The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 Read Online Free PDF Page B

Parliament. What Parliament did so far as what we would call public policy was not very much. It was not the ruler, nor a source of energy and activity impressing its will upon the nation. The nation was best served when left alone and liberty would flourish if unattended to by meddlers in Parliament. The landed interests took care of themselves and thereby served the nation and the king.
     

V
    Every British monarch in the eighteenth century accepted this system and worked willingly within it. None admired it more than George III, who in a characteristic statement declared his "enthusiasm" for "the beauty, excellence, and perfection of the British Constitution as by Law established." 12 He wrote these words in 1778 when he had been the monarch for eighteen years, thoroughly experienced in playing his part as the executive in a mixed form of government.
     
    George III had come to the throne unprepared for this role, though unlike his grandfather, George II, he was British-born, and though he had a better-than-average formal education. Yet his incapacity on becoming king did not lie in his education but in his temperament and his lack of understanding of men -- or, as the eighteenth century put it, of human nature. Although he learned much of men during his long reign,
     
    ____________________
    12 Fortescue, ed., Correspondence of George the Third , IV, 220-21.

    he was never able to understand the subtleties in their behavior. 13
     
    Born in 1738 at Norfolk House, St. James's Square, the first son and second child of Frederick, Prince of Wales, George III had a difficult and lonely childhood. His mother, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, was not, as commonly thought, a stupid woman, only a rather frightened one who kept her son cut off from other children on the grounds that they were "ill-educated" and vicious. George's only real companion in his early years was his brother Edward.
     
    Lady Louisa Stuart, a perceptive observer, remarked that the prince was "silent, modest, and easily abashed." His parents' behavior toward him undoubtedly prompted silence and modesty, for they did not conceal their preference for his brother. George observed the petting of Edward and learned to stay within himself. He was usually ignored, at least in Edward's company, and when he spoke seems occasionally to have been rebuked with the gentle rejoinder, "Do hold your tongue, George: don't talk like a fool." 14
     
    If there was a fool in the household, it was Frederick, George III's father, who at the age of thirty-nine still found amusement in breaking other people's windows at night. Frederick, however, had much to recommend him: he was a good husband (though a not very sensitive father), a patron of the arts, and interested to some degree at least in science and politics. His interest in politics came naturally to one who expected in the normal course of things to become king. Frederick did not handle this situation well, quarreling with his father, George II, and going into opposition. A following collected around him at Leicester House, composed of some of those excluded from power who looked forward to enjoying it when the king died and the prince took the throne. They received a nasty surprise in 1751 when Frederick died, not his father the king.
     
    Prince George was thirteen years old in 1751, and became immediately the center of great interest. His education, control of the shaping of his mind and opinions, was recognized as a subject of importance. The king might have taken the boy from his mother, but he did not. The
     
    ____________________
13
Thoughtful assessments of George III may be found in John Brooke, King George III ( New York, 1972); Sir Lewis Namier, Personalities and Powers: Selected Essays ( New York, 1965); Richard Pares, King George III and the Politicians ( Oxford, 1953); and Romney Sedgwick, ed., Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 17561766 ( London, 1939).
14
Quoted in Brooke, King George III , 41.
     

    prince was