Why did the political influence of the Crown become more controversial after 1760?

Ian Bishop

The accession of George II to the British throne in 1760 marked the beginning of an important era in royal affairs. The actions he took, and the events to which he had to respond during his reign raised important constitutional issues relating to the monarchy. Obvious challenges to the security of Britain in the form of the Seven Years War and ultimately the wars against France were clearly going to promote some constitutional questioning in Britain, for few nations could avoid the political-intellectual power of the French Revolution, yet perhaps the most significant factor in determining the role of the crown into the nineteenth century was to be prompted more by domestic affairs in Britain prior to this date.

George II acceded to the throne at a difficult time for Britain. The Seven Years War, begun in 1756, was continuing in full force. The increasing burdens of war, made particularly great by Britain’s policy of heavily subsidising its ally, Prussia, were becoming a strain upon the country. In this climate of economic difficulty and some significant political instability, George took on of his first, and most ill-advised actions: he appointed Bute as his chief minister. It has often been asserted that George set out to recover to prerogative lost to the ministerial council by his ancestors, and that he methodically set about weakening the Whig party by coercion, bribery and patronage. However, the appointment of Bute, although sometimes perceived as George’s first step towards attempted control of the Commons, was in fact motivated by the best of concerns. George had always been lacking in self-confidence, a feature of his reign, and to counter this he imposed upon himself a strict code of personal conduct. He modelled this code around his mentor and tutor, Bute. Thus, when he appointed him in 1760 it was as a result of his need for a close advisor and confidante. However, Bute immediately encouraged the most disastrous and long-term of George’s political delusions. Under Bute’s influence, George came to believe that it was his duty to ‘purify’ public life, even if it were to be at the expense of his own popularity. Immediately the two great figure in office at the time, Pitt the Elder and Pellham-Holmes, Duke of Newcastle, fell foul of this ideology. Pitt was allowed to resign over the question of war with Spain, and Pellham-Holles followed after his control of treasury matters seemed to be challenged.

Thus the beginning of George’s reign was marked by rapid and controversial action. Not only had George created an immediate problem for himself by effectively removing the government of the day, therefore leaving a vacuum which he needed to fill, but he also set up a focus point for opposition to his rule from its outset. The two ousted ministers were dangerous as such focal points for criticism of the new government, created by George under the dubious leadership of Bute. The new government itself had considerable problems to face. Primarily the administration needed to redress two major issues; firstly to make a peace in Europe and attempt to secure British gains, and secondly to restore the peacetime financial order. Bute’s administration did manage to bring Britain’s involvement in the war in Europe to an end, but the peace negotiated was far from satisfactory. Britain was isolated in Europe by the peace treaty, and for the next thirty years suffered from alignments of the European powers. The effect of this peace was to make George appear unpatriotic, and the gutter press vilified him for it, under the skilful organisation of the parliamentary radical, John Wilkes. ‘Patriotic’ gentlemen, rallied by Pitt or Newcastle, rapidly came to believe that the peace had been botched, and that the King was conspiring against their liberties. Bute, who was coming under increasing fire, took the easy route of resignation, leaving the King isolated and alone. George realised too late that he had destroyed one political combination, and in so doing had made the assembly of future administrations more difficult.

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He turned to , to his uncle, William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, to Pitt, and to the 3rd Duke of Grafton for help. All failed him. The first decade of the reign was one of such ministerial instability that little was done to solve the basic financial difficulties of the crown, made serious by the expense of the Seven Years' War. Although overseas trade had expanded, the wealth of the East India Company could make no real contribution to the expenses of the state. This prompted attempts to make the colonies pay for their own administrative and defence costs, yet this only aroused resistance amongst the colonists. This move sowed the seeds of perhaps the greatest political crisis for Britain in the eighteenth century. Soon British colonial policy lost its coherence and consistency. The Stamp Act of 1765, passed by Grenville, was repealed just a year later in 1766 by Lord Rockingham. Taxes were imposed and repealed, the most famous of these being the Townshend Acts. This instability was blamed upon George III.

It is interesting to note that in times of comparable moderate crisis in British history, that the monarchy is seldom attacked as directly as George III was. Rather, it is more often the case that the aggrieved attack the ministers or advisers of the King before they resort to direct questioning and indictment of the King himself. The existing government in the House of Commons is also a more likely target for criticism than the King, yet in this instance the government had clearly been directly imposed by the King himself, and so George had restricted the ability of his critics to vent their frustrations in a parliamentary way. It is at this point that I believe we begin to see the most significant aspect of George’s reign in terms of controversy. By effectively imposing the Bute ministry and therefore demonstrating contempt for Parliament, George risked destroying the keystone of British political stability: that is, the use of Parliament as the focus for political debate. The rise of extra-parliamentary radicalism, epitomised by John Wilkes, demonstrates the dangers of undermining Parliament’s role as an agreed forum and container for political disagreement. George III had placed the monarchy so squarely in the political arena that he left his opponents no real choice but direct attack upon crown.

