THE QUEEN’S TRIAL.
The Queen’s reception by the House of Lords--Royal progress to
the House--The Queen’s enthusiastic reception by the populace
--Their treatment of the King’s party--Marquis of Anglesea--
The Duke of Wellington’s reply to them--The Attorney-General’s
opening speech--Examination of Theodore Majocchi--The Queen
overcome at the ingratitude of this knowing rogue--Disgusting
nature of the evidence--Other witnesses examined--Mr.
Brougham’s fearless defence of the Queen--Mr. Denman’s advocacy
not less bold--His denunciation of the Duke of Clarence--
Question of throwing up the bill entertained by Ministers--
Stormy debates--Lords Grey and Grosvenor in favour of the Queen
--Duke of Montrose against her--Ministerial majority--The
Queen protests against the proceedings--The Ministers in a
minority--The bill surrendered by Lord Liverpool--Reception
of the news by the Queen--Her unspeakable grief.
The Queen’s trial, as the proceedings in the House of Lords were
called, commenced on the 17th of August. ‘Now we are in for it, Mr.
Denman,’ said her Majesty’s Attorney-General to her Solicitor-General.
With what spirit Brougham went in for it has been left on record by
Lord Denman himself, in the ‘Memoir’ edited by Sir Joseph Arnould.
‘Let me here state, once for all, that from this moment I am sure that
Brougham thought of nothing but serving and saving his client. I, who
saw him more nearly than any man, can bear witness that from the period
in question his whole powers were devoted to her safety and welfare. He
felt that the battle must be fought, and resolved to fight it manfully
and “to the utterance.”’
The Queen had signified her intention of attending daily in the House
during the proceedings, and suitable accommodation and attendance
were provided for her. In the House, at all events, she was treated
as Queen-consort, and she more than once adverted to the fact when
about to take her seat on the throne-like chair and cushion placed
at her disposal, near her counsel. Her usual course was to come up
from Brandenburgh House early in the morning to the residence of Lady
Francis in St. James’s Square. From the latter place she proceeded,
in as much ‘state’ as could be got up with her diminished means,
to the House of Lords. On these occasions she was attended by Lady
Anne Hamilton, her chamberlains, Sir W. Gell and Mr. Keppel Craven,
and Alderman Wood, who invariably endeavoured to have the honour of
escorting the Queen into the House, but was as invariably forbidden to
pass in that way by the local authorities. The alderman, being a member
of parliament, was compelled to pass through the entrance allotted to
the ‘Commons;’ and the Queen, who was received with military honours,
was usually led into the House, or to the apartment assigned to her
use, by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and Mr. Brougham, each holding her by a
hand.
The royal progress from St. James’s Square to the House of Peers and
the return were daily witnessed by a dense multitude, and hailed with
acclamations. The Queen thought the popular sympathy for her far
stronger than it really was. It did not indeed want for earnestness,
intensity, or honesty, but it did not go deep enough to urge the
multitude to make any serious demonstration in her favour. They
cheered her as she passed, cheered the soldiers who saluted her, and
hissed those who failed to show her that mark of respect. They hissed
or cheered the peers on their arrival according as they knew that
they were opponents or supporters of the Queen. They were especially
delighted when they succeeded in compelling a lordly adversary to
shout, or seem to shout, for the Queen. They strove mightily to bring
the Marquis of Anglesea to this; but on his assertion that rather than
do a thing against his inclination they might run him through the body,
they laughed, cheered, and let him pass on. The Duke of Wellington
served those who assailed him quite as characteristically: he was
violently hissed on his way to the House on the first day of the trial;
he checked his horse for a moment, looked round with a half-smile, as
if the people had been guilty of some absurd mistake, and then quietly
walked his horse onward. On another occasion, as he was returning from
the House, the mob insisted upon his crying ‘The Queen! the Queen!’
‘Yes, yes!’ was his reply; but his persecutors were not content
therewith, and continued to assail him as he rode slowly forward. At
length, wearied with their importunity, he is said to have turned to
his assailants and exclaimed, ‘Very well; the Queen then, and may all
your wives be like her!’
