Farmer George Volume I Part 4

[61] Huish: _The Public and Private Life of George the Third_.

[62] Charles Jenkinson, afterwards first Earl of Liverpool (1727-1808), the father of Robert, Lord Liverpool, some time Prime Minister.

"Lord Bute was my schoolfellow," says Walpole. "He was a man of taste and science, and I do believe his intentions were good. He wished to blend and unite all parties. The Tories were willing to come in for a _share_ of power, after having been so long excluded--but the Whigs were not willing to grant that share. Power is an intoxicating draught; the more a man has, the more he desires."[63] The effects of power upon Bute will soon appear. It was not, however, this man's power or his use or abuse of it, but his qualities, that earned for him the hatred of his equals. Lord Chesterfield wrote him down as "dry, unconciliatory, and sullen, with a great mixture of pride. He never looked at those he spoke to, or who spoke to him, a great fault in a minister, as in the general opinion of mankind it implies conscious guilt; besides that it hinders him from penetrating others.... He was too proud to be respectable or respected; too cold and silent to be amiable; too cunning to have great abilities; and his inexperience made him too precipitately what it disabled him from executing."[64] Further, he showed little _savoir faire_, for he chose as his subordinates, men who were incapable, or those who, disgusted by him, were undesirous to help him, and, giving no man his confidence, found himself severely handicapped consequently by receiving none. Indeed, his arrogance on occasion angered even the Prince of Wales, who quarrelled with him before the death of George II, and on his accession employed him only after the severest pressure of the Princess Dowager.[65] However, Bute soon regained his ascendency over the young King.

[63] _Walpoliana._

[64] _The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield._

[65] _Walpoliana._

One result of the intimacy between the Princess Dowager and Bute was that the actual superintendence, and, indeed, control of the education of the Prince of Wales was indirectly exercised by him. This was particularly unfortunate because Bute was a disciple of Bolingbroke's doctrine of absolute monarchy, and his "high prerogative prejudice and Tory predilections," similar to those that caused the Revolution of 1688, were specially dangerous at a time when the new dynasty had not long been firmly established; and it seemed that while at worst they might lead to a conflict between the Crown and the people, at best they would, when the Prince of Wales became King, make Bute a dictator. Even so early as 1752 Waldegrave "found his Royal Highness full of princely prejudices, contracted in the nursing, and improved by the society of bed-chamber women, and the pages of the back-stairs,"[66] and he records the endeavours to make him resign his Governorship so that the place might be open for Bute.

[66] Waldegrave: _Memoirs_.

"A notion has prevailed," says Nicholls, "that the Earl of Bute had suggested political opinions to the Princess Dowager, but this was certainly a mistake. In understanding, the Princess Dowager was far superior to the Earl of Bute; in whatever degree of favour he stood with her, he did not suggest, but he received, her opinions and her directions."[67] As a matter of fact, the Princess Dowager was a woman of very sound understanding up to a certain point, but her training at the Court of Saxe-Gotha, where the Duke was practically a despot, unfitted her for the task of bringing up a future King of England.

Const.i.tutional monarchy was beyond the range of her experience, and she could never accept the doctrine in force in this country that, while a sovereign may choose his ministers, having chosen them he should either be guided by their advice or change them. "Be a King, George," she preached to the heir-apparent; and in her eyes to be a king was to be omnipotent.

[67] Nicholls: _Recollections and Reflections_.

Though well-meaning and shrewd enough, the Princess Dowager's outlook on life was narrow; she had many prejudices, and in the light of these planned the education of her children so far as it lay in her power. She was so afraid lest George should be influenced by the vulgarity and immorality of the Court, that she tied him to her ap.r.o.n-strings. "The Prince of Wales lived shut up with his mother and Lord Bute; and must have thrown them into some difficulties: their connexion was not easily reconcilable to the devotion which they had infused into the Prince; the Princess could not wish him always present, and yet dreaded him being out of her sight. His brother Edward, who received a thousand mortifications, was seldom suffered to be with him; and Lady Augusta, now a woman, was, to facilitate some privacy for the Princess, dismissed from supping with her mother, and sent back to cheese-cakes, with her little sister Elizabeth, on pretence that meat at night would fatten her too much."[68] The result of this treatment was not only that the children were miserable, but that they were all too well aware of their state of mind. When the Princess Dowager, struck one day by the silence of one of her sons, asked if he were sulking, "I was thinking," the lad replied, "what I should feel if I had a son as unhappy as you make me."

[68] Walpole: _Memoirs of George II_.

