Georgiana absorbed the minutiae of party politics. To an outsider the House of Commons was an inchoate system of temporary factions and alliances. In reality, the 558 MPs could be divided into three broad categories. The largest, with 185 or so members, was the ‘King’s Men’ or the court interest. These were MPs who received patronage from the crown and could therefore be relied upon to support any Prime Minister who had the confidence of the King.48 The second group was made up of career politicians – some of whom, like Edmund Burke and James Hare, depended upon patrons – who regarded politics as an end in itself. The third and smallest category was the ‘Independents’, men who owed allegiance to no one and regarded themselves as above party politics. In fact they generally supported the government and only on very rare occasions voted with the opposition. In the House of Lords the court interest, known in the upper house as the ‘King’s Friends’, accounted for more than half the 150 peers, which made it impossible for the opposition Whigs to win any debate on numbers alone.
Among the career politicians there were, indeed, factions and alliances, named after the men who lead them – Shelburnite, Northite and Rockinghamite. The labels Whig and Tory, as applied to two distinct parties, only came into official use in the early nineteenth century. The idea of an organized opposition was not acceptable in the eighteenth century – any party which opposed the King was, in theory, committing treason. On the other hand, although opposition was regarded as the exception to good government rather than the rule, since 1688 the Commons had prided itself on its independence from the crown. Peers and MPs regarded it as their duty to be both servants to the crown and defenders of the constitution. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England Mr Justice Blackstone described the constitution as a framework of checks and balances: ‘In the legislature, the people are a check upon the nobility and the nobility a check upon the people; by the mutual privilege of rejecting what the other has resolved: while the King is a check upon both, which preserves the executive power from encroachment. And this very executive power is again checked, and kept within bounds by the two houses …’49
The Whigs had to be careful not to appear dangerous or disloyal. Edmund Burke spent much of his time defending the party against such charges by arguing that they were challenging the King in order to safeguard the victories of the Glorious Revolution. Even though the old Tory party was defunct, the Whigs used the name as a term of abuse against North’s ministry because of its reputation as the party of the King. Since the Whigs accused George III of increasing the influence of the crown at the expense of civil liberty, it suited them to call their opponents ‘Tories’. In fact the King was doing no such thing, and Lord North and the other men in government did not have the least shred of Tory sympathies, but the opposition Whigs liked to portray themselves as the true Whigs, martyred for their beliefs by the forces of tyranny.
Georgiana fervently believed this to be the case even if some members of the opposition were rather more cynical. When she wore the adopted Whig colours of blue and buff (taken from the colours of the American army) she did so out of conviction and expected her friends to do the same. It was precisely because she was a fervent believer that she was able to carry off her military uniforms and women’s auxiliary corps at Coxheath without being ridiculed. She had become one of the party’s best-known representatives. Fox was the first to recognize her talent for propaganda – they shared a flair for the public aspect of politics. They understood, for example, the potency of symbols in raising or lowering morale, in attracting or repelling support.
Fox encouraged Georgiana to play a greater role in increasing the party’s public presence. As a result, in January 1780 she failed to appear at court for the annual celebration of the Queen’s birthday. Society and the press remarked upon her absence. It was the first time she had shunned the court and people read it as a sign of the Whigs’ confidence that they would soon drive Lord North from office. When parliament reconvened on 8 February the government was beset by a number of crises. Not only was the war going badly; there was unrest in Ireland and a widespread fear that it might follow the example of America and declare independence. There was also popular discontent at home, fuelled by the Whigs, and hundreds of petitions poured in from around the country demanding democratic reform of the parliamentary system.
The session began promisingly enough. Prodded by the Whigs, the Duke of Devonshire at last gave his maiden speech in the Lords on 17 March. Edmund Burke congratulated Georgiana, saying with more hope than conviction, ‘it will become, by habit, more disagreeable to him to continue silent on an interesting occasion than hitherto it has been to him, to speak upon it.’50 Burke was leading the assault on North and the big push came in the shape of his Economical Reform Bill, which aimed to limit the crown’s powers by reducing the number of pensions and sincecures on the Civil List. The government defeated all but one of his proposals but at the expense of alienating backbenchers and independents by its heavy-handed methods of ensuring compliance.
On 6 April 1780 the Whigs ambushed North with a surprise resolution. John Dunning, a lawyer MP who had honed his rhetorical technique at the Inns of Court, rose to give a speech. His allegiance was well known and he began, as expected, by condemning the government’s quashing of the Economical Reform Bill. But then, with clear and precise logic he pointed out that over 100,000 people had petitioned parliament for change, and that the government’s response was merely to crush it. He paused theatrically, holding the House in rapt attention, before, his voice rising to a crescendo, he urged the following resolution: ‘The influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.’ The House was electrified; MPs jumped from their seats and waved their order papers at him. The vote was 233 to 215 in favour. Westminster was in pandemonium and the government thrown into confusion.
North’s immediate response was to tender his resignation, but George III insisted that he remain in office. The Speaker fell ill, preventing the Commons from meeting for a week, and Georgiana feared that the delay would cost them votes. ‘Lord Westmoreland [sic] as much as told me he should vote with North on Tuesday,’ she recorded.51 When the Commons met again her presentiment proved correct. Dunning was overconfident and called for parliament to remain sitting until the changes demanded in the petitions had been implemented. This was too radical for the independent MPs, who voted against the resolution. The Whigs reacted bitterly: Dunning had thrown away their advantage. Fox approached him after the debate and advised him ‘to make no more motions’.52 ‘We were sadly beat last night in the House of Commons,’ Georgiana informed Lady Spencer; ‘the ministry people are all in great spirits.’53
A few weeks later she reported, ‘We go on vilely indeed in the House of Commons.’54 Her friend Lord Camden concurred: ‘Our popular exertions are dying away, and the country returning to its old state of lukewarm indifference, the Minority in the House of Commons dwindle every day, and the Opposition is at variance with itself.’55 But there was one piece of good news. The eighteen-year-old Prince of Wales, the future George IV, had allied himself with the Whigs. His support, as the heir apparent to the throne, absolved them of the charge of disloyalty to the crown, which made it easier for them to attack the King.
In supporting the Whigs against his father the Prince was following an established tradition among the Hanoverians. From George I onwards, father and son had hated each other. Each successive Prince of Wales had thrown in his lot with the opposition, and the future George IV was no different from his predecessors. He feared and resented his parents while they despised him as weak, duplicitous and lazy. Georgiana recorded her first impressions of him in a scrapbook, which she entitled ‘Annecdotes Concerning HRH the Prince of Wales’. Knowing that the memoir would only be seen by future generations she was absolutely candid in her opinion of him: