom Porter: and orders were given that, for the future, there be no card playing amongst the servants."--_Annual Register_, Jan. 6, 1772.

It is an axiom that people cannot be made virtuous by proclamation, yet it is conceivable that those persons who were not moved to laughter by the exhortation to be good might appreciate it as an earnest of the King's intention to exact a standard of conduct higher than had been previously attained; and some acceptable result might have followed had the Court been popular, for, if the courtiers obeyed their master's behest, it is probable that those in lower ranks might follow the exalted example. Things began well. "For the King himself, he seems all good-nature, and wishing to satisfy everybody," Walpole wrote at the beginning of the reign. "All his speeches are obliging--I saw him yesterday, and was surprised to find that the _levee_ room had lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign does not stand in one spot, with his eyes royally fixed on the ground, and dropping bits of German news; he walked about and spoke to everybody; I saw him afterwards on the throne, where he is graceful and genteel, sits with dignity, and reads his answers well."

After the royal marriage, however, the good start was not followed up: the Court became the dullest and dreariest place conceivable and was soon attended only by those whose duties compelled them to attend. "The Court, independent of politics, makes the strangest figure," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford not very long after the accession. "The Drawing-rooms are abandoned. Lady Buckingham was the only woman there on Sunday se'nnight. In short, one hears of nothing but dissatisfaction, which, in the city, rises almost to treason." Lord Holland, too, noted the prevalent feeling. "A young, civil, virtuous, good-natured King might naturally be expected to have such a degree of popularity as should for years defend the most exceptionable Favourite," he wrote in September, 1762. "But, which I can't account for, his Majesty from the very beginning was not popular. And now, because Lord Talbot[185] has prevented him from being cheated to the shameful degree that has been usual in his kitchen, they make prints treating his Majesty as they would a notorious old miser."[186]

[185] William, second Baron Talbot, created Earl Talbot in 1762.

[186] Lord Holland's _Memoir_ in _The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox_.

Lord Talbot was Lord Steward of the Household and his appointment was not popular. "As neither gravity, rank, abilities, nor morals could be adduced to counterbalance such exaltation, no wonder it caused very unfavourable comments," was Walpole's opinion. "As the Court knew that the measures it had in contemplation could only be carried by money, every stratagem was invented to curtail the common expenses of the palace. As these fell into the province of the Lord Steward, nothing was heard of but cooks cashiered and kitchens shut up. Even the Maids of Honour, who did not expect rigours from a great officer of Lord Talbot's complexion, were reduced to complain of the abridgment of their allowance for breakfast."[187] The drastic changes in Lord Talbot's department brought down upon the n.o.bleman a diatribe from Wilkes. "I much admire many of his Lordship's new regulations, especially those for the royal kitchen. I approve of the discharge of so many turnspits and cooks, who were grown of little use. It was high time to put an end to that too great indulgence in eating and drinking, which went by the name of Old English Hospitality, when the House of Commons had granted a poor n.i.g.g.ardly Civil List of only 800,000."[188]

[187] _Memoirs of George III._

[188] _The North Briton_, No. 12.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a print dated 1762_

THE KITCHEN METAMORPHOZ'D]

The fact of the matter was the King was not possessed of those qualities that make for popularity. At times he showed a certain graciousness, as when at some watering-place where he went with the Queen, "We must walk about for two or three days to please these good people," he said, alluding to the crowds that a.s.sembled to see him, "and then _we may walk about to please ourselves_." Indeed, on the afternoons of Sundays and royal birthdays when the Court was at Windsor and the weather was fine, the King and Queen with their family walked on the Terrace, which was usually crowded with people of rank and fashion, and made so pretty a picture that many came from London to see the sight. In the country George was affable, especially with humble folk. At Weymouth he pa.s.sed a field where, although it was harvest time, only one woman was at work, and, surprised by this neglect of work, he asked where were the other labourers. The woman said they had gone to see the King, and added: "I would not give a pin to see him. Besides, the fools will lose a day's work by it, and that is more than I can afford to do. I have five children to work for." "Well, then," said his Majesty, putting some money in her hands, "you may tell your companions who are gone to see the King, that the _King came to see you_."[189] Occasionally he would pay a compliment, as on one occasion at a review at Winchester when David Garrick, having dismounted and lost his horse, which, alarmed by the noise, had broken away, exclaimed, "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse," the King turned round, "I thought I could not be mistaken, Mr. Garrick," he said, "your delivery of Shakespeare can never pa.s.s unnoticed."[190] More frequently, however, his remarks were tactless, as in his conversation with a Yorkshireman at a _levee_, "I suppose you are going back to Yorkshire, Mr. Stanhope? A very ugly county, Yorkshire!"

