Page images
PDF
EPUB

6

On the occasion of certain ministerial changes, which had been brought about by the leading members of the cabinet in order to strengthen their position in Parliament, a curious conversation is reported to have taken place between Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and the king, in which his Majesty declared his aversion to the new men who had been introduced into the ministry, and asserted that he had been forced' and 'threatened' into receiving them. The chancellor deprecated the use of such language, saying that no means had been used but what have been used at all times--the humble advice of your servants, supported by such reasons as convinced them that the measure was necessary for your service.' After some further explanations, the chancellor observed, "Your ministers, sire, are only your instruments of government;' to which the king replied, with a smile, Ministers are the king in this country." But although the force of circumstances compelled the king to give way on this occasion, the Hardwicke Papers' afford frequent examples of his active and successful interference in the government of the country. The interests of Hanover, it is true, were ever uppermost in his mind; but he seems to have possessed great discernment of character, both in regard to the abilities of the men whom he selected for his ministers, and the degree of confidence he could safely repose in them. To a large extent,' says the biographer of Lord Hardwicke, he was not only the chooser of his own ministers, but the director also of all the most important measures propounded by them; and into every political step taken he seems to have entered fully, even to the very details. As a politician, his great fault, especially for a king, was his being so decided a partisan. He was the sovereign and the head, in fact, not of the English people, but of the Whig party."

1 Harris, Life of Hardwicke, vol. ii.

pp. 106-109.

m Ibid. vol. iii. p. 222; and see

p. 519.

George

III.

Naturally ambitious and fond of power, George III. ascended the throne with a determination to exercise to the fullest possible extent the functions of royalty. Born a Briton, and prepared by careful training for the duties of his exalted station, he became at once popular with the country at large, who were ready to sustain him in any attempt to magnify his office. In the Introduction to this volume we have had occasion to dwell at considerable length upon the character of George III., and to point out several instances of his departure from the line of conduct which should characterise a constitutional king, and it is unnecessary to repeat our observations in this place. Regarded in the light of the present recognised relations between the sovereign and his responsible advisers, the conduct of George III. would call for unqualified censure, from his systematic endeavours to govern by the exercise of his personal authority, and to absorb in himself the power and patronage of the Such practices are incompatible with the theory of parliamentary government, and would be neither tolerated nor attempted in our own day. But before we condemn George III. for pursuing a policy at variance with our present political ideas, we should remember that the principle of royal impersonality was only beginning to be understood when he ascended the throne. only was this particular theory still unrecognised as a part of our constitution, but the practice of his immediate predecessors, who had voluntarily abstained, for various reasons, from continued personal interference with the details of government, had fallen into disfavour. The country was heartily sick of the victories of court intriguers, and the monopoly of power in the hands of certain Revolution families;' and the young monarch, in obeying his mother's emphatic exhortation of George, be a king!' did but respond to the popular will, although the experience of the first year of his reign should have sufficed to convince him of its unstable and misleading

state.

Not

[ocr errors]

character." The great error of George III. was his love of power, which continually led him to ignore the constitutional restraints of a limited monarchy. Notwithstanding his moral and exemplary life, his sympathies with the popular prejudices, and his genuine endeavours to govern for the good of all classes of his subjects,—his habitual interference in the smallest details of administration, and frequent disregard of the principles of responsible government, caused him to suffer during his lifetime from the violent attacks of political partisans, and has loaded his memory with an amount of calumny and misrepresentation from which it is only now beginning to recover. But if we make allowances for the difficulties of his position, and the temptations to an exaggerated idea of his personal authority natural to a time when the sovereign was still permitted to govern as well as reign, we must acquit him of any intentional violation of the constitution; and at the same time allow that his integrity of purpose, and rigid adherence to the line of duty, according to his lights, entitle him to be regarded as a patriot king.' We may unreservedly condemn his unconstitutional acts, but should, nevertheless, remember that much that was faulty in his conduct was 'simply the natural result of a complicated position, still undefined, and the working of a spirit as yet inexperienced in government, and seeking with hesitation its course and its friends.'P

The following instances of the direct interference of George III. in the details of government have been

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

gathered from the pages of contemporary historians: some of them are rather inconsistent with modern ideas of the duties of a sovereign. Shortly after his accession to the throne, the king informed his ministers that it was his wish that Lord Holdernesse, then one of the secretaries of state, should retire upon the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, and that the Earl of Bute should be appointed secretary in his stead. With some reluctance the ministry acquiesced in this arrangement." In 1792 his Majesty conferred upon Mr. Pitt the office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, unsolicited by that minister, and with a declaration that he would receive no recommendation in favour of any other person. It was with great difficulty that Mr. Pitt obtained the king's consent to confer a bishopric and deanery upon his tutor and friend, Dr. Pretyman; and when Mr. Pitt recommended his friend and biographer, Dr. Tomline, for promotion to the see of Canterbury, the king insisted upon appointing Dr. Manners-Sutton, notwithstanding all the solicitations of his minister. The king refused to confer a dukedom upon Earl Temple, although requested to do so by Mr. Pitt, and, moreover, declared his determination to grant no more dukedoms except to princes of the blood." Several examples of the rightful exercise of kingly authority on the part of George III. are enumerated by Mr. Edison in the work already quoted. E. g., upon the resignation of the elder Pitt, in 1761, the king expressed his concern at the loss of so able a minister, and made him an unlimited offer of any reward in the power of the crown to bestow. In 1781, when the commander-inchief carried him a packet of military commissions to be signed, the king, on looking over the list, observed one

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

6

person appointed captain over an old lieutenant. Referring to some private memoranda of his own, which contained particulars very much to the credit of the old veteran, his Majesty at once directed that he should be promoted to the vacant company, without purchase. And we have the authority of Mr. Wynn for stating that from the close of the American war until the breaking out of hostilities with France, the king's pleasure was taken by the Secretary-at-War upon every commission granted in the army. And throughout Mr. Pitt's administration, and indeed so long as his Majesty was capable of attending to business, every act and appointment was submitted to him, not nominally, but really for the purpose of his exercising a judgment upon it.'" A notable instance of the king's firmness occurred in 1780, during the prevalence of the great anti-popery riots in London. His Majesty was presiding at a Privy Council, to which all who had a right to sit had been summoned. Ministers were timorous and vacillating in advising the steps that should be taken to quell the disturbances, when the king interposed; and after taking the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral, directed that an Order in Council should be drawn up for the guidance of the proper authorities in the emergency, to which he instantly affixed the signmanual. Lord Eldon often declared that he thought his old master George III. had more wisdom than all his ministers conjointly; and that he could not remember having taken to him any state-paper of importance which he did not alter, nor one which he did not alter for the better. This peculiar sagacity he attributed not so much to the natural qualities of the king, as to his immense opportunities of gaining knowledge by an experience in state affairs, which was far greater than that of the oldest of his ministers."

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »