All attempts at negotiation having failed, sealed green bags were laid

upon the table of the House of Lords and of the House of Commons,

with a message from the king to the effect that in consequence of the

arrival of the queen he had communicated certain papers respecting

her conduct, which he recommended to their immediate and serious

attention. The bags contained documents and evidence connected with

a commission sent in 1818 to Milan and other places to investigate

charges--or rather to collect evidence to sustain charges which had

been made against the Princess of Wales. The principal of these charges

was that she had been guilty of adultery with a person named Bergami,

whom she had employed as a courier, and afterwards raised to the

position of her chamberlain and companion. The commission was under the

direction of Sir John Leach, afterwards Vice-Chancellor.

The Crown had resolved to proceed against the queen by a Bill of

Pains and Penalties, the introduction of which was preceded by the

appointment of a secret committee, to perform functions somewhat

analogous to those of a grand jury in finding bills against accused

parties. Mr. Brougham earnestly protested against the appointment of a

secret committee, which was opposed by Lords Lansdowne and Holland. The

course was explained and defended by the Lord Chancellor, who said that

the object of Ministers in proposing a secret committee was to prevent

injustice towards the accused; that committee would not be permitted

to pronounce a decision; it would merely find, like a grand jury, that

matter of accusation did or did not exist; such matter, even if found

to have existence, could not be the subject of judicial proceeding,

strictly so called. The offence of a queen consort, or a Princess

Consort of Wales, committing adultery with a person owing allegiance

to the British Crown would be that of a principal in high treason,

because by statute it was high treason in him; and as accessories in

high treason are principals, she would thus be guilty of high treason

as a principal; but as the act of a person owing no allegiance to the

British Crown could not be high treason in him, so neither could a

princess be guilty of that crime merely by being an accessory to such a

person's act. Yet although, for this reason, there could be no judicial

proceeding in such a case, there might be a legislative one; and the

existence or non-existence of grounds for such legislative proceeding

was a matter into which it would be fit that a secret committee should

inquire. In no case could injustice be done, because that committee's

decision would not be final. There might be differences of opinion

about the best mode of proceeding, but, for God's sake, said the Lord

Chancellor, let it be understood that they all had the same object

in view, and that their difference was only about the best mode of

procedure.

Mr. Canning, who had been on terms of intimacy with her Majesty,

declined to take any part in the proceedings, declaring that nothing

would induce him to do anything calculated to reflect upon the honour

and virtue of the queen. The queen intimated to the Lord Chancellor

that she meant to come in person to the House of Lords when her case

should next be discussed there. He answered that he would not permit

her to enter without the authority of the House, for which she must

previously apply. She then desired that he would deliver a message to

the House in her name, which he declined, stating that "the House did

not receive messages from anybody but the king, unless they were sent

as answers to Addresses from the House." The petition was presented by

Lord Dacre, on which occasion the Lord Chancellor declared that he had

no objection to its being submitted to the consideration of the House,

adding that "he would sooner suffer death than admit any abatement of

the principle that a person accused is not therefore to be considered

guilty." Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman were then called in to support

the petition, which prayed that their lordships would not prosecute a

secret inquiry against her. The powerful pleading of these two orators

had an immense effect upon the public mind. On the following day Lord

Grey moved that the order for the appointment of a secret committee

should be discharged. His motion was negatived by a majority of one

hundred and two to forty-seven. This was the first division on the

proceedings against the queen, and so large a majority naturally gave

great confidence to the Government. The secret committee accordingly

set to work, opened the green bag, and examined the charges. On the 4th

of July they brought in their report, which stated "that allegations

supported by the concurrent testimony of a great number of persons in

various situations of life, and residing in different parts of Europe,

appeared to be calculated so deeply to affect the character of the

queen, the dignity of the Crown, and the moral feeling and honour of

the country, that it was indispensable that they should become the

subject of a solemn inquiry, which would best be effected in the course

of a legislative proceeding." On the 5th Lord Liverpool introduced the

Bill of Pains and Penalties against her Majesty, which, having recited

in the preamble that she carried on an adulterous intercourse with

Bergami, her menial servant, enacted "that she should be degraded from

her station and title of queen, and that her marriage with the king

should be dissolved." Counsel were again heard against that mode of

proceeding, a second reading was set down for the 17th of August, when

the preamble was to be proved, and the trial to begin.

