CHAPTER IX

"Tried by your country! To your people's love,Amiable prince, so soon appeal;Stay till the tender sentiments improve,Ripening to gratitude from zeal.Years hence (yet, ah! too soon) shall Britain seeThe trial of thy virtue past;Who could believe that your first wish would beWhat all believe will be your last."[148]

A rift in the lute showed itself very soon, for almost immediately after the accession of George III, the ascendancy of Lord Bute was displayed in so many ways that it became obvious to all observers. There was some surprise when the name of the Duke of Cumberland was struck out of the liturgy, and a great deal of indignation when the favourite was made Ranger of Richmond Park in the place of Princess Amelia, who, Huish says, "was literally turned out;" but the indignation of the latter was certainly misplaced, for the Princess resigned the post as the result of a quarrel about a right of way with the townsfolk of Richmond. From the beginning of the new reign the City of London was suspicious of Lord Bute, and that powerful corporation was at no pains to disguise its feelings. "The City have a mind to be out of humour; a paper has been fixed in the Royal Exchange with these words—'No Government! No Scotch Minister! No Lord GeorgeSackville'[149]—two hints totally unfounded, and the other scarce true. No petticoat ever governed less; it is left at Leicester House—for the King himself, he seems all good nature, and wishing to satisfy everybody; all his speeches are obliging. I saw him on the throne, where he's all graceful and genteel; sits with dignity, and reads his answers to addresses well."[150]So Horace Walpole wrote early in November, 1760; but it must be admitted that that usually keen observer did not display his usual prescience, for the "Scotch Minister" might have been sighted on the political horizon.

Indeed, almost at once negotiations were set on foot to place Bute at the head of affairs. "Lord Bute came to me by appointment, and stayed a great while," Dodington records so early in the new reign as November 29, 1760. "I pressed him much to take the Secretary's office, and provide otherwise for Lord Holdernesse; he hesitated for some time, and then said, if that was the only difficulty, it would be easily removed, for Lord Holdernesse was ready at his desire to quarrelwith his fellow-ministers (on account of the slights and ill-usage which he had daily experienced), and go to the King, and throw up in seeming anger, and then he (Bute) might come in without seeming to displace anybody."[151]Bute required little persuasion to accept office, for his desire was to displace the Prime Minister and reign in his stead, and his object was so little disguised that when some time before he had been congratulated upon his appointment as Groom of the Stole to the then Prince of Wales, he had replied, he could feel no pleasure while the Duke of Newcastle was Minister.

The King threw the full weight of his influence into the scale in Bute's favour, and at the end of January, 1761, the Duke of Newcastle told the Marquis of Rockingham, "We have received a message from the King, of great importance; he wishes that the Earl of Holdernesse may resign the place of Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and receive in lieu of it the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, and that the Earl of Bute may be appointed Secretary of State for the Northern Department, in place of the Earl of Holdernesse."[152]An animated discussion followed the royal message. Lord Hardwicke was in favourof carrying out the King's wish, on the ground that this was the first instance in which the King had interfered in the nomination of ministers, and that resistance might excite ill-will towards the present holders of office; but the Marquis of Rockingham, who realized it was the King's ultimate intention to dismiss the existing Cabinet, urged his colleagues to consider how, if they admitted in February, 1761, that the Earl of Bute was fit to be a Secretary of State, they could say in the following year he was not fit to be Prime Minister.[153]In the end, however, Lord Holdernesse retired in favour of Lord Bute.

This, as Lord Rockingham had foreseen, was regarded by the King as a first step only: he was not content with having placed Bute in the Ministry, he desired to make him Prime Minister. To achieve this object, however, it was necessary to get rid of Pitt, and in this the King had the assistance of the Duke of Newcastle, who scarcely felt himself the chief of the administration that bore his name so long as Pitt, with his great talents and reputation, was in the Ministry. An opportunity soon presented itself. When Pitt, hearing of the "Family Compact" between France and Spain in August, 1761, desired to withdraw the British Ambassador from Madrid, hisproposal, supported by Lord Temple and James Grenville, was overruled by Henry Fox, George Grenville, Lord Hardwicke, the Duke of Bedford,[154]and Lord Bute. Finding his influence declining, he threatened to resign, a course that was represented to the King as dangerous to the common weal, "I am determined not to be the only slave in a country," the monarch declared, "where it is my wish to see all the people free." When Pitt found his colleagues had formed a cabal with the object to compel him to retire and that he was powerless to overcome their opposition, he and Lord Temple tendered their resignation on October 5 to the King. The King received Pitt graciously, courteously expressed his regrets at the loss of so able a minister (whom he had assisted to drive from office), expressed approval of the views of his remaining ministers, and in conclusion offered the bestowal of any rewards in the power of the Crown. "I confess, Sire," it is recorded that Pitt replied, overcome by the monarch's kindness, "I had but too much reason to expect your Majesty's displeasure. I did not come prepared for this exceeding goodness; pardon me, Sire, it overpowers, oppresses me." Then, the chroniclers agree, the Great Commoner burst into tears, but before he left the royal presencehe had accepted a peerage for his wife and a pension for two lives of £3,000 a year. "It is difficult to say," Walpole remarked, "which exulted most on the occasion, France, Spain, or Lord Bute, for Mr. Pitt was the common enemy of all three."

