CHAPTER VII.

Changes in the Ministry-Mr. Pitt recovers the popular favour-The King and Queen dine at Guildhall, where the King meets a cool reception—Lord Bute mobbed, and Mr. Pitt cheered-Pitt's views of the Bourbon "Family Compact" found to be correct-War declared against Spain-Unregretted retirement of the Duke of Newcastle, who declines a pension offered him by the King-Dangerous illness of the King-Birth of a Prince, afterwards George IV.-The King's kindly recollections of Eton School.

LET us turn for awhile from the incidents and frivolities of a Court, to more important and instructive events. Lord Bute, as we have seen, had accomplished the paramount object of his ambition. Pitt had ceased to be a Minister of the Crown. The harpies and sycophants, who clung to the favourite Earl and his fortunes, were loud in congratulating him on his ephemeral triumph. "I sincerely wish your lordship joy," writes Bubb Dodington, "of being delivered of a most impracticable colleague, his Majesty of a most imperious servant, and the country of a most dangerous Minister."* Dodington, six months previously, had been raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Melcombe, an honour for which he had long been sighing in vain.†

"When for some time he'd sat at the Treasury Board,
And the clerks there with titles had tickled his ear,

From every day hearing himself called a lord

He begged of Sir Robert to make him a peer.

* Adolphus's History of England, vol. i. p. 464, Appendix, 4th Edition.

The patent, creating him Baron Melcombe of Melcombe Regis, in the county of Dorset, is dated in April 1761. He died the following year.

But in an ill hour

For Walpole looked sour

And said it was not in his will or his power.

'Do you think, Sir, the King would advance such a scrub,
Or the peerage debase with the name of a Bubb ?'"*

At the same time that Pitt resigned the seals as Secretary of State, Earl Temple also threw up his appointment Oct. 9. of Lord Privy Seal and retired with his illustrious brotherin-law into private life. Lord Temple was succeeded by John Duke of Bedford; Pitt by a nobleman of Tory principles, Charles Earl of Egremont. "It is difficult," says Walpole, speaking of Pitt's resignation, "to say which exulted most, France, Spain, or Lord Bute, for Mr. Pitt was the common enemy of all three." But of all men probably the Duke of Newcastle was the most elated. “I never," writes Sir George Colebrooke, in his MS. Memoirs, "saw the Duke in higher spirits than after Mr. Pitt, thwarted by the Cabinet in his proposal of declaring war against Spain, had given notice of resignation."† Blind to every consideration except a pompous conception of his own importance, the intriguing old statesman was unable to perceive that his own disgrace was inevitably involved in the downfall of his dreaded colleague. Even a blunt speech made to him by Lord Talbot was unable to disturb his equanimity. "Do not," said the Earl, "die for joy on the Monday, nor for fear on the Tuesday."‡

Mr. Pitt, in the meantime, had succeeded in recovering the popularity which his acceptance of a pension had partially lost him. In vain his enemies accused him of having betrayed his country for gold. In vain the lampooners, the pamphleteers, the caricaturists of the day-hounded on by Bute and his agents-pelted him with a pitiless storm of personal invective and abuse. The very virulence of their

"A Grub upon Bubb," by Sir C. Hanbury Williams; Works, vol. i. p. 26. + Walpole's Reign of George 3, vol. i. p. 82, note.

Ibid., p. 81.

VOL. I.

I

attacks promoted the reaction in his favour,* while the hatred, in which Bute was held, rendered it complete. The middle and lower classes had not forgotten the glories and triumphs which Pitt had achieved for his country. They still remembered that he had been the Minister of their choice.

If proof had been required by the King and Bute of Pitt's extraordinary hold on the affections of the people, it was amply furnished on the 9th of November this year, on which day the young King and his newly-married consort dined in State at Guildhall. It was the King's first visit to the City since his accession, and, being also "Lord Mayor's day "the great pageantry-day of the citizens of London, the streets were, as may be readily imagined, crowded almost to suffocation. Among the guests invited. to the banquet were Pitt and Bute. The friends of the former never doubted but that his progress to Guildhall would prove an ovation; while the friends of Bute, on the other hand, trembled for his personal safety. Bute himself was only too well aware of the danger which he ran, and accordingly had consented to the hiring of a number of prize-fighters for the protection of his person, to and from the city. "My good Lord," he writes to Lord Melcombe, my situation, at all times perilous, has become much more so; for I am no stranger to the language held in this great city- Our darling's resignation is owing to Lord Bute, who might have prevented it with the King, and he must answer for all the consequences.' "t

It was fortunate for Bute, that on the day of the great entertainment, it was not till his equipage had proceeded to within a quarter of a mile of Guildhall that it was identified. On Ludgate Hill it was mistaken for that of Mr. Pitt,

For an account of the scurrilous attacks on Pitt at this period, see Wright's "England under the House of Hanover," vol. i. p. 395.