The memorable 17th of August arrived, and the curtain was raised on

a new act in the great drama, on which the whole nation gazed with

the deepest interest, and with feverish anxiety. The queen left her

residence in St. James's Square, and proceeded to the House of Lords in

her new state carriage, which the people were with difficulty dissuaded

from unyoking, that they might draw it themselves. As she passed

Carlton House, the crowd gave three cheers, and also at the Treasury.

The soldiers on guard at the former place, and at the House of Lords,

presented arms when she arrived. The queen's carriage was preceded

by Alderman Wood's, and followed by one of her Majesty's travelling

carriages, in which were the Hon. Keppel Craven and Sir William Gell,

her chamberlains. The way from Charing Cross to Westminster Abbey was

crowded, and all the windows of the houses on each side were filled

with people, particularly with ladies. Such was the enthusiasm of

the people, that the barrier erected at St. Margaret's Church was

insufficient to keep them back, and the dense mass forced their way

through, and reached Palace Yard shortly after the queen. Sir T.

Tyrwhitt, as Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, attended by the officers

of the House, received the queen at the private entrance which had been

prepared for her. She entered at the door near the throne, supported by

Lord A. Hamilton, and attended by Lady A. Hamilton. She was dressed in

white, but wore a black lace shawl. Her demeanour was in the highest

degree dignified. On her entrance the peers all rose, and she was

pleased to salute them in return.

The Duke of Leinster, in pursuance of his intention to oppose the

Bill in all its stages, moved that the order of the day be rescinded.

The motion was negatived by a majority of two hundred and sixty to

forty-one; the number of peers present being three hundred and one.

Lord Carnarvon denounced the Bill of Pains and Penalties as a measure

unnecessary and unconstitutional. It was a species of _ex post

facto_ and illegitimate mode of proceeding against an individual, an

unprecedented anomaly in the law. In one of the cases which they had

adduced as the best precedent, the sentence passed on the criminal was

that he should be boiled to death! Far better to have drawn a veil

over the transactions, than to have searched the Alps, the Apennines,

and the ocean for evidence against the queen. The measure had excited

the disgust of every honest man in the kingdom.

[Illustration: QUEEN CAROLINE ENTERING THE HOUSE OF LORDS. (_See p._

208.)]

Lord Grey moved that it should be referred to the judges to determine

whether adultery committed out of the country with a foreigner amounted

to high treason. The motion was carried. The judges retired, and,

after an absence of twenty minutes, returned, with their decision

announced by Chief Justice Abbott, which was, that the crime in

question was not punishable as high treason, under the Statute of

Edward III. Counsel on both sides were admitted; Brougham and Denman,

for the queen, sitting on the right of the bar, and the Attorney- and

Solicitor-General on the left. Mr. Brougham prayed to be heard against

the principle of the Bill. Permission was granted, and he addressed

their lordships in a strain of impressive eloquence, demonstrating that

the mode of proceeding now adopted was in the highest degree unjust to

his illustrious client. He concluded by imploring their lordships to

retrace their steps, and thus become the saviours of their country.

Next morning Mr. Denman spoke nearly two hours for the queen, strongly

maintaining her right of recrimination against the king, who, when

seeking for a divorce, should come into court with clean hands. He

commented on the several clauses of the Bill as he went along. He said

the person who framed it had worked himself up into an ebullition

of moral zeal, and used expressions for the full support of which

the bribes and schemes of the prosecutors would produce witnesses.

Referring to a former investigation, he called the attention of

the House to the letter of Mrs. Lisle, in 1806, when flirting and

familiarity were the worst things alleged against her Royal Highness.

On the subject of familiarity he referred to a note addressed by a

waiter to the Prince of Wales--"Sam, of the Cocoanut Coffeehouse,

presents his compliments to his Royal Highness, and begs" so and so.

That illustrious person remarked, "This is very well to us, but it

won't do for him to speak so to Norfolk and Arundel." He concluded by

apologising to the queen for putting even the hypothesis of her guilt,

which he never could believe would be established; and whatever might

be enacted by means of suborned perjury or foul conspiracy, he never

would pay to any one who might usurp her situation the respect to which

the laws of God and man entitled her alone.

