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.
From a print published 1754 for "Stowe's Survey"
LEICESTER HOUSE
Bute became 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 ostentatious of 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 gloomy allées with 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, calling him '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 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.
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.