Caroline was early in her attendance on the 17th of August. She entered
the House at ten o’clock, while the names of the peers were being
called over. She wore a black satin dress, with a white veil over a
plain laced cap. The whole body of peers rose to receive her, and
she acknowledged the courtesy with that dignity which she could well
assume, and which she could so readily throw off.
It was not till the 19th of August that the case was actually opened by
the Attorney-General. The preliminary proceedings were not, however,
of much interest, save on the part of the Duke of Leinster, who
attempted by motion to get rid of the bill at once, in which he failed,
all parties being nearly agreed that there was now no possibility of
retrocession. The second incident of interest was in the speech of Mr.
Brougham against the bill, and the method by which it sought to crush
his illustrious client. While praising her self-denying generosity,
which induced her to refrain from all recrimination, he ably adverted
to the anomaly of the accused person in a case of divorce being
prevented from showing the guilt of her accuser.
On the 19th the Attorney-General opened his case. He professed his
conviction that he should state nothing which he could not substantiate
on proof, and, reviewing the general course of the Queen’s life abroad,
he deduced from it that she had been guilty of conduct which stamped
her with shame as Princess and as woman. Caroline entered the House
towards the conclusion of his speech, shortly after which he introduced
the first of the batch of Italian witnesses lodged near the House, in
Cotton Garden, and whose presence there was sufficient to render uneasy
the spirit of the philosopher who gave his name to the spot, and the
wreck of whose library is among the richest treasures of the British
Museum.
The entrance of the first witness gave rise to an incident dramatic in
its effect. He was the celebrated Theodore Majocchi, and he no sooner
appeared at the bar than the Queen, overcome, as it would seem, at
seeing one who owed her much gratitude arrayed against her, exclaimed
‘_Oh, traditore!_ (oh, traitor!)’ and, hurrying from the scene, took
refuge in her apartment, from which she did not again issue except
to return home. The chief points supposed to have been established
by Majocchi were that on the deck of the polacca Bergami slept at
night beneath the tent wherein the Princess also slept, and that the
same individual attended her when she was in the bath. The tent was
partially open in the hot climate beneath which the wayfarers were
travelling, and in the bath the Princess wore a bathing dress, so that,
if the indiscretion was undoubtedly great, indecorum was not (it was
suggested) very seriously injured. Of the remainder of Majocchi’s
evidence it has been well remarked, by one who heard it, that ‘all his
subsequent assertions did not, in consequence of what he implied by
this statement, weigh the worth of two straws with me, for it was of
the nature of inference, and deduced by the imagination. Besides, I do
think he was a knowing rogue, who forgot to remember many things which
perhaps might have changed the hue of his insinuations. I do not say
that what he did say was not sufficient to induce a strong suspicion of
guilt itself in the members of an English society; but this is the very
thing complained of. The Queen was in _foreign_ society, in peculiar
circumstances, and yet our state Solomons judge of her conduct as if
she had been among the English.’[16] The remark is worth something,
for even at so short a distance from town as Ramsgate Sands the law
of modesty does not appear to be the same as it is in other parts of
England; and as for the incident of the bath, our grandfathers and
grandmothers, in the heyday of their youth, used to walk in couples
in the ‘Baths of Bath,’ and no one presumed to take offence at the
proceeding. The writer last quoted further remarks, as a matter worthy
of observation, that Majocchi did not appear to be ‘at all shocked or
shamefaced at what he said.’ The inference deduced is that the witness
had been ‘taught to dwell so particularly on uncomely things by one who
did know how much they would revolt the English.’
It would indeed be revolting to go through all the evidence: it must
suffice to tread our way through it as lightly and as quickly as
possible. All the government witnesses deposed to an ostentation of
criminality in parties who, if guilty, must have been most deeply
interested in concealing all evidences of guilt, and one of whom at
least knew that she was constantly watched and daily reported of.
This contradiction very soon struck Lord Eldon himself, who intimated
that some measures should be taken to punish perjury, if it could be
proved to have been committed. It is certain that the King’s case was
materially damaged at a very early stage of the proceedings, not only
by discrepancy in the evidence, but by the suspicious alacrity of the
witnesses in tendering it.