On the third day Lord King moved that the Bill was not one of State

necessity or expediency. This gave occasion to Lord Liverpool, then at

the head of the Government, to express his sentiments upon the measure.

He declared upon his honour and in his conscience that, if the Bill

passed, he believed the king would not marry again. But if the charges

against the queen were proved, it was absolutely impossible not to

conclude with an enactment for a divorce. Earl Grey replied to Lord

Liverpool, and called upon their lordships, from respect for their own

character, not to persevere with the measure before them.

The Attorney-General, Sir R. Gifford, was then called in, when he

proceeded to state the case against the queen. He traced her Majesty's

conduct from the time at which she left England, in 1814. Her suite

consisted of Lady Charlotte Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Forbes, and

the Hon. Keppel Craven; Sir William Gell and a Mr. Fitzgerald as

chamberlains, with Captain Hash as equerry; Dr. Holland as physician;

and other persons, in various capacities. She went first to Brunswick,

her native place, and thence to Milan, where she remained three weeks.

There Bartolomeo Bergami was received into her service as a courier,

having been a servant in a similar capacity to a General Picco. The

princess went next to Rome, and thence to Naples, where she arrived

on the 8th of November, 1814. Her adopted child, William Austin, then

only six or seven years of age, to whom she was particularly attached,

had been in the habit of sleeping in a bed in the same room with her,

while, according to the domestic arrangements that had been adopted,

Bergami slept, among other menial servants, at a distance. On the

9th of November, three weeks after his appointment, an apartment was

assigned to Bergami near her own bedroom, and communicating with it by

means of a corridor. The surprise occasioned by this alteration was

increased when the princess directed that the child Austin should no

longer sleep in her room. There was an air of hurry, agitation, and

embarrassment about her manner which awakened suspicion, which was

increased in the morning, according to the story of the witnesses,

when they found that her own bed had not been occupied, and instead

of summoning her female attendants at the usual time, she remained

in the apartment of Bergami until a late hour. Her recent arrival at

Naples naturally induced persons of consequence to pay their respects

to her, but she was not accessible. The Attorney-General thought

their lordships could have no doubt that "this was the commencement

of that most scandalous, degrading, and licentious intercourse which

continued and increased." The natural effect of this was that Bergami

assumed airs of importance, and became haughty and arrogant with the

other servants. A few days afterwards the princess gave a masked

ball to the person then filling the Neapolitan throne. She first

appeared as a Neapolitan peasant, but soon retired to assume another

character, taking the courier with her, for the purpose of changing

her costume. She then came forth as the genius of history, in a dress,

or rather want of dress, of a most indecent and disgusting kind. The

Attorney-General referred to a number of facts of a similar kind to

those already detailed; also to instances of indelicacy and indecency,

in which the queen was said to have indulged in the presence of her

attendants and of strangers. On the fourth day, after the conclusion

of his address, he proceeded to call his witnesses, and for more than

a month the House was occupied in hearing their evidence.