There were not wanting those who declared that in secluding the Prince of Wales, and in keeping from him all knowledge of the world--that knowledge, valuable to all, but essential to the making of a useful King--the Princess Dowager had formed the project herself to exercise the regal power that would one day be his; and that her policy was approved by Lord Bute, who, also with an eye to the future, saw that his influence over an ignorant monarch was likely to be much greater than over one well acquainted with men and matters. "The plan of tutelage and future dominion over the heir-apparent, laid many years ago at Carlton House, between the Princess Dowager and her favourite, the Earl of Bute, was as gross and palpable as that which was concerted between Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin, to govern Lewis the Fourteenth, and in effect to prolong his minority until the end of their lives. That Prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to blush for his own ignorance and want of education, which had been wilfully neglected by his mother and her minion. A little experience, however, soon showed him how shamefully he had been treated, and for what infamous purposes he had been kept in ignorance. Our great Edward, too, at an early period, had sense enough to understand the nature of the connexion between his abandoned mother and the detested Mortimer. But since that time human nature, we may observe, is greatly altered for the better. Dowagers may be chaste, and minions may be honest. When it was proposed to settle the present King's household as Prince of Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was forced into it in direct contradiction to the late King's inclination. _That_ was the salient point from which all the mischiefs and disgraces of the present reign took life and motion. From that moment Lord Bute never suffered the Prince of Wales to be an instant out of his sight. We need not look farther."[69]

[69] Junius: _Address to the King_.

But while the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute agreed apparently as to the advantage of keeping the heir-apparent in a backward state, each desiring the mastery, they differed on other points. "The Princess began to perceive an alteration in the ardour of Lord Bute, which grew less a.s.siduous about her, and increased towards her son," Walpole noted in 1758. "The Earl had attained such an ascendency over the Prince, that he became more remiss to the mother; and no doubt it was an easier function to lead the understanding of a youth than to keep up to the spirit required by an experienced woman. The Prince even dropped hints against women interfering in politics. These clouds, however, did not burst; and the creatures of the Princess vindicated her from any breach with Lord Bute with as much earnestness as if their union had been to her honour."[70]

[70] Walpole: _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_.

The Princess did not deny that the seclusion of her son had its drawbacks. "She was highly sensible how necessary it was that the Prince should keep company with men: she well knew that women could not inform him, but if it was in her power absolutely, to whom could she entrust him? What company could she wish him to keep? What friendships desire he should contract? Such was the universal profligacy, such the character and conduct of the young people of distinction, that she was really afraid to have them near her children." However, the Princess Dowager made little or no effort to provide suitable companions for George, and the only youth with whom he was allowed to have even a restricted intercourse was his brother, Edward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a painting by H. Kysing_

GEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES]

Frederick, Prince of Wales, had not set his wife a good example by showing much interest in his son, though when he was on his deathbed he sent for the child. "Come, George," he said, "let us be good friends while we may." Occasionally, however, he had gone with him to a concert at the Foundling Hospital, or to see various processes of manufactures; and now and then had taken him for a walk in the city at night--which latter proceeding gave rise to a lampoon when in 1749 the little boy was installed a Knight of the Garter,--the Earl of Inchiquin appearing as his proxy.

"Now Frederick's a knight and George is a knight, With stalls in Windsor Chapel, We'll hope they'll prowl no more by night, To look at garters black and white, On legs of female rabble."

On the death of his father, George succeeded to the t.i.tle of Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Lunenburg, Duke of Edinburgh, Marquis of the Isle of Ely, Earl of Eltham, Viscount of Launceston and Baron of Snowdon; and the "Gazette" of April 11, 1751, announced that, "His Majesty had been pleased to order Letters Patent to pa.s.s under the Great Seal of Great Britain for creating his Royal Highness George William Frederick ...

Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester." George II at this time began to show a personal interest in his successor, inviting him to St. James's, taking him to Kew, even for a while removing him from Leicester House and lodging him at Kensington. The King did not approve of his daughter-in-law's method of bringing up her son, and, when visiting her unexpectedly one day, heard she had taken the Princes to visit a tapestry factory in which she was interested. "D----n dat tapestry," he cried, "I shall have de Princes made women of." Calling again at Leicester House the next day, he inquired: "Gone to de tapestry again?"

and, on being told the Princes were at home, commanded that they should be sent to Hyde Park where he had "oder things to show dem dan needles and dreads." The "oder things" was a review, and, Princess Augusta being dressed to go out, her grandfather took her with him. "This circ.u.mstance gave rise to some unpleasant altercation between the King and the Princess Dowager of Wales; for, on the latter being informed of the expressions which his Majesty had used regarding her visit to the tapestry manufactory, she retorted upon his Majesty by declaring if he thought the view of a manufactory was beneath the attentions of her sons, she considered the sight of a review to be attended with no benefit to her daughter."[71]

[71] Huish: _Public and Private Life of George III_.

