ABSTRACT
Few active politicians would have ventured, early in 1770, on confident advice to the King, to persevere in resisting “Wilkism”, as was tendered by the famous Dr. Johnson in his forcefully-written pamphlet, The False Alarm. Lord Chatham would doubtless have made trouble whatever the character of the King’s Speech, for rumour had been busy for some time with the intention of the reconciled “brotherhood” to fall upon the Administration, hip and thigh. On January 17th Charles Yorke, brother to the Lord Hardwicke, who was proving as great a stay to Rockingham as his father had been to Newcastle, seems to have been driven to accept a peerage and the Lord Chancellorship from the King by the threat. King and Ministers felt able to assume the responsibility for a very confident reply to the City, a reply which justified the impugned Royal answer to the former Remonstrance and the King’s refusal to undertake a dissolution of Parliament.