The case against the queen closed on the 7th of September. An

adjournment took place to allow time for the preparation of her

defence, which was opened on the 3rd of October by Mr. Brougham, in a

magnificent oration, justly celebrated as one of the finest specimens

of British forensic eloquence. It concluded as follows:--

"It was always," said Mr. Brougham, "the queen's sad fate to lose her

best stay, her strongest and surest protection, when danger threatened

her; and by a coincidence most miraculous in her eventful history, not

one of her intrepid defenders was ever withdrawn from her without that

loss being the immediate signal for the renewal of momentous attacks

upon her honour and her life. Mr. Pitt, who had been her constant

friend and protector, died in 1806. A few weeks after that event took

place, the first attack was levelled at her. Mr. Pitt left her as a

legacy to Mr. Perceval, who became her best, her most undaunted, her

firmest protector. But no sooner had the hand of an assassin laid

prostrate that Minister, than her Royal Highness felt the force of

the blow by the commencement of a renewed attack, though she had

but just been borne through the last by Mr. Perceval's skilful and

powerful defence of her character. Mr. Whitbread then undertook her

protection; but soon that melancholy catastrophe happened which all

good men of every political party in the State, he believed, sincerely

and universally lamented. Then came with Mr. Whitbread's dreadful loss

the murmuring of that storm which was so soon to burst with all its

tempestuous fury upon her hapless and devoted head. Her child still

lived, and was her friend; her enemies were afraid to strike, for

they, in the wisdom of the world, worshipped the rising sun. But when

she lost that amiable and beloved daughter, she had no protector; her

enemies had nothing to dread; innocent or guilty, there was no hope,

and she yielded to the entreaty of those who advised her residence out

of this country. Who, indeed, could love persecution so steadfastly as

to stay and brave its renewal and continuance, and harass the feelings

of the only one she loved so dearly by combating such repeated attacks,

which were still reiterated after the echo of the fullest acquittal?

It was, however, reserved for the Milan Commission to concentrate and

condense all the threatening clouds which were prepared to burst over

her ill-fated head; and as if it were utterly impossible that the queen

could lose a single protector without the loss being instantaneously

followed by the commencement of some important step against her, the

same day which saw the remains of her venerable Sovereign entombed--of

that beloved Sovereign who was, from the outset, her constant father

and friend--that same sun which shone upon the monarch's tomb

ushered into the palace of his illustrious son and successor one of

the perjured witnesses who were brought over to depose against her

Majesty's life.

"Such, my lords," continued Mr. Brougham, "is the case now before you;

and such is the evidence by which it is attempted to be upheld. It is

evidence inadequate to prove any proposition, impotent to deprive the

subject of any civil right, ridiculous to establish the least offence,

scandalous to support a charge of the highest nature, monstrous to ruin

the honour of the Queen of England. What shall I say of it, then, as

evidence to support a judicial act of legislature--an _ex post facto_

law? My lords, I call upon you to pause. You stand on the brink of a

precipice: if your judgment shall go out against the queen, it will be

the only act that ever went out without effecting its purpose; it will

return to you upon your heads. Save the country! save yourselves!

"Oh! rescue the country--save the people of whom you are the ornaments,

but severed from whom you can no more live than the blossom that is

severed from the root and tree on which it grows. Save the country,

therefore, that you may continue to adorn it; save the Crown, which

is threatened with irreparable injury; save the aristocracy, which is

surrounded with danger; save the altar, which is no longer safe when

its kindred throne is shaken. You see that when the Church and the

Throne would allow of no church solemnity in behalf of the queen, the

heartfelt prayers of the people rose to Heaven for her protection. I

pray Heaven for her; and here I pour forth my fervent supplications

at the Throne of Mercy, that mercies may descend on the people of the

country, higher than their rulers have deserved, and that your hearts

may be turned to justice."

The examination of the witnesses for the defence continued till the

24th of October, and then powerful speeches were delivered by the

Attorney-General, Sir Robert Gifford, and by the Solicitor-General,

Mr. Copley. The speech of the former was considered so effective, that

William Cobbett threw off one hundred thousand copies of an answer to

it. Sir Archibald Alison, the Tory historian, admits that it was not

the evidence for the prosecution that told against the queen, "for it

was of so suspicious a kind that little reliance could be placed on it,

but what was elicited on cross-examination from the English officers

on board the vessel which conveyed her Majesty to the Levant--men of

integrity and honour, of whose testimony there was not a shadow of

suspicion. Without asserting that any of them proved actual guilt

against her Majesty, it cannot be disputed that they established

against her an amount of levity of manner and laxity of habits, which

rendered her unfit to be at the head of English society, and amply

justified the measures taken to exclude her from it."

On the 6th of November the second reading of the Bill was carried

by a majority of twenty-eight, the numbers being one hundred and

twenty-three to ninety-five, which the Government considered equivalent

to a finding of guilty. It appears from these numbers that a large

proportion of their lordships abstained from voting. The Bishops had

an insuperable objection to the divorce clause; but in committee

it was sustained by a majority of one hundred and twenty-nine to

sixty-two, the Opposition having nearly all voted for the clause,

with a view of defeating the Bill in its last stage. Consequently,

for the third reading, on the 10th of November, the majority was only

nine, the numbers being one hundred and eight to ninety-nine. Upon

this announcement Lord Liverpool rose and said, that upon so slender a

majority he could not think of pressing the measure further, and so he

begged leave to withdraw the Bill. The truth is, he had no option. It

had not the slightest chance of passing through the Lower House, where

ignominious defeat awaited the Government.

