THE NEW KING

The King is dead! Long live the King!

George II has given place to George III, and those who had prostrated themselves before the former were now anxious to pay court to his successor. Yet those who had at heart the welfare of their country trembled at the thought that the throne, with all the influence appertaining thereto, had passed to an ignorant, narrow-minded lad; and reviewing the young king's training, and his mediocre gifts, it must be admitted that the fear was not unreasonable.

The Princess Dowager's plan of isolating the Prince of Wales from companions of his own age, while it had kept him from evil counsellors, had resulted only too obviously in making him a very dull young man. His mother admitted he was "shy and backward; not a wild dissipated boy, but good-natured and cheerful, with a serious cast upon the whole;"[86] and unfortunately the mode of life imposed upon him during his minority tended to develop that serious cast at the expense of other qualities. Bubb Dodington, a keen observer, noticed this trait so early as 1752, and asked the Princess Dowager what she thought the real disposition of the Prince to be. "She said that I knew him almost as well as she did; that he was very honest, but she wished that he was a little more forward, and less childish at his age: that she hoped his preceptors would improve him. I begged to know what methods they took; what they read to him, or made him read; and whether he showed any particular inclination to any of the people about him. She said she did not well know what they taught him; but, to speak freely, she was afraid not much: that they were in the country and followed their diversions, and not much else that she could discover: that we must hope it would be better when we came to town. I said that I did not much regard books, that what I the most wished was that his Royal Highness should begin to learn the usages and knowledge of the world; be informed of the general frame and nature of this government and constitution, and of the general course and manner of business, without descending into minutias."[87]

The young Prince of Wales's amusements had been few. He was sometimes permitted to play a round card game, called Comet, with his mother and brothers and sisters; and the Princess Dowager showed more liberality of mind than was usual with her by declaring that "she liked the Prince should now and then amuse himself at small play, but that princes should never play deep, both for the example and because it did not become them to win great sums."[88] A greater delight of the Prince was to take part in amateur theatricals, an indulgence sometimes granted as the practice might accustom him to the public speaking that must later fall to his lot. This was of great value to him for, while in conversation his utterance was rapid, on public occasions he spoke so distinctly and with such dignity that Quin, hearing his first Speech from the throne, exclaimed delightedly: "Ay! 'twas I that taught the boy to speak!" But George was not fond of delivering or listening to orations. "I am sure that the rage for public speaking, and the extravagant length to which some of our more popular orators carry their harangues in Parliament, is very detrimental to the national business," he expressed his opinion after he ascended the throne, "and I wish that it may not, in the end, prove injurious to the public peace."[89]

In spite of these occasional relaxations, the family circle at Leicester House was far from bright, and Dodington has recorded how in November, 1753, he was summoned to wait upon the Princess Dowager, and how, instead of the small party and a little music he expected, he found no one but her Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward and Princess Augusta, all in undress. They sat round the fire, and Dodington and the Princess talked of familiar occurrences "with the ease and unreservedness and unconstraint, as if one had dropped into a sister's house that had a family, to pass the evening," but agreeable as it was to Dodington, he could not refrain from wishing, "that the Princess conversed familiarly with more people of a certain knowledge of the world."[90] But even Dodington seldom saw the Prince of Wales, and, though George II showed no disposition to keep his successor in the background, the latter spent much of his time in, perhaps not entirely voluntary, retirement at Kew, where his mother was making "a collection of exotic plants, the precursor of the present Royal Botanical Gardens, on a scale of liberal munificence, besides continuing to erect, under the superintendence of Sir William Chambers, the various ornamental gardens, originally planned by the deceased Prince."[91] Horticulture had little charm for the Prince of Wales, who was, however, attracted by agricultural science, and took an active interest in the farming of his land, tastes which subsequently he endeavoured in vain to inculcate in his sons, and secured for him the nickname that still clings to him.[92]

George found some pleasure in trifling mechanical occupations, and had a watch made from his own designs by Arnold, of which a description is extant. "It was rather less than a silver twopence, yet contained one hundred and twenty different parts: the whole weighed between five and six pennyweights." Later in life he amused himself in turning on the lathe, and it was declared by the satirists that the royal ingenuity eventually went so far as to construct a button. Certainly for a long time he figured in caricature as "the royal button-maker"; and it was in this capacity an anonymous versifier congratulated him upon the success of his army in America.

George III as Prince of Wales saw nothing of the outside world, and even when in 1759 he was allowed to make an excursion beyond the limits usually imposed upon him, it took the form of a private trip through Scotland, when, preserving the strictest incognito, he paid visits to Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Isle of Bute and a few other places, accompanied only by Lord Bute and two servants.

It may here be remarked that no English king travelled less than George III, who during the whole of his long life rarely visited any part of his dominions.

He never went to Hanover or Scotland or Ireland or Wales, and in England his longest journeys were to Cheltenham, Weymouth, and Portsmouth, which latter town he visited twice, but solely to make an official inspection of a battleship.

"To tell you the honest truth," Ernest, King of Hanover, said in 1845; "the impression on my mind has ever been that it was a very unfortunate circumstance for my father that he was kept as it were, aloof, not only from his brothers, but almost from all young men of his own age; and this I saw evident marks of almost daily."[96] Indeed, the unhappy relations of George III with his sons must in great part be attributed to the isolation of the King's early years: never having been permitted to indulge in the pleasures of youth, he could in later years make no allowance for such follies in others. It comes as a relief to find that George III when Prince of Wales did commit one stupid, boyish prank: when a tutor reproved him and told him he must stick closer to his work, he put pitch on the tutor's chair, thus making the pedagogue stick closer to his seat.

