The king's influence

during

Lord

his minister, rewarded his zeal and fidelity with a munificent present from the privy purse.'

The king's correspondence with Lord North2 gives us a remarkable insight into the relations of his Majesty with that minister, and with the government of the counministry. try. Not only did he direct the minister in all impor

North's

Results of

tant matters of foreign and domestic policy; but he in-
structed him as to the management of debates in Parlia-
ment, suggested what motions should be made or op-
posed, and how measures should be carried. He reserved
to himself all the patronage, he arranged the entire
cast of the administration,- settled the relative places
and pretensions of ministers of state, of law officers,
and members of his household,-nominated and pro-
moted the English and Scotch judges, -appointed and
translated bishops, nominated deans, and dispensed
other preferments in the Church. He disposed of
military governments, regiments, and commissions;
and himself ordered the marching of troops.
gave or refused titles, honours, and pensions.
his directions were peremptory: Louis the Great him-
self could not have been more royal:- he enjoyed the
consciousness of power, and felt himself "every inch a
king."

He All

But what had been the result of twenty years of the king's kingcraft? Whenever the king's personal influence had

policy.

1 The king, in his letter to Lord North, says: "Allow me to assist you with 10,000l., 15,000l., or even 20,000l., if that will be sufficient." -Lord Brougham's Life of George III.; Works, iii. 18. Mr. Adolphus states, from private information, that the present amounted to 30,0007.

2

Appendix to Lord Brougham's Life of Lord North; Works, iii. 67.

3 Much to his credit, he secured

the appointment of the poet Gray to the professorship of Modern History at Cambridge, 8th March, 1771.

4 25th October, 1775: "On the receipt of your letter, I have ordered Elliott's dragoons to march from Henley to Hounslow."

5 We must husband honours," wrote the king to Lord North on the 18th July, 1777, on refusing to make Sir W. Hamilton a privycouncillor.

been the greatest, there had been the fiercest turbulence and discontent amongst the people, the most signal failures in the measures of the Government, and the heaviest disasters to the State. Of all the evil days of England during this king's long reign, the worst are recollected in the ministries of Lord Bute, Mr. Grenville, the Duke of Grafton, and Lord North. Nor had the royal will, however potential with ministers, - prevailed in the government of the country. He had been thwarted and humbled by his parliaments, and insulted by demagogues: parliamentary privilege, which he had sought to uphold as boldly as his own prerogative, had been defied and overcome by Wilkes and the printers: the liberty of the press, which he would have restrained, had been provoked into licentiousness; and his kingdom had been shorn of some of its fairest provinces.

ham minis

try, 1782.

On the retirement of Lord North, the king submitted, Rocking with a bad grace, to the Rockingham administration. He found places, indeed, for his own friends: but the policy of the cabinet was as distasteful to him as were the persons of some of the statesmen of whom it was composed. Its first principle was the concession of independence to America, which he had so long resisted; the second was the reduction of the influence of the Crown, by the abolition of offices, the exclusion of contractors from Parliament, and the disfranchisement of revenue officers.' Shortly after its formation, Mr. Fox, writing to Mr. Fitzpatrick (28th April, 1782), said: "Provided we can stay in long enough to give a good stout blow to the influence of the Crown, I do not think it much signifies how soon we go out after."2 This ministry was constituted of materials not likely to unite,-of men who had supported

1 Rockingham Mem., i. 452.

2 Fox Mem., i. 317.

Lord Shelburne's ministry.

1

the late ministry, and of the leaders of the parliamentary opposition, -or, as Mr. Fox expressed it, "it consisted of two parts, one belonging to the king, the other to the public." Such men could not be expected to act cordially together; but they aimed their blow at the influence of the Crown by passing the Contractors' Bill, the Revenue Officers' Bill, and a bill for the reduction of offices. They also suffered the former policy of the court to be stigmatised, by expunging from the journals of the House of Commons, the obnoxious resolutions which had affirmed the disability of Wilkes. A ministry promoting such measures as these, was naturally viewed with distrust and ill-will by the court. So hard was the struggle between them, that the surly Chancellor, Lord Thurlow,—who had retained his office by the express desire of the king, and voted against all the measures of the Government, affirmed that Lord Rockingham was "bringing things to a pass where either his head or the king's must go, in order to settle which of them is to govern the country." The king was described by his Tory friends as a prisoner in the hands of his ministers, and represented in the caricatures of the day, as being put in fetters by his gaolers. In the same spirit the ministers were termed the "Regency," as if they had assumed to exercise the royal authority. In a few months, however, this ministry was on the point of breaking up, in consequence of differences of opinion and personal jealousies, when the death of Lord Rockingham dissolved it.

Mr. Fox and his friends retired, and Lord Shelburne, who had represented the king in the late cabinet, was 1st July, placed at the head of the new administration; while Mr.

1782.

1 Fox Mem., i. 292.

2 See Chapter VI.

3 Fox Mem., i. 294.
4 Rockingham Mem., ii. 466.

William Pitt now first entered office, though little more
than twenty-three years of age, as Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer.' The secession of the popular party restored the
king's confidence in his ministers, who now attempted
to govern by his influence, and to maintain their posi-
tion against a formidable combination of parties. Horace
Walpole represents Lord Shelburne as "trusting to
maintain himself entirely by the king;" 2 and such was
the state of parties that, in truth, he had little else to
rely upon.
In avowing this influence, he artfully
defended it, in the spirit of the king's friends, by
retorting upon the great Whig families. He would
never consent, he said, "that the King of England
should be a King of the Mahrattas; for among the
Mahrattas the custom is, it seems, for a certain number
of great lords to elect a Peishwah, who is thus the
creature of the aristocracy, and is vested with the pleni-
tude of power, while their king is, in fact, nothing more
than a royal pageant." 3

Combina

tion of par

ties against the king.

By breaking up parties, the king had hoped to secure his independence and to enlarge his influence; but now he was startled by a result which he had not anticipated. "Divide et impera" had been his maxim, and to a certain extent it had succeeded. Separation of parties had enfeebled their opposition to his government; but now their sudden combination overthrew it. When the preliminary articles of peace with America were laid before Parliament, the parties of Lord North and Mr. Fox,-so long opposed to each other, and "The Coawhose political hostility had been embittered by the most acrimonious disputes,-formed a "Coalition," and 17th and outvoted the Government in the House of Commons.4

1 Tomline's Life of Pitt, i. 86. 2 Fox Mem., ii. 11.

3 Parl. Hist., xxii. 1003.

4 Lord Auckland's Cor., i. 9, 41.

lition."

21st Feb.,

1783.

Overborne by numbers, the minister resigned; and the king alone confronted this powerful Coalition. The struggle which ensued was one of the most critical in our modern constitutional history. The prerogatives of the Crown on the one side, and the powers of Parliament on the other, were more strained than at any time since the Revolution. But the strong will of the king, and the courage and address of his youthful councillor, Mr. Pitt, prevailed. They carried the people with them; and the ascendency of the Crown was established for many years, to an extent which even the king himself could scarcely have ventured to hope.

The leaders of the Coalition naturally expected to succeed to power; but the king was resolved to resist their pretensions. He sought Mr. Pitt's assistance to form a government, and with such a minister would have braved the united forces of the Opposition. But that sagacious statesman, though not yet twenty-four years of age', had taken an accurate survey of the state of parties, and of public opinion; and seeing that it was not yet the time for putting himself in the front of the battle, he resisted the solicitations of his Majesty, and the advice of his friends, in order to await a more fitting opportunity of serving the king.2 In vain did the king endeavour once more to disunite the Coalition, by making separate proposals to Lord North and the Duke of Portland. The new confederacy was not to be shaken,-and the king found himself at its mercy. It was long, however, before he would submit. He wrote to Lord Weymouth "to desire his support against his new tyrants; "3 and "told the Lord Advocate that sooner than yield he would

1 Mr. Pitt was born 28th May, 1759.

2 Tomline's Life of Pitt, i. 140.

3 Fox Mem., ii. 42 (Horace Walpole).