Abstract
On 25 October 1760, George II drank his morning cup of chocolate, retired to his closet, and fell over dead. The Prince of Wales was now King George III, and his tutor and friend, the Earl of Bute, was the dominant figure at Court. George III had been raised to exercise personally the constitutional powers of the monarchy. He had been taught that George II had surrendered his powers to selfish and corrupt politicians. At first the young King was dependent on Bute and the leaders of the government — the elderly Duke of Newcastle and the dynamic William Pitt. As he gained years and experience, he began to assert himself personally and exercise what he thought were the constitutional powers and responsibilities of the monarch.1
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Notes
The classic essay is Richard Pares, ‘George III and the Politicians,’ in The Historian’s Business (1961), 100–23. Enlarged in King George III and the Politicians (Oxford, 1953).
See also Peter D. G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians, 1760–1770 (Manchester, 2002), 1–4, and
Earl A. Reitan, George III: Tyrant or Constitutional Monarch? (1964).
Jeremy Black, George III: America’s Last King (2006), 411–38, offers a comprehensive review of the reputation of George III from his lifetime to the present.
Earl A. Reitan, ‘The Civil List in Eighteenth-Century British Politics: Parliamentary Supremacy vs. the Independence of the Crown,’ The Historical Journal IX (1966), 9:318–37.
Sir Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution (2nd ed. 1961), 403–4.
The Jenkinson Papers, 1760–1766, ed. Ninetta S. Jucker (1949), 133.
T. 29/35(Aug. 31, Sept. 2, 1763). See The Jenkinson Papers, 1760–1766, ed. Ninetta Jucker (1949), 201.
Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt. 4 vols. (London, 1861–62), 3:xi–xii.
John L. Bullion, A Great and Necessary Measure: George Grenville and the Genesis of the Stamp Act, 1763–1765 (1982).
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P. [Paul] Langford, The First Rockingham Administration, 1765–1766 (Oxford, 1973).
John Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 1766–1768 (London, 1956), 7, 386–7.
The process can be followed in T. 29/38, 366, 413–4, 444, 459–6. See Peter D. G. Thomas, The Townshend Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773 (New York, 1987), 28–35.
The Correspondence of King George the Third from 1760 to December, 1783, ed. Sir John Fortescue (6 vols., 1927–28), 1:424.
Sutherland, Lucy S., The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (1952), 159–76. Brooke, Chatham Administration, 72–9, 133. In 1769 the £400,000 per year was extended indefinitely.
Ian R. Christie, ‘The Changing Nature of Parliamentary Politics, 1742–1789,’ in British Politics and Society from Walpole to Pitt, 1742–1789, ed. Jeremy Black (New York, 1990), 111–6.
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John Brewer offers a social and regional assessment of Country politics with primary attention to the urban element in ‘English Radicalism in the Age of George III,’ Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776, ed. J. G. A. Pococke (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 323–67. For a multi-dimensional view of ‘the country interest’ and a review of recent scholarly literature, see
Bob Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2002), c. 2.
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The main forms of radicalism are explained in H. T. Dickinson, ‘Radicals and Reformers in the Age of Wilkes and Wyvill,’ in British Politics and Society from Walpole to Pitt, 1742–1789, ed. Jeremy Black (New York, 1990), 127–132.
The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed. Thomas Copeland (10 vols., 1958–72), 2:51–2.
Earl A. Reitan, ‘Civil List, 1761–77: Problems of Finance and Administration,’ Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research XXVII (1974), 186–201.
The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, General Editor Thomas Copeland (10 vols., Chicago, 1958–72), 3:192.
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Reitan, E.A. (2007). The Foundations, 1760–70. In: Politics, Finance, and the People. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230211032_2
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