Farmer George Volume I Part 19

[295] _Grenville Papers._

It has been hinted that the first traces of mental derangement had shown themselves in June, 1762, when Lord Hardwicke informed Lord Royston, "I fear his Majesty was very ill, for physicians do not deal so roughly with such patients without necessity." "It is amazing and very lucky that his Majesty's illness gave no more alarm, considering that the Queen is with child, and the law of England has made no provision for government when no king or a minor king exists," Henry Fox noted. "He goes out now, but he coughs still; and, which no subject of his would be refused or refuse himself, he cannot or will not go to lie in the country air; though if there was ever anything malignant in that of London since I was born, it is at this time."[296] Walpole, too, heard of the trouble, though he, like the rest, was in ignorance of the nature of the malady, but he was perturbed by the lack of any measure for carrying on the government in the event of the King's illness or demise.

"Have you not felt a pang in your royal capacity?" he wrote on June 20, 1762. "Seriously, it has been dreadful, but the danger is over. The King had one of the last of those strange and universally epidemic colds, which, however, have seldom been fatal. He had a violent cough and oppression on his breast which he concealed, just as I had; but my life was of no consequence, and having no physicians-in-ordinary, I was cured in four nights by James's powders, without bleeding. The King was blooded seven times and had three blisters. Thank G.o.d, he is safe, and we have escaped a confusion beyond what was ever known, but on the accession of the Queen of Scots."

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

Though nothing was done in 1762, on his recovery in March, 1765, the King realized it was imperative to make provision for a regency in case of his incapacity or death, and suggested he should be empowered to name a person in his will, while, to "prevent faction," keeping the nomination secret.[297] This, of course, could not be permitted; but it was decided that a Bill should be introduced by ministers, and a reference to it was made in the King's Speech on April 24: "My late indisposition, though not attended with danger, has led me to consider the situation in which my kingdoms and my family might be left, if it should please G.o.d to put a period to my life while my successor is of tender years."

[297] _Grenville Papers._

A Bill was brought in, limiting the King's choice of a regent to the Queen or any other person of the royal family, and a question arose whether the Princess Dowager was a member of the royal family. When this was decided in the affirmative, the Duke of Bedford, who was anxious to prevent Bute from the exercise of even indirect control of affairs, persuaded Lord Halifax and Lord Sandwich to tell the King that, if the Princess Dowager's name were included, the House of Commons would reject it. The King, desirous to avoid the chance of such an insult to his mother, yielded to the ministers' representations, and the Princess Dowager was pointedly excluded. That is one version of the story, but Lord Hardwicke gives another. After stating that the Duke of c.u.mberland was much hurt that the princes of the blood were not to be named in the Council of Regency, he relates, "While the Regency Bill was in the House of Lords, the clause naming the King's brothers was concerted, with the Duke of c.u.mberland, unknown to the ministry till the King sent it to them. They, to return the compliment, framed the clause for omitting the Princess Dowager, and procured the King's consent to it. This raised a storm in the interior of the palaces; and the result of it, after many intrigues and jarrings, was the overthrow of that administration."[298]

Walpole, on the other hand, thought that ministers conceived that the omission of the Princess would be universally approved. "They flattered themselves with acquiring such popularity by that act, that the King would not dare to remove them."[299] Whether the motive was desire of popularity or revenge, the move was a great mistake. George soon learnt that the danger was purely fict.i.tious, and thereupon, with tears in his eyes, he begged Grenville to reinsert the name of the Princess Dowager; but the Prime Minister, though he had been no party to the manoeuvre practised by the secretaries of state, declined to abandon his colleagues, and would undertake to give way only if the House of Commons pressed the point. In the Lords the Duke of Richmond had moved that the regency should consist of the Queen, the Princess Dowager and all the descendants of the late King usually in England, and Lord Halifax accepted the Duke's words with the single omission of the Princess Dowager, to which amendment the House agreed. "The astonishment of the world is not to be described," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford, "Lord Bute's friends are thunderstruck; the Duke of Bedford almost danced about the House for joy." The surprise of the friends of the Princess Dowager, however, soon gave way to indignation, and, during the second reading of the Bill in the House of Commons, Morton, the member for Abingdon and Chief Justice of Chester, well known to be in the excluded lady's confidence, moved, with the King's approval and at the suggestion of Lord Northington, the insertion of her Royal Highness's name, which, as the Government could not vote in full strength against their master's mother, was carried by 167 to 17 in the Commons and without a dissentient in the Lords.[300]

[298] Lord Hardwicke: _Memorial_.