The intelligence of this result was received by the public with

transports of joy. London was illuminated for three successive nights;

Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, and all the great towns

followed the example. "For several days," says Alison, "the populace in

all the cities of the empire seemed to be delirious with joy. Nothing

had been seen like it before since the battle of Waterloo; nothing

approaching to it after since the Reform Bill was passed." Meetings

were immediately called in every direction to present addresses both to

the king and queen: to the former, to congratulate him on the escape of

his illustrious consort, and to call upon him to dismiss his present

Ministers; and to the latter, to congratulate her on the restoration

of those dignities from which she had been so long excluded. Not only

public meetings of citizens and civic bodies, but trades of all kinds

assembled and adopted addresses expressing their exultation at her

triumph, and tendering their homage.

The members of the Government were scarcely less rejoiced at getting

rid of the matter than the nation was at their defeat. The most

thinking men of their party became greatly alarmed at the state of

public feeling, and were in constant dread of a revolution. The most

violent language was used by the democratic leaders, and the press

abounded with libels against the Government, whose chief members were

hooted and pelted as they passed through the streets. This alarming

state of things had arrived at its height towards the end of September.

The Duke of York, who was then at Brighton, was violent against the

queen. He felt confident that the troops must be called out, and

he thought he could trust them. On them alone he depended for the

preservation of the Throne. The king, at this time, rarely showed

himself to any of his subjects. His conduct was an excitement to

popular hatred. Mr. W. H. Freemantle, who was well informed as to all

that was going forward in the highest quarters, describes the condition

of things in letters to the Duke of Buckingham. "You have no idea,"

he says, "of the state of the town. The funds fell to-day. As to the

king forming a Government, after the resignation of all his present

servants, with the avowed object of persecuting the queen, it would

be impossible; it would be making her the popular object and throwing

the country in a flame. Be assured that the king on this subject is

no less than _mad_!" "In the months of October and November," observes

the Duke of Buckingham, "it became evident that the frenzy outside the

Houses of Parliament was exerting its influence within its walls. The

aspect of affairs looked blacker every hour." "Matters here are in a

critical state," writes Lord Sidmouth to Mr. Bathurst on the 27th of

October. "Fear and faction are actively and not unsuccessfully at work;

and it is possible that we may be in a minority, and that the fate of

the Government may be decided." Plumer Ward, in his diary, has this

entry under date of November 2nd:--"Called upon (Wellesley) Pole. He

was at breakfast, and we had a long chat. He thought everything very

bad--Ministers, Opposition, king, queen, country--and, what was more,

no prospect of getting right. All ties were loosened. Insolence and

insubordination out of doors; weakness and wickedness within. 'The

Whigs,' he said, 'were already half Radicals, and would be entirely so

if we did not give way.' I said his brother, the Duke of Wellington,

felt this too, but would not give way nevertheless. Meantime, the king

was as merry as a grig. At first he had been annoyed, but was now

enjoying himself at Brighton."

[Illustration: THE PAVILION, BRIGHTON.]

The Duke of Buckingham justly remarks that the task of the Government

was from the first an up-hill one, "which nothing but their devotion

to their master's service made them continue; but when a thousand

unmistakable signs foretold a rebellion if they persevered, they had

no alternative but to put an end to the thing with all convenient

despatch." The truth is, in this case, victory would have been ruin to

the victors. By beating a timely retreat they saved the monarchy. The

Tory leaders, however, consoled themselves that they had so damaged

the queen's character that even the chiefs of the great Whig families

would not wish to have her at the head of the female aristocracy, or

to have their wives and daughters at her court. They said: "The stout

lady in the magnificent hat and feathers was very well as a source

of Ministerial embarrassment; but, much as some of them pretended to

decry the evidence against her that was elicited during her trial, they

took especial care not to allow her anything resembling an intimacy

with their wives or daughters." She was, however, visited after the

trial by her son-in-law, Prince Leopold, and by the Duke of Sussex;

