The Years of Endurance by Arthur Bryant Page A

were genuinely fond of him and looked on a decent respect for the throne as a sign of good citizenship. Old Nobbs, as they called him, had been reigning for nearly thirty years, and, though he had had his full and often deserved share of unpopularity and troubles, his natural friendliness and good humour and the personal integrity of his life had finally turned him into a national institution. Since the end of the American War and the revival of prosperity under the brilliant young Minister whom he had so bol dly placed in office, George III 's popularity had risen by leaps and bounds. Not even the extravagance and indiscretions of his eldest son were able to detract from it: indeed by contrast they enhanced it. When in the autumn of 1788 the King's natural " rapid and rambling volubility " degenerated under the strain of insomnia into insanity, there was widespread grief and alarm.
    He recovered suddenly at a time when hope had been almost abandoned. While the States General was meeting at Versailles, England was giving itself up to a round of thanksgiving services,, illuminations and roasted oxen. That summer the royal holiday pilgrimage to Weymouth became a triumph, his Majesty driving through flower-strewn villages and grassy forest rides lined with cheering multitudes: the country folk turning out with artless loyalty in their broadcloth, loose white frocks and neckcloths, while chariots, chaises, landaus, carts, waggons, gigs and phaetons, drawn up in democratic disarray under the trees, shimmered with fluttering handkerchiefs. At Lyndhurst the King on an evening walk was accompanied by the entire village repeatedly singing the National Anthem.
    This loyalty of the rustic English to the Crown afforded a curious contrast to the uneasy splendours of the French monarchy. At the time of the storming of the Bastille, Britain's sovereign was peacefully taking the sea waters under the delighted eyes of a proprietary multitude, a band concealed in a bathing machine striking up " God save great George our King " as the " Royal one entered the water." 1 Wherever he went the same spontaneous acclamations attended him: " the greatest conqueror," wrote Fanny Burney, " could never pass through his dominions with fuller acclamations of joy from his devoted subjects than George III experienced, simply from having won their love by the even tenor of an unspotted life." It was a loyalty founded on nature by a people who gave him their hearts, not because he was their sovereign but because, being what they wanted their sovereign to be, he deserved them.
    For he was as natural as they. In his familiar Windsor uniform— the broadskirted blue frockcoat with its scarlet collar and cuffs—and round hat he looked what he was, an English country gentleman. He liked farming, the routine of his duties, but most of all the human beings about him. He talked incessantly, to every one, pouring out good-humoured comments and questions, such as how the apple got into the dumpling, and answering them mostly himself with a volley of hoarse "Tut! Tuts!" and "What! Whats! " which somehow removed all sense of ceremony and superiority.
    Like his " cousin " of France, King George was a family man, but, unlike Louis, happy in being so since this was what the English, with their strong sense of the realities of life, wanted their sovereign to be. The Queen might be an over-frugal hausfrau, but Royal George was a faithful husband and a devoted father, and in his feckless eldest son an injured one, and his subjects loved him for it. They knew that he had a good heart. Nothing so won their affection as his manifest delight in children. When middle-class Dorothy Wordsworth accompanied her uncle and his family to one of the familiar summer evening parades on the terrace at Windsor, the old King stopped in front of little Christopher and Mary Wordsworth and allowed them to play with his stick. And when a day or two later Mary was wearing a new hat, the old man was