[299] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.

[300] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.

George believed he had been deliberately deceived by Lord Halifax and Lord Sandwich, and furious at the unnecessary insult to his mother in which he had been led to partic.i.p.ate, on May 6, through the medium of Lord Northumberland, asked his uncle, the Duke of c.u.mberland, to undertake the charge of negotiations that might lead to the return to office of Pitt, Lord Temple, and the great Whig families.[301] This seems a strange proceeding to Englishmen to-day, when a minister who has a majority in the House of Commons is practically immovable; but then the King, who could appoint a minister, could on his own initiative dismiss him, the only difficulty being to secure a successor. The power of appointment and dismissal of a government is, of course, still the prerogative of the sovereign, but it is impossible to say what would happen were any attempt made to exercise the nominal privilege. In this particular case there was some reason for the King's action, for the weakness of the existing administration was notorious. "The Regency Bill has shown such a want of concert and want of capacity in the ministers, such an inattention to the honour of the Crown, if not such a design against it; such imposition and surprise upon the King; and such a misrepresentation of the disposition of the parliament to the sovereign that there is no doubt that there is a fixed resolution to get rid of them all (except perhaps of Grenville), but princ.i.p.ally the Duke of Bedford," Burke wrote to Henry Flood. "Nothing but an intractable temper in your friend Pitt can prevent a most admirable and lasting system from being put together, and this crisis will show whether pride or patriotism be predominant in his character; for you may be a.s.sured he has it in his power to come into service of his country, upon any plan of politics he may choose to dictate, with great and honourable terms to himself and to every friend he has in the world, and with such a stretch of power as will be equal to everything but absolute despotism over the King and kingdom. A few days will show whether he will take this part, or that of continuing on his back at Hayes, talking fustian, excluded from all ministerial, and incapable of all parliamentary, service. For his gout is worse than ever; but his pride may disable him more than his gout."[302]

[301] "There is no animal on the face of the earth that the Duke has a more thorough contempt for, or a greater aversion to, than Grenville."--Stuart Mackenzie.

[302] Prior: _Life of Burke_.

Burke had gauged the situation to a nicety. Pitt was the only man who could form a strong and lasting administration, and he showed no alacrity to accept the invitation. In the meantime the King's impatience got the better of him, and when on May 18 Grenville waited on him with the draft of the speech with which his Majesty should close the session, the following conversation took place. "There is no hurry," said the King; "I will have Parliament adjourned, not prorogued." "Has your Majesty any thought of making a change in your Administration?"

"Certainly," was the reply. "I cannot bear it as it is." "I hope your Majesty will not order me to cut my own throat?" "Then," said the King, "who must adjourn the Parliament?" "Whoever your Majesty shall appoint my successor," replied the minister; and thereupon intimated that in a few days he and his colleagues would tender their resignations. Again the King had dismissed his ministers without having made arrangements for their successors, and again he was faced with the problem how the government was to be carried on in the interval. "This is neither administration nor government," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford. "The King is out of town; and this is the crisis in which Mr. Pitt, who could stop every evil, chooses to be more unreasonable than ever."

Pitt, who at this time was living in retirement, had in October, 1764, told the Duke of Newcastle he intended to remain unconnected, but, when now approached, he was not unwilling to accept office, if he might restore officers and others who had been removed for opposition to the Court, if he might declare general warrants illegal and amend the notoriously unpopular Cyder Act, if "ample justice and favour" might be shown to Chief-Justice Pratt (who was in disgrace at Court owing to his judgment in the Wilkes case), and if he was at liberty to enter into an alliance with continental powers against the Bourbons.[303] When it appeared likely that these points would be conceded, Lord Temple would not undertake to join a ministry formed to displace his brother,[304]

and, as Pitt would not take office without his brother-in-law, to whom he was deeply attached and greatly indebted for much kindness, the negotiations fell through. Unable to find relief for his nephew in this quarter, the Duke of c.u.mberland made ineffectual overtures first to Lord Lyttelton[305] and, subsequently, to Charles Townshend, after which he felt bound to advise George to recall Grenville.

