Earl of Bute

“ To Bute the struggle seemed mainly one for the personal rights and prerogatives of a patriotic King; to Pitt it was a struggle for the freedom of the crown from cabals and connection and for an efficient executive. Bute therefore had now determined to seek the evils he knew not of, rather than those of which he had daily experience, and he commissioned Shelburne to treat, not only as before with Bedford and Gower, but with Pitt as well. ”

“ The King threw the full weight of his influence into the scale in Bute's favour, and at the end of January, 1761, the Duke of Newcastle told the Marquis of Rockingham, "We have received a message from the King, of great importance; he wishes that the Earl of Holdernesse may resign the place of Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and receive in lieu of it the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, and that the Earl of Bute may be appointed Secretary of State for the Northern Department, in place of the Earl of Holdernesse." ”

“ Bute was the object of the King's chief detestation, a righteous aversion if his suspicions were well founded; and Bute was now undisguisedly prominent in the negotiations for the new Government. The King treated Temple and his friends so ill at the levee, that the injured nobleman went to Devonshire to say that he feared he could not proceed a step further in the negotiations. On this mission he was accompanied by Bute, for the purpose, apparently, of making the world realise that Leicester485 House and all its influence were behind Pitt. ”

“ And till Monday therefore, I cannot wait on Lord Bute, who I hope will in the meantime take into consideration what you shall please to tell him out of these two papers. "Does not your Lordship begin to fear that there are but few left of any sort, of our friends even, who are for this peace? I own I do." [77]
The interview with the Duke of Cumberland took place on October 11th. The Duke proposed that Bute, after having received the most conspicuous marks of royal favour in the shape of rank and titles, should then retire from the Treasury in favour of Fox. ”

“ Lord Bute alleged it to those who were of opinion against the German war as a proof of the sincerity of his intention in that respect; but as men mostly are not without two motives, and men of his character especially, one which they tell the world and at last persuade themselves is the true one, the other, which they scarce venture to own to their own minds, I should imagine one of the latter kind operated on this occasion, which weighed somewhat in the resolution of turning out the Duke, viz. that he panted for the Treasury. ”

“ That secret influence is exercised by the measures adopted by a set of men who, on his Majesty's accession to the throne of these realms, enlisted under the banners of the Earl of Bute; who impudently call themselves the King's Friends, but who are in reality nobody's friends but their own; who have acted without principle with every Administration, sometimes supporting them and sometimes betraying them, according as it served their views of interest; who have directed their attention more to intrigues, and their own emoluments, than the good of the public. ”

“ If fame says true, the Princess did not want for society, and it is supposed had more admirers than one. However that be, she in the end avowed a particular confidence in the Earl of Bute, a nephew of the Duke of Argyle, who had run away with the daughter of Mr. Wortley Montague, and afterwards led a life of singular retirement, with a strange mixture of solitary pomp in it, in the Island of Bute. Coming back to London after some time, he lived in a society fond of the stage and used to act for their own amusement, where he gained some reputation as an actor. ”

“ But, since that time, human nature, we may observe, is greatly altered for the better. Dowagers may be chaste, and minions may be honest. When it was proposed to settle the present King's household, a Prince of Wales, it is well known, that the Earl of Bute was forced into it, in direct contradiction to the late King's inclination. ”

“ War, therefore, was to be continued, and Mr. Pitt and his colleagues seemed to be confirmed in office: yet at this very moment the train was laying for their expulsion. Earl Bute was anxious to become secretary of state, and he was busily engaged in a correspondence with the noted intriguer, Bubb Doddington. A few days after the meeting of parliament his lordship declared to Doddington, that Lord Holderness “was ready at his desire to quarrel with his fellow ministers, and go to the king and throw up with seeming-anger, and then he (Bute) might come in without seeming to displace anybody.” ”

“ The first two days, I hear, Lord Bute was little noticed; but to-day much court was paid to him, even by the Duke of Bedford. Why this difference, I don't know: that matters are somehow adjusted between the favourite not minister, and the ministers not favourites, I have no doubt. Pitt certainly has been treating with him, and so threw away the great and unexpected progress which the opposition had made. They, good people, are either not angry with him for this, or have not found it out. The Sandwiches and rigbys, who feel another half year coming into their pockets, are not so blind. ”

“ The intimate relations of Bute with the princess gave rise to much scandal, which, though founded on mere conjecture, was widely spread and commonly believed (ib. pp. 38–9; Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, ii. 204–5; Chesterfield, Letters and Works, ii. 471) .
On the accession of George III to the throne, Bute produced the declaration to the council, which he had kept ‘lying by him for several years before George II died’ (Lord E. Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, 1875, i. 43; see Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 1894, i. 7–8) . ”

“ Lord Bute, who was of a different opinion with regard to Germany, and who talked as if he was determined to recall the troops or make the peace, and was hard pushed by the Duke of Bedford to this (whose friendship he was obliged to court, notwithstanding what had passed) , as well as some other of his friends who were determined to continue their opposition to it, thought therefore a single million sufficient. Mr. Grenville, who was intrusted chiefly in the House of Commons, and the other Lords of the Treasury were strongly for asking only a single million. ”

“ Meanwhile the negotiation with Pitt had met with as little success. If Bedford proscribed Bute, Pitt proscribed Bedford. Bute was under the impression that the Treasury would be left at the Royal disposition, but Pitt had only said that Newcastle should not have it.
"I found," writes Bute to Shelburne, "my report received with great surprise, and 'Every man is to be dismissed who had a hand in the peace' often repeated. ”