+ Adolphus's History of England, vol. i. p. 465, Appendix, 4th Edition.

and accordingly the courtier was greeted with the plaudits which were intended for the patriot. At St. Paul's, however, the crowd discovered its error. Suddenly a stentorian voice from the multitude exclaimed,-" By G-, this is not Pitt. This is Bute, and be d-d to him!" A terrible outroar followed the announcement. Groans, hisses, yells, shouts of "No Scotch rogues!-no Butes!-no Newcastle salmon !-Pitt for ever! "-resounded from all sides. A rush was made at the coach. Not only the rich liveries of the coachman and footmen, but the lace-ruffles of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Barrington, who had the courage to accompany his friend, were bespattered with mud. The hired bruisers fought their best for their employer, but just as the coach was turning down King Street they were overpowered and driven back. The mob, thus victorious, now turned its whole attention towards Bute, who was, in fact, in a most critical situation. The leaders of the outrage were in the act of cutting the traces of the carriage; in a moment or two more he would probably have been dragged from it, when a large force of constables and peace-officers rushed to his assistance. Even then it was with difficulty that they were able to escort him in safety into Guildhall; nor was it till after some time had elapsed, that he became sufficiently composed to enable him to face the company which was assembled in the reception-room. At night, he wisely accepted the Lord Chancellor's invitation to return with him in his state coach, and thus eluded the vigilant look-out of the rabble.*

Soon after the equipage of Bute had entered the crowded streets, there appeared that of Pitt. The reception which he met with was very different from that which had greeted the recognition of his rival. As he passed along, seated in the same carriage with his brother-in-law Lord Temple,

* Chatham Corresp., vol. ii. 166-8; Harris's Life of Lord Hardwicke, vol. iii. pp. 291 and 321; Walpole's Reign of George 3, vol. i. p. 90.

handkerchiefs were waved from balconies and windows; the people applauded him 'to the very echo;' many persons were seen forcing their way through the crowd, contented so long as they were able to shake hands with one of his footmen, or kiss the head of one of his horses. Lastly came the King. Anxious, as he ever was, to possess the affections of his subjects, the cold reception which they gave him must have been mortifying to him in the extreme. As the cumbrous gilt state-coach * rolled on between the avenues of the people, scarcely a handkerchief was waved; scarcely a voice cheered. Not less chilling was the reception which he encountered in the great Hall as, preceded by the Lord Mayor,

There may be persons to whom it may be interesting to be informed, that the present state-coach of the sovereign was built in 1762, at no less an expense than 7,5621. 4s. 3d. Unwieldy and ridiculous-looking as it is, to the antiquarian it presents a curious link between the cumbrous gilt equipages of the sixteenth century, and the light and simple carriages of our own time. But the state coach of the Speaker of the House of Commons affords perhaps a still better specimen; containing, as it does, what was formerly called the boot,-the seat, or stool, facing each of the side windows, on which, back to back, severally sit the Speaker's chaplain and Secretary. The vast size of the coaches of former days, and the number of persons they were capable of containing, are almost matters of astonishment. For instance, when Queen Elizabeth went to St. Paul's to return thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada, we find her seated "in a chariot-throne with four pillars behind to bear a canopy; on the top whereof was a crown imperial, and two lower pillars before, whereon stood a lion and a dragon, supporters of the arms of England." When Henry the Fourth of France, in 1610, was stabbed by Ravaillac, there were in the coach with him no fewer than seven persons, and yet no one witnessed the blow. Again, when Charles the First was entertained at the court of Madrid in 1623, we find in one of the royal equipages the King of Spain, the Queen, the Infanta, and the Infants Don Carlos and Don Fernando,-"the Infanta," writes Howell, "sitting in the boot, with a blue ribbon about her arm, on purpose that the Prince might distinguish her." In another carriage on the Prado were Charles, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Bristol, Count Gondomar, Sir Walter Aston, and apparently the Duke of Cea, to whom the carriage belonged. Again, in 1700, when Louis the Fourteenth accompanied his grandson, the Duke of Anjou, towards the frontiers, on his departure to assume the sovereignty of Spain, we find the whole royal family sociably seated in the enormous vehicle. "The two Kings," writes St. Simon," and the Duchess of Burgundy, sat on one side; the Dauphin and the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry opposite, and the Duke and Duchess of Orleans at the two doors." Lastly, as late as 1789, when the mob dragged the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth from Versailles to Paris, there were in the coach as many as eight persons, namely, the King, the Queen, the Dauphin, the Duchess of Angoulême, Louis the Eighteenth, then Count de Provence, his wife, Madame Elizabeth, and Madame de Tourgel. Coaches were of French invention. In the reign of Francis the First,