The decade of the 1760s is one of the most important for us to examine if we are to understand the presuppositions that underpinned eighteenth-century politics, and the ways in which the pattern of politics was being transformed during the century. The quarrels between the king and the politicians, and between the politicians and the public, led many to articulate explicitly the assumptions that they entertained about political behaviour, and the aspirations that they held for the political order. Thus we can observe in detail the complex arguments that were deployed during the infighting that occurred within the political elite. The accession of George III did make a very substantial difference to politics because the political realignments for which he was more than partially responsible produced new ideologies, especially in the sphere of party, and new and more substantial disagreements amongst the leaders of the political nation. Even this kind of face-to-face politics was ideological, and, as I have argued, cannot be understood without reference to the arguments that the protagonists employed.

Yet just as significant as the quarrel within the elite, and the ramifications which that had for the history of party (a topic that, like the crocodile in the Punch and Judy, could justifiably claim to have been flogged to death on more than one occasion), was the realisation by members of that elite of the paradoxical and perilous position that they occupied towards the public.