three months -The country decides in favor of Pitt-Victory of the people over the nobles, and over the Crown - Pitt builds up ministerial authority - His fall in 1801 - Administration of Addington- Second Pitt administration-The ministry of "All the Talents"— The King requires a pledge from it — The ministry refuses and resigns — Parliamentary debate on the subject of pledges - Ministerial arrangements at beginning of the Regency -The Queen's trial- Catholic emancipation - The Reform Act — William IV. finds himself unable to turn out the Melbourne ministry in 1834-The Bedchamber Question - Queen Victoria's memorandum to Lord Palmerston - Pitt on the office of Prime Minister-Cabinet ministers changed simultaneously — Unanimity in the Cabinet - Personalia of the Cabinet. ROBABLY by the close of the administration of Sir PROBA Robert Walpole, certainly by the death of George II., the general trend of Cabinet development had been pretty well indicated. There was to be a Prime Minister, who was practically to take the place of the King. He was to be the leader of the party in power in the House of Commons, and was to be dependent upon a Parliamentary majority, rather than upon royal favor. He was to preside over a Cabinet, composed of men of the same party, who were prepared to act as a unit under him. That is, the proper authority of Parliament was recognized, and the machinery by means of which it was to exercise that authority was determined. Nothing was wanting in the theory and practice of Parliamentary government but an improved condition of Parliament itself. It remains to consider an attempt made by R George III. to undo what had been done, to restore the royal prerogative, to break down Cabinet government, and its necessary condition, party government. Many things combined to favor this attempt. In the first place, while the actual powers of the monarch had been constantly declining, there had been no change in the letter of the law. The new King might well have argued that the diminution of the royal power had been due to the personal weakness of his immediate predecessors, but that a sovereign strong enough to rule as well as to reign had a perfect right to do so. The "Commentaries" of Blackstone were not published until some time after his accession, but while he was still Prince of Wales, Lord Bute had obtained portions of them in manuscript for his instruction. From these he learned that "The King of England is not only the chief, but properly the sole magistrate of the nation, all others acting by commission from him and in due subordination to him. . . . He may reject what bills, may make what treaties, may pardon what offences, he pleases, unless when the Constitution hath expressly, or by evident consequences, laid down some exception or boundary. ... He has the sole power of regulating fleets and armies, of manning all forts and other places of strength within the realm, of making war and peace, of conferring honors, offices, and privileges. He governs the 1 Adolphus, "History of George III.," Vol. I. p. 12. kingdom. Statesmen, who administer affairs, are only his ministers." new monarch. an ex In the second place, the people were in the main with the King. Both Whig and Tory supported the Formerly the Hanoverian had been the foreign king. Now it was the Pretender who was the foreigner. By birth, education, and sympathies George III. was an Englishman. The sentiment of religious loyalty which, under the first two kings of the House of Hanover, had almost ceased to support the Crown, returned to some extent with the accession of a real English king. It was perhaps felt that the family had been established long enough to have attained to a little divine right. The new system had been only an expedient, pedient which had been rendered necessary by the inefficiency of the foreign rulers, and the dangers which surrounded a disputed succession. But expediency, though it may arouse the enthusiasm of a man like Burke, who is able to exalt it into a philosophy, never appeals to the people except as a necessary evil. It is for an idea that they are willing to sacrifice everything. This idea royalty supplies. A monarch is the historical symbol of the emotional ideals of a nation. George III. appealed to the loyalty of the people, as the representative of the national unity and dignity. As for the Prime Minister, he was not very intelligible 1 Blackstone, Book I. Ch. VII. to them. They at least had not chosen him, nor was it quite clear to them how he had been chosen. And when the people had not chosen him, and the sovereign was opposed to him, the situation was at least peculiar. Nor did the people feel that they had gained much by the substitution of the authority of Parliament for the authority of the King. They were learning that a Parliament which represented them so inadequately might be just as much a tyrant as a monarch. As Burke put it the "distempers of monarchy were the great subjects of apprehension and redress in the seventeenth century in the eighteenth century, the distempers of Parliaments." The new system had been rendered possible only by the long exclusion of the Tories from power. The King had been both the protégé and the prisoner of the great Whig families. He was entirely in their hands. For he had alienated the other party by assuming that they were all rebels. If, therefore, he wished to change his counsellors, he could only turn to another section of the Whigs, and this the Whigs might render impossible by effacing sectional divisions in their ranks. There had always been a feeling that the exclusive employment of one party was an injustice, and this feeling had gathered strength with the years. The exclusion of the Tories had been a makeshift at best. It had originally been justified by the Jacobitism of their party, but that excuse no longer existed. There had, therefore, been a tendency for some time, and that on the part of the abler statesmen, to give them what was considered their legitimate share in the government. After the fall of Walpole, it was hoped by many that Carteret and Pulteney would form a mixed government. But these statesmen did not deem it practical to give Cabinet positions to men whose political principles were opposed to their own. A little later Pitt came into office as the darling of the people, not of the Whig party. Horace Walpole speaks of his "known design of uniting, that is, of breaking all parties." Although he was not able to give the Tories any of the higher offices of government, he gave them a number of inferior offices. For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover, members of the Conservative party displayed a real enthusiasm in politics. "The country gentlemen deserted their hounds and their horses, preferring for once their Parliamentary duty, and displayed their banner for Pitt." 2 During the reign of George II., in words which would almost seem to have suggested the policy of his grandson, Bolingbroke had pictured a "Patriot King," who should "begin to rule as soon as he began to reign," 1 Walpole, "Memoirs of George III.," Vol. I. p. 15. |