What's our future King George III doing in 1758?

It is time to know your last King. It's time to supplement what you got out of that Hamilton play on our singing George. He's not King yet. He will be King in 25 October 1760 though. So what's he thinking these days in 1758 while the Forbes Expedition plods on in this world wide war in 1758?

Look at that picture.

Four years later you will see quotes of his writing below.

Six years later that man will be King. Touch or click on picture for source.

This Prince George is getting schooled. He is getting an education from the first and only man who made it a point to know George, to know his feelings.

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Imagine a life of being surrounded by those who don't really care to know who you are?

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Imagine a life of being surrounded by those who only deal with you for gain?

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Imagine that you better be suspicious.

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Imagine you identify with that?

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That man who showed an interest was Lord Bute.

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And yet he was not devoid of design. He just had more insight into George. He also made it a point to know George better than anyone else. And he wanted to mold him too. Bute's motives were a mixture of righteous reasons as well as some personal needs.

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Through out it all, Lord Bute had more insight into George than anyone else did.

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JACK BOOT

Lord Bute later on went through such political hell over his assocation with George and his mom, Augusta.

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And that name Augusta should be familiar to our local Winchester VA readers. George's Mom and Dad, were Frederick and Augusta -- the names of two counties spun out of the county Orange in 1738.

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Lord Bute's political troubles later on as advisor to George and his Mom, reminds us that the phrase "Jack Boot, " did not start with the NAZIs.

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Many political cartoons accused Lord Bute of being a Jack Boot, of stepping his oppressive boot on the necks of the people, by secretly orchestrating power and influence over their King.

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But back to our George, our future King George III. His Dad was considered almost like the Kennedy Camelot mystique. His Dad was next in line. So what happened? His Dad, Frederick, had a bad Cricket game accident. Some say health complications developed from that or maybe independently after that. His Dad died in 1751.

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So now our George is next in line.

That's it.

That's our lead story.

There's always more.

Skip around.

Read bits and pieces.

Read some quotes from our young George.

Compiled and authored by Jim Moyer 10/2/2022

Prince George's writings:

On Lord Bute:

Lord Bute's opinion is important.

On 25 September 1758,

Prince George wrote to his teacher and counselor, Lord Bute, promising, "to throw off that incomprehensible indolence, inattention and heedlessness that reigns within me."

In July 1758,

Prince George wrote to Lord Bute, "What a pretty pickle I should be in a future day if I had not your sagacious counsels."

Page 61, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

On William Pitt:

At first Lord Bute and Prince George supported Pitt.

Their support was based on Pitt's being anti-subsidy of Hanover. It was bankrupting England.

Then when Pitt gained leadership of the war effort in December 1757, Pitt launched the most ambitious subsidy of Hanover ever a year later in 1758. The subsidy was to Hanover and to Frederick the Great of Prussia to be more of a threat to France. This would take France's eye of the ball -- the ball being the rest of the world -- North America, the Caribbean, Africa, India. Read about Pitt's war plan here.

Pitt did not signal in advance

his flip flop

to Lord Bute and Prince George until after the deed was done.

Prince George writes to Lord Bute in December 1758:

"I suppose you agree with me in think that as Mr Pitt does not now chuse to commuicated what is intended to be done but defers it till executed, he might save himself the trouble of sending at all, as I should hear only a few days later, as well as other people, what measures have been taken."

"Indeed, my dearest friend, he treats both you and me with no more regard than he would do a parcel of children. He seems to forget that the day will come when he must expect to be treated according to his deserts."

Pages 60-61, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

Victory Bankrupts

Even during the next year in 1759, the year of Miracles, of victory after victory, Prince George would write that such victory was bankrupting the nation.

The Prince is foreshadowing how he will look at Pitt's victories by looking at Henry V ---- You know the King who won at Agincourt in 1415 dominating the French a generation before Joan of Arc came along.

"This was a glorious reign. Henry conquered France, but had he and his successors kept it Britain had been now a Gallic province, and notwithstanding the glory accrueing to the King and nation from their success. 'tis certain this conquest was by no means an equivalent for the vast sums expended in it and the quantity of blood spilt . . . "

Page 63, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

This is why Lord Bute through the support of King George III ended the Seven Years War. And became the reason for taxing the colonies as well as taxing themselves.

https://jimmoyer1.wixsite.com/fortloudounva/single-post/lord-bute-and-dunkirk-the-war-is-over-1

https://jimmoyer1.wixsite.com/fortloudounva/single-post/lord-bute-and-dunkirk-the-war-is-over

More on that Debt

The Prince once posessed of the nation's confidence, the people's love, will be feared and respected abroad, adored at home by mixing private economy with public magnificence.

