George Gardiner

“ With the support of George II., amidst the derision of the English fashionable world, the Hanoverian Handel produced in England those masterpieces which have given delight to millions, whilst the foundation of the university of Göttingen by the same king opened a door through which English political ideas afterwards penetrated into Germany. ”

“ GARDINER, ALLEN FRANCIS (1794–1851) , missionary to Patagonia, fifth son of Samuel Gardiner of Coombe Lodge, Oxfordshire, by Mary, daughter of Charles Boddam of Capel House, Bull's Cross, Enfield, Middlesex, was born on 28 Jan. 1794 in the parsonage house at Basildon, Berkshire, where his parents were temporarily residing. He was religiously educated, and in May 1808 entered the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth. ”

“ It became the fashion for a prince to amuse himself with a mistress or more frequently with many mistresses simultaneously, and he was often content that the mistresses whom he favoured should be neither beautiful nor witty. George Louis followed the usual course. ”

“ The Whigs were conciliated by the repeal of the Schism Act and the Occasional Conformity Act, whilst the Tories were conciliated by the maintenance of the Test Act in all its vigour. The satisfaction of the masses was increased by the general well-being of the nation.
Very little of all that was thus accomplished was directly owing to George I. The policy of the reign is the policy of his ministers. Stanhope and Townshend from 1714 to 1717 were mainly occupied with the defence of the Hanoverian settlement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is in his reliance upon the prejudices and ignorance of the country that the constitutional significance of the reign of George III. appears. Every strong government derives its power from its representative character. At a time when the House of Commons was less really representative than at any other, a king was on the throne who represented the country in its good and bad qualities alike, in its hatred of revolutionary violence, its moral sturdiness, its contempt of foreigners, and its defiance of all ideas which were in any way strange. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His successors formed a composite ministry in which Walpole’s old colleagues and Walpole’s old opponents were alike to be found.
The years which followed settled conclusively, at least for this reign, the constitutional question of the power of appointing ministers. The war between Spain and England had broken out in 1739. In 1741 the death of the emperor Charles VI. brought on the war of the Austrian succession. The position of George II. as a Hanoverian prince drew him to the side of Maria Theresa through jealousy of the rising Prussian monarchy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact the theory of parliamentary government, like most theories after their truth has long been universally acknowledged, had become a superstition. Parliaments were held to be properly vested with authority, not because they adequately represented the national will, but simply because they were parliaments. There were thousands of people in England to whom it never occurred that there was any good reason why a British parliament should be allowed to levy a duty on tea in the London docks and should not be allowed to levy a duty on tea at the wharves of Boston. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The strength of the Whigs lay in the towns and in the higher aristocracy. Below both parties lay the mass of the nation, which cared nothing for politics except in special seasons of excitement, and which asked only to be let alone. ”

“ In 1715 a Jacobite insurrection in the north, supported by the appearance of the Pretender, the son of James II., in Scotland, was suppressed, and its suppression not only gave to the government a character of stability, but displayed its adversaries in an unfavourable light as the disturbers of the peace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But for one circumstance Addington’s ministry would have lasted long. So strong was the reaction against the Revolution that the bulk of the nation was almost as suspicious of genius as the king himself. Not only was there no outcry for legislative reforms, but the very idea of reform was unpopular. The country gentlemen were predominant in parliament, and the country gentlemen as a body looked upon Addington with respect and affection. Such a minister was therefore admirably suited to preside over affairs at home in the existing state of opinion. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Beetle-browed, swarthy of complexion, hook-nosed, and harsh of feature, Gardiner, notwithstanding his forbidding looks and stern, searching glances, which seemed to read the hearts of those he looked upon, and inspired more dread than love, had a countenance replete with intelligence, while his imperious looks and manner, untamed by reverse of fortune, showed the confidence he felt in his own mental powers and resources. ”

“ His servility said bluffly, "Now with any other man I should be on equal terms, but I frankly acknowledge that it is a different matter with you." So the men who had more sheep in the present, or who possessed greater credit as the beautiful result of sheep in the past, were inclined to think Gardiner a good sort, even if his grandfather had come out to New South Wales in a ship with soldiers. For that is the satiric colonial euphemism for a convict.
But, all the same, he was a beast, and as mean as mud to those who were down, who couldn't get up, or who were obviously of no use to him. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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) . ”

