1765. THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND. 169 towards emancipating himself from a thraldom more grievous than that under which his grandfather had groaned. Bute was no longer available for such a purpose; but probably it was by his advice that the King had recourse to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland; for Bute's son-in-law, the Earl of Northumberland, acted as emissary on this occasion. It could have been no slight pressure which urged either Lord Bute or his royal patron to seek relief at the hands of the eldest prince of the blood. That personage had always maintained an unvarying aversion towards Leicester House. He steadily adhered to the principles which had placed his family upon the throne. He broke off a friendship and political connection of a lifetime with Fox, when that statesman joined the administration of Lord Bute; and had ever since recognised Pitt as the chief of the Whig party. The Princess Dowager and Bute, on the other hand, hated the Duke of Cumberland; and George the Third had been brought up in the same sentiments. To such an extent, indeed, did he carry them, that upon the Duke being struck with apoplexy the year before, the King would not even send to inquire for him, alleging as his reason for this breach of etiquette, if not of common decency, that it would be hypocritical in him to affect any interest in his uncle's welfare.* The King sends Cumberland. Shortly, however, after his own recovery, the King had sent for the Duke of Cumberland under the pretext of communicating to for the Duke of him his intention of providing for a regency, but really with the view of sounding his uncle's disposition relative to the construction of a new administration. The Duke, though on principle loyal and dutiful to the head of his house, could not at once forget the neglect and contumely with which * Grenville Corr.-Diary, vol. ii. p. 490. 170 CUMBERLAND'S RECONCILIATION. CH. VI. he had hitherto been treated, and offered no encouragement to open a matter so important and confidential. But the King showed every desire to conciliate. In deference to the wish of His Royal Highness, and contrary to his own original design, he caused the names of princes of the blood to be included in the Council of Regency. This arrangement was concerted between the King and his uncle without the privity of the Cabinet; and it is alleged by high authority that the idea of excluding the Princess was then suggested to the ministers by way of retaliation for this invasion of their province." Thus the Duke became reconciled to His Majesty's service; and on the very day the Regency Bill passed the House of Lords, His Royal Highness received, through the medium of the Earl of Northumberland, a commission from the King to communicate with Mr. Pitt, but accompanied with a charge to conduct the negotiation with the utmost secrecy and celerity,† for at this critical stage of the Regency Bill, the King feared to exasperate the ministers by giving them any cause to suspect the loss of his confidence. But five days afterwards, the bill had been returned to the Lords with the amendment upon which the King's heart had been set, introduced in the Commons, and carried triumphantly. The necessity for dissimulation therefore no longer existed: and the Duke of Cumberland was ordered to proceed openly to Hayes. The fortune which the Regency Bill encountered in the House of Commons completely baffled all the ingenious contrivances which the ministers had employed for the purpose of defeating the just pretensions of the Princess Dowager. Morton and his supporters, of course, disclaimed any authority from Her Royal Highness for the course which they thought proper to take. Grenville, whose Fate of Morton's clause. *Lord Hardwicke's Memorial. -Rockingham Corr. vol. i. Duke of Cumberland's Narrative.-Rockingham Corr. 1765. DECISION ON THE REGENCY BILL. 171 reluctance to carry out the King's wishes arose, not so much from an objection to the nomination of the Princess as from jealousy that His Majesty should have consulted any other person than himself, upon the details of the measure, hardly made a show of opposition. The truth is, that neither the exclusion of the Princess from the regency, nor the nomination of the other members of the royal family to the Council of Regency, had originated with him. The one had been determined upon by the King, with the concurrence of the Chancellor, after previous concert, as has been stated, with the Duke of Cumberland. And the bold measure of exclusion, though afterwards adopted by Grenville, seems, in the first instance, to have been altogether the suggestion of Halifax and Sandwich. If the measure had been his own, his tenacity of purpose and fearless temper would hardly have given way at the first adverse movement of the House of Commons. The probability, indeed, is that he was not ill-pleased to see the officiousness of his colleagues rebuked by the House of Commons. In the result, Morton's motion was carried