[303] The Duke of c.u.mberland's _Statement_ in _The Memoirs of Rockingham_.

[304] "The reconciliation between Lord Temple and George Grenville took place on May 22 at Lord Temple's house in Pall Mall. In the course of the following month we find Grenville happily domesticated at Stow; nor was the renewed good understanding between the two brothers ever afterwards interrupted."--_Grenville Papers._

[305] George, first Baron Lyttelton (1703-1773).

"No man so propense to art was less artful; no man staked his honesty to less purpose, for he was so awkward that honesty was the only quality that seemed natural to him. His cunning was so often in default that he was a kind of beacon that warned men not to approach the shallows on which he founded his attachments always at the wrong season." Thus was Lyttelton's character depicted by Walpole, who described his person: "With the figure of a spectre, and the gesticulations of a puppet, he talked heroics through his nose."

The King had an interview with Grenville on May 22, and on the following day the ex-ministers met to decide the terms on which they would return to office. "The King is reduced to the mortification--and it is extreme--of taking his old ministers again," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford. "They are insolent enough, you may believe. Grenville has treated his master in the most impertinent manner, and they are now actually discussing the terms that they mean to impose on their captive."

Ministers demanded that Lord Bute should not interfere directly or indirectly in the affairs of Government and that his brother, Stuart Mackenzie,[306] should be dismissed from the office of Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland; that Lord Holland should be deprived of the Pay-mastership of the Forces, which should in future be held by a member of the House of Commons; that the Marquis of Granby should be head of the army, and that the government of Ireland should be left to the discretionary arrangement of the ministry.[307] The King was furious and, but that he was impotent at the moment, would have unhesitatingly refused even to discuss most of these conditions. The only concession he could obtain was from Lord Granby, who waived his claim to be Captain-General during the life of the Duke of c.u.mberland. Lord Holland had to go, although the King, who was bound to him by ties of grat.i.tude, would gladly have retained him; and ministers were united as to the dismissal of Mackenzie, and would not even allow the King's plea that he had promised Mackenzie the post for life and that he would disgrace himself by breaking his word, to weigh with them in the least. Even George's tears made no impression on Grenville and his colleagues, though his embarra.s.sment affected Mackenzie himself, who in spite of the fact that he had accepted his present position at the King's request in exchange for another and more lucrative office, which was desired for some one else, surrendered the Privy Seal without demur. "His Majesty sent for me to his closet, where I was a considerable time with him, and if it were possible to love my excellent Prince now better than I did before, I should certainly do it, for I have every reason that can induce a generous or a grateful mind to feel his goodness to me,"

Mackenzie wrote to Sir Andrew Mitch.e.l.l. "But such was his Majesty's situation at that time, that had he absolutely rejected my dismissal, he would have put me in the most disagreeable position in the world, and, what was of much higher consequence, he would have greatly distressed his affairs."[308]

[306] The Honourable James Archibald Stuart, Lord Bute's brother, took the name of Mackenzie on succeeding to the estate of his great-grandfather, Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh.

[307] Adolphus: _History of England_.

[308] Ellis: _Original Letters_.

Grenville without delay appointed Lord Frederick Campbell Privy Seal, Charles Townshend Paymaster, and Lord Weymouth Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The humiliation of the King could go no deeper, nor was it appreciably mitigated by his refusal to appoint Lord Waldegrave Master of the Horse to the Queen--her Majesty said no minister should interfere in _her_ family--and appointed the Duke of Ancaster; by his bestowal of the command of the first regiment that fell vacant on Lord Albemarle's brother, General Keppel; or by the paying of marked attention to the young Duke of Devonshire.[309] Indeed, these signs of defiance were met by the minister with a remonstrance which took an hour to read, regretting that the King's authority and the King's favour did not go together. "If I had not broken out into the most profuse sweat," said the unhappy monarch, "I should have been suffocated with indignation."[310]

[309] The fifth Duke, who succeeded to the t.i.tle in 1764.