and for some time the carriages of the highest ladies in the land

were at her door. Grateful to Providence for the deliverance she had

experienced from the hands of her persecutors, she went in state to

St. Paul's to return public thanks to God. But even in this she was

subjected to humiliation. An application had been made to have a sermon

preached on the occasion, and Archdeacon Bathurst solicited the honour

of delivering an appropriate discourse, but the authorities of the

Cathedral refused his request, and the ceremony consisted merely of the

reading of the morning service. The Bishop of Llandaff stigmatised the

service as "a mockery of a religious solemnity, at which every serious

Christian must shudder."

It was arranged that the coronation should take place early in the

summer of 1821, and the queen, who in the interval had received an

annuity of £50,000, was resolved to claim the right of being crowned

with the king. She could hardly have hoped to succeed in this, but her

claims were put forth in a memorial complaining that directions had not

been given for the coronation of the queen, as had been accustomed on

like occasions, and stating that she claimed, as of right, to celebrate

the ceremony of her royal coronation, and to preserve as well her

Majesty's said right as the lawful right and inheritance of others of

his Majesty's subjects. Her memorial was laid before the Privy Council,

and the greatest interest was excited by its discussion. The records

were brought from the Tower: the "_Liber Regalis_" and other ancient

volumes. The doors continued closed, and strangers were not allowed

to remain in the adjoining rooms and passages. The following official

decision of the Privy Council was given after some delay:--"The

lords of the committee, in obedience to your Majesty's said order of

reference, have heard her Majesty's Attorney- and Solicitor-General

in support of her Majesty's said claim, and having also heard the

observations of your Majesty's Attorney- and Solicitor-General

thereupon, their lordships do agree humbly to report to your Majesty

their opinions, that as it appears to them that the Queens Consort of

this realm are not entitled of right to be crowned at any time, her

Majesty the queen is not entitled as of right to be crowned at the

time specified in her Majesty's memorials. His Majesty, having taken

the said report into consideration, has been pleased, by and with

the advice of the Privy Council, to approve thereof." The queen's

subsequent applications, which included a letter to the king, were

equally unsuccessful.

The Government determined to make the most formidable preparations for

the preservation of the peace, and for putting down a riot, should it

occur. Troops were seen directing their march from all quarters to

the metropolis, and there was not a village in the vicinity which did

not display the plumed helmet. George IV., always excessively fond

of show and pomp, was resolved that the ceremonial of his coronation

should outshine anything in history. The nation entered into the spirit

of the occasion, and the metropolis was full of excitement. As early

as one o'clock on the morning of the 19th of July, Westminster, the

scene of this magnificent pageant, presented a dazzling spectacle.

Even at that early hour, those who were fortunate enough to obtain

places were proceeding to occupy them. From Charing Cross two streams

of carriages extended, one to the Abbey and the other to Westminster

Hall. The streets were crowded with foot passengers eager to secure

seats on the platforms erected along the way, or some standing-place.

All distinctions of rank were lost in the throng of eager expectants;

judges, bishops, peers, commanders, wealthy citizens, richly dressed

ladies, all mingled in the moving masses that converged towards the

great centre of attraction.

At an early hour a crowd was assembled at the queen's residence in

South Audley Street. Lady Anne Hamilton, "faithful found among the

faithless, faithful only she," arrived a few minutes before five

o'clock. Soon afterwards the gate was thrown open, and a shout was

raised, "The queen! the queen!" She appeared in her state coach,

drawn by six bays, attended by Lady Hood and Lady Anne Hamilton, Lord

Hood following in his own carriage. Having arrived at Dean's Yard

Gate, it was found that the entrance for persons of rank was Poet's

Corner; thither the coachman went, but there he found there was no

thoroughfare. After several stoppages she was conducted to the Poet's

Corner, and arriving at the place where the tickets were received,

Lord Hood demanded admission for the queen. The doorkeeper said that

his instructions were to admit no person without a peer's ticket. Lord

Hood asked, "Did you ever hear of a queen being asked for a ticket

before? This is your queen. I present to you your queen. Do you refuse

her admission?" She also said that she was his queen, and desired

permission to pass. The doorkeeper answered that his orders were

peremptory. Lord Hood then tendered one ticket which he had, and asked

the queen whether she would enter alone. After a short consultation

she declined, and it was resolved that, having been refused admission

to the cathedral church of Westminster, she should return to her

carriage. As she quitted the spot, some persons in the doorway laughed

derisively, and were rebuked by Lord Hood for their unmannerly and

unmanly conduct.