The behaviour of Pitt's colleagues was resented by the public, and the Corporation of London passed a vote of thanks to the ex-minister, while many who had seen an evil omen in the falling of a large jewel from the crown during the coronation, now declared that their fear had been fulfilled.

"When first, portentous, it was known,Great George had jostled from his crownThe brightest diamond there;The omen-mongers, one and all,Foretold some mischief must befall,Some loss beyond compare.Some fear this gem is Hanover,Whilst others wish to God it were;Each strives the nail to hitOne guesses that, another this,All mighty wise, yet all amiss;For, ah! who thought of Pitt?"[155]

"When first, portentous, it was known,Great George had jostled from his crownThe brightest diamond there;The omen-mongers, one and all,Foretold some mischief must befall,Some loss beyond compare.

Some fear this gem is Hanover,Whilst others wish to God it were;Each strives the nail to hitOne guesses that, another this,All mighty wise, yet all amiss;For, ah! who thought of Pitt?"[155]

Onthe other hand, caricaturists and pamphleteers in the pay of Bute exulted in cartoon and verse at the downfall of the Great Commoner, and poured scorn on him for accepting favours at the King's hands.

"Three thousand a year's no contemptible thingTo accept from the hands of a patriot king,(With thanks, to the bargain, for service and merit),Which he, wife and son, all three shall inheritWith limited honours toherandher heirs.So farewell to old England.Adieu to all cares."[156]

So persistent were the attacks made upon Pitt by Bute's henchmen, who distorted almost out of recognition the story of his resignation, that the ex-minister thought it advisable to meet the misrepresentation by stating the facts in a letter to one of his supporters:—

"Finding, to my great surprise, that the cause and manner of my resigning the seals is grossly misrepresented in the city, as well as that the mostgracious and spontaneous remarks of his Majesty's approbation of my services, which marks followed my resignation, have been infamously traduced as a bargain for my forsaking the public, I am under the necessity of declaring the truth of both those facts, in a manner which, I am sure, no gentleman will contradict. A difference of opinion with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, of the highest importance to the honour of the Crown, and to the most essential national interests (and this, founded on what Spain has already done, not on what that court may further intend to do) was the cause of my resigning the seals. Lord Temple and I submitted, in writing, and signed by us, our most humble sentiments to his Majesty; which being overruled by the united opinion of all the rest of the King's servants, I resigned the seals on the 5th of this month, in order not to remain responsible for measures which I was no longer able to guide. Most gracious public marks of his Majesty's approbation followed my resignation. They are unmerited and unsolicited, and I shall ever be proud to have received them from the best of sovereigns."

Pitt's popularity was shown on the Lord Mayor's Day following his resignation when the King, who had been married only two months, went withhis Consort in state to the City to dine at the Guildhall. "Men's hopes and fears are strongly agitated at this critical juncture," Alderman Beckford[157]wrote to Pitt; "but all agree universally that you ought to make your appearance at Guildhall on Monday next with Lord Temple; and, upon the maturest reflection, I am clear you ought not to refuse this favour by those who are so sincerely your friends."[158]To this solicitation, backed by the advice of Lord Temple, Pitt yielded, though, as he afterwards admitted, against his better judgment.[159]The King and Queen were received indifferently, Bute was saved from violence only by his guard of prize-fighters, ministers were greeted with cries of "No Newcastle salmon!" but Pitt was welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm, and the mob, a contemporary noted, "clung about every part of the vehicle, hung upon the wheels, hugged his footmen, and even kissed his horses." Though this occurred so early in the reign, it showed a marked difference to the feeling arousedby the King's accession,[160]and it is not to be wondered at that the sovereign, when he referred to this visit to the City, spoke of "the abominable conduct of Mr. Pitt" in joining the procession.

