"THE KING'S FRIENDS"
"Mr. Pitt," wrote the King on July 7, 1766, "your very dutiful and
handsome conduct the last summer makes me desirous of having your
thoughts how an able and dignified ministry may be formed. I desire,
therefore, you will come for this salutary purpose, to town."
"Penetrated with the deepest sense of your Majesty's goodness to me, and
with a heart overflowing with duty and zeal for the honour and happiness
of the most gracious and benign sovereign," Pitt replied, "I shall
hasten to London as fast as I possibly can; wishing that I could change
infirmity into wings of expedition, the sooner to be permitted the high
honour to lay at your Majesty's feet the poor but sincere offering of my
little services."
[Illustration: _Photo by Emery Walker._
_From a portrait by Richard Brompton_
WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM
_To face p. 46, Vol. II_]
Close on the heels of his letter, Pitt came to London, arriving on July
11, and seeing the King at Richmond on the following day, when he
undertook to form a cabinet. The relations between Pitt and Lord Temple
were not so friendly as before, for Pitt was angry with his
brother-in-law for having opposed the repeal of the Stamp Act, and the
Earl was displeased that Pitt had not thrown in his lot with the
family league formed at Stowe. Notwithstanding, Pitt offered the
Treasury to Temple, who was not satisfied by this proposal, which he
regarded as inadequate, and suggested an equal division of power and the
right to nominate half the cabinet, on which terms he was willing to
abandon his brother, George Grenville. Pitt, of course, declined to
consider such a proposal, and thereupon Temple declined, as he wrote to
Lady Chatham, "to be stuck into a ministry as a great cypher at the head
of the Treasury, surrounded with other cyphers by Mr. Pitt."[57] This
refusal was the end of the political career of Earl Temple, who did not
realise that it was only as an adherent of William Pitt he was of
importance in the State.
[57] _Chatham Correspondence._
Pitt found it was no easy task at this time to form a ministry, for, as
Lord Northington said, "There are four parties, Butes, Bedfords,
Rockinghams, Chathams, and we (the last) are the weakest of the
four."[58] In these circumstances, Pitt was desirous to retain as many
of the members of the last administration as could be induced to shift
their allegiance; and in this matter he was assisted by Lord Rockingham,
who behaved very well under great provocation. "Indignant as Lord
Rockingham naturally felt at the treatment he has received at Lord
Chatham's hands ... as Lord Chatham professed to be actuated by the same
political principles as the late Government, Lord Rockingham desired
such of his followers as the new Premier did not remove to remain at
their posts."[59] Accordingly, the Duke of Portland continued Lord
Chamberlain, and Sir Charles Saunders remained at the Board of
Admiralty. Conway, who retained his Secretaryship of State, had,
however, anticipated the pronouncement of his late chief, for when the
King told him he had sent for Pitt, "Sir," said he, "I am glad of it. I
always thought it the best thing your Majesty could do. I wish it may
answer." No wonder the Duke of Richmond wrote bitterly to Lord
Rockingham: "If Mr. Conway's sentiments get among our friends, it will
be a race among them who shall go first to Mr. Pitt."[60] Lord Camden
succeeded Lord Northington as Lord Chancellor, and the latter was
solaced with the office of President of the Council, and the reversion
for two lives of a lucrative sinecure situation. The Duke of Grafton
became First Lord of the Treasury, the Earl of Shelbourne a Secretary of
State, Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer; while Pitt,
whose ill-health prevented him from undertaking departmental duties,
contented himself with the easy post of Lord Privy Seal, and went to the
Upper House. Such was the "Mosaic Ministry," which Burke, in a speech on
American taxation, described as "a chequered and speckled
administration; a piece of joinery, so crossly indented and whimsically
dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; here a bit of black stone,
and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; King's friends and
republicans; Whigs and Tories; treacherous friends and open
enemies;--that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to
touch and unsure to stand on."
[58] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.
[59] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.
[60] _Ibid._
As soon as it became known that the King had sent for Pitt there was
immense enthusiasm, and when it was announced that the Great Commoner
had consented to undertake the government there was great joy,
especially in the City, where Pitt's popularity was boundless. The
Corporation at once arranged to present him with an Address and to
invite him as the guest of honour to a banquet at the Guildhall, and
orders were given for a general illumination. The lamps were actually
affixed to the Monument, when the news came that the Great Commoner had,
on July 30, accepted an earldom, and the orders for the Address,
banquet, and illumination were hastily countermanded. There was, of
course, no reason why Pitt should not go to the House of Lords if he
desired, for he had earned a peerage, if ever a man had; but it was
rumoured--and, such is the fickleness of the people, everywhere
believed--that the Court had bought him with this honour, and, as
Walpole said, "that fatal title blasted all the affection which his
country had borne to him, and which he had deserved so well."[61] "The
City have brought in their verdict of _felo de se_ against William, Earl
of Chatham," wrote Sir Robert Wilmot;[62] and certainly, while the name
of Pitt had been one to conjure with, the name of Chatham was found to
have no charm.
[61] _Memoirs of the Reign of George III._
[62] Thackeray: _Life of Chatham_.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the decline in public
favour of Chatham, the weakness of the "Mosaic Ministry" and the failure
of all attempts to strengthen it,[63] was the King's opportunity. "I
know the Earl of Chatham will zealously give his aid towards destroying
all party distinctions, and restoring that subordination to government
which alone can preserve that inestimable blessing, Liberty, from
degenerating into licentiousness," so George III wrote to the new Prime
Minister. It is clear that the King was pursuing his plan to be himself
the real ruler of the country, and he had certainly succeeded already to
a considerable degree. By his machinations, he had taken the government
out of the hands of the great Whig family, and had divided that party
into several hostile sections. This made more practicable his desire to
extinguish party, but he was confronted with the difficulty that, even
in an age that was not distinguished for public honesty, public men did
not transfer their allegiance from one leader to another as readily as
the sovereign desired.
[63] "Lord Chatham found it necessary to gain new friends, and enfeeble
his opponents; but his endeavours failed. The harsh manner in which he
dismissed Lord Edgcumbe from the appointment of Treasurer of the
Household, with a view to gratify the Duke of Newcastle by bestowing it
on Sir John Shelley, the Duke's near relation, disgusted many
respectable members of Administration. The Duke of Portland, the Earls
of Bessborough and Scarborough, and Lord Monson, withdrew their support;
and Sir Charles Saunders, Sir William Meredith and Admiral Keppel,
resigned their places at the Board of Admiralty."--Adolphus: _History of
England, November, 1766_.
Overtures were made to the "Bloomsbury Gang," but without any real
effectual result, for, though one or two of the minor members joined the
Government, the Duke of Bedford held aloof.
A king, however, has no difficulty in securing adherents, and George
collected such as could be induced to rally round his standard into a
body that called itself the King's Friends. "Ministers are no longer the
public servants of the state, but the private domestics of the
sovereign," Junius thundered. "One particular class of men are permitted
to call themselves _the King's Friends_, as if the body of the people
were the King's enemies: or as if his Majesty looked for a resource or
consolation in the attachment of a few favourites against the general
contempt and detestation of his subjects. Edward and Richard the Second
made the same distinction between the collective body of the people and
a contemptible party who surrounded the throne." Unfortunately for
George, all reputable parliamentarians belonged to some party already
existing, and, as Sir George Trevelyan has put it admirably, "The only
recruiting ground that was left open to his Majesty's operations lay
among the waifs and strays of politics; among the disappointed, the
discontented and the discredited; among those whom Chatham would not
stoop to notice, and Newcastle had not cared to buy; and out of such
material as this was gradually organized a band of camp-followers
promoted in the ranks, at the head of which no decent leader would have
been seen marching through the lobby."[64]
[64] Trevelyan: _The Early Life of C. J. Fox_.
The immediate _entourage_ of the Court was, as we have seen, composed of
quiet, respectable persons; and the King, who realized that the majority
of those politicians who placed themselves at his disposal did so
entirely for the sake of the emoluments and honours that majesty could
bestow, had little or no personal intercourse with his adherents.
Indeed, because of this want of personal relation Lord Carlisle declined
the post of Lord of the Bedchamber. "I have no reason to expect, however
long I may continue, that either by assiduity, attention and respect, I
can ever succeed to any kind of confidence with my master," he wrote.
