The British Parliament 113
America was far advanced. Even then, under the political conditions of the day, no
clear alignment was possible.
The first two Georges had let matters get somewhat out of their own hands.
Certain families and “connections,” rallying around the great Whig dukes—New-
castle, Bedford, Devonshire, Portland, and others—had conducted the King’s gov-
ernment and dispensed the royal favors pretty much in their own way. When the
young George III became King in 1760, he was the first native- born male sover-
eign of England since the Revolution. Serious, virtuous, and methodical, he was
resolved to do better than his grandfather and predecessors as King—to carry in
reality the responsibilities of King of Great Britain which were imposed upon him
by the law.
Of George III, as of many men, it must be said that he did not intend every-
thing that he did. It is doubtful if he had a farseeing plan of action. In effect, how-
ever, he came into collision with the Whig magnates who had long had the man-
agement of affairs. As in other countries, it was the aristocracy that set itself most
firmly against the personal exercise of royal power.
George at first gave his confidence to the Scottish Earl of Bute, making him
virtually his chief minister, though Bute was a member of neither Lords nor
Commons. Though not illegal, this naturally antagonized the parliamentary poli-
ticians. To free himself from tutelage to his grandfather’s advisers he soon brought
about the resignations of the Duke of Newcastle and William Pitt. Newcastle
represented the Big Whig family system; Pitt, so far as he represented anything
(he had first entered Parliament via Old Sarum, the inherited family seat) was a
kind of heroic personality in which much national sentiment saw itself embodied.
Since Newcastle stayed in office for a time after Pitt was forced out, they could
subsequently feel no solidarity with each other; the differences between Pittite
Whigs and Old Whigs (soon to be called Rockingham Whigs) were in the fol-
lowing years to become apparent many times. Meanwhile, George III and Bute
made peace with France, on terms which many Whigs and patriots thought insuf-
ficiently advantageous to Great Britain. Thus various elements were disgruntled
at the beginning of the reign.
In his clash with the Whig aristocracy, and laying low of the old parliamentary
leadership, the King followed in a way the pattern of enlightened monarchy on
the Continent. There is a resemblance between his activities and those of Louis
XV, who at the same time was opposing the French parlements and their union
des classes, or of Maria Theresa, who was resisting and even trying to dispense with
the Hungarian and Bohemian diets, or of Gustavus III, who was soon to humble
the nobility of Sweden. And, indeed, many of the policies personally favored by
George III were “enlightened” enough. The Octennial Act of 1768 for Ireland,
the India Regulating Act of 1773, the Quebec Act of 1774, the attempts begun
in 1764 to get rid of abuses in the American customs revenue, even the Stamp
Act, could be abundantly justified by principles of enlightened government of the
day. But in reality George III was no enlightened despot. If (to suppose the un-
thinkable) he had sought to loosen the control of the universities by the Church
of England, or if he had sought to modernize the land tax, still levied on the land
values of 1692, he would have acted as many ministers of the continental mon-