CHAPTER II

"Some I have heard who speak this with rebuke,Guards should attend as well the prince as duke.Guards should protect from insult Britain's heir,Who greatly merits all the nation's care.Pleas'd with the honest zeal, they thus express,I tell them what each statesman must confess;No guard so strong, so noble, e'er can prove,As that which Frederick has—a people's love."

"My God, popularity makes me sick; but Fritz's popularity makes me vomit," exclaimed the Queen, perhaps after hearing that when Frederick assistedto extinguish a fire, the mob cried, "Crown him! crown him!" "I hear that yesterday, on his side of the House, they talked of the King's being cast aside with the samesang froidas one would talk of a coach being overturned; and that my good son strutted about as if he had been already King. Did you mind the air with which he came into my Drawing-room in the morning, though he does not think fit to honour me with his presence orennuime with that of his wife's of a night. I swear his behaviour shocked me so prodigiously that I could hardly bring myself to speak to him when he was with me afterwards; I felt something here in my throat that swelled and half choked me." The King was as bitter, and refused to admit Frederick to the Queen's deathbed. "His poor mother is not in a condition to see him act his false, whining, cringing tricks now," while the Queen declared that she was sure he wanted to see her only to have the delight of knowing she was dead a little sooner than if he had to await the tidings at home.

An attempt in 1742 to bring to an end the crying scandal of the open enmity between the King and the heir-apparent was made by Walpole, who thought, by detaching the Prince from the Opposition, to strengthen his steadily decreasing majority.The Bishop of Oxford[31]was sent to Norfolk House to intimate that if the Prince would make his peace with his father through the medium of a submissive letter, ministers would prevail upon the King to increase his income by £50,000, pay his debts to the tune of £200,000 and find places for his friends. The terms were tempting, but the Prince, knowing that Walpole's position was precarious, declined them, stating that he knew the offer came, not from the King, but from the minister, and that, while he would gladly be reconciled to his father, he could do so without setting a price upon it. "Walpole," he declared, "was a bar between the King and his people, between the King and foreign powers; between the King and himself." The refusal was politic, for Walpole was most unpopular. "I haveaddedto the debt of the nation," so ran the inscription on a scroll issuing from the mouth of an effigy of Walpole, sitting between the King and the Prince; "I havesubtractedfrom its glory; I havemultipliedits embarrassments;and I havedividedits Royal Family." The Prince's refusal to entertain the overture was a blow to the minister, who contended against a majority in the House of Commons, until February 2, 1742, when he declared he would regard the question of the Chippenham election as a vote of confidence, and, if defeated upon it, would never again enter that House. He was beaten by sixteen, and on the 18th inst. took his seat "in another place" as the Earl of Oxford.

Immediately after Walpole's downfall, messages were exchanged between Norfolk House and St. James's, and on February 17 father and son met and embraced at the palace. The Prince's friends came into office, and so happy was the Prince that he testified to his joy by liberating four-and-twenty prisoners from his father's Bench—the amount of their debts being added to his own. He was indeed so overcome with delight at his virtue in being reconciled to his father that he ventured upon a joke when Mr. Vane, who was notoriously in the court interest, congratulated him on his reappearance at St. James's. "A vane," quoth he to the courtier, "is a weathercock, which turns with every gust of the wind, and therefore I dislike a vane." Witty, generous Prince!

Thereconciliation was shortlived, and thereafter, for the rest of his life, Frederick was again in opposition to the court; but of these later years there is little or nothing to record, save that he solicited in vain the command of the royal army in the rebellion of '45. In March, 1751, he caught cold, and on the 20th inst., while, by his bedside, Desnoyers was playing the violin to amuse him, crying, "Je sens la mort," he expired suddenly—it is said from the bursting of an abscess which had been formed by a blow from a tennis ball. The King received the news at the whist table, and, showing neither surprise nor emotion, he crossed the room to where the Countess of Yarmouth sat at another table, and, after saying simply, "Il est mort," retired to his apartments. "I lost my eldest son," he remarked subsequently, "but I am glad of it."