in the Committee without a division; and though the sense of the House was taken on bringing up the Report, the dissentients found themselves in a small minority. *The numbers were, 167 to 37. The difficulty mainly arose from naming the royal family in the bill. If the regent had been named, according to Grenville's original advice and according to precedent, this unseemly discussion would hardly have arisen. But the King's jealousy of power, and the minister's jealousy of Bute, involved the question in artificial difficulties. If the Queen only had been named, the bill would probably have passed without much dis cussion; but the nomination of the royal family seemed to contemplate the ascendancy of the Princess Dowager and Bute. Hence the awkward and absurd expedient of defining the term 'Royal Family' so as to exclude the Princess. Blackstone, the famous commentator, then a member of the House of Commons, put the point in a manner which it was difficult to answer, -The Act of the 24th George the Second, by which the Princess of Wales is named for 172 the Lords. DECISION ON THE REGENCY BILL. CH. VI. The task of reconciling the Lords to the reversal of that important clause which they had introduced, as Final decision of they had been led to believe at the special instance of the Sovereign, was appropriately confided to the callous effrontery of Sandwich. Their Lordships were, not unreasonably, in much ill-humour at having been so grossly trifled with. When the Duke of Richmond had proposed the assent of the Lords to the amendment introduced by the Commons, Lord Sandwich had got rid of the motion by moving the adjournment. When the Duke taunted him with his inconsistency, he coolly denied that he had been opposed to His Grace's motion, and said that he had moved the adjournment because it was improper that so important a question should be debated without due notice! * And this assertion was made in Parliament, where it was of the most recent notoriety that Sandwich had been a principal contriver of the intrigue, by which both the King and the House of Lords had been betrayed and insulted. But it was the same man who had acted as talebearer to the King; † and, himself an impudent and ribald debauchee, had stood up in his place and called upon the House of Lords to protect public morals against his sometime friend and boon companion Wilkes. Indeed, it is a striking proof of the low and coarse tone of morality in that generation, that it should have been possible for such a man, capable as he undoubtedly was, to have filled the office of Minister of State. regent, is not yet expired; there is a possibility still of its taking effect, and therefore it seems to me highly improper to exclude her from this. If the Crown should devolve on a minor son of the late Prince of Wales, she would be regent.' - Speech on Mr. Norton's motion, reported in GRENVILLE Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 30, n. *Walpole's History, vol. ii. p. 152. † See ante, p. 153. Letter from Sandwich to the Duke of Bedford, dictated by the King, and informing His Grace that he had been proscribed by Pitt.Bedford and Chatham Corr. 1765. GRENVILLE'S INSOLENCE TO THE KING. 173 After the Regency Bill had received the royal assent, the principal business of the session was disposed of, and Grenville came to take His The King wishes Majesty's pleasure as to the prorogation to dissolve Parof Parliament. The King no longer liament. thinking it necessary to preserve appearances with his ministers, coldly answered that he would have Parliament adjourned for a fortnight. Grenville did not for a moment affect to misunderstand His Majesty's meaning. Time was required for making the new arrangements which were in process of negotiation. Grenville refused at once to be a party to any such proceeding. He declared, in his usual style, that His Majesty wished him to do what would be disgraceful and dishonourable, in making him instrumental to a change in the Government without his advice or approbation. He went on in the same strain of insolence to tell the King that all the world knew he had empowered the Duke of Cumberland to make offers to everybody from right hand to left; that those offers had been rejected; that there was but one voice on the subject; that all the world saw it was Lord Bute's doing, and contrary to the express declaration made to the Government when they took office, with more to the same purpose. The King, as usual, kept his temper. He merely said that Lord Bute was not concerned in his present purpose of changing the Ministry.* Both Bedford and Grenville had for some days been aware of what was going on. While the Regency Bill was in the House of Commons, the Duke had taxed His Majesty with the rumours which were afloat relative to his design of changing the Ministry; and the King, by his evasive replies, sufficiently admitted the charge. So closely, indeed, was he watched, that no precaution, nor dissimula * Diary.-Grenville Corr. vol. iii. p. 171, almost verbatim. |