"That familiarity which subsists between other princes, and those of
their servants whose attachment they are convinced of, being excluded
from our Court by the King's living so much in private, damps all views
of ambition which might arise from that quarter." Lord Winchelsea,
indeed, did accept such a post, but reluctantly and in a manner that
irritated the King, who wrote to Lord North. "I cannot say I am quite
edified at Lord Winchelsea's not in reality liking his appointment,
though out of duty he accepts of it. I remember the time when an
ambassador would have thought that honour a reward for ability and
diligence during a long foreign mission. However, it will teach me one
lesson, never again to offer it, but to wait for applications."[65]
[65] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
The majority, however, were content with the loaves and fishes, and
probably had no desire to be on intimate terms with the monarch, except
for such benefit as might accrue from such friendship. This was
particularly fortunate, for while the King was highly respectable and
moral, the high officials of his Court included some of the most
desperate _roues_ of the day and might have furnished examples for a
preacher whose text was, "The wicked flourish like a green bay tree."
The Earl of March,[66] Wordsworth's "Degenerate Douglas," and an avowed
profligate, was a Lord of the Bedchamber for twenty-eight years under
eleven successive Prime Ministers; another Lord was, after a time,
according to Trevelyan, judged too bad to remain even in the Bedchamber,
and was accordingly packed off to Virginia as its Governor; and the
Keeper of the Great Wardrobe was Lord le Despencer, one of the notorious
Medmenham monks. More respectable morally, however, were the King's
spokesmen in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, Lord
Eglington,[67] and "Mungo" Dyson.[68] The latter, however, was a
political "Vicar of Bray" and had lost the regard of all reputable
statesmen by the facility with which he changed his opinions whenever it
was to his advantage to do so. When he entered Parliament he was
supposed to hold anti-monarchical views, but he was at the time in the
pay of Bute; later he posed as a supporter of Grenville, but deserted
him for the King. It was shortly after this desertion that he assumed a
bag-wig instead of a tye-wig, whereupon Lord Gower cleverly remarked
that the change was doubtless made "because no tie would hold him."[69]
Such was the material with which a King, who prided himself upon his
honesty and morality, chose to work.
[66] Afterwards fourth Duke of Queensbury.
[67] Alexander Montgomerie, tenth Earl of Eglington.
[68] In the farce of "Padlock," Don Lorenzo asks his black servant
Mungo, "Can you be honest?" to which Mungo replies, "What you give me,
Massa?" Barre, who was present, promptly nicknamed Jeremiah Dyson
"Mungo," and by this designation he was henceforth known.
[69] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.
"'Tis very true, my sov'reign King,
My skill may weel be doubted;
But facts are chiels that winna ding,
And downa be disputed.
Your royal nest, beneath your wing,
Is e'en right reft an' clouted;
And now the third part of the string,
An' less, will gang about it
Than did ae day.
Far be't frae me that I aspire
To blame your legislation,
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire,
To rule this mighty nation!
But, faith! I muckle doubt, my Sire,
Ye've trusted ministration
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre,
Wad better fill'd their station
Than courts yon day."[70]
[70] Burns: _A Dream_.
For some time before he resumed office Lord Chatham had been far from
well, and he was in no condition to conduct the delicate negotiations
incidental to the formation of a ministry: the conferences in which he
had to take part, he told his wife, heated his blood and accelerated his
pulse. Soon after his administration came into power, ill-health drove
him into seclusion at Bath. "Lord Chatham is here with more equipage,
household and retinue, than most of the old patriarchs used to travel
with in ancient days," Gilly Williams wrote to George Selwyn. "He comes
nowhere but to the Pump Room. There he makes a short essay and retires."
The King was much disturbed at this unexpected defection of his
principal supporter, and great was the discomfiture of the ministers at
being deprived of their leader. It came as a great relief to sovereign
and colleagues alike when, after a considerable interval the news came
that the Earl had fixed a day for his arrival in London.
The joy was premature, however, for though Lord Chatham duly left Bath,
when he reached Marlborough he shut himself up in his rooms at the
_Castle Inn_, and remained there for some weeks, declining to see even
the Duke of Grafton, who had offered to visit him. "It is by no means
practicable for me to enter into the discussion of business," he wrote
to the Duke on February 22, 1767.[71] When at length he did arrive in
the metropolis, matters were in nowise improved, for he still refused to
receive any one. It was a curious position: "the nation had for some
years beheld, or thought it descried, a real minister behind the
curtain, who interposed his credit without holding an office. Here was
the reverse--a minister in whose name all business was transacted, but
who would exercise no part of his function."[72]
[71] _Chatham Correspondence._
[72] Mary Berry: _Journals_.
