George HI. succeeded to the throne on the death of his grand father, October 25, 1760. Of his eventful reign of nearly sixty years wo can here attempt only a very rapid aketch. On the 8th of July 1761 the young king surprised hia council by the unexpected announce ment of his intention to marry the Princesa Charlotte Sophia, second daughter of Charles Lewis Frederick, duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The marriage took place on the 8th of September following. It is understood that in determining upon this union the king had the merit of sacrificing a private attachment to what were deemed con siderations of political expediency. Throughout his reign indeed he never showed himself deficient in the strength of character necessary to make everything also bend to what be held to be the demands of his public position. The youth and unblemished moral character of George IIL, and the circumstance of his having been born in the country, excited much popular regard and expectation on his accession to the throne. From the first however he did net conceal his anxiety for an end of the war which was then urged with so much national enthusiasm. Lord Bute, who had immediately on the commencement of the reign been admitted into the privy council, and made groom of the stole, was in a few months brought into the ministry, with the design probably of effecting that object. He was made secretary of state in March 1761. In the beginning of the following October Mr. Pitt resigned, on finding himself opposed by a majority of the cabinet when he proposed to anticipate the designs of Spain by declaring war against that power. The war with Spain, which he had predicted as inevitable, broke out In January 1762: but in the beginning of Juno Bute became premier on the resignation of the Duke of Newcastle ; and on the 3rd of November the preliminaries of peace between France and England were signed at Fontainebleau. By the treaty of Paris, concluded 10th of February 1763, between Great Britain, Franco, Spain, and Portugal, this country retained posaessiou of Canada, acquired Florida by cession from Spain, and recovered Minorca, but gave up Belleisle, the Havannah, and all the settlements taken from France in the East ludiee. An attempt was maclo by the opposition to excite dissatisfaction with this treaty, but it was not very success fuL Bute however resigned on the 8th of April, not so much, it would appear, in consequence either of any opposition in parliament or any unpopularity out of doors, as from want of support in the cabinet. He was succeeded by Mr. George Grenville, who was for' some time however generally looked upon as merely the lieutenant of the retired minister. Mr. Grensille*s administration commenced ominously with the famous contest with Wilkes, arising out of the publication of the forty-fifth number of his ' North Briton,' on the 19th of ApriL This business, and the question of general warrants which was involved in it, occupied much of the early part of the following session of parliament The close of the same session in April 1764, was made memorable by the passing of the first resolu lutions asserting the expediency of imposing certain stamp-duties upon the colonies In America. A bill actually imposing such duties was brought forward the next session, and received the royal assent March 22, 1765.
In the meantime however various circumstances had concurred to shake the ministry. In the preceding April the king had been attacked by an illness generally supposed to have been the same mental malady with which he was afterwards visited oftener than once in a more serious form. On his recovery, which took place in a few seeks, he proposed that a bill should bo brought into parliament empowering him to appoint the queen or any other member of the royal family to act, in case of his demise, as regent during the minority of his successor. The real author of this proposition was, no doubt, Lord Bute. The ministers had of late attempted to throw off his lordship, but on this occasion they did not venture openly to oppose the king's wish; they only attempted, when the bill was on its way through parliament, to exclude from it the name of the Princess Dowager of Wales. In this however they were signally defeated; a motion having been made in the Commons that the name of the princess should he inserted, tho influence of the court and of Lord Bute were sufficleut to carry it against ministers by the large majority of 167 to 37. The rising discontents in America came soon after, still further to embarrass Mr. Grenville and his colleagues. It was not however till after a great deal of negotiation that the king found himself strong enough to giro them their dismissal.
At last, on the 10th of July 1765, a new ministry was formed, with the Marquis of Rockingham at its head. This ministry, though not without considerable hesitation, repealed the American Stamp Act; the bill to that effect received the royal assent on March 20th 1766, and for the present this measure effectually allayed the disturbances in the colonies. The Rockingham ministry however soon came to an
end, partly from inadequate support in parliament, partly from the lukewarmness of the court, but chiefly from internal dissensions, if not treachery in some of its members. Soon after the prorogation of parliament in tho beginning of June, Mr. Pitt was sent for by the king; and by the beginning of August that gentleman, transferred to the House of Lords with the title of Earl of Chatham, was at the head of a new cabinet It was during this administration that on the 2nd of June 1767 Mr. C. Townshend, the chancellor of the exchequer, brought forward that renewed measure of American taxation which eventually led to the independence of the colonies. This is believed to have been Mr. Townshend'e own scheme, Lord Chatham, though still the nominal head of the cabinet, being now in such a state of health, and so much at variance with the majority of his colleagues, that it is said he was never even consulted in the matter. Mr. Townshend died suddenly on the 4th of September, on which Lord North was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, and the ministry from this time came to bo generally known as that of the Duke of Grafton, who held the office of first lord of the treasury. Lord Chatham at last resigned, October 15th, 1768. With the meeting of parliament in the preceding June commenced the second and much more pro tracted struggle of the government with Wilkes, occasioned by his return for Middlesex, his expulsion by the house, and his repeated re-election.
Meanwhile, the new plan of colonial taxation had thrown all English America into commotion as soon as it was announced. The beginning of the next year, 1769, was distinguished by the appearance of the first of the celebrated 'Letters of Junius,' the most effective series of political attacks ever directed against a ministry. The Duke of Grafton, the object of the most envenomed shafts of this invisible assailant, suddenly resigned, January 28th 1770. On this Lord North became premier, and began his administration with a bill, brought in March 5, for the repeal of all the latcly.imposod American duties, except the duty on tea, which was retained avowedly merely to assert the right of taxation. This exception however produced the war with the colonies, and their eventual separation. A dispute with Spain about the possession of the Falkland Islands occupied attention for a short tinio in the latter part of this year, but was eventually adjusted without leading to hostilities. The session of parliament which termi nated on May 8th 1771 is memorable for the successful assertion by the newspaper press of the right of reporting the debates, after a contest with the House of Commons which lasted from tho beginning of February to the end of April, and for two months of that time almost wholly occupied the house. This and the following year were also marked by some important events in the royal family. In the summer of 1771 the king's third brother, the Duko of Cumberland, married Mrs. Horton, daughter of Lord Irnhatn (afterwards Earl of Carhampton), and widow of Christopher Horton, Esq. Ills majesty, as soon as the affair was publicly announced, forbade the duke and duchess to appear at court; but this did not deter his second brother, the Duke of Gloucester, from avowing, a month or two afterwards, his marriage with the Countess-Dowager of Waldegrave (daughter of Sir Edward Walpole), which had taken place six years before. The Royal Marriage Bill was in consequence brought into the House of Lords, and, notwithstanding a strenuous opposition, passed into a law. By this statute (12 Geo. IIL c. 11) all descendants of George II. (except the issue of princesses married into foreign femiliee) aro prohibited, while under the age of twenty-five, from contracting marriage without the consent of the king, and without the consent of parliament if above that age. The king's mother, the Princess-Dowager of Wales, died on the 8th of February 1772. Only a few days before had occurred at Copenhagen the catastrophe of the king's youngest sister, the Queen of Denmark, who was suddenly thrown into confinement, by order of her imbecile and dissolute husband, on a charge of adultery with his physician Strucusee. No proof of the criminality of the parties ever was produced, though both Struenseo and his friend Brandt were put to death without trial. The queen was sent in the first instance to the castle of Cronsharg; but after being confined there for about four months the interposition of her brother procured her release, and she was conveyed first to Stade and afterwards to Zell in Hanover, where she lived in retirement till her death, May 10th 1774.