“ But though the deed originated with the King, it was undeniably accepted by Bute and Fox and Shelburne. The first was ready to defend whatever his royal master thought fit to do; the second sacrificed his old friendship to the prospect of immediate gain; and the third weakly allowed his disgust for the old Whig system to persuade him of the real existence of the cabal. The two following letters shew the position of the three statesmen: [6]
Bute to Shelburne. ”

“ What can one say of the Duke of Grafton, but that his whole conduct is childish, insolent, inconstant, and absurd—nay, ruinous? Because we are not in confusion enough, he makes every thing as bad as possible, neglecting on one hand, and taking no precaution on the other. I neither see how it is possible for him to remain minister, nor whom to put in his place. No government, no police, London and Middlesex distracted, the colonies in rebellion, Ireland ready to be so, and France arrogant, and on the point of being hostile! Lord Bute accused of all and dying of a panic ”

“ During these events, the Duke was endeavouring to form a ministry, but, luckily, nobody would undertake it when Mr. Pitt had refused so the King is reduced to the mortification, and it is extreme, of taking his old ministers again. They are insolent enough, you may believe. Grenville has treated his master in the most impertinent manner, and they are now actually digesting the terms that they mean to impose on their captive, and Lord Bute is the chief object of their rage; though I think Lord Holland will not escape, nor Lord Northumberland, whom they treat as an encourager of the rioters. ”

“ He had just refused the Secretaryship of State and the Presidency of the Board of Trade, though he subsequently accepted the latter. His independent means allowed him to be indifferent to the emoluments connected with the Pay Office. Bute, the principal of Shelburne in this unfortunate negotiation, declared to Fox "that the conduct of Lord Shelburne had been agreeable to himself," [56] thereby identifying himself with that conduct. As against this, the vague tradition that Bute was the person who used the words "pious fraud" is valueless for the purposes of history. ”

“ However, thinking it was better to lose their share of future power than their present places, the ministers gave a gulp and swallowed the whole potion; still it lay so heavy at their stomachs, that they brought up part of it again, and obtained the Queen's name to be placed, as one that might be regent. Mankind laughed, and proclaimed their Wisdoms bit. Upon this, their Wisdoms beat up for opponents, and set fire to the old stubble (808) of the Princess and Lord Bute. ”

“ Bute "was in no way concerned as to the event of the Havannah influencing the enemy, but somewhat so as to the effect it might have on the friends of the Government, and looked on it as a want of attention in the French, not to foresee the possibility of that," [67] but he too had his moments of doubt and perplexity. "Two things hung on him, one as to Spain, whether the affair of the Logwood would not be considered as a cession, and too much, if the Havannah were taken ”

“ The part is taken, you shall hear no more of fears; I shall not deceive you, but nobody else shall see that I am not fond of my situation. I am quite sure I shall please my superiors; it is a chance as to others (particularly Tories) but the dye is thrown and I will stand the hazard as if I had thrown it myself."
Thus was the negotiation ended, and Fox accepted the lead of the House, practically as Minister sans porte-feuille. Bute expressed his own satisfaction in the following letter:
Bute to Shelburne. ”

“ Superficially, and in one respect, he may thus be said to have resembled the anonymous duke in Disraeli's most popular novel, who was the owner of so many magnificent seats that he could never feel (it was his one grievance) that he possessed a home. But Bute, who considered it a matter of duty and conscience to spend a certain time at all his places in turn, contrived to find in each of them the Lar domestico (as the Portuguese call it) which makes a house a veritable home. ”

“ Bute spent nearly the whole winter and spring of 1870-1871 at his beautiful Scottish home, to which he was deeply attached. As he came to know his neighbours better—and he took much pains to cultivate friendly relations with them all—the stiffness, which was, perhaps, as much the result of his own shyness and reserve as of their lack of sympathy with his religious opinions, to a great extent wore off, and his simplicity, courtesy, good sense, and kindness of heart won for him little by little the high place in their regard which he ever afterwards maintained. ”

“ A young, inexperienced, and headstrong King found himself suddenly the central figure of perhaps as singular a set of men as ever were gathered together for the purpose of directing the destinies of a nation. A famous caricature of the period represents the front of a marionette-show, through an aperture of which the hand of Bute pulls the wires that make the political puppets work, while Bute himself peeps round the corner of the show to observe their antics. No stranger dolls ever danced around a royal figure to the manipulation of a favorite's fingers. ”

“ Soon after his return from his Palestine journey, Bute was duly matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, and he went into residence in the October term. He was one of the last batch of peers who entered the university on the technical footing of "noblemen," with the privilege of wearing a distinctive dress, sitting at a special table in hall, and paying double for everything. Among his contemporaries at the House were the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Rosebery, the seventh Duke of Northumberland, and Lords Cawdor, Doune, and Willoughby de Broke. ”

“ To his unpopularity as a foreigner, to his unpopularity as a favorite, public hostility added a fresh, if a far-fetched and fantastic reason for detesting Bute. It was pointed out that he had Stuart blood in his veins, that an ancestor of his had been the brother of a Scottish King. Any stick is good enough to strike an unpopular statesman with, and there were not wanting people to assert, and perhaps even to believe, that Bute had entertained insidious schemes for raising himself to the throne. ”

“ It was seen yet more when Bute pressed for peace. As Bute was known to be his master's mouthpiece, a peace party at once appeared in the Cabinet itself, and it was only a majority of one that approved Pitt's refusal to negotiate with France. "He is madder than ever," was Bute's comment on this refusal in his correspondence with the king; "he has no thought of abandoning the Continent." Conscious indeed as he was of the king's temper and of the temper of his colleagues, Pitt showed no signs of giving way. ”