“ Most men so utterly immersed in details would be very impracticable to deal with. They would obstinately refuse to listen to a wisdom and prudence which meant nothing in their ears, and which brought home to them a sense of their own inferiority. ”

“ In the course of his progress through France he received orders from Henry to send back his secretary Gardiner, or, as he was called at court, Master Stevens, for fresh instructions; to which he was obliged to reply that he positively could not spare him as he was the only instrument he had in advancing the king’s “secret matter.” Next year Gardiner, still in the service of Wolsey, was sent by him to Italy along with Edward Fox, provost of King’s College, Cambridge, to promote the same business with the pope. ”

“ An opposition formidable in talents was gradually formed. In its composite ranks were to be found Tories and discontented Whigs, discarded official hacks who were hungry for the emoluments of office, and youthful purists who fancied that if Walpole were removed, bribes and pensions would cease to be attractive to a corrupt generation. Behind them was Bolingbroke, excluded from parliament but suggesting every party move. In 1737 the opposition acquired the support of Frederick, prince of Wales. The young man, weak and headstrong, rebelled against the strict discipline exacted by his father. ”

“ John Gardiner, the eldest son of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, was born in Boston in 1731, and was sent to England, to complete his education. He studied law at Inner Temple and practiced in the courts of Westminster Hall. He received the appointment of Attorney-General in the West Indies at St. Christopher's. He was denied promotion by the British Government because of his sympathy for the Whigs, and in 1783 he returned to Boston. On February 13, 1784, John Gardiner, his wife, Margaret, and their children were naturalized. John Gardiner was an ardent reformer and an active Unitarian. ”

“ The apathy of the nation in all but the most exciting political questions, fostered by the calculated conservatism of Walpole, had thrown power into the hands of the great landowners. They maintained their authority by supporting a minister who was ready to make use of corruption, wherever corruption was likely to be useful, and who could veil over the baseness of the means which he employed by his talents in debate and in finance. To shake off a combination so strong would not have been easy. ”

“ One so anxious, as Gardiner must have been at that time, to keep foreign domination out of England could never have advocated the marriage of his sovereign with “Spanish Philip,” nor, indeed, have been likely to call the latter’s father
“That wisest monarch, most devout of Christians,
Potent of captains, fortunate of men.” But, of course, the poet stands to his colors. Having selected Gardiner for the villain par excellence, he makes him welcome even foreign domination in the person of a bigoted prince, who, he knows, will imbrue his hands in the blood of heretics. ”

“ On 12 Nov. 1650 the council of state issued an order permitting him to come to London for nine days on taking the engagement (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650) . He died at Cuddesdon, where he was buried 15 Oct. 1652.
Gardiner married Rebecca Child, by whom he had many children. Two of his sons were slain in the civil wars within a few weeks of each other. The elder, Thomas, a captain of horse in the royalist army, was knighted by the king at Oxford as he sat at dinner on his reporting Prince Rupert's success at Newark, March 1643, and lost his life near Oxford at the end of July 1645. ”

“ But Gardiner was unable to give the required promise, and was committed, like Bonner, to the Fleet. 'I have held my office sixteen years,' he wrote to Sir John Godsalve, who was one of the visitors; 'I have studied only how I may depart with it without offence to God's law; and I shall think the tragedy of my life well passed over, so I offend not God's law nor the King's; I will no more care to see my bishopric taken from me than myself taken from my bishopric; I am by nature already condemned to die, which sentence no man can pardon.' [60]
Gardiner had endeavoured to destroy Cranmer. ”

“ The chief points in Gardiner's life must be taken from the Rev. Dr. Doddridge's "Some remarkable passages in the Life of the Hon. Colonel James Gardiner, who was slain at the battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745." He was the son of Captain Patrick Gardiner, of Torwood Head, Linlithgowshire, and was born 10 January, 1687. At the early age of 14 he bore an ensign's commission in a Scotch Regiment in the Dutch service until 1702, when he received an Ensign's commission from Queen Anne. At the age of 19, in the battle of Ramillies, he received a wound in his mouth by a musket ball. ”