George’s actions led to calls for constitutional change. Edmund Burke argued that the King should give his power to the Cabinet, and that ultimately the King could be replaced in his role as a bonding agent with the organisation of groups upon agreed principles, thus foreshadowing the basis of the modern party system. His opponents accused George of intriguing to reassert the royal prerogative. In truth, this was not the case, for George had had no contact with Bute since 1766, nor were his friends his agents, but rather they were those who looked to him for leadership. Nevertheless, what is significant is that George’s opponents should so attack him, for it demonstrates their fear that the monarchy was conspiring to threaten their liberties.

With such a embattled early reign, George did well to maintain control. It is important to realise that although George did threaten the major precept of the British post-Revolutionary order, he had not come close to subverting it, and so the overall stability of the political nation was not severely endangered. By 1770, George had learned a great deal about office. Although still obstinate, he now reckoned with political reality. He no longer made use of executive power to win elections, nor did he withhold his official blessing from characters of whom he disapproved. Upon finding Lord North in 1770 the King was lucky in having a minister who could cajole the Commons. North’s laissez faire attitude lulled the fears of gentlemen who were ready to imagine that the executive was growing too strong. As a result of this, a decade of stable government followed. This ten year period of relative domestic calm highlighted the comparative ease with which Britain’s body politic would sink into stability if given the opportunity. Thus, whilst events remained manageable, and George avoided demonstrations of royal power, Britain allowed itself to be governed quietly. However, North could only muffle the disturbances and problems of the previous decade, and a major upset could easily bring them to the surface again. The American problem was to be such an disaster, and it was to be the fatal issue.

George III has often been perceived to be responsible for the loss of America. However, the American revolution emerged not as a result of any assertion of the Royal prerogative. Americans were in fact disposed to agree to George’s personal supremacy. Rather, it was Parliament’s attempts to assert its sovereignty that angered to colonists. George’s association with that Parliament led Americans to hate him. North could not ignore the colonist’s insults with the King and House watching him to see that he was not weak, and so he inevitably took the steps that would lead to war. Most English squires had supported George in his earlier calls the make the colonies pay their own administrative costs, yet by 1779, most of them were sickened of the war. George, however, continued to argue that although the war was indefensible on economic grounds must still be fought for if disobedience was seen to prosper then Ireland would follow suit. He also argued, with some justification, that with French involvement in the war the finances of France would collapse before Britain’s. Thus George prolonged the war by his own desperate efforts. This left a further stain on the King, and in 1780 a majority in the House blamed the North government for the troubles that had befallen the country.

The people came to believe that corruption alone supported an administration that was equally incapable of waging war or ending it. This supposed increase in corruption was laid directly at the King’s door, for North wearily repeated his wish to resign, this appearing a mere puppet of George III. With the eventual fall of North in 1782 George III’s prestige was at a low ebb, and the failure of Shelburne’s ministry in 1785 took him to the lowest point of all. The following North-Fox administration and its tribulations prompted George to contemplate abdication. Although this low-point in George’s reign might appear to be a good point to conclude an analysis of the growing controversy surrounding the monarchy, the following successes under Pitt the Younger were even more significant, arguably, than these failures in creating contention over the nature of the monarchy.

Within a year of the Fox-North government, George announced the most high-handed act of royal initiative in eighteenth century England. When Fox and North proposed a plan to reform the East India Company, which aroused fears that they intended to perpetuate their power by controlling Eastern patronage, the King emerged as a defender of the national interest. George let it be known that anyone who supported the Bill in the House of Lords would be reckoned the enemy of the Crown. The Bill was defeated and the ministers resigned. The King was ready with a new ‘patriotic’ leader, Pitt the Younger. Although a ‘high point’ of George’s reign, the move was dangerous and controversial. Pitt’s government had a minority in the Commons and the discarded Ministers were in a mood to threaten constitutional upheaval. The most significant aspect of the manoeuvre was that George ad acted outside of his proscribed conditional powers. His firm action represented a move that he should not have had to make, and his effective imposition of a government in spite of its lack of support in the House was perhaps the most controversial action of a monarch in eighteenth century Britain. It was only the overwhelming public support of the Pitt administration in the 1784 general election which saved the scheme.

After this most dangerous of actions, George III did little more to demonstrate his power. Though many of Pitt’s ideas were unwelcome to him, he contented himself with criticism and quiet grumblings. Pitt could not survive without the King, and without Pitt the King would be at the mercy of Fox. Thus they compromised, but the compromise left most power, with George’s willing assent, with Pitt. Such power-brokering could not be left as a possibility in the British constitution, and George’s use of it to create the Pitt government did in fact represent the relative conditional weakness of the monarchy. It was a controversial move in that it would force longer term consideration of the powers of the monarch. Perhaps the only reason such a move was tolerated was due to the popularity and successes of the Pitt government, the later confusion of war with France, and the sympathy with the ailing monarch in his dotage who seemed to embody what it was Britain was fighting to defend against the French Revolutionaries.

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