Samuel Rawson Gardiner

“ As long as the struggle with America was carried on with any hope of success they gained that kind of support which is always forthcoming to a government which shares in the errors and prejudices of its subjects. The expulsion of Wilkes from the House of Commons in 1769, and the refusal of the House to accept him as a member after his re-election, raised a grave constitutional question in which the king was wholly in the wrong ”

“ Such a chance was offered by the question of the right to tax America. The notion that England was justified in throwing on America part of the expenses caused in the late war was popular in the country, and no one adopted it more pertinaciously then George III. At the bottom the position which he assumed was as contrary to the principles of parliamentary government as the encroachments of Charles I. had been. But it was veiled in the eyes of Englishmen by the prominence given to the power of the British parliament rather than to the power of the British king. ”

“ But a struggle of interests could gain no real strength for any government, and the only chance the king had of effecting a permanent change in the balance of power lay in the possibility of his associating himself with some phase of strong national feeling, as Pitt had associated himself with the war feeling caused by the dissatisfaction spread by the weakness and ineptitude of his predecessors. ”

“ Lord Shelburne, the leader of the ministry expelled by the coalition, was unpopular in the country, and the younger Pitt had not had time to make his great abilities known beyond a limited circle. The real question for the constitutional historian to settle is not whether under ordinary circumstances a king is the proper person to place himself really as well as nominally at the head of the government ”

“ That the king gained credit far beyond his own deserts by the glories of Pitt’s ministry is beyond a doubt. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that his own example of domestic propriety did much to strengthen the position of his minister. It is true that that life was insufferably dull. ”

“ George III. accepted the consequences of defeat. He called the marquis of Rockingham to office at the head of a ministry composed of pure Whigs and of the disciples of the late earl of Chatham, and he authorized the new ministry to open negotiations for peace. Their hands were greatly strengthened by Rodney’s victory over the French fleet, and the failure of the combined French and Spanish attack upon Gibraltar; and before the end of 1782 a provisional treaty was signed with America, preliminaries of peace with France and Spain being signed early in the following year. ”

“ The Sacheverell riots, the violent attacks upon the Excise Bill, the no less violent advocacy of the Spanish War, the declamations of the supporters of Wilkes at a more recent time, and even in this very year the Gordon riots, were not likely to make thoughtful men anxious to place real power in the hands of the classes from whom such exhibitions of folly proceeded. ”

“ Mary (1776–1857) , married to William Frederick, duke of Gloucester, 1816; Sophia (1777–1848) ; Amelia (1783–1810) . (S. R. G.)
The numerous contemporary memoirs and diaries are full of the best material for a picture of George III.’s reign, apart from the standard histories. Thackeray’s Four Georges must not be trusted so far as historical judgment is concerned; Jesse’s Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III. (2nd ed., 1867) is chiefly concerned with personalities. See also Beckles Willson, George III., as Man, Monarch and Statesman (1907) . ”