"On our return home to St. James's, the mob was increased in Parliament Street and Whitehall, and when we came into the park, it was still greater. It was said that not less than 100,000 people were there, all of the worst and lowest sort. The scene opened, and the insulting abuse offered to his Majesty was what I can never think of but with horror, or ever forget what I felt, when they proceeded to throw stones into the coach, several of which hit the King, which he bore with signal patience, but not without sensible marks of indignation and resentment at the indignities offered to his person and office. The glasses were all broken to pieces, and in this situation we were during our passage through the park. The King took one of the stones out of the cuff of his coat, where it had lodged, and gave it to me, saying, 'I make you a present of this, as a mark of the civilities we have met with on our journey to-day.'"[270]
In connexion with this episode an accusation of ingratitude was brought against the King. "Now the tradition is," wrote Lady Jerningham, "that at a certain critical moment, when the guards had actually been pushed back or disorganized for a while by a rush of the rabble, a gentleman sprang forward in front of the carriage door, drew on the assailants, threatening to kill forthwith any one who approached nearer, and thus kept the mob at bay sufficiently long to allow the guards to rally round the coach, and prevent further assault. The King inquired about 'the name of his rescuer,' and was informed that it was Mr. Bedingfeld."[271] According to Lady Jerningham, "no further notice was taken," but this was not so, although there was some delay, owing to Mr. Bedingfeld's sense of humour offending a minister. The King instructed Dundas to give his preserver an appointment of some profit, and Dundas asked Bedingfeld what could be done for him, to which question came the witty but unfortunate reply: "The best thing, sir, you can do for me is to make me a Scotchman." Dundas angrily dismissed the humorist, but George, after making frequent inquiries as to what had been done, and each time receiving the reply that no suitable position was vacant, at last said very tartly: "Then, sir, you must make a situation for him," and a new office with a salary of £650 a year was created for Mr. Bedingfeld.
Twice more and on the same day, May 31, 1800, was the King's life in danger. In the morning he was present at a review of the Grenadier Guards in Hyde Park, and during one of the volleys of, presumedly, blank cartridge, a bullet struck Mr. Ongley, a clerk in the Admiralty, who was standing only a few paces from his Majesty. It was never discovered, however, whether this accident was deliberate or unintentional. George visited Drury Lane Theatre the same evening, and the moment he appeared in his box, a man in the pit near the orchestra discharged a pistol at him. "It's only a squib, a squib; they are firing squibs," he reassured the Queen as she entered the box; and, when the man was removed, "We will not stir," he added, "but stay the entertainment out." "No man ever showed so much courage as our good King's disregard of his person, and confidence in the overshadowing Providence on the pistol being fired," Lady Jerningham wrote. "He went back one step and whispered to Lord Salisbury: it is now known that it was to endeavour to stop the Queen, for that it was likely another shot would be fired, he himself remaining at his post. The Queen, however, arrived a moment after, and he then said they had fired a squib."[272] When Sheridan said to the King that after the shot he should have left the box lest the man fired again, "I should have despised myself for ever, had I but stirred a single inch. A man on such an occasion should need no prompting but immediately see what is his duty," the latter rejoined; and indeed he had his nerves so well under control that "he took his accustomed doze of three or four minutes between the conclusion of the play and the commencement of the farce, precisely as he would have done on any other night."[273] "I am going to bed with a confidence that I shall sleep soundly," he said later in the evening, "and my prayer is that the poor unhappy person, who aimed at my life, may rest as quietly as I shall." It was à propos of this attempt that Sheridan at once composed an additional verse for the Royal Anthem, which was sung at the conclusion of the performance.
"From every latent foe,
From the assassin's blow,
God save the King!
O'er him Thine arm extend;
For Britain's sake defend
Our father, Prince, and friend;
God save the King!"
In spite of these attacks, which had no political significance, for the perpetrators, Margaret Nicholson and James Hatfield, were mad, the King would have no guards except on state occasions, and when remonstrated with by a member of his Court, "I very well know that any man who chooses to sacrifice his own life may, whenever he pleases take away mine, riding out, as I do continually, with a single equerry or footman," he said calmly. "I only hope that whoever may attempt it will not do it in a barbarous or brutal manner."[274]
A king who could face death without a tremor was not to be frightened by any demagogue.
"Though entirely confiding in your attachment to my person, as well as in your hatred of every lawless proceeding," he wrote to Lord North on April 25, "yet I think it highly proper to apprise you that the exclusion of Mr. Wilkes appears to be very essential, and must be effected."[275]
The King's anger greatly handicapped ministers. "The ministers are embarrassed to the last degree how to act with regard to Wilkes," the Bishop of Carlisle wrote to Grenville. "It seems they are afraid to press the King for his pardon as that is a subject his Majesty will not easily hear the least mention of; and they are apprehensive, if he has it not, that the mob of London will rise in his favour."[276] When the City of London presented an address, complaining of the arbitrary conduct of the House of Commons, the King burst out laughing and turned his back on the Lord Mayor. A second deputation was treated in much the same way, when the Lord Mayor, William Beckford, replied to the King's abrupt reply with an impromptu speech, that was subsequently inscribed on a monument erected in his honour in the Guildhall. "Permit me, Sire, further to observe that whosoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavour, by false insinuations, and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the City of London in particular, is an enemy to your Majesty's person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution as it was established at the glorious and necessary revolution."
While Wilkes was in prison his admirers paid his debts, it is said, to the amount of £17,000, and on his release on April 17, 1770, he was greeted with as much enthusiasm as a king on his coronation. "It seemed," as Heron remarked, "as if the population of London and Middlesex were the plebs of ancient Rome, and Wilkes a tribune." The Common Council of the City elected him, in quick succession, Alderman and Sheriff, and, after the Court of Aldermen had twice selected another candidate, he became Lord Mayor in 1774, the year that witnessed his return for the fifth time as Member of Parliament for Middlesex, "Thus," said Walpole, summing up the career of this indomitable man, "after so much persecution by the Court, after so many attempts upon his life, after a long imprisonment in gaol, after all his own crimes and indiscretions, did this extraordinary man, of more extraordinary fortune, attain the highest office in so grave and important a city as the capital of England, always reviving the more opposed and oppressed, and unable to shock Fortune, and make her laugh at him who laughed at everybody and everything."
In the end, however, Wilkes made his peace with the King, was received at Court, and became somewhat of a courtier, declaring that himself had never been a Wilkite. The strange spectacle of the monarch and the demagogue engaged in amicable conversation delighted Byron, who could not miss so excellent an opportunity for humour.