Photo by Emery Walker. From a painting by Karl Anton Hickel
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1793
CHAPTER XXIV
1789-1806
George III, as we have seen, had not been a favourite with his subjects, but in his distress the great heart of his people went out to him. His parsimony, his political intrigues, even his breaches of faith were forgotten by many and forgiven by more, and the sympathy of the whole nation was extended to him. Gillray might caricature, and "Peter Pindar" lampoon; the thought of the mightiest monarch in Christendom at the mercy of a mad-doctor was too touching for laughter and henceforth the title of "Farmer George" was not a sneer but a token of affection. The popularity that came to him on his recovery was very grateful to George, and he told George Hardinge that "his illness had in the end been a perfect bliss to him, as proving how nobly the people would support him when he was confined." This healthy feeling was of great value as it steadied the country at the time when the French Revolution and its effects were devastating Europe, and through the dark days which were to follow before the reign ended in a blaze of glory that at an interval of ten years culminated in Trafalgar and Waterloo. It was this revival of personal loyalty that enabled Englishmen to content themselves with an indulgent smile when their King declared to Colonel Landmann, "I should like to fight Bony single-handed: I'm sure I should; I should give him a good thrashing, I'm sure I should—I'm sure of it"; and brought monarch and people in harmony when in the days of the expected French invasion, "The King in this summer of excitement, was constantly to be seen at Windsor in the cocked-hat and jack-boots of the blues, in which regiment he had a troop of his own. He inspected the volunteers, who were drawn up under the wall of the Round Tower. He invited their officers to be present at the Sunday evening performances of sacred music. He walked upon the Terrace—'every inch a King'—and would call, with a stentorian voice, for the band to play, 'Britons, strike home.'"[290]
The first proof of the agreeable alteration in his people's feelings towards him was made clear to the King, when, by his physician's advice, he left Windsor in June 1789 for Weymouth. That seaside resort went mad with loyalty, and so great was the enthusiasm that in the parish church of Lyndhurst "God save the King" was substituted for a psalm. "The preparations of festive loyalty were universal," Miss Burney has written. "Not a child could we meet that had not a bandeau round its head, cap, or hat, of 'God save the King'; all the bargemen wore it in cockades, and even the bathing-women had it in large coarse girdles round their waists. It is printed in golden letters upon most of the bathing-machines, and in various scrolls and devices it adorns every shop and almost every house in the two towns ... Melcombe Regis and Weymouth. The King bathes, and with great success; a machine follows the royal one into the sea, filled with fiddlers, who play 'God save the King,' as his Majesty takes his plunge!"[291]
At Weymouth, George bathed, rode, paid visits to various towns and country seats in the neighbourhood, went to the little theatre, and was everywhere welcomed with a heartiness to which he had been a stranger since the first months of his reign. The life of the Court there was, of course, very quiet. "The King's bathing agreed beyond anything with him," Mrs. Harcourt wrote, "the Princess also looks well, but the Queen looks, I think, very ill, and by all accounts has been so low and languid that nothing but real illness can account for it. She always appears to me to look worse and worse every time I have seen her for the last half-year. Her foot is bad, but she walks a little. They have no society at all but those you know of. Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville are here, but never asked in. The party has always been the Queen, Princess Royal, Lord Chesterfield and General Harcourt at casino; Princess Elizabeth, Lady Mary, Lady Caroline, Colonel Gwyn at cribbage; the King, Colonel Garth, and Lord Chesterfield at piquet. Lord and Lady Courtoun and Princess Augusta have hitherto played at piquet, but now I make a fourth. On Sunday, at eight, we all went to the rooms, which is, without exception, the oddest ceremony I ever saw. A very large room, two or three hundred people, none of which, except the two Lady Beauclerks and three or four men, one ever heard of. It is a circle like a drawing-room exactly, and there they stand—or walk, if they can—for about half-an-hour; then go into the card room, which opens into it, and where there are two or three tables. The King and Queen or Princesses play, the people all walking by the door, and looking in, but not coming in. The King walked about a little more; and they all went away at ten."[292]