And he was so entirely swayed by this ridiculous and wholly groundless
fear, that, when the bill to give effect to the royal recommendation was
introduced into the House of Lords, he instigated one of his friends to
raise the question who were included in the general term "the royal
family," which Lord Halifax, as Secretary of State, answered by saying
that he regarded it as meaning "those only who were in order of
succession to the throne." Such a definition would have excluded the
Queen as effectually as the Princess Dowager; and when Mr. Grenville
found the peers reluctant to accept this view (which, indeed, his own
Lord Chancellor pronounced untenable), he then sent another of his
colleagues to represent to the King that his mother was so unpopular
that, even if the Lords should pass the bill in such a form as rendered
her eligible for nomination, the Commons would introduce a clause to
exclude her by name. 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