A close watcher of Majocchi, when giving his evidence, says: ‘I cannot
understand why so much importance is attached to the evidence of
Majocchi. He did not state any one thing that indicated a remembrance
of his having put a sense of indecorum on the conduct of the Queen
at the time to which he referred; and in this, I think, the want of
tact in those who arranged the case is glaringly obvious. As men they
could not but have often seen that it is the nature of recollected
transactions to affect the expression of the physiognomy, and
particularly of those kinds of transactions which the _traditore_ knew
he was called to prove; yet in no one instance did Majocchi show that
there was an image in his mind, even while uttering what were thought
the most sensual demonstrations. In all the most particular instances
that pointed to guilt he was as abstract as Euclid; a logarithmic
transcendent could not have been more bodiless than the memory of his
recollections. I do not say that he was taught by others, but I affirm
that he spoke by rote.’[17]
Many of the servants examined swore positively to much unseemliness
of demeanour between Bergami and the Princess, and some went very
much further than this. Of these, several confessed to being hostile
to the courier; some were jealous of him; but they all, despite some
discrepancy of detail, kept to the leading points of their evidence,
which was destructive to the reputation of the Princess.
Captain Briggs and Captain Pechell, with whom she had sailed, deposed
to some folly, but no positive guilt. Something was attempted to be
made out of the arrangement of the respective berths on board the ship
commanded by the first officer, but with no remarkable success. The
captain of the polacca gave evidence that was much more damaging, with
reference to the unseemliness of sleeping on deck, beneath a tent--
for which the heat of the atmosphere and the horses and mules that
were below deck hardly offered sufficient authority. Again, there was
testimony of such disgraceful conduct at inns that, if it be accepted,
no other conclusion can be arrived at than that those guilty of it must
not only have been lost to all sense of shame, but eager that their
iniquity should be a spectacle to all beholders. ‘As the whole case now
is,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘by making it more gross than in all
human probability it could be, the evidence, where it might otherwise
be trusted, is rendered unworthy of credit.’
But there were incidents in the drama that were not all for the
audience. ‘Nature,’ says the writer of the ‘Supplementary Letters’
annexed to the ‘Diary Illustrative of the Court of George IV.,’ ‘often
mixes up the sublime and the ridiculous helplessly, as it would seem;
and I met to-day with a curious instance of her indifference. I forget
how it happened, but I was driven accidentally against a curtain, and
saw, in consequence, behind it Lord Castlereagh, sitting on a stair by
himself, holding his hand to his ear, to _keep_ the sound and words of
the evidence which the witness under examination at the bar was giving.
Notwithstanding the moody wrath of my ruminations, I could not help
laughing at the discovery, and his lordship looked equally amused, and
was quite as much discomposed. He smiled, and I withdrew. I met him
afterwards in the lobby of the House of Commons, when he again smiled.’
Masons, painters, whitewashers, and waiters vied, or seemed to vie,
with each other in the dirty character of their depositions. Rastelli,
a groom, but discarded as a thief, did not go further, but both sides
evidently considered him as an unmitigated scoundrel, and he was
somehow permitted to disappear, as if either side was anxious to be rid
of him. Scarcely more respectable was the woman Dumont, who dwelt on
the abominations to which she swore as if she loved thinking of them.
She was worse than the boatmen, bakers, and others with aliases to
their names, who, however, deposed to circumstances sufficiently gross
in character, and drew dreadfully strong inferences from generally
slender but occasionally very suspicious premises.
The loathsome mass was got through by the 7th of September, when the
House adjourned till the 3rd of October. The members needed breathing
time, and all parties, the public included, stood in urgent need of
that peculiar civet whose virtue, according to the poet, lies in its
power to sweeten the imagination.