"Oh, sir!" said Stanhope, outraged in his tenderest feelings, "we always consider Yorkshire a very picturesque county." "What, what, what!" cried the King, who evidently had not sought the soft answer that turns away anger. "A coal-pit a picturesque object! What, what, what! Yorkshire coalpits, picturesque! Yorkshire a picturesque county!"[191]

[189] _Percy Anecdotes._

[190] _Georgiana._

[191] _Memoirs of A. M. W. Pickering._

Yet, though George neither as lad nor man possessed wit, at times he gave proofs of an unexpected vein of humour. Thus, when he inquired who was the owner of a newly erected palatial house, and was told it had been built by his Majesty's card-maker, "Indeed," quoth he, "then this man's cards have all turned up trumps." On another occasion when he had purchased a horse, the dealer handed him a large piece of parchment with the remark, "The animal's pedigree, Sire." "No, no," said the monarch, handing it back. "Keep it, my good man, 'twill do as well for the next horse you sell," which shows more knowledge of the world than is usually accredited to the speaker. One day Colonel Manners, who was in high favour at Court, sought an interview. "Let him in," the King replied, "he is not only Manners, but good manners." When at the end of March, 1781, Lord Bateman waited on him to ask at what hour his Majesty would have the stag-hounds turned out, "My Lord, I cannot exactly answer that," he replied, having just bestowed the Mastership on the Marquis of Carnarvon,[192] "but I can inform you that your Lordship was turned out an hour ago." More amusing is the message he sent to a Jacobite who would not take the oath of allegiance or acknowledge him as King of England--"Carry my compliments to him--but--what--stop--no--he may perhaps not receive my compliments as King of England. Give him the Elector of Hanover's compliments, and tell him that he respects the steadiness of his principles."

[192] Afterwards fifth Duke of Leeds.

When Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, a great snuff-taker, and Mr. Baron Graham, an inveterate talker, were sitting in the Westminster court, "The Court of Exchequer," remarked the King, "has a snuffbox at one end and a chatterbox at the other."[193] To Lord Kenyon, a very violent-tempered man, he said: "My Lord, I hear that since you have been in the King's Bench, you have _lost your temper_. You know my great regard for you, and I may therefore venture to tell you I am glad to hear it."[194] Humorous, too, was his remark, _a propos_ of George Selwyn's love of horrors. Selwyn was present at a _levee_, and withdrew after George had spoken to him, although it was known the monarch was to confer the honour of knighthood upon a country squire who had come to Court to present an Address. "The King afterwards, in the closet, expressed his astonishment to the Groom-in-Waiting," wrote Storer to Lord Auckland, "that Mr. Selwyn should not wish to see the ceremony of making a new knight, observing that it looked so like an _execution_ that he took it for granted Mr. Selwyn would have stayed to see it."[195]

[193] Twiss: _Life of Eldon_.

[194] _Ibid._

[195] "In the distribution of honours the King never forgot his own personal feelings, tho' he sometimes granted to political solicitation what was by no means agreeable to himself. The late Dr. Elliott had never been a favourite, and when Lord George Germaine requested his Majesty to confer a baronetcy on that physician, the King manifested much unwillingness, saying at length, 'But, if I do, he shall not be my physician!' 'No, sir, he shall be your Majesty's baronet and my physician.'"--Galt: _George III, his Court and Family_.