The writers of the day were fulsome in their praise of the deceased Prince. Robert Southy says, Frederick died "to the unspeakable affliction of his royal consort, and the unfeigned sorrow of all who knew him;" and he sums him up as "a tender and obliging husband, a fond parent, a kind master, liberal, candid and humane, a munificent patron of the arts, an unwearied friend to merit, well-disposed to assert the rights ofmankind, in general, and warmly attached to the interests of Great Britain."[32]In fact, Sir Galahad and the Admirable Crichton in one! Southy was not alone in his outspoken admiration, for Mr. McCarthy reminds us of a volume issued by Oxford University, "Epicedia Oxoniensia in obitum celsissimi et desideratissimi Frederici Principis Walliæ. Here all the learned languages, and not the learned languages alone, contributed the syllables of simulated despair. Many scholastic gentlemen mourned in Greek; James Stillingfleet found vent in Hebrew; Mr. Betts concealed his tears under the cloak of the Syriac speech; George Costard sorrowed in Arabic that might have amazed Abu l'Atahiyeh; Mr. Swinton's learned sock stirred him to Phoenician and Etruscan; and Mr. Evans, full of national fire and the traditions of the bards, delivered himself, and at great length, too, in Welsh."[33]Amusing, too, was a sermon preached at Mayfair Chapel, in the course of which the preacher, lamenting the demise of the royal personage, declared that his Royal Highness "had no great parts, but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices; he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people; and thenhis condescension was such that he kept very bad company."

Very differently spoke those who knew the Prince. "He was indeed as false as his capacity would allow him to be, and was more capable in that walk than in any other, never having the least hesitation, from principle or fear of future detection, in telling any lie that served his future purpose. He had a much weaker understanding, and, if possible, a more obstinate temper than his father; that is, more tenacious of opinions he had once formed, though less capable of ever forming right ones. Had he had one grain of merit at the bottom of his heart, one should have had compassion for him in the situation to which his miserable poor head soon reduced him, a mother that despised him, sisters that betrayed him, a brother set up against him, and a set of servants that neglected him, and were neither of use nor capable of being of use to him, or desirous of being so."[34]So said Lord Hervey, and, though his known enmity to Frederick makes one reluctant to accept his estimate, yet it must be admitted that his remarks are borne out by others well qualified to judge. "A poor, weak, irresolute, false, lying, dishonest, contemptible wretch, that nobody loves, that nobody believes, thatnobody will trust, and that will trust everybody by turns, and that everybody by turns will impose upon, betray, mislead, and plunder." Thus Sir Robert Walpole, who, during the Prince's lifetime, thought that, if the King should die, the Queen and her unmarried children would be in a bad way. "I do not know any people in the world so much to be pitied," he said to Hervey, "as that gay young company with which you and I stand every day in the drawing-room at that door from which we this moment came, bred up in state, in affluence, caressed and courted, and to go at once from that into dependence upon a brother who loves them not, and whose extravagance and covetousness will make him grudge every guinea they spend, as it must come out of a purse not sufficient to defray the expenses of his own vices."

A later generation has not been more kind. "If," said Leigh Hunt, "George the First was a commonplace man of the quiet order, and George the Second of the bustling, Frederick was of an effeminate sort, pretending to taste and gallantry, and possessed of neither. He affected to patronise literature in order to court popularity, and because his father and grandfather had neglected it; but he took no real interest in theliterati, and would meanly stop their pensions whenhe got out of humour. He passed his time in intriguing against his father, and hastening the ruin of a feeble constitution by sorry amours." "His best quality was generosity," Horace Walpole has recorded; "his worst insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland, 'He has his father's head, and his mother's heart.'"[35]

What is to be said in his favour? That through his intercession Flora Macdonald, imprisoned for harbouring the Chevalier, received her liberty: that when Richard Glover, the author of "Leonidas," fell upon evil days he sent him five hundred pounds; that he was a plausible speaker,[36]fond of music, the author of two songs, and had sufficient sense of humour to institute an occasional practicaljoke. On the other hand, he was a gambler and a spendthrift without a notion of common honesty; he was unstable and untruthful, a feeble enemy and a lukewarm friend; and is, indeed, best disposed of in the well-known verse:

"Here lies Fred,Who was alive, and is dead.Had it been his father,I had much rather.Had it been his brother,Still better than another.Had it been his sister,No one would have missed her.Had it been the whole generation,Still better for the nation.But since 'tis only Fred,Who was alive, and is dead,There's no more to be said."