The course of the trial exhibited more than one trait illustrative of
the English Bar, and also of individuals. Thus, in the interim between
the closing of the King’s case and the opening of the Queen’s defence
by Mr. Brougham, the last-named gentleman went down to Yorkshire to
attend the assizes there. The chief advocate of one Sovereign against
another was there engaged in a cause on behalf of an old woman upon
whose _pig-cot_ a trespass had been committed. The tenement in question
was on the border of a common of one hundred acres, upon five yards
of which it was alleged to have unduly encroached, and was therefore
pulled down by the landlord. The poor woman sought for damages, she
having held occupation by a yearly rental of sixpence, and sixpence
on entering. The learned counsel pleaded his poor client’s cause
successfully, and, having procured for her the value of her levelled
pig-cot, some forty shillings, he returned to town to endeavour to
plead as successfully the cause of the Queen. The re-opening of the
case took place on the 3rd of October. Before Mr. Brougham rose to
speak, Lord Liverpool made severe introductory remarks, for the purpose
of disavowing all improper dealing with the witnesses on the part of
Government. He also expressed his readiness to exhibit an account of
all moneys paid to the witnesses in support of the bill.
Mr. Brougham then entered on the Queen’s defence in a speech of great
boldness and power. The sentiments put forth in that oration were
probably not endorsed by _Lord_ Brougham. He declared, too, that
nothing should prevent him from fulfilling his duty, and that he would
recriminate upon the King if he found it necessary to do so. The threat
gave some uneasiness to ministers, but they trusted, nevertheless,
to the learned counsel’s discretion. He would have been justified in
the public mind if he had realised his promise. The popular opinion,
however, hardly supported him in what followed, when he declared that
an English advocate could look to nothing but the rights of his client,
and that, even if the country itself should suffer, his feelings as a
patriot must give way to his professional obligations. This was only
one of many instances of the abuse of the very extensively abused and
widely misunderstood maxim of _Fiat justitia ruat cœlum_.
Denman’s famous speech, which many peers thought superior to
Brougham’s, was partly prepared, as to some of its points, at one of
the ‘Sundays’ he used to spend at Holland House. There, Denman, after
suggestions from Dr. Parr, resolved to draw a parallel between Caroline
and Octavia, George and Nero. And this he did with such effect as
regards George IV. that, veiled as the most personal allusion was, the
King never forgot him who made it.
Mr. Denman, the Queen’s solicitor-general, was not less legally
audacious, if one may so speak, than his great leader. In a voice of
thunder, and in presence of the assembled peerage of the realm, he
denounced one of the King’s brothers as a calumniator. Mr. Rush, who
was present on the occasion, says, ‘the words were, “Come forth, THOU
SLANDERER!”--a denunciation,’ he goes on to say, ‘the more severe from
the sarcasm with which it was done, and the turn of his eye towards
its object.’ That object was the Duke of Clarence; and in reference to
the exclamation, and the fierce spirit of the hour generally, Mr. Rush
says: ‘Even after the whole trial had ended, Sir Francis Burdett, just
out of prison for one libel, proclaimed aloud to his constituents, and
had it printed in all the papers, that the ministers ALL DESERVED TO BE
HANGED. This tempest of abuse, incessantly directed against the King
and all who stood by him, was borne during several months, without the
slightest attempt to check or punish it; and it is too prominent a fact
to be left unnoticed that the same advocate who so fearlessly uttered
the above denunciation was made attorney-general when the prince
of the blood who was the OBJECT OF IT sat upon the throne, and was
subsequently raised to the still higher dignity of lord chief justice.’
By the end of the third day of the defence the testimony had assumed so
favourable an aspect for the Queen that ministers began to deliberate
upon the question of throwing up the bill altogether. During the
following fortnight, however, the subsequent testimony was not so
decidedly contradictory of what the witnesses on the other side had
sworn to, and the government then decided that the bill should take
its course. The first witness was a Mr. Lemann, clerk to the Queen’s
solicitor. His deposition was to the effect that he had been sent
to Baden to solicit the attendance of Baron Dante, the Grand Duke’s
chamberlain. The baron, who was proprietor of an estate in Hanover,
and who consulted his memoranda before answering the solicitation,
finally, and under sanction, if not order, of his ducal master, refused
to attend as a witness. Colonel St. Leger simply proved that he did not
resign his appointment in the Queen’s household from any knowledge of
her having conducted herself improperly, but on account of ill health.