Lord Egremont took Pitt's place, and the Duke of Newcastle made no secret of his delight and relief at having ridded his Cabinet of so overshadowing a subordinate; but the Duke's joy was at least premature, since, as he might have foreseen, the loss of Pitt so greatly weakened the Ministry that within a few months the King was able to remove from the direction of affairs that nobleman of whom George II had said, "He loses an hour every morning, and is running after it the rest of the day," and whom George III now treated with scarcely veiled contempt. "For myself I am the greatest cipher that ever walked at Court. The young King is hardly civil to me, talks to me of nothing, scarcely answers me upon my own Treasury affairs," the Prime Minister wrote on November 7, 1760: and about the same timehe complained that, with one exception, he could not remember a single recommendation of his which had taken place since the accession.[161]

Bute, however, gave the minister thecoup de grâcewhen the latter strongly advocated the appointment of a certain clergyman to the Archbishopric of York. "If your Grace has so high an opinion of him," said he, "why did you not promote himwhen you had the power?" This was the last straw, and the Duke of Newcastle resigned on May 26, 1762, when Lord Bute became First Lord of the Treasury, with Lord Egremont and George Grenville as Secretaries of State, the incapable and worthless Sir Francis Dashwood,[162]as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Henry Fox as Leader of the House of Commons. The Admiralty, after the death of Lord Anson, was offeredto Lord Halifax[163]who, aspiring to be a Secretary of State, declined the office, and persisted in his refusal until Lord Bute assured him that next to the Treasury it was the mostlucrativepost on the Administration. A humorous description of this incident is given in the "Fables for Grown Gentlemen."

"Close by a kitchen fire, a dog and a cat,Each a famous politician,Were meditating as they sat,Plans and projects of ambition.By the same fire were set to warmFragments of their master's dinner;Temptations to alarmThe frailty of a sinner.Clear prurient water streamed from Pompey's jaws,And Tabby looked demure, and lick'd her paws;And as two Plenipo'sFor fear of a surprise,When both have something to proposeExamine one another's eyes;Or like two maids, though smit by different swains,In jealous conference o'er a dish of tea,Pompey and Tabby both cudgelled their brainsStudying each other's physiognomy.Pompey endow'd with finer sense,Discovered in a cast of Tabby's face,A symptom of concupiscenceWhich made it a clear caseWhen straight applying to the dawning passion,[Pg 156]Pompey addressed her in this fashion:'Both you and I, with vigilance and zeal,Becoming faithful dogs, and pious cats,Have guarded day and night this commonwealFrom robbery and rats.All that we get for this, heaven knows,Is a few bones and many blows;Let us no longer fawn and whine,Since we have talents and are able,Let us impose an equitable fineUpon our master's table;And, to be brief,Let us each choose a single dish,I'll be contented with roast beef,Take you that turbot—you love fish.'Thus every dog and cat agrees,When they can settle their own fees.Thus two contending chiefs are seenTo agree at last in every measure:One takes the management of the marine,The other of the nation's treasure."

"The new Administration begins tempestuously," Horace Walpole remarked. "My father was not more abused after twenty years than Bute after twenty days. Weekly papers swarm and, like other insects, sting." The feeling against Lord Bute was indeed so great that Dr. Dempster became a popular hero for preaching on December 21, 1760, before the King from Estherv.: "Yet all this availeth nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King's gate"; and caricatures of "Mordecai at the King's gate" were immediatelyafter to be seen in all the print-shops throughout the country; but now Bute was Prime Minister his unpopularity reached its zenith. He was hooted, and sometimes pelted, by the mob: at times even there can be no doubt his life was endangered by the fury of the populace. All England was amused by the story of Miss Chudleigh's retort to her royal mistress, the Princess Dowager, who had administered a rebuke to the maid of honour after the latter had appeared very undressed as Iphigenia at a masked ball at Somerset House: "Votre Altesse Royale sait que chacune à son—But."[164]Numerous cartoons circulated showing the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute, the latter always wearing a red petticoat, supposed to have been found under very suspicious circumstances; while lampoons were issued in considerable numbers and one enjoyed exceptional popularity: "A letter to her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales with a word or two concerning Lord Bute and the Talk of the World," with the motto:

"Hence have the talkers of this populous cityA shameful tale to tell for public sport."

Althoughthis scandal was in full cry, it was not that which set every man's hand against the minister, but his inordinate craving for power he was ill-qualified to wield. "Bute made himself immediately Secretary of State, Knight of the Garter,[165]and Privy Purse: he gave an English peerage to his wife; and the reversion of a very lucrative employment for life to his eldest son," Chesterfield complained. "He placed and displaced whom he pleased; gave peerages without number, and pensions without bounds; by those means he proposed to make his ground secure for the permanency of his power."[166]Bute, however, did not sit down quietly under the many attacks of which he was the subject, but responded to his enemies through his band of hired literary bravos. "I am beset with a host of scribblers, and I must acknowledge that I can discern great talent in some of their productions," he wrote in February, 1761. "The fire must not be allowed to spread too far, or I know not where its devastations will end. I am at a loss at present how to stem the tide ofpopularity which sets in at present so strongly against the court party. The King is much disposed at times to break out very violently in his objections to certain measures, but I hope I shall succeed eventually.... Pitt got the better of me in the [debate on the] Speech which his Majesty delivered from the throne, in which, as you will have read, he is made to declare that he is determined to carry on the war with vigour. We have it now in agitation to make him say quite the contrary, for we are resolved to have a peace.... I am informed of a work which is now in the press, entitledLe Montagnard Parvenu, of which I contrive to obtain the sheets as they are printed. The author knows more than I wish him to know; he must have been oftener behind the curtain than I suspected; it must be met by corresponding talent; the King must not see it.... I am, however, by no means without literary talent on my side; most ofourbest authors are wholly devoted to me, and I have laid the foundation for gaining Robertson,[167]by employing him for the King, in writing the history of England; he must be pensioned."[168]

Some credit is due to Bute for his patronage of literature. He pensioned Robertson, and John Home,the author of the play, "Douglas," which is now remembered only by the passage beginning "My name is Norval," and Mallet,[169]Murphy,[170]Macpherson,[171]Tobias Smollett and Dr. Johnson, to the last of whom it was stated specifically that the award was made, "not for anything you are to do, but for what you have done."[172]But if in some cases a pension was bestowed for merit, and for merit alone, these were the exception, for bribery was as much employed by Bute as it had been by Walpole, and once again the Paymaster'soffice was therendezvousfor those Members of Parliament whose votes were for sale.[173]

Bute came into power determined to bring about a peace, but he found it impossible forthwith to achieve his object, and, indeed, as Pitt had prophesied, he was compelled to declare war against Spain. He was much chagrined at having to act in direct violation of his wishes, but the war, which was as popular as it was successful, might in some degree have consoled him, had not the country given the credit to Pitt, who, before leaving office, had made preparations for the campaign. On December 22, 1762, the preliminaries of peace were discussed in the House of Commons, when Pitt, though suffering agonies from gout, appeared, his leg swathed in flannel, to protest against the treaty, the terms of which aroused general dissatisfaction, and it was declared thatthe Duke of Bedford, the English negotiator, had sold his country, and that the Princess Dowager and the Prime Minister had shared in the spoil. "Your patrons wanted an Ambassador who would submit to make concessions without daring to insist upon any honourable condition for his sovereign," said Junius. "Their business required a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity as for the welfare of his country; and they found him in the first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Louis, Martinique, the Fishery, and Havana are glorious monuments of your Grace's talents for negotiation. My Lord, we are too well acquainted with your pecuniary character to think it possible that so many public sacrifices should be made without some private compensation. Your conduct carries with it an internal evidence beyond all the legal proofs of a court of justice."[174]The House of Commons, however, signified its approval of the treaty by 319 to 65 votes; whereupon the Princess Dowager exclaimed in triumph: "Now my sonisKing of England."[175]The King was delighted, the Queen gave a ball in honour of the victory of the Court, and Bute declared that he wished for no other epitaph than one in which he should be described asthe adviser of this peace—which prompted an unkind epigram:

"Say, when will England be from faction freed?When will domestic quarrels cease?Ne'er till that wished-for epitaph we read,'Here lies the man that made the peace.'"

The cyder tax, which Bute forced through Parliament to defray the heavy expenses of the negotiations for peace, threw even his previous unpopularity into insignificance, and his endeavours to persuade the City of London not to present a petition against the tax, by promising to repeal it the next year, was met with the reply, "My Lord, we know not that you will be minister next year." To the general surprise, Bute's resignation was announced on April 3, 1763, when with him retired Fox, who entered the Upper House as Baron Holland, and Dashwood, who succeeded his uncle as Baron le Despencer.

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 noble 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 frompublic 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]

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 lust 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, accordingto 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 accumulated 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 Duchess 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 temptationto 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.

i167From a drawing by Jno. SmithWINDSOR CASTLE

From a drawing by Jno. Smith

WINDSOR CASTLE

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 heldvery 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 institutions. 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]

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 endof 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!"

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; andhe 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 nobody; 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 besummoned 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 God praised and not myself." George had, indeed, a high ideal for those in clerical orders, and this he enforced on all classes. "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 pass 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 sanctity as has thrown lustre 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 haveoccasion to show any further marks of displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner. May God 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 substituting 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]

Oneof 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 God, and to discourage and suppress all vice, profaneness, debauchery, and immorality, which are so highly displeasing to God, 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 God (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 ofGod'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 God 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 amusement in his palaces. Then cards were instituted, 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]

Itis 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 thelevéeroom 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]

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 onlybe 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 nobleman 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 niggardly Civil List of only £800,000."[188]

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