BOYHOOD OF GEORGE III

George William Frederick, afterwards George III, was born on June 4, 1738. His advent into the world was so little expected at that time that on the previous day his mother had walked in St. James's Park, had scarcely returned from that exercise when she was taken ill, and between seven and eight o'clock the following morning gave birth to a seven-months' child. Frederick, therefore, could not be held responsible because again no preparation for anaccouchementhad been made, nor could he be blamed because the King had only a few hours' notice of the event.

The baby was so weak that it was thought it would not live, and at eleven o'clock at night it was baptized by the Bishop of Oxford,[37]and though it survived, its health was so delicate that it was thought advisable, and indeed imperative, to abandon thestrict court etiquette dictating that a royal infant must be reared by a lady of good family, and instead "the fine, healthy, fresh-coloured wife of a gardener" was chosen. The woman was proud of her charge, but inclined to independence, and when told that, in accordance with tradition, the baby could not sleep with her, "Not sleep with me!" she exclaimed. "Then you may nurse the boy yourselves!" As she remained firm on this point, tradition was wisely cast to the winds, with the fortunate result that the young Prince throve lustily and soon acquired a sound and vigorous frame of body.[38]

It would be to throw away an opportunity for mirth to omit the lines with which Whitehead greeted the birth of a son of the Prince of Wales. These were enthusiastically acclaimed by a contemporary as "a beautiful, prophetic compliment to the future monarch," but the present generation may conceivably find another epithet.

"Thanks, Nature! thanks! the finish'd piece we own,And worthy Frederick's love, and Britain's throne.Th' impatient Goddess first had sketch'd the plan,Yet ere she durst complete the wond'rous man,To try her power, a gentler task design'd,And formed a pattern of the softer kind.[39]But now, bright boy, thy more exalted ray[Pg 35]Streams o'er the dawn, and pours a fuller day:Nor shall, displeased, to thee her realms resign,The earlier promise of the rising line.And see! what signs his future worth proclaim,See! ourAscaniusboast a nobler flame!On the fair form let vulgar fancies traceSome fond presage in ev'ry dawning grace;More unconfined, poetic transport roves,Sees all the soul, and all the soul approves:Sees regal pride but reach the exterior part,And big with virtues beat the little heart;Whilst from his eyes soft beams of mercy flow,And liberty supreme smiles on his infant brow.Now, in herself secure, shall Albion rise,And the vain frowns of future fate despise;See willing worlds beneath her sceptre bend,And to the verge of Time her fame extend."

i035Photo by Emery WalkerFrom a painting by Richard WilsonPRINCE GEORGE OF WALES, PRINCE EDWARD OF WALES, AND DR. AYSCOUGH

Photo by Emery WalkerFrom a painting by Richard Wilson

PRINCE GEORGE OF WALES, PRINCE EDWARD OF WALES, AND DR. AYSCOUGH

A prince's education begins early, and George was not more than six years of age when he was put into harness. The first tutor selected for him was Dr. Francis Ayscough,[40]whose principal claim to distinction was as brother-in-law to "good Lord Lyttelton," for at best he has been described as a well-meaning but uninspired pedagogue, and at worst, by Walpole, as "an insolent man, unwelcome to the clergy on suspicion of heterodoxy, and of no fair reputation for integrity."[41]Ayscough, as a courtier, was not unsuccessful,for, introduced by Lyttelton[42]and Pitt to Frederick, Prince of Wales, he contrived to ingratiate himself with that invertebrate royal personage; but as an instructor of youth he was not the right man in the right place. He was ignorant of the course to pursue in laying the foundation of a lad's education, and when George was eleven years old, the Princess of Wales found to her dismay her son could not read English, although (so Ayscough assured her) he could make Latin verses. This latter accomplishment could not be accepted as of sufficient importance to excuse ignorance of more practical subjects, and a new preceptor, George Scott, was introduced on the recommendation of Lord Bolingbroke, who, Walpole states significantly, "had lately seen the Prince two or three times in private." This appointment marks the beginning of the intrigues that centred round the young Prince.

