Hello and a welcome to a history of the United States. Episode 129. The Virginia resolves.

Last time out, we looked at two huge blunders by the Grenville Ministry, the Stamp Act and

the Quartering Act. The Stamp Act introduced a new tax on various paper products in the North American colonies,

while the Quartering Act made a number of impositions on the colonists to provide for the army,

without giving Major General Gage the authority to stationed soldiers in private houses.

Both of these measures would provoke extreme resistance in America.

While all this had been going on over the winter of 1764, 1765, King George was bedridden

with a mystery ailment. During the months away from politics, he had plenty of time to

consider his own mortality, and he reached the conclusion that he needed to prepare for the

event of his death. His son, George, was only two, and he did not want his younger brother Edward to be regent,

so he instead wanted the regency to be held by his mother, who was, you'll recall,

extremely close with Lord Bute.

Grenville was appalled. No British monarch had named their own regent before. The issue divided the

cabinet and it went to the Commons, where it too was unsure of what the right decision was.

The result was the Regency Act, passed by Parliament on May 13th, which created a Regency

Council from which a regent could be chosen. No one was happy with this, especially King George.

He began to prepare to force Grenville out of office, when a violent mob broke out in London. I won't go into too much detail,

but basically silk merchants were struggling in the post-war depression and because of foreign

competition. It took three days for the army to get the situation under control. George

entirely blamed his ministers.

He spoke with his uncle, our old friend Cumberland, about taking control of the army,

and approached Pitt about forming a government. He was very unsubtle in his approach, which made

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