and he opposed the repeal of the Test Act. He prevented the grant of
Catholic emancipation at the one moment when it might have genuinely
healed the wounds of Ireland. He destroyed by his perverse creations the
value of the House of Lords as a legislative assembly. He was clearly
determined to make his will the criterion of policy; and his design
might have succeeded had his ability and temper been proportionate to
its greatness. It was not likely that the mass of men would have seen
with regret the destruction of the aristocratic monopoly in politics.
The elder Pitt might well have based a ministry of the court upon a
broad bottom of popularity. The House of Commons, as the event proved,
could be as subservient to the king as to his minister.

Yet the design failed; and it failed because, with characteristic
stupidity, the king did not know the proper instruments for his
purpose. Whatever he touched he mismanaged. He aroused the suspicion of
the people by enforcing the resignation of the elder Pitt. In the Wilkes
affair he threw the clearest light of the century upon the true nature
of the House of Commons. His own system of proscription restored to the
Whig party not a little of the idealism it had lost; and Burke came to
supply them with a philosophy. Chatham remained the idol of the people
despite his hatred. He raised Wilkes to be the champion of
representative government and of personal liberty. He lost America and
it was not his fault that Ireland was retained. The early popularity he
received he never recovered until increasing years and madness had made
him too pathetic for dislike. The real result of his attempt was to
compel attention once again to the foundations of politics; and George's
effort, in the light of his immense failures, could not, in the nature
of things, survive that analysis.

Not, of course, that George ever lacked defenders. As early as 1761, the