CHAPTER III.
THE BETROTHAL.
1760-1765.
The accession of George III. to the throne made at first little difference in the lives of his brothers and sisters, especially of the younger ones. It made a difference in their position, for they became brothers and sisters of the reigning king, and the public interest in them was quickened. But they remained under the control of the Princess-Dowager, and continued to live with her in the seclusion of Carlton House and Kew.
The Princess-Dowager’s dominion was not confined to her younger children, for she continued to exercise unbounded sway over the youthful monarch. He held his accession council at her residence at Carlton House, and there he delivered his first speech—not the composition of his ministers, who imagined they saw in it the hand of the Princess-Dowager and Lord Bute. “My Lord Bute,” said the King to the Duke of Newcastle, his Prime Minister, “is your very good friend, he will tell you all my thoughts.” Again in his first speech to Parliament the King wrote with his own hand the words, to which we have already alluded: “Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton”. Ministers affected to find in all this an unconstitutional exercise of the royal prerogative, and the Whig oligarchy trembled lest its domination should be overthrown.
Hitherto the influence of the Princess-Dowager with her eldest son, and the intimate friendship that existed between her and Lord Bute, had been known only to the few, but now the Whigs found in these things weapons ready to their hands, and they did not scruple to use them. They instigated their agents in the press and in Parliament, and a fierce clamour was raised against the Princess as a threatener of popular liberties. Her name, linked with Lord Bute’s, was flung to the mob; placards with the words “No Petticoat Government!” “No Scottish Favourite!” were affixed to the walls of Westminster Hall, and thousands of vile pamphlets and indecent ballads were circulated among the populace. Even the King was insulted. “Like a new Sultan,” wrote Lord Chesterfield, “he is dragged out of the seraglio by the Princess and Lord Bute, and placed upon the throne.” The mob translated this into the vulgar tongue, and one day, when the King was going in a sedan chair to pay his usual visit to his mother, a voice from the crowd asked him, amid shouts and jeers, whether he was “going to suck”.
JOHN, EARL OF BUTE.
From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds at Wortley Hall, by permission of the Earl of Wharncliffe.