George III and Lord Bute, Part 2: The Triumph of Bute, 1760-63

(This follows on from my previous essay, which looked at George before he became King)


George III came to the throne in October 1760, following the death of his grandfather. He was just 22 years old, the youngest King of England for over 200 years. He was a young man of strong moral principles, and with considerable determination, but at the same time lacking in self-confidence and painfully aware of the fact that he had received absolutely no training in what it meant to be King. Ever since the early death of his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, when he was only 12, he had been a shy, lonely boy, with hardly any friends of his own age; and he had become wholly dependent on the guidance of his tutor, John Stuart, Earl of Bute, a Scottish nobleman who had played a minor role in opposition politics.

     Bute taught George that politics was extremely corrupt (which by today’s standards it certainly was!), and that the current leaders were not to be trusted. George believed him, and as early as 1758 he had resolved that when he became King he would make Bute his Prime Minister and would thoroughly clean up the political scene. (George’s confidence in Bute was such that he even let Bute choose him a wife! – see a later blog essay)   Unfortunately Bute was totally unfitted to lead the government: he was timid, thin-skinned, without experience, and was furthermore a Scotsman: the first Scot ever to hold a top political office in England. The result was lasting distrust on all sides.

In 1760 party politics was at a standstill. Britain was ruled by a coalition government, with virtually no organised opposition. A major war against France by Britain and her ally Prussia had been in progress since 1756, now known as the Seven Years’ War. It can be seen as the first-ever world war, with fighting not just in Europe but also in the West Indies, North America and India. 1759 had been the great “Year of Victories”, but in the 18^th century wars were never fought for the total annihilation of the enemy, and it was now a question of when peace should be negotiated, and on what terms.

    The government was dominated by two men: William Pitt, the Secretary of State, who directed the conduct of the war, and the Duke of Newcastle, the First Lord of the Treasury, who raised the money and saw to the day-to-day political management. But this was not a stable arrangement, for the two had been bitter enemies in the past. Newcastle was the head of the old Whig party, but he had long been regarded as an incompetent figure of fun by his enemies, and was now elderly, dithering and unable to stick to any long-term plan. Pitt was a maverick: crippled by gout, a manic-depressive (fortunately he was on a “high” during the war), and never interested in the details of political organisation which obsessed Newcastle. There was an extensive “William Pitt fan club”, but there was never an organised Pitt party.  The disruptive figure of Bute was now thrown into the mix. 

A number of unsettling incidents occurred in the early days of the new reign. George issued the ringing declaration, "Born and bred in this country, I glory in the name of Britain". This was meant to differentiate himself from the first two Georges, who were were both German-speakers and spent half their reigns back in their native territory of Hanover. The King’s Speech, written by Bute, referred to the “bloody and expensive war”, which Pitt insisted be altered to “bloody and expensive, but just and necessary”. Newcastle was thrown into a tizzy when George told him, “Lord Bute is my good friend: he will tell you my thoughts at large”, which Newcastle interpreted as meaning that he could not count on the King’s confidence. Pitt saw Bute and told him that if he, Bute, intended to take over the government, he would support him; but he advised against it. Bute said that the present administration should continue, and Pitt agreed. This was not deliberate deception by Bute so much as an instance of his natural timidity: he always preferred to be a confidential adviser behind the scenes than to stick his head above the parapet. But at the same time it did not make for confidence. Nobody at the time thought the monarch should be a mere figurehead, yet for many decades the British system of government had depended upon having a chief minister who had the confidence both of Parliament and of the King: a secret adviser would be gravely destabilizing. Bute was now brought into the cabinet and not long afterwards replaced the unimportant Lord Holderness as joint Secretary of State (see footnote). Bute, Newcastle and Pitt now lived in uneasy relationship.

         William Pitt the elder; later Earl of Chatham

In 1761 a general election was called. Like all previous elections over the last few decades, it was organised by Newcastle, who professed himself well satisfied with the result. (On not one single occasion did an 18^th century government lose a general election) Very few constituencies went to the poll. Some friends of Bute were brought in, but otherwise there were few changes. No-one could have predicted that the Parliament elected in 1761 would be the scene of years of unstable governments and unprecedented political confusion.