The Princess Dowager's retort to the King in this case was typical of her character, for she was a strong-minded, fearless woman, and not lightly to be brow-beaten or opposed.[72] On the whole, however, George II and his daughter-in-law were not on unfriendly terms since, after the death of her husband, she had thrown herself upon his protection. "The King and she both took their parts at once," Walpole noted; "she of flinging herself entirely into his hands and studying nothing but his pleasure, but with wondering what interest she got with him to the advantage of her son and the Prince's friends; the King of acting the tender grandfather, which he, who had never acted the tender father, grew so pleased with representing, that he soon became it in earnest."

This was made clear when the question arose of appointing a regent in case of the sovereign's death before his successor was of age, for the King advocated her right to be selected for that exalted position in a Royal Message to the Houses of Parliament:

"That nothing could conduce so much to the preservation of the Protestant succession in his royal family as proper provision for the tuition of the person of his successor, and for the regular administration of the government, in case the successor should be of tender years: his Majesty, therefore, earnestly recommended this weighty affair to the deliberation of Parliament and proposed that when the imperial crown of these realms should descend to any of the late Prince's sons, being under the age of eighteen years, his mother, the Princess Dowager of Wales, should be guardian of his person, and Regent of these kingdoms, until he should attain the age of majority; with such powers and limitations as should appear necessary and expedient for these purposes."

[72] "The Princess Dowager was a woman of strong mind. When she was very ill, she would order her carriage, and drive about the streets, to show she was alive. The King and Queen used to go and see her every evening at eight o'clock; but when she got worse they went at seven, pretending they mistook the hour. The night before her death they were with her from seven to nine. She kept up the conversation as usual, went to bed, and was found dead in the morning. She died [on February 8, 1772] of the evil, which quite consumed her."--_Walpoliana._

A Bill embodying these recommendations was accordingly introduced by the Duke of Newcastle into the House of Lords, when the King sent a second Message proposing that such a council to a.s.sist the Regent as the Bill advised should consist of the Duke of c.u.mberland, then Commander-in-Chief, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord High Treasurer, or First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, the President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord High Admiral of Great Britain, or First Commissioner of the Admiralty, the two princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State, and the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench--all those great officers except, of course, the Duke of c.u.mberland, for the time being.

This aroused the bitterest opposition, and many members dwelt on the danger of leaving in command of a large standing army a prince of the blood, who was the only permanent member of the Council as well as the uncle of the minor, and the names of all the wicked uncles in history, John Lackland, Humphrey of Gloucester, and the rest were freely introduced into the discussion. William Augustus Duke of c.u.mberland, was indeed a deeply hated man, and the astonishing popularity of his elder brother, Frederick, was perhaps due more to the fact that he stood between William and the throne than to any other reason. Indeed, when Frederick died, in many cases the lament was phrased "Would that it had been his brother!" "Would that it had been 'the butcher!'" and Walpole is careful to mention that the nickname was not given in the sense it was formerly: "_Le boucher etoit anciennement un surnom glorieux qu'on donnoit a un general apres une victoire, en reconnoissance du carnage qu'il avoit fait de trente ou quarante mille hommes._"[73] Yet, "there never was a prince so popular, so winning in his ways, as William of c.u.mberland during his minority," says Dr. Doran, who adds that "_the_ Duke," as he was called, was "gentlemanlike without affectations, accomplished without being vain of his accomplishments."[74] He had courage in plenty, and distinguished himself at Dettingen and Culloden, but his severities after the latter battle secured him the undesirable nickname that clung to him for life--in his defence it may be offered that this same harshness might well have earned for him the grat.i.tude of those who hated civil war, for it scotched further rebellion and made his father's throne secure. He had hoped to be appointed regent, although Walpole tells us "the consternation that spread on the apprehensions that the Duke would be regent on the King's death, and have the sole power in the meantime, was near as strong as what was occasioned by the notice of the rebels being at Derby."[75] None the less, when the Lord Chancellor was sent to inform him that his hope would not be realized, the Duke bore the blow well, and said, "I return my duty and thanks to the King for the communication of the plan of regency; while, for the post allotted to me, I would submit to it, because he commands it, be that regency what it will." He felt resentful, however, wished "the name of William could be blotted out of the English annals," and declared he now felt his insignificance, "when even Mr. Pelham would dare to use him thus." The opposition to the inclusion of his name even on the council to a.s.sist the regent gave him pain; but he was much more deeply wounded when, the young Prince of Wales calling upon him, to amuse his visitor he took down a sword and drew it, and noticed that the lad turned pale and trembled. "What must they have told him about me," he wondered, and in no measured terms complained to the Princess of Wales of the impression that had been instilled into his nephew.

[73] De Saintfoix: _Essais Histor. sur Paris_.

[74] Doran: _History of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover_.

[75] _Memoirs of George III_.