The Earl of Guildford spoke to the general propriety of the Queen’s
conduct abroad while under his observation; and Lord Glenbervie showed
that the royal reputation had not been dimmed, in his eyes at least,
during his residence in Italy, or otherwise he would not have permitted
Lady Glenbervie to act, even for a brief time, as lady-in-waiting to
the Princess. Lady Charlotte Lindsay deposed to having heard reports
unfavourably affecting that reputation, but she had never seen anything
to confirm them. Persons of inferior rank, in attendance on the
Princess, deposed to the same effect. The testimony of Dr. Holland and
Mr. Mills was of a highly favourable character, exact and decisive. The
evidence of other witnesses was equally favourable to the character
and conduct of the courier chamberlain; and, partly in answer to the
evidence which spoke of her Royal Highness receiving strangers in her
sleeping apartments, the Earl of Llandaff, who had resided in Italy
with his lady and family, showed that such a circumstance was a part
of the custom of Italy. Mr. Keppel Craven, who had originally engaged
Bergami for the service of the Princess, declared that the individual
in question brought excellent testimonials with him, and that he was of
respectable family and behaved with propriety. Mr. Craven added that
he had heard much about spies, and that he had admonished the Princess
touching the being seen with Bergami in attendance as a servant. This
evidence was corroborated by that of Sir W. Gell. A writer, commenting
upon the testimony of these witnesses and that given on the other
side, remarks: that the witnesses on the King’s side ‘told improbable
stories, and none of them had the look of speaking from recollection
... there is a visible difference between the expression of the
countenance in telling a recollection and an imagination, especially
such stories as they told.’[18]
It was further proved that, if Bergami kissed the Princess’s hand, he
did no more than what was commonly done by respectable Italian servants
by way of homage to their mistress.
This ‘plain sailing’ was, however, somewhat marred by the contradictory
evidence of Lieutenant Flynn; and even that of Lieutenant Hownam was
sufficient to show that the Princess, if not the most gross, was
certainly the most indiscreet, of ladies. Other witnesses spoke to
dresses and dances, which had been described as disgraceful in their
character, being really harmless; and others again showed that certain
unedifying sights could not have been seen by the witnesses who had
sworn to having been spectators of them from the place in which they
stood. Again, the evidence did not lack which proved the purchasing
of testimony on the other side, and some excitement was raised when,
on the presence of Rastelli being required, it was found that he had
been permitted to leave the country. In the opinion of some, he had
been conveyed away by the prosecuting party. A few thought he had
disappeared with the connivance of both sides.
The entire evidence was closed on the 30th of October. Allusion has
been already made to Mr. Denman’s speech, which was ably made, now, in
summing up the evidence for the defence. It closed rather unaptly in
terms, the remembrance of which embittered many years of the speaker’s
life--for it seemed to undo all that had been previously said and
done: ‘This, my Lords, is the highest tribunal on earth; it can only be
exceeded by that where all the world shall be judged, and the secrets
of all hearts laid open. I invoke you, my Lords, therefore, to imitate
the wisdom, justice, and beneficence of that high and sacred Authority
who said to the woman brought before him: “If no accuser come forward,
neither will I condemn thee. Go in peace, and sin no more.”’
The Lords adjourned to the 2nd of November, from which day to the 6th
the peers were engaged in debates upon the evidence, almost every
member assigning reasons for the vote he intended to give. Mr. Rush
describes the character of the debates as the case approached its
close. It was ‘stormy’ in the extreme. ‘Earl Grey declared that, if
their lordships passed the bill, it would prove the most disastrous
step the House had ever taken. Earl Grosvenor said that, feeling as he
did the evils which the erasure of the Queen’s name from the Liturgy
(a measure taken before her trial came on) was likely to entail upon
the nation, as well as its repugnance to law and justice, he would, had
he been Archbishop of Canterbury, have thrown the Prayer-book in the
King’s face sooner than have consented to it. On the other hand, the
Duke of Montrose said, even after the ministers had abandoned the bill,
that, so convinced was he of her guilt, whatever others might think to
do, he, for one, would never acknowledge her as his Queen.’
The bill, however, was not yet abandoned. The House divided on the
6th of the month, on the second reading, which was carried by 123 to
95, giving ministers a majority of 28. The Queen immediately signed a
protest against the nature of the proceeding. The document terminated
with these words: ‘She now most deliberately, and before God, asserts
that she is wholly innocent of the crime laid to her charge, and she
awaits with unabated confidence the final result of this unparalleled
investigation’--and as she signed the protest she exclaimed, with a
dash of her pen, ‘there, “Caroline _regina_,” in spite of them.’
