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 of the present century agree
in holding that an arrangement of such importance should be made by the
Houses of Parliament, in concurrence with the sovereign, and not by the
sovereign alone, is shown by the steps taken to provide for a Regency in
the event of the demise of the reigning sovereign while the heir was a
minor, in the last and in the present reign, the second bill (that of
1840) being in this respect of the greater authority, since Lord
Melbourne, the Prime-minister, did not propose it without previously
securing the approval of the Duke of Wellington, in his character of
leader of the Opposition.
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