For a while, engaged in an amorous adventure, Wilkes remained at Paris, but in 1767 he issued a pamphlet explaining his position, and just before the general election of March, 1768, he reappeared in London[263] and offered himself as a candidate for the parliamentary representation of the City, thus presenting the very strange spectacle, as Lecky puts it, "of a penniless adventurer of notoriously infamous character, and lying at this very time under a sentence of outlawry, and under a condemnation for blasphemy and libel, standing against a popular alderman in the metropolis of England."[264] In spite of his late appearance upon the scene, Wilkes polled 1,200 votes; and, thus encouraged, and supported by Lord Temple, who furnished the necessary freehold qualification, the Duke of Portland, and Horne Tooke, he stood for the county of Middlesex, and was elected by 1,290 votes against 827 of the Tory George Cooke and 807 of the Whig, Sir William Procter.
As Wilkes had received no reply to his petition for a pardon addressed to the King, he, according to the undertaking he had given, surrendered himself on the first day of term, April 20, before Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench. The proceedings dragged on until June 8, when, his outlawry having been annulled, he was sentenced for republication of "No. XLV" to a fine of £500 and ten months' imprisonment, and for the printing of the "Essay on Woman" to another fine of £500 and a further twelve months' imprisonment. The populace, delighted to have their hero again among them, escorted him to prison, illuminated their houses, and broke the windows of those who took no part in the rejoicings, with the result that there ensued a riot in which six people met their death.
The election of Wilkes to the House of Commons perplexed ministers, who at first sought refuge in inaction, but eventually, after much provocation from the new member[265] moved to expel him from Parliament and carried their resolution by 219 to 137 votes. This, however, led only to further trouble, for when a new writ for Middlesex was issued, Wilkes was re-elected on February 16. Again, on the following day, he was expelled, and a resolution passed that he was incapable of sitting in the existing Parliament. This was clearly illegal, and the people avenged this attempted infringement of their rights by returning Wilkes for the third time on March 16. On the 17th he was once more expelled; and, when returned once more, a few days later, the House of Commons by 197 to 143 votes declared the defeated candidate, Colonel Luttrell,[266] duly elected.
The popularity of Wilkes was gall and wormwood to the King, whose authority and wishes were openly set at defiance, and who was openly threatened by the mob. It was known he had taken an active part in the prosecution of the popular demagogue, and this was deeply resented. "If you do not keep the laws, the laws will not keep you," so ran the lettering of a placard thrown at this time into the royal carriage. "Kings have lost their heads for their disobedience to the laws." George III's courage was undeniable, and no threat could make him connive at any action likely to lessen the royal prerogative. "My spirits, I thank heaven, want no rousing," he wrote to Lord Chatham in May, 1767. "My love to my country, as well as what I owe to my own character and to my family, prompt me not to yield to faction. Though none of my ministers stand by me, I cannot truckle."[267] Lord North, too, was well acquainted with the royal firmness and intrepidity: "The King," he said, "would live on bread and water to preserve the constitution of his country. He would sacrifice his life to maintain it inviolate."
The courage George III displayed in politics was not lacking in moments of personal danger. Though, unlike George I and George II, he could not prove his valour on the field of battle, the several attacks upon his life gave him sufficient opportunity to show his fearlessness. It was, indeed, at these times he appeared at his best, not only in dignity, but in kind-heartedness and in tender consideration for his consort. The first murderous attack upon him was made August 2, 1786, as he alighted from his coach at the garden entrance of St. James's Palace. A woman, Margaret Nicholson, held out to him a paper, which, assuming it to be a petition, he took from her; but as he did so she struck at him with a knife, and the attempt to kill him only failed from the knife being so thin about the middle of the blade that, instead of entering the body, it bent with the pressure of his waistcoat.[268] The would-be assassin was at once seized, and seeing she was roughly handled, "The poor creature is mad," cried the King; "do not hurt her. She has not hurt me." He held the levée, and then drove hastily to Windsor to let the Queen know he was unhurt. "I am sure you must be sensible how thankful I am to Providence for the late wonderful escape of his Majesty from the stroke of an assassin," Mrs. Delany wrote to Miss Hamilton. "The King would not suffer any one to inform the Queen of that event till he could show himself in person to her. He returned to Windsor as soon as the Council was over. When his Majesty entered the Queen's dressing-room he found her with the two eldest Princesses; and entering in an animated manner, he said, "Here I am, safe and well!" The Queen suspected from this saying that some accident had happened, on which he informed her of the whole affair. The Queen stood struck and motionless for some time, till the Princesses burst into tears, on which she immediately found relief."[269]
From an old print
THE KING'S LIFE ATTEMPTED
Thirteen years later, on October 29, 1795, on his way to open Parliament, he was surrounded by a violent mob, who threw stones into the carriage, and demanded peace and the dismissal of Pitt. Lord Onslow, who was with the King, has left an account of the distressing incident. "Before I sleep let me bless God for the miraculous escape which my King, my country, and myself, have had this day. Soon after two o'clock, his Majesty, attended by the Earl of Westmoreland and myself, set out for St. James's in his state coach, to open the session of Parliament. The multitude of people in the park was prodigious. A sullen silence, I observed to myself, prevailed through the whole, very few individuals excepted. No hats, or at least very few, pulled off; little or no huzzaing, and frequently a cry of 'give us bread': 'no war': and once or twice, 'no King'! with hissing and groaning. My grandson Cranley, who was on the King's guard, had told me, just before we set out from St. James's that the park was full of people who seemed discontented and tumultuous, and that he apprehended insult would be offered to the King. Nothing material, however, happened, till we got down to the narrowest part of the street called St. Margaret's, between the two palace yards, when, the moment we had passed the Office of Ordnance, and were just opposite the parlour window of the house adjoining it, a small ball, either of lead or marble, passed through the window glass on the King's right hand and perforating it, leaving a small hole, the bigness of the top of my little finger (which I instantly put through to mark the size), and passed through the coach out of the other door, the glass of which was down. We all instantly exclaimed, 'This is a shot!' The King showed, and I am persuaded, felt no alarm; much less did he fear, to which indeed he is insensible. We proceeded to the House of Lords, when, on getting out of the coach, I first, and the King immediately after, said to the Lord Chancellor, who was at the bottom of the stairs to receive the King, 'My Lord, we have been shot at.' The King ascended the stairs, robed, and then perfectly free from the smallest agitation, read his speech with peculiar correctness, and even less hesitation than usual. At his unrobing afterwards, when the event got more known (I having told it to the Duke of York's ear as I passed under the throne, and to the others who stood near us), it was, as might be supposed, the only topic of conversation, in which the King joined with much less agitation than anybody else. And afterwards, in getting into the coach, the first words he said were, 'Well, my Lords, one person is proposing this, and another is supposing that, forgetting that there is One above us all who disposes of everything, and on whom alone we depend.' The magnanimity, piety, and good sense of this, struck me most forcibly, and I shall never forget the words.