In vain the King offered to visit him at North End, when, he declared,
he "would not talk of business, but only wanted to have the world know
that he had attended him";[73] and equally fruitless were the Duke of
Grafton's renewed appeals for an interview. The Earl had not even the
energy to use a pen, and the replies were written by his wife. "Your
duty and affection for my person, your own honour, call on you to make
an effort," the King persisted in a letter on May 30. "Five minutes'
conversation with you would raise the Duke of Grafton's spirits, for his
heart is good. Mine, I thank God, wants no rousing. My love to my
country, as well as what I owe to my family, prompt me not to yield to
faction. Though none of my ministers stand by me, I cannot truckle."[74]
On receipt of this, Lord Chatham yielded, and consented to see the Duke
on the following day, and the meeting had the result of averting the
threatened resignation of the latter, who, however, found it impossible
to discuss business with the Prime Minister, whose nerves and spirits
were too affected to permit of a lengthy discussion. "So childish and
agitated was his whole frame," Walpole has stated, "that if a word of
business was mentioned to him, tears and tremblings immediately
succeeded to cheerful, indifferent conversation."[75] He was indeed
entirely incapacitated, and his recovery was very slow. "Lord Chatham's
state of health (I was told authentically yesterday) is certainly the
lowest dejection and debility that mind or body can be in," Whately
wrote on June 30. "He sits all day leaning on his hands, which he
supports on the table; does not permit any person to remain in the room;
knocks when he wants anything, and, having made his wants known, gives a
signal without speaking to the person who answered his call to
return."[76]
[73] _Chatham Correspondence._
[74] _Chatham Correspondence._
[75] _Memoirs of George III._
[76] Phillimore: _Life of Lyttelton_.
Though the Prime Minister was willing to resign, George III implored him
to retain at least the semblance of power. "Your name has been
sufficient to enable my administration to proceed," he wrote;[77] for he
was fearful lest he should be compelled to receive Grenville again. "The
King owned," says Walpole, "that he was inclined to keep Lord Chatham,
if capable of remaining in place, _having seen how much his government
had been weakened by frequent changes_. He wished that things might
remain as they were, at least till the end of the session, when he might
have time to make any necessary alterations. At his _levee_, his Majesty
asked James Grenville aloud, how Lord Chatham did? He replied 'Better.'
The King said,'If he has lost his fever, I desire to be his physician,
and that he would not admit Dr. Addington any more into his house. He
shall go into the country for four months; not so far as Bath, but to
Tunbridge.' He repeated the same words publicly to Lord Bristol,
everybody understanding that his Majesty's wish was to retain Lord
Chatham."[78]
[77] _Chatham Correspondence._
[78] "I think I have a right to _insist_ on your remaining in my
service; for I with pleasure look forward to the time of your recovery,
when I may have your assistance in resisting the torrent of factions
this country so much labours under."--George III to Lord Chatham.
So long as Lord Chatham was ill, the King enjoyed the support, such as
it was, of his name, but soon after his recovery, on October 12, 1768,
the Earl tendered his resignation, and although George begged him to
withdraw it, he declined to do so. He was, indeed, very angry, for the
measures carried by the administration that bore his name were in direct
opposition to the principles of which he was the champion. Even so early
as January 2, 1768, in a private letter to the Earl, "Junius" had
informed him of this. "During your absence from administration, it is
well known that not one of the ministers has either adhered to you with
firmness, or supported, with any degree of steadiness those principles
on which you engaged in the King's service. From being their idol at
first, their veneration for you has gradually diminished, until at last
they have absolutely set you at defiance." When this arrived Lord
Chatham was still too ill to take up the matter; but when, some months
later, the Duke of Grafton informed him that the ministry had carried
through Parliament a Bill for a tax on American imports, we may well
believe with Jesse that the "astonishment of Rip Van Winkle when he
awoke from his long sleep in the Katskill mountains, or of Abou Hassan
when he found himself in the couch of the Caliph Haroun Abraschid could
scarcely have exceeded that of Lord Chatham."[79] Even then he was not
well enough to take any action, but as soon as his health was restored
he promptly severed all connexion with those who had betrayed him.