CHAPTER III

THE PRINCE COMES OF AGE

"The boy is good for nothing but to read the Bible to his mother,"

George II said one day of his grandson; and he sought for measures that should emanc.i.p.ate the young man and tend to enlarge his knowledge of the world. His first attempt in this direction, made in 1755 when he was in Hanover, fluttered the dovecots of Leicester House, for the rumour flew that the King was about to propose a marriage between the Prince of Wales and a princess of the House of Brunswick. "Surely the King would not marry my son without acquainting me with it, so much as by letter,"

said the Princess Dowager. "If the King should settle the match without acquainting me, I should let him know how ill I take it, and I shall not fail to tell him fairly and plainly it is full early." The report proved to be not unfounded. At a German watering-place, George II had met the d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick with her two daughters, and had been so charmed with the elder, Sophia,[76] that he declared if he had been twenty years younger he would have married her himself.

[76] Princess Sophia Caroline Maria, elder daughter of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenb.u.t.tel, who married the Margrave of Bayreuth in 1759.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a portrait by T. Frye_

GEORGE III]

When the King's wish became known to the Princess Dowager, she determined by every means in her power to thwart it, and as a first step told her son that his grandfather's only motive in proposing the marriage was to advance the interest of Hanover. "The suddenness of the measure, and the little time left for preventing it, at once unhinged all the circ.u.mspection and prudence of the Princess. From the death of the Prince, her object had been the government of her son; and her attention had answered. She had taught him great devotion, and she had taken care he should be taught nothing else. There was no reason to apprehend from his own genius that he would escape her, but bigoted, and young, and chaste, what empire might not a youthful bride (and the Princess of Brunswick was reckoned artful) a.s.sume over him? The Princess thought that prudence now would be most imprudent. She immediately instilled into her son the greatest aversion to the match: he protested against it."[77] Every artifice was employed by the Princess Dowager and Bute to prejudice the Prince of Wales against Princess Sophia, her personal attractions were depreciated, and she was represented as the last person in the world likely to render the married state acceptable, while on the other hand, "the charms, the mental qualifications, the superior endowments, and the fascinating manners of a princess of a house of Saxe-Gotha were the constant theme of panegyric, the diamond could not surpa.s.s her eye in brilliancy, nor the snow the whiteness of her skin." These descriptions fired even the Prince, who refused the King's nominee, and made formal demands for a portrait of the Saxe-Gotha beauty--a request that in royal circles is usually the first step towards an alliance. Of course his grandson's action became known to the King, who would not entertain the idea of his successor's union with a princess of the Saxe-Gotha blood, which was notorious for a const.i.tutional malady. "I know enough of that family already," he said, and no arguments could move him.

[77] Walpole: _Memoirs of George II_.

This, of course, put an end to the negotiations, but the Prince of Wales, incensed, it was said, by the affront to his mother's family, replied by refusing even to discuss any other alliance. "In vain his Majesty importuned him; in vain the most serious and plausible representations were made to him of the necessity of his marriage as an act of state policy; in vain were all the arguments adduced which had been so satisfactorily employed in the discussion of the Regency Bill, concerning the danger which impends over the country, when the monarch or the heir-apparent to the throne marries at a late period of his life, thereby giving rise to the probability of a long minority: in vain the character of the patriot prince was exposed to him, who ought to sacrifice his private feelings to the welfare of the state. To all these powerful and cogent reasons he granted a willing and respectful ear, and an hour's private conversation with his mother effaced every impression which they had made."[78]

[78] Huish: _The Public and Private Life of George III_.

When the King's project for the marriage of his successor fell through, the ministers made an effort on their own account to withdraw the Prince of Wales from the maternal influence, being thereto incited by the fact that a bid for the young man's sympathies were being made by the Opposition and that at his informal _levees_ Pitt, Lord Temple,[79] and the Grenvilles[80] were frequently in attendance. The Duke of Newcastle[81] and Lord Hardwicke[82], who also desired the favour of the future sovereign, took alarm, and endeavoured, with a single diplomatic stroke, to checkmate Pitt and his friends and separate mother and son.

Lord Waldegrave was sent by the King, at the instance of the ministers, to state that now the Prince of Wales had attained the year of royal majority, his Majesty would allow him 40,000 a year, and had given orders to prepare for him Frederick's apartments at Kensington and those of the late Queen at Kew. Upon receipt of this message a secret conclave was held at Leicester House, and, as a result, the Prince sent a reply, probably drawn up by Legge, that he would gratefully accept the allowance, but preferred not to leave his mother.

[79] Richard Temple Grenville, afterwards Grenville-Temple (1711-1799) on the death of his mother in 1752 succeeded to the earldom of Temple.

[80] Lord Temple's younger brothers, George Grenville (1712-1770), sometime Prime Minister; James Grenville (died 1783). Their sister, Hester, married William Pitt, afterwards first Earl of Chatham.

[81] Thomas Pelham-Holles, first Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1693-1768).