By a clever manœuvre of her friends the ministers were next cast into a
minority. The House had gone into committee on the divorce clause. The
clause was distasteful to some of the bishops. Dr. Howley, indeed, is
said to have held that the King could do no wrong, even if he broke the
seventh commandment. Others, however, thought that a man so notoriously
guilty in that respect was not justified in seeking to destroy his
wife, even if she were as guilty as _he_ was. The clause was objected
to by many peers, and _popularly_ it was distasteful for something of
the same reasons. The ministers, thinking to gain a point by abandoning
a clause, moved the omission of this very clause of divorce. But the
Queen’s friends immediately saw that, by the retaining of the clause,
the bishops and others who preferred the bill without it would be less
likely to vote for the passing of the bill itself. They accordingly
voted that the divorce clause should be retained, and the ministers,
in a minority on this point, proposed the third reading of the bill
with the clause in question in the body of it. One hundred and eight
voted for it, and ninety-nine against it. The ministry were thus only
in a majority of nine--exactly the number of the peers who were
members of the cabinet--and after a short delay Lord Liverpool made
a merit of surrendering the measure as an offering to popular feeling,
although they had carried the bill--with too small a majority, as he
confessed, to enable ministers to act upon it.
The Queen was in her own apartment in the House of Lords when the
intelligence was brought her by her excited counsel that the bill of
Pains and Penalties had been abandoned. She received the intimation
in perfect silence, hardly seeming to comprehend the fact, or perhaps
scarcely knowing how it should be appreciated. The ministers had
carried their bill, but even their withdrawing of it would not prove
her guiltless. ‘I shall never forget,’ says one present, ‘what was
my emotion when it was announced to me that the bill of Pains and
Penalties was to be abandoned. I was walking towards the west end
of the long corridor of the House of Lords, wrapt in reverie, when
one of the door-keepers touched me on the shoulder and told me the
news. I turned instantly to go back into the House, when I met the
Queen coming out alone from her waiting-room, preceded by an usher.
She had been there unknown to me. I stopped involuntarily. I could
not, indeed, proceed, for she had a _dazed_ look, more tragical than
consternation: she passed me. The usher pushed open the folding
doors of the great staircase; she began to descend, and I followed
instinctively two or three steps behind her. She was evidently all
shuddering, and she took hold of the bannisters, pausing for a moment.
Oh, that sudden clutch with which she caught the railing! Never say
again to me that any actor can feel like a principal. It was a visible
manifestation of unspeakable grief--an echoing of the voice of the
soul. Four or five persons came in from below before she reached the
bottom of the stairs. I think Alderman Wood was one of them, but I
was in indescribable confusion.... I rushed past, and out into the
hastily-assembling crowd.... I knew not where I was; but in a moment a
shouting in the balcony above, on which a number of gentlemen from the
interior of the House were gathering, roused me. The multitude then
began to cheer, but at first there was a kind of stupor. The sympathy,
however, soon became general, and, winged by the voice, soon spread up
the street. Every one instantly, between Charing Cross and Whitehall,
turned and came rushing down, filling Old and New Palace Yards as if a
deluge was unsluiced.’[19]
It was asked by many why Bergami himself had not been summoned to
deny upon oath any charge of guilt with the Queen, but Mr. Denman
had given sufficient reason in his speech. ‘If,’ he said, ‘any _man_
guilty of the charge was examined he would deny it. I firmly believe
the feeling among mankind in such a case would triumph over morality.
It would be found better to violate the oath than betray the victim.’
This is, doubtless, true; but like the concluding sentence of Denman’s
speech, already quoted, it seemed to some persons to damage as much
as defend. The Queen had said, in her fear of her attorney-general,
‘If my head is placed on Temple Bar, it will be through Mr. Brougham.’
She stood in greater peril from the studied words of Denman than from
the unpremeditated and impetuous utterances of Brougham. The Queen’s
own utterances did not want for boldness. It is reported of her having
said at the time of the trial that she was, perhaps, not altogether
blameless, since she had certainly lived with Mrs. Fitzherbert’s
husband!