[79] _Memoirs of George III._
[Illustration: _From a portrait by Battoni_
AUGUSTUS HENRY, DUKE OF GRAFTON
_To face p. 61, Vol. II_]
During the illness of his chief, the leadership had devolved on the Duke
of Grafton, who is to-day best remembered by the terrific attacks made
upon him by "Junius", who declared "the Duke of Grafton's heart was the
blackest in the kingdom." He had abandoned Rockingham, he had abandoned
Wilkes, and eventually he had abandoned Chatham, though in relation to
the last he made an effort, as strenuous as could be expected from one
always infirm of purpose. Nicholls has told us how those who wished to
destroy the Chatham administration, realized that they would almost
certainly attain their object if they could separate the Duke from the
Earl. They won over to their views the Duke's secretary, Bradshaw, and
endeavoured also to corrupt the Duke's mistress, Nancy Parsons.[80] With
the latter, however, they had no success. "She had the sense to see that
the Duke's honour required him to remain firm in his connexion with the
Earl of Chatham. She had the sense to see this; and she had the
integrity to tell him so. Her influence for some time prevented the Duke
of Grafton from deserting the Earl of Chatham. When this was seen, those
who wished the destruction of that administration changed the direction
of their batteries; instead of using their efforts to separate the Duke
of Grafton from the Earl of Chatham, they employed them to separate him
from his mistress. In this they succeeded, and married him to Miss
Wriothesley, the niece of the Duchess of Bedford.[81] To separate him
from the Earl of Chatham was then an easy task."[82]
[80] Nancy Parsons subsequently married Lord Maynard, an event duly
chronicled by an anonymous pamphleteer in "A Letter to a Celebrated
Young Nobleman on His Late Nuptials," 1777. "I will not on this occasion
pay your Lordship so bad a compliment as to enumerate Lady Maynard's
charms; all the world knows them as well as yourself; her virtues you
alone are acquainted with."
[81] His first wife having divorced him, he married a daughter of the
Rev. Richard Wriothesley.
[82] Nicholls: _Recollections, Personal and Political_.
The Duke of Grafton, like Lord Rockingham, was a man of pleasure,
happier with his dogs and his books than in political life;[83] and he
would rather have abandoned politics than his mistress, to whom his
attachment was notorious, although, according to "Junius," she was at
this time, "a faded beauty," and according to Walpole, "one of the
commonest creatures in London." It seems that she had influence over
him, and he was certainly proud of the connexion. "He brings everybody
to dine with him," Lady Temple has recorded. "His female friend sits at
the upper end of his table; some do like it, and some do not. She is
very pious, a constant Church-woman, and reproves his Grace for swearing
and being angry, which he owns is very wrong, and, with great
submission, begs her pardon for being so ill-bred before her." He
appeared with her at Ascot, and even at the Opera when the King and
Queen were present, a piece of bad taste that gave "Junius" an opening,
of which he was not slow to avail himself. "If vice could be excused,
there is yet a certain display of it, a certain outrage to decency, a
violation of public decorum which, for the benefit of society, should
never be forgiven," wrote the great satirist. "It is not that he kept a
mistress at home, but that he constantly attended her abroad. It is not
the private indulgence, but the public insult of which I complain. The
name of Miss Parsons would scarcely have been known, if the First Lord
of the Treasury had not led her in triumph through the Opera House, even
in the presence of the Queen. When we see a man act in this manner we
may admit the shameless depravity of his heart, but what are we to think
of his understanding?"[84]
[83] "The account of the Cabinet Council being put off--first for a
match at Newmarket, and secondly because the Duke of Grafton had
company in his house--exhibits a lively picture of the present
administration."--George Grenville to Whately, October 20, 1767.
[84] Letter signed "Philo-Junius," June 22, 1769.
The Duke undoubtedly intended to pursue the policy of Lord Chatham, but,
falling under the influence of the King--who was willing enough to
forgive, for his political ends, such a flagrant insult to his consort
as that narrated above--it so happened that whenever the ministry moved
it was in the opposite direction to that which the Earl would have
desired.