CHAPTER XIV
BEFORE THE STORM
1772–1774
The unanimity which had on the whole characterized the proceedings of the Opposition on the question of religious toleration, was unfortunately not the harbinger of any permanent improvement in their political relations. This was soon seen. In October 1771, the Duke of Cumberland married Lady Anne Luttrell, and in the beginning of 1772 the Duke of Gloucester acknowledged his marriage to the Dowager Countess of Waldegrave. The Royal Marriage Bill was thereupon introduced, the principal provision of which was that no member of the royal family less than twenty-five years of age should marry without the royal consent. To this proposal Shelburne in common with the great mass of the nation was strongly opposed.
"The King," he told Chatham, "has not a servant in the line of business in either House, except the Chief Justice of the King's Bench can be called so, who will own the Bill, or who has refrained from every public insinuation against it, as much as can come from those who vote for it from considerations declared to be of another nature."[1]
The popular feeling expressed itself in the lines:
Quoth Dick to Tom, This Act appears
Absurd, as I'm alive:
To take the Crown at eighteen years,
- ↑ Shelburne to Chatham, March 18th, 1772.
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