The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 - Charles Duke Yonge

Скачать книгу

resolution of the House of Commons, which condemned the votes passed in times of great excitement, appears far more consonant to first principles."—Constitutional History, iii., 357.]

       Table of Contents

      The Regency Bill.—The Ministry of 1766 lay an Embargo on Corn.—An Act of Indemnity is Passed.—The Nullum Tempus Act concerning Crown Property; it is sought to Extend it to Church Property, but the Attempt fails.—The Royal Marriage Act.—The Lords amend a Bill imposing Export Duties, etc., on Corn.

      The prosecution of Wilkes was not the only act of Mr. Grenville's administration which excited both the Parliament and the people. In 1764 the King was attacked by a serious illness, and, as the Prince of Wales was an infant scarcely two years old, it was manifestly necessary to make arrangements for a Regency, in the event of the throne becoming vacant while the heir was still a minor. A similar necessity had arisen in the preceding reign on the death of the present King's father, and a bill had accordingly been introduced by Mr. Pelham, the minister of the day, which, in the event of the reigning sovereign dying during the minority of the boy who had now become the immediate heir to the throne, vested both the guardianship of his person and the Regency of the kingdom in his mother, the Princess Dowager of Wales, who, however, in the latter capacity, was only to act with the advice of a council, composed of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Cumberland, and nine principal officers of state. It was not concealed by either the King or the Duke that they would have preferred a different arrangement, one which would have conferred an uncontrolled Regency on the Duke himself; but the bill was passed by great majorities in both Houses, and served in some respects as a model for that which was now to be brought forward, the difference being that the Regent was not to be expressly named in it. To quote the words of the royal speech, the King "proposed to the consideration of the two Houses whether, under the present circumstances, it would not be expedient to vest in him the power of appointing from time to time, by instrument in writing under his sign-manual, either the Queen or any other member of the royal family usually residing in Great Britain, to be the guardian of the person of his successor, and the Regent of these kingdoms, until such successor should attain the age of eighteen years, subject to such restrictions and regulations as were specified and contained in an act passed on a similar occasion in the fourteenth year of the late King; the Regent so appointed to be assisted by a council, composed of the several persons who, by reason of their dignities and offices, were constituted members of the council established by that act, together with those whom the Parliament might think proper to leave to his nomination."

      It may be doubted whether such a power as his Majesty desired was quite consistent with the principles of the constitution. Parliament had, indeed, granted Henry VIII. the still greater power of nominating a series of successors; but the appointment which he consequently made by will was eventually superseded, when, on the failure of his immediate descendants, the representative of his elder sister, whom he had passed over, was seated on the throne, to the exclusion of the descendants of his younger sister, to whom he had given the preference. In France, the last two kings, Louis XIII. and XIV., had both, when on their death-beds, assumed the right of making the arrangements for the Regency which would become necessary, the heir to the throne being in each case a minor; but in each instance the arrangements which they had made were disregarded.

      However, on the present occasion the minister (who must be taken to have framed the King's speech) and the Parliament agreed in the propriety of conferring the nomination of the Regent on the King himself;[16] and the bill might have passed almost without notice, had it not been for a strange display of the Prime-minister's ill-temper and mismanagement. Mr. Grenville was at all times uncourtly and dictatorial in his manner, even to the King himself; he was also of a suspicious disposition; and though he was universally believed to have owed his promotion to his present office to the recommendation of Lord Bute,[17] he was extremely jealous of his predecessor. He professed to believe, and probably did believe, that the King was still greatly under Lord Bute's influence (though, in fact, they had never met since that minister had quitted the Treasury), that Lord Bute was still as closely connected with the Princess of Wales as scandal had formerly reported him to be, and that George III., under the pressure of their combined influence, would be induced to name his mother rather than his wife as the future Regent. And he was so entirely swayed by this ridiculous and wholly groundless fear, that, when the bill to give effect to the royal recommendation was introduced into the House of Lords, he instigated one of his friends to raise the question who were included in the general term "the royal family," which Lord Halifax, as Secretary of State, answered by saying that he regarded it as meaning "those only who were in order of succession to the throne." Such a definition would have excluded the Queen as effectually as the Princess Dowager; and when Mr. Grenville found the peers reluctant to accept this view (which, indeed, his own Lord Chancellor pronounced untenable), he then sent another of his colleagues to represent to the King that his mother was so unpopular that, even if the Lords should pass the bill in such a form as rendered her eligible for nomination, the Commons would introduce a clause to exclude her by name. With great unwillingness, and, it is said, not without tears, George III. consented to the bill being so drawn as to exclude her, and it passed the Lords in such a form. But when it reached the Commons it was found that if the leaders of the Opposition hated Bute much, they hated Grenville more. They moved the insertion of the name of the Princess Dowager as one of the members of the royal family whom the King might nominate Regent, if it should please him. Even Grenville had not the boldness publicly to disparage his royal master's royal mother; the Princess's name was inserted by a unanimous vote in the list of those from whom the King was empowered to select the Regent, and the amendment was gladly accepted by the House of Lords.[18]

      In spite, however, of the unanimity of the two Houses on the question, it will probably be thought that the authors of the amendment, by which it was proposed to address the King with an entreaty to name in the bill the person to whom he desired to intrust the Regency, acted more in the spirit of the constitution than those who were contented that the name should be omitted; indeed, that statesmen

Скачать книгу