He will silence every clamor, be able to supply proper remedies to the heavy taxes that oppress the people, and lay a sure foundation for diminishing the enormous debt that weighs this country down and preys upon its vitals.

Page 65, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

Prince George's thoughts on Liberty:

Does one detect a slight catch in these thoughts on liberty?

" . . . every man therefore here is allowed to declare his sentiments openly, to speak or write whatever is not prohibited by the laws."

Page 56, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

"We may therefore infer from his long reign," the Prince wrote at the end of his essay on Edward III, "that this people will never refuse anything to a sovereign who they know to be the defender of their liberties."

Page 57, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

Prince George on Checks and Balances:

This sounds familiar except for the executive branch.

Thus we have created the noblest constitution the human mind is capable of framing, where the executive power is in the prince, the legislative in the nobility and the representatives of the people, and the judicial in the people and in some cases in the nobility, to whom there lies a final appeal from all other courts of judicature, where every man's life, liberty, and posessions are secure, where one part of the legislative body checks the other by the privilege of rejecting, both checked by the executive, as that is again by the legislative; all parts moving, and however they may follow the particular interest of their body, yet all uniting at the last for the public good.

Page 57, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

Bute was not Augusta's lover

"The Princess [Augusta - George's mom] like many badly-educated people had an inordinate respect for learning and an exaggerated idea of what learning can do. She assumed that a man of such parts must be able to deal with the politicians. This is why she was impressed by Bute. Contemporary observers, who were not similarly impressed and did not know the facts, in their search for an explanation of why he had become the Princess' advisor could only assume that he was her lover. . . The story was current in London in the late 1750s and came to the ears of the Prince of Wales [that's our future King George III ], and when Bute assumed office it was a favorite theme with the gutter press.

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Two persons less likely to engage in a love affair than Bute and the Princess could hardly be imagined. In 1755, Bute was forty-two, happily married to an attractive and devoted wife, and the father of a large family. He had never been suspected of gallantry. The Princess was thirty-six, the mother of nine children, and more famed for her discretion and good conduct than for her beauty or sexual charms.

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Under the conditions of court life in the 18th century it was impossible for royalty to conduct a clandestine love affair. There were too many people in attendance who had opportunities of learning the facts. Such affairs when they existed were always conducted in the open simply because they coud not be kept secret.

The King's Mistress [ King George II and I ] was acknowledged and was an important figure at court; and sometimes played a part in politics.

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The Essays

The decisive evidence however is to be found in the essays on history which the Prince [the future King George III] wrote for Bute.

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These reflect Bute's teaching not only of history but of morality, and one of the lessons Bute stresses over and over again is that Kings should avoid illicit sexual relations and beware of the influence of women in politics.

Robert, son of William the Conqueror, is censured by the Prince because he was indolent and neglected his business for ''play, wine, and women'. The court of Henry II of France was 'famous for luxury, debauchery, and in short all sorts of vices that ruin great nations'. "We hope we shall not be thought too hard', writes the Prince about Catherine de Medicis, "when we say that the fair sex in general are apt to fluctuate when concerned in public affairs.' An essay on Edward III was corrected by Bute to inculcate a moral lesson. It began originally: "As Edward III was but fourteen, he had twelve guardians placed about him'. Bute crossed out the last three words and substituted: 'appointed him by Parliament, though in reality Mortimer, the Queen's favourite, governed the whole'.

It would have been remarkable had Bute indeed been the Princess' lover that he should have gone out of his way to call his pupil's attention to such a close historical parallel as that between Mortimer and himself. To have done so suggests that he had an absolutely clear conscience about his own relations with the Princess. It is ironical that in the early years of the new reign Bute and the Princess were frequently attacked in satirical prints and newspapers under the guise of Mortimer and Queen Isabella.

My note:

Could Bute have made the obvious reference to obfuscate and confuse the Prince? Even if that were true, would he not risk the Prince seeing his two faces? And if it were true, all the attendees of these royals would have seen the affair.

Pages 48-49, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company

Oh what a lonely boy

"How shall we explain Bute's influence over King George III ? It was simply that Bute was the first person to treat him with kindness and affection. He broke through the shell of loneliness with which the boy was surrounded. After such a life as the Prince had led, it was certain that the first person who did this would win his confidence.

Had he not been taught by his father and mother to despise the King [King George II] and to fear the Duke of Cumberland [George's Dad's brother], or had either of these been more tender or sympathetic to the boy, he would have never become a rebel.

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He was to tell things to Bute that would never tell another human being -- not even to his brother the Duke of Gloucester or his son, the Duke of York, both of whom he dearly loved.

The pity was that Bute was not content to be the King's friend.

Unfortunately (not least for himself) he had ideas; he had ambitions . . ."

Pages 53, King George III by John Brooke, with a foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales published 1972 by McGraw-Hill Book Company