[310] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_; Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.

"Upon the strength of Mr. Pitt's refusing the King, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Sandwich, and G. Grenville have insulted the King," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien, on June 22, 1765. "They told him that as he could get no others he must take them, but they would not come in positively without such and such conditions, one of which was turning out Mr. Mackenzie. The poor man has been obliged to swallow the pill, but his anger is turned to sulkiness, and he never says a word more than is necessary to them, and sees Mr. Pitt and the Duke of c.u.mberland constantly. I think he ought to have been violent and steady at first, but since he once submitted he had better not behave like a child now. Everybody must allow they are great _fools_ for behaving so to him; they will repent it."[311] Lady Sarah's view of the situation was right: the ministers had over-reached themselves, and their attempts to reduce the King to a cypher forced him in self-defence to make a further desperate effort to shake off the galling yoke. The time was propitious: the members of the administration were quarrelling among themselves, and their handling of the "Weaver's Riots" gave proof to the country of their incapacity. Yet Grenville apparently never dreamt that his position was a.s.sailable. "The excessive self-conceit of Grenville, that could make his writers call him--if he did not write it himself--the greatest minister this country ever saw, as well as his pride and obstinacy, established him," Lord Holland wrote to George Selwyn on August 4. "It did not hurt him that he had a better opinion of himself than he, or perhaps anybody else ever deserved. On the contrary, it helped him. But when the fool said upon that--'the King cannot do without me,' _hoc nocuit_."

[311] _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox._

The Duke of c.u.mberland again undertook the charge of the negotiations, and renewed the overtures to Pitt, who this time came to town, and on June 19 was with the King for two hours, a fact that became known to Lord Sandwich. Grenville, the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Halifax were in the country, and Sandwich, alarmed, pressed Grenville to return to town, which, however, the Prime Minister declined to do. "When I took leave of the King I asked his permission to stay in the country till Thursday next, which he granted to me," he wrote. "My return to town before that time, uncalled for, will have the appearance of a desire to embarra.s.s the arrangement which he is now endeavouring to form, and which I need not tell you will come on, or go off, just the same whether I am there or not; as the King would not in the present situation communicate it to me, and, without that, I certainly should not trouble him on the subject."[312]

[312] _Grenville Papers._

On the 22nd inst. Pitt was closeted with the King for three hours, and it seemed as if he would take office, as, indeed, he might have done if left to himself. "Now Mr. Pitt and the King, and the Duke and the King have long conferences every day. What they will do no mortal can tell, but it's _supposed_ that George Grenville and Mr. Pitt are very well together, as Lord Temple has made it up with him, and therefore that they won't come in to turn out Mr. Grenville and the present administration."[313] Lord Temple, however, who cherished a desire that "the brothers"[314] should form a government of their own, would not accept office, whereupon Pitt informed the King he was not prepared to form a cabinet. This he did reluctantly, and it is said, remarked sadly to Lord Temple:

"_Exstinxti me, teque, soror, populumque patremque Sidonios, urbemque tuam._"[315]

[313] Lady Sarah Bunbury to Lady Susan O'Brien, June 22, 1765.

[314] Pitt, Lord Temple, and George Grenville.

[315] Virgil: _aeneid, IV_, 682. It is rendered in Pitt's translation:

"You, by this fatal stroke, and I, and all Your senate, people, and your country, fall."

"All is now over as to me, and by a fatality I did not expect," Pitt wrote to Lady Stanhope on July 20. "I mean Lord Temple's refusing to take his share with me in the undertaking. We set out to-morrow morning for my seat at Burton Pynsent in Somersetshire, where I propose, if I find the place tolerable, to pa.s.s not a little of the rest of my days."[316] In the meantime, however, and as a last resource, the Duke of c.u.mberland turned to the Rockingham Whigs, and, after much negotiation, on July 10, Lord Rockingham accepted office.

[316] _Chatham Correspondence._

END OF VOL. I