Some lads who, from one cause or another, see little society, derive knowledge of the world from books, but George was not one of these. He did not learn easily, and he had not been helped by an extensive or thorough education. His knowledge of Latin or Greek was negligible, and Huish's statement that at an early age the Prince "correctly understood the history of modern times and the just relations of England with the other states" makes too great a strain upon our credulity. It is true that in support of his view Huish prints a list of titles of plays that the Prince is said to have selected to show the condition of various states and persons; but though, as a matter of fact this has little to recommend it as an intellectual exercise, it is unlikely the youth performed even this task without assistance.[97] It may be conceded, however, that he read with more or less understanding the history of England, France and Germany; and that he could speak the language of these countries with fluency. He wrote English with little show of acquaintance with grammar and never could spell correctly, while his general knowledge was lamentably slight, and in spite of fulsome biographers, books never had any attraction for him. "He never delighted in study, nor ever passed much of his time in sedentary occupations, calculated to improve his mind, after his accession to the crown," Wraxall admits frankly. "A newspaper which he commonly took up after dinner, and over which, however interesting its contents might be, he usually fell asleep in less than half-an-hour, constituted the ordinary extent of his application."[98] He was in truth a dull lad, and Thackeray was probably right in his belief that "the cleverest tutors in the world could have done little probably to expand that small intellect, though they might have improved his taste and taught his perceptions some generosity."[99]

Yet those who expected the worst from the new King were pleasurably disappointed, for, though he never became a great monarch, he developed unsuspected good qualities. In earlier days his indolence had brought upon him a severe reproof from George Scott, who, when his Royal Highness excused his own want of application on the score of idleness, said, cruelly perhaps, but certainly with truth: "Sir, yours is not idleness; your brother Edward is idle, but you must not call being asleep all day being idle." On his accession to the throne, George III became suddenly industrious, at once endeavoured to understand public business, and showed himself willing to learn. Indeed, he had always been desirous to improve his mind, and it has been told how when he and Prince Edward once went by water to Woolwich he did not make a gala day of it, as his brother did, and as most other boys would have, "but paid a marked attention to everything useful and curious, taking a view of the several works in the dockyard, seeing the manner of forging an anchor, or making sails, etc."[100]

More remarkable than his devotion to business was the aptitude the young man, ignorant of affairs, soon showed for King-craft, and all were astonished to find that, after he had become accustomed to his position, he not only made efforts to induce ministers to carry out his views, but actually found means usually to compel them to do so. Unfortunately he started in life with the rooted idea that those who agreed with him were right, and those who differed wrong. "He will seldom do wrong, except when he mistakes wrong for right," prophesied Lord Waldegrave; "but as often as this shall happen, it will be difficult to undeceive him, because he has strong prejudices."[101] How true this was will presently appear. It was a misfortune, too, that what intelligence he possessed, not sufficient to enable him to see two sides to a question, made him suspicious of all who rose above mediocrity. Fox, father and son, he hated, and he declared once that Sheridan ought to be hanged, while he could rarely find a good word for Chatham, Burke, and the other men of commanding talent with whom perforce he was brought into contact. It was his liking for nonentities that Peter Pindar[102] pilloried, in words attributed to Sir Joseph Banks:[103]

Whatever forebodings may have been entertained by those behind the scenes, George III was at his succession very popular, and whenever he showed himself in public was heartily greeted by his loyal subjects. "The new reign dates with great propriety and decency, the civilest letter to Princess Emily; the greatest kindness to the Duke; the utmost respect to the dead body," Walpole wrote. "No changes to be made but those absolutely necessary, as the household, etc.—and, what some will think the most unnecessary, in the representative of power. There is great dignity and grace in the King's manner. I don't say this like my dear Madame de SÉvignÉ, because he was civil to me, but the part is well acted. The young King has all the appearance of being amiable. There is great grace to temper much dignity and good nature which breaks out on all occasions." Nicholls expressed his opinion that the monarch was "of a good person, sober, temperate, of domestic habits, addicted to no vice, swayed by no passion";[105] while Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, was outspoken in his favour. "Every one, I think, seems to be pleased with the whole behaviour of our young King; and indeed so much unaffected good nature and propriety appears in all he does or says, that it cannot but endear him to all; but whether anything can long endear a King or an angel in this strange factious country, I can't tell. I have the best opinion imaginable of him, not from anything he does or says just now, but because I have a moral certainty that he was in his nursery the honestest, true, good-natured child that ever lived, and you know my old maxim that qualities never change; what the child was, the man most certainly is, in spite of temporary appearances."[106] Whitehead, of course, salvoed his joy in rhyme.

Yet there were other observers who could see the reverse side of the shield. Old Samuel Johnson thought the pleasure manifested at the accession of George III, "of whom we are so much inclined to hope great things that most of them begin already to believe them," was due in great part to the fact that "we were so weary of our old King." He was, moreover, not very enthusiastic at the prospect. "The young man is hitherto blameless, but it would be unreasonable to expect much from the immaturity of juvenile years and the ignorance of princely education. He has long been in the hands of the Scots, and has already favoured them more than the English will contentedly endure. But, perhaps, he scarcely knows whom he has distinguished, or whom he has disgusted." Lord Chesterfield declared that the King, "like a new Sultan, was lugged out of the seraglio by the Princess and Lord Bute, and placed upon the throne";[107] Mr. Attorney General Pratt,[108] within four months of the accession, could "see already that this will be a weak and inglorious reign"; while Charles Townshend, asked what was the young King's character, summed it up, "He is very obstinate." [109]