Tempted by the promise of an earldom, in October, 1750, Lord North[43]became Governor—"an amiable, worthy man," says Walpole, "of no great genius, unless compared with his successor;" but this arrangement did not long endure, forthe Pelhams, finding themselves in power, thought it behoved them to endeavour to retain it perpetually by surrounding the future king with their creatures. Lord North retired in April, 1751, and, when the post had been offered to and declined by Lord Hartington, he was replaced by Lord Harcourt,[44]a Lord of the Bedchamber to the King, a "civil and stupid" person who, though unfitted for the post by his ignorance of most things save hunting and drinking, was thought unlikely to interfere with the ministers' plans. The real agent of the Pelhams was the sub-governor, Andrew Stone,[45]the Duke of Newcastle's private secretary, "a dark, proud man, very able and very mercenary," in high favour with George II. Scott remained as Sub-Preceptor, and with him as Preceptor was now put Dr. Hayter, Bishop of Norwich,[46]a sensible man of the world. Lord Sussex, Lord Robert Bertie, and Lord Downe were appointed Lords, and Peachy, Digby and Schulze, Grooms of the Bedchamber to the young Prince; while his Treasurer was Colonel John Selwyn, who, dying in December, wassucceeded by Cresset, the holder of the same position in the Household of the Princess, now Dowager Princess of Wales.

For a while there was peace in the tutors' camp, but soon dissension broke out, and it became an open secret that Harcourt and Hayter were in opposition to Stone and Scott. The quarrel began when Hayter found in the Prince of Wales's hands a copy of Father d'Orleans's "Revolution d'Angleterre," a work written at the instigation of James II of England to justify his measures. Stone was taxed with having introduced it into the royal apartments, when he denied ever having seen it in thirty years, and expressed his willingness to stand or fall by the truth or falseness of the accusation; but when Hayter showed a desire to take him at his word, it was admitted that the Prince had the book, and the defence set up was that Prince Edward had borrowed it of his sister Augusta. Then other works not suitable for use in the training of a constitutional monarch were, it is said, discovered to be in the possession of the Prince; and though Stone and Scott aped humility and regret, they contrived notwithstanding to irritate their superior officers, until one day Hayter lost his temper, and removed Scott from the royal chamber "by an imposition of hands, that had at least as much of the flesh as the spiritin the force of the action."[47]When matters came to this pass, Cresset took a hand in the quarrel, and finally Murray[48]added fuel to the flame by telling the Bishop that Stone should be shown more consideration. Hayter replied, "He believed that Mr. Stone found all proper regard, but that Lord Harcourt, the chief of the trust, was generally present;" to which Murray retorted, "Lord Harcourt, pho! he is a cypher, and must be a cypher, and was put in to be a cypher." That was the last straw. There are men who are cyphers without knowing it, and men who know they are cyphers and do not resent their unimportance, but there are few who can with impunity be told that they are cyphers, and of these Harcourt was not one, for, with all his faults, he was not the man to acquiesce in the use of himself as a cat's-paw.

When the King returned in November, 1752, from Hanover, Harcourt complained that dangerous and arbitrary principles were being instilled into the Prince, and stated it was useless for him to remain as Governor unless those who were misleading the lad were removed from their official positions about his person. A few days afterthis protest was registered, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor sent word that by the King's command they would wait on Lord Harcourt for further particulars of his grievance, but the latter declined to receive them on the ground that, "His complaints were not proper to be told but to the King himself." At a private interview with George II on December 6, Harcourt tendered his resignation, which was accepted; but a similar concession was not granted to the Bishop of Norwich, whose resignation the King preferred to receive through the medium of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[49]

i041From an old printAUGUSTA, PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES

From an old print

AUGUSTA, PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES

The position of the Governor and Preceptor had gradually become untenable, for they were exposed to the cross-influences of the Princess Dowager of Wales and the ministers, and, in their efforts to secure for themselves the favour of their charge,they took no trouble to win the good graces of the Princess or to live at peace with their subordinates. "The Bishop, thinking himself already minister to the future King, expected dependence from, never once thought of depending upon, the inferior governors. In the education of the two Princes, he was sincerely honest and zealous; and soon grew to thwart the Princess whenever, as an indulgent, or perhaps a little as an ambitious mother (and this happened but too frequently), she was willing to relax the application of her sons. Lord Harcourt was minute and strict in trifles; and thinking that he discharged his trust conscientiously if on no account he neglected to make the Prince turn out his toes, he gave himself little trouble to respect the Princess, or to condescend to the Sub-governor."[50]To this testimony must be added that of Bubb Dodington, who declared that Lord Harcourt not only behaved ill to the Princess Dowager and spoke to the children of their dead father in a manner most disrespectful, but also did all in his power to alienate them from their mother. "George," he says, "had mentioned it once since Lord Harcourt's departure, that he was afraid he had not behaved as well to her sometimes as he ought, and wondered how he could be so misled."[51]The Princess was therefore overjoyed to be rid of Lord Harcourt, not only for these reasons, but for another that will presently be discussed.

Stone and Scott retained their posts, but it was not found easy to replace the men who had resigned. Ministers desired to appoint as Preceptor Dr. Johnson,[52]the new Bishop of Gloucester, but the Whigs were so bitterly opposed to the nomination, and had the support of the Archbishop's objections, that eventually Dr. Thomas[53]was given the office. "It was still more difficult to accommodate themselves with a Governor," Walpole has recorded. "The post was at once too exalted, and they had declared it too unsubstantial, to leave it easy to find a man who could fill the honour, and digest the dishonour of it."[54]Overtures were made in several quarters but without success, until at last, at the request of the King, Lord Waldegrave[55]consented to accept theresponsibility. This he did only after "repeated assurances of the submission and tractability of Stone," and then with great reluctance, for he was a man of pleasure rather than of affairs, and reluctant to be embroiled in intrigue. "If I dared," he said to a friend, "I would make this excuse to the King, 'Sir, I am too young to govern, and too old to be governed.'" Even this appointment was censured by the Whigs, for, though Waldegrave was a man of great common sense and undoubted honour, it was objected that "his grandmother was a daughter of King James; his family were all Papists, and his father had been but the first convert"!

The refusal of Lord Harcourt to discuss his complaints with any one but the King was doubtless due to the fact that he traced the objectionable doctrines taught to his pupil to Lord Bute.[56]In his earlier years Bute had taken no part nor, indeed, shown any interest in politics. In 1723, at the age of twenty, he had succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father; had married Mary, only daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,and so came into possession of the Wortley estates; and, though in 1737 elected representative peer of Scotland, had spent most of his time on his estates, occupying himself with the theoretical and practical study of agriculture and architecture.

A great change in Bute's life was made in 1747 through a chance meeting with Frederick, Prince of Wales. The Earl was then staying at Richmond, and one day his neighbour, an apothecary, drove him over to Moulsey Hurst to see a cricket match that had been organized by the Prince. It came on to rain, the game had to be stopped, and Frederick retired to his tent, proposing a rubber of whist to while away the time until the weather should clear. Only two other players could be found, but some one espied Bute in the carriage and, learning that he could play, invited him to make up the table. The Prince, who had never before met him, was charmed with his manners, and invited him to Kew. "How often do great events arise from trifling causes," exclaims the worthy but sententious Seward. "An apothecary keeping his carriage may have occasioned the Peace of Paris, the American War, and the National Assembly in France." Without going so far as that chronicler, it may be said that the game of whist had far-reaching effects.

i045From a print published 1754 for "Stowe's Survey"LEICESTER HOUSE

From a print published 1754 for "Stowe's Survey"

