The satisfaction caused by the young king's gracious manners and respectable life was increased by his marriage. In 1755 his grandfather had proposed that he should marry a princess of the house of Brunswick, but abandoned the project in consequence of the opposition of George's mother. About a year before his accession George fell in love with Lady Sarah Lennox, a daughter of the late Duke of Richmond and sister-in-law of Henry Fox, a young lady of remarkable beauty. His attentions to her were continued after his accession. Fox and his wife, Lady Caroline, took care that he should have every opportunity of seeing her; and George, as he rode through Kensington, was charmed to find her in a fancy dress playing at hay-making in front of Fox's residence, Holland House. He went so far as to signify plainly to her that he meant to make her a formal offer of marriage.[34] Most inopportunely Lady Sarah broke her leg, and while she was laid up, the princess-dowager and Bute persuaded George to change his mind. They at once arranged a marriage for him with the Princess Charlotte, a daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the marriage took place on September 8. The queen did not meddle in affairs of state; she bore fifteen children, and had many domestic virtues. On the 22nd the king and queen were crowned.
George's popularity was impaired by the influence exercised over him by his mother and Bute, which excited the ridicule of the higher class of society and the bitter feelings of the London populace. Bystanders sneered when they saw him on his way to visit his mother, and it is said that on one occasion he was insulted with a coarse jest. In Bute's case the idea that he was the royal favourite would alone have sufficed to make him hated. The term was generally applied to him. Yet he was not a favourite in the more odious sense of the word, for though the king showed him signal favour, their relations were rather political than personal. His nationality strengthened the dislike with which he was regarded. The jacobite troubles had increased the prejudices of the English against the Scots; they looked down upon them as a half-barbarous people, poor, and greedy to enrich themselves with the wealth of England. Scorn and indignation were aroused by the grants of honours and employments made to Bute's Scottish followers who came in great numbers to the court under his patronage. Bills were posted in London with the words: "No petticoat government! No Scotch minister! No Lord George Sackville!" Any unpopular measure was set down to Bute's advice. The beer-tax was believed to have been suggested by him, and provoked a disturbance in the theatre in the king's presence, which caused Bute much annoyance. He was yet to rise higher in the state, and to arouse more violent feelings of hatred and contempt.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, pp. 318-19.
[2] Earl Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 36.
[3] See, for example, "Memorandum of what past at Sir R. Walpole's house," Sept. 9, 1725, Add. MS. 32,687 (Duke of Newcastle's Papers), f. 155.
[4] Engl. Historical Rev., xvii. (1902), 678 sqq., an interesting article by Mr. Winstanley to which I am indebted.
[5] Add. MS. 32,914, ff. 171, 189; the order in the text is that of the manuscript, the names and offices within parentheses are supplied.
[6] His appointment about Nov. 16, Add. MS., u.s., f. 369; he appears as a "lord of the cabinet," Jan. 8, 1761, Add. MS. 32,917, f. 180.
[7] Add. MS. 32,929, f. 143; see also Engl. Hist. Rev., u.s.