    The mid-18^th century House of Commons bore little relation to ours today. The detailed investigations of Sir Lewis Namier and his students showed that only half the M.P.s could be considered as party politicians, and that hardly any constituencies were contested on national issues. About 150 M.P.s received government money in some shape or form. Some of these were effectively civil servants rather than politicians (consider the case of Lord Barrington, who was a member of every single government from 1746 to 1782, holding such significant posts as Secretary-at-War and Paymaster-General). Others were army officers: of all the men who reached the rank of colonel or above during the century, a majority had at some stage been M.P.s. In normal circumstances such men would be a reliable bloc vote for the government: Namier dubs them the “Court”. Opposite them were the “Country”: independent gentlemen, often rich, controlling their own elections, who had no interest in attaining government office and would indignantly reject any bribe. These men were prepared to support the government if they approved of what it was doing, but would turn against it if they disapproved. Namier’s famous interpretation of political behaviour was that opposition politicians would try to stir up trouble by appealing to the “Country”, usually by shouting slogans about corruption, but had no real desire to change the system. He regarded all political ideology as self-evidently rubbish; his name for it being “flapdoodle”

      The turbulence of the 1760s forced everyone in politics to make hard choices.

In the spring of 1761 peace feelers were exchanged between Britain and France to bring an end to the war. But Pitt took a tough line, refusing to make any concessions to the French, and negotiations collapsed. Instead France signed a secret treaty with Spain, which promised to join in the war next year. This pact was soon discovered by Pitt’s spies, and he demanded a pre-emptive strike against Spain. He found himself opposed not only by the King and Bute, but also, crucially, by Newcastle, who was worried that Britain was already dangerously over-extended. Consequently in October 1761 Pitt resigned, together with his brother-in-law Earl Temple, and withdrew from the political scene for several months. The wartime coalition had been broken.          

As Pitt had predicted, Spain entered the war in early 1762. He had already drawn up plans for this eventuality, and more British victories ensued. Havana in Cuba was taken, and so was Manila in the Philippines. But on the continent the situation was perilous. Britain’s principal ally, Frederick the Great of Prussia, despite lavish financial subsidies, was on the verge of disaster: his armies were destroyed, Berlin was occupied by the Russians and he was contemplating suicide. Then, miraculously, over the New Year news came that Elizabeth, the Russian Empress, had died, and her nephew, Peter III, was now Tsar. Peter, a strange young man of doubtful sanity, had been brought up in Germany and was, in effect, international president of the Frederick the Great fan club. His first action was to evacuate Berlin and make peace with Frederick. Prussia was saved! (Not surprisingly, Peter did not last long before he expired with official assistance, and his wife, who had not a drop of Russian blood in her veins, took his place on the throne. She is known to us as Catherine the Great)    

With Prussia safe, Bute now proposed cutting the German subsidies, which amounted to several million a year. Newcastle had long been painfully aware that the King neither liked nor trusted him, and took this as an opportunity to resign in May 1762. Bute duly succeeded him as Prime Minister.

   It had taken him less than two years to overthrow the wartime coalition, but now that he had got the job, his natural cowardice took over. His sole idea was to negotiate a peace treaty as quickly as possible and then once again to retreat to the shadows. Envoys were sent to Paris and talks began. But by late summer rumours were coming back to Britain that far too many concessions were being made: Britain’s conquests were being handed back to France and Spain willy-nilly. By autumn Bute faced a cabinet revolt. He responded by reshuffling his ministers and promoting Henry Fox, with the task of securing a Commons majority for the peace treaty.  Contemporaries, and later historians, could not fail to notice the irony: a new regime sworn to end corruption had had to employ the most corrupt and ruthless political fixer on the scene.

When we look at Newcastle’s behaviour in 1762 it is difficult not to agree with the opinion of so many of his contemporaries that he was a hopeless old twit. When he resigned, he told his friends it was purely a personal matter, and urged them to stay in office. As the peace terms emerged, he could not make up his mind whether to oppose them or not, admitting that they seemed quite popular in the country. It was only when Fox and the King kicked the remaining Whigs out of the government in the autumn that he definitely decided on opposition, and even then he made no attempt to co-ordinate a campaign with Pitt.

    The Treaty of Paris was debated on December 9^th. Pitt appeared in the Commons after a long absence, denounced the terms in detail, and then left without voting! As a result the Treaty passed the Commons 319-65, and the Lords without a vote! Newcastle was humiliated.

Over Christmas, Fox conducted a thorough purge of the Whig electoral machine. All over the country there were hosts of minor officials, customs and excise collectors and so forth, who had obtained their jobs through political patronage and whose function was to support the Whig cause in elections. Any of these men thought unreliable in a transfer of their loyalties to the new regime were now removed. The political machine which Newcastle had painstakingly built up, and which had won every general election since 1714, was destroyed for ever.  

Against all probabilities, Bute had risen from obscurity to full control in just two years. It looked as if he could now stay in power indefinitely. But this was not to be the case.

(My next essay will deal with the fall of Bute and his later reputation)

Footnote: 
At this time there were two Secretaries of State: one for the "North" and one for the "South". It was only in 1782 that there was a separation of roles into "Home Secretary" and "Foreign Secretary"