LEICESTER HOUSE

Butebecame a member of his patron's court,[57]where his influence became a factor that could not be ignored. Nor did his power at Leicester House wane after the death of the Prince, for he was high in the Princess's favour, which latter good fortune was attributed not so much to his intellectual attainments as to his personal qualities. Scandal was busy coupling his name with that of the lady he served: indeed, for years there was no caricature so popular with the public as that of the Boot and the Petticoat, the symbols of the Peer and the Princess. What truth there was in this charge, if, indeed, there was any truth at all, is not, and probably never will be, known; but at the time the intimacy was almost universally assumed. "It had already been whispered that the assiduities of Lord Bute at Leicester House, and his still more frequent attendance in the gardens at Kew and Carlton House, were less addressed to the Prince of Wales than to his mother," says Walpole. "The eagerness of the pages of the back-stairs to let her know whenever Lord Bute arrived (and some other symptoms) contributed to dispel the ideas that had been conceived of the rigour of her widowhood. On the other hand, the favoured personage, naturally ostentatiousof his person, and of haughty carriage, seemed by no means desirous of concealing his conquest. His bows grew more theatric; his graces contracted some meaning; and the beauty of his leg was constantly displayed in the eye of the poor captivated Princess.... When the late Prince of Wales affected to retire into gloomyalléeswith Lady Middleton, he used to bid the Princess walk with Lord Bute. As soon as the Prince was dead, they walked more and more, in honour of his memory."[58]The same authority was on another occasion even more explicit. "I am as much convinced of the amorous connexion between Bute and the Princess Dowager as if I had seen them together," he said;[59]and what he said was thought by the more reticent.

Whether there was "amorous connexion" or not, Bute was the most detested man of his day, and the more prominently he came before the public the more violent was the abuse heaped upon him. "Bute was hated with a rage of which there have been few examples in English history. He was the butt for everybody's abuse; for Wilkes's devilish mischief; for Churchill's slashing satire; for the hooting of the mob that roasted the boot, his emblem, in a thousand bonfires; that hated him because he was a favourite and a Scotchman, callinghim 'Mortimer,' 'Lothario,' I know not what names, and accusing his royal mistress of all sorts of crimes—the grave, lean, demure, elderly woman, who, I daresay, was quite as good as her neighbours."[60]

In those days to be a Scotchman was alone enough to secure the cordial ill-will of the English, for national rivalries had not then been even partially eliminated; and it was said that Bute used his power to promote his countrymen, which, though to-day it does not seem a very heinous crime, was then regarded as a sin unequalled in horror by any enumerated in the decalogue. An amusing defence of Bute against this charge is made by Huish who, however, was certainly unconscious of the humour of the passage. "The truth of this charge rests upon no solid foundation. That Bute brought forward his countrymen is true enough, but it was by extending to them the patronage of office, not, except in some few instances, by directly introducing them to the personal favour of the King."[61]One of these exceptions was Charles Jenkinson,[62]Bute's private secretary,who, when his master had, ostensibly, at least, retired from the direction of affairs, was the go between the King and the ex-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 ashareof 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, heshowed littlesavoir 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.

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 1752Waldegrave "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.

"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. Constitutional 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," shepreached to the heir-apparent; and in her eyes to be a king was to be omnipotent.

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 apron-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 silenceof 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."

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 hadbeen 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.Thatwas 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]

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 assiduous 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 doubtit 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]

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.

i055From a painting by H. KysingGEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES

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 title of Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Lünenburg, 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 pass 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. TheKing 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 circumstance 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]

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 tobe 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:

"Thatnothing 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."

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 assist the Regent as the Bill advised should consist of the Duke of Cumberland, 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 principal Secretaries of State,and the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench—all those great officers except, of course, the Duke of Cumberland, 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 Cumberland, 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 étoit anciennement un surnom glorieux qu'on donnoit à un general àpres 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 Cumberland duringhis minority," says Dr. Doran, who adds that "theDuke," 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 gratitude 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 feltresentful, 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 assist 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.

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 emancipate 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 Duchess of Brunswick with her two daughters, and had been so charmed with the elder, Sophia,[76]that he declared if he had been twentyyears younger he would have married her himself.

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