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charge, they took no trouble to win the good graces of the Princess or to live at peace with their subordinates. "The Bishop, thinking himself already minister to the future King, expected dependence from, never once thought of depending upon, the inferior governors. In the education of the two Princes, he was sincerely honest and zealous ; and soon grew to thwart the Princess whenever, as an indulgent, or perhaps a little as an ambitious mother (and this happened but too frequently), she was willing to relax the application of her sons. Lord Harcourt was minute and strict in trifles; and thinking that he discharged his trust conscientiously if on no account he neglected to make the Prince turn out his toes, he gave himself little trouble to respect the Princess, or to condescend to the Sub-governor." 1 To this testimony must be added that of Bubb Dodington, who declared that Lord Harcourt not only behaved ill to the Princess Dowager and spoke to the children of their dead father in a manner most disrespectful, but also did all in his power to alienate them from their mother. "George," he says, "had mentioned it once since Lord Harcourt's departure, that he was afraid he had not behaved as well to her sometimes as he ought, and wondered how he could be so 1 Walpole: Memoirs of George II.

misled." 1 The Princess was therefore overjoyed to be rid of Lord Harcourt, not only for these reasons, but for another that will presently be discussed.

Stone and Scott retained their posts, but it was not found easy to replace the men who had resigned. Ministers desired to appoint as Preceptor Dr. Johnson, the new Bishop of Gloucester, but the Whigs were so bitterly opposed to the nomination, and had the support of the Archbishop's objections, that eventually Dr. Thomas' was given the office. "It was still more difficult to accommodate themselves with a Governor,” Walpole has recorded. "The post was at once too exalted, and they had declared it too unsubstantial, to leave it easy to find a man who could fill the honour, and digest the dishonour of it." Overtures were made in several quarters but without success, until at last, at the request of the King, Lord Waldegrave consented to accept

1 Bubb Dodington: Diary.

• James Johnson (1705-1774), Bishop of Gloucester, 1752; Bishop of Worcester, 1759.

3 John Thomas (1696-1781), successively Bishop of Peterborough (1747), Salisbury (1757) and Winchester (1761). 4 Walpole: Memoirs of King George II.

5 James, second Earl Waldegrave (1715-1763), married Maria Walpole, a natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole by Mrs Clement, a milliner. After the death of her first

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the responsibility. This he did only after repeated assurances of the submission and tractability of Stone," and then with great reluctance, for he was a man of pleasure rather than of affairs, and reluctant to be embroiled in intrigue. "If I dared," he said to a friend, “I would make this excuse to the King, 'Sir, I am too young to govern, and too old to be governed.' Even this appointment was censured by the Whigs, for, though Waldegrave was a man of great common sense and undoubted honour, it was objected that "his grandmother was a daughter of King James; his family were all Papists, and his father had been but the first convert" !

The refusal of Lord Harcourt to discuss his complaints with any one but the King was doubtless due to the fact that he traced the objectionable doctrines taught to his pupil to Lord Bute.1 In his earlier years Bute had taken no part nor, indeed, shown any interest in politics. In 1723, at the age of twenty, he had succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father; had married Mary, only daughter of Lady Mary Wortley

husband the Countess secretly married on September 6, 1766, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and the union was publicly announced when the Royal Marriage Act was introduced into Parliament.

1 John Stuart, third Earl of Bute (1715-1792).