[Illustration: _Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey, Herts._

THE CORONATION OF KING GEORGE IV. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY: THE CEREMONY OF

THE HOMAGE.

FROM THE PAINTING BY PUGIN AND STEPHANOFF, IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT

MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.]

It was a melancholy thing to see the Queen of England bandied about

from door to door, in the throng of curious and anxious spectators;

cheered by some, laughed at by others, and an object of pity to her

friends, making vain efforts to obtain admission to witness the glory

of her worthless husband, repulsed at every point by the lowest

officials, and compelled to return home discomfited and humiliated. By

indiscreet and foolish acts like this she injured her position, and

degraded herself to an extent that her husband, powerful and malignant

as he was, never could have done. She and her friends counted upon

the devotion of the people to her cause, which they hoped would have

borne down all impediments and broken through all barriers. But it was

felt that in attempting to intrude herself in that way at the risk of

marring a great national festival, and causing tumult and possibly

bloodshed, she had forgotten her own dignity; her conduct shocked the

public sense of propriety, and went far to forfeit popular sympathy.

She became deeply sensible of this fact while waiting for admission,

and with all her attempts at hilarity, her laughter and gaiety of

manner ill concealed the deep, self-inflicted wounds of her spirit,

which were never healed. Now completely disenchanted, robbed of the

fond illusion which had hitherto affected her perception of things,

and viewing her situation in the cold morning light of stern reality,

a chill of despondency came over her, and thenceforth settled heavily

upon her spirit.

The coronation was a magnificent ceremonial, and during the proceedings

in the Abbey, Westminster Hall was being prepared for the banquet.

There were three tables on each side, each table having covers for

fifty-six persons, and each person having before him a silver plate.

The other plate was entirely of gold. The dishes served up were

all cold, consisting of fowls, tongues, pies, and a profusion of

sweetmeats, with conserves and fruit of every kind. At twenty minutes

to four o'clock the gates were thrown open to admit the procession

on its return. Seen from the opposite end of the hall, the effect

was magnificent as the procession passed under the triumphal arch.

On the entrance of the king he was received with loud and continued

acclamations. His Majesty being seated at the banquet, the first course

came with a grand procession, which the king seemed to regard with

great satisfaction. The Duke of Wellington, as Lord High Constable, the

Marquis of Anglesey, as Lord High Steward, and the Deputy Earl Marshal,

Lord Howard of Effingham, mounted on horses, and attended by their

pages and grooms, advanced to the foot of the platform; the horsemen

stopped while the clerks of the kitchen advanced to the royal table,

and took the dishes from the gentlemen pensioners. Then the whole

procession moved back, the horsemen backing their chargers with the

greatest precision, amidst loud applause. The first course having been

removed, a flourish of trumpets was heard at the bottom of the hall,

the great gates were instantly thrown wide open, and the champion, Mr.

Dymoke, made his appearance under the Gothic archway, mounted on his

piebald charger, accompanied on the right by the Duke of Wellington,

and on the left by Lord Howard of Effingham, and attended by trumpeters

and an esquire. The usual challenges were given. Some other ceremonies

having been gone through, the king's health was proposed by one of the

peers, and drunk with acclamation. The National Anthem was then sung,

after which the king rose and said, "The king thanks his peers for

drinking his health and does them the honour of drinking their health

and that of his good people." Shortly afterwards his Majesty quitted

the hall and returned to his palace in his private carriage, attended

by his usual body-guard.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. A scene followed the

king's departure which seems almost incredible. After the service of

the second course, the numerous attendants, singers, and even ladies

and gentlemen began to press round the royal table, as if prepared for

a scramble to possess its contents. The crowd of spectators pressed

nearer and nearer. For a moment only covetous eyes were cast on the

spoils, as if each were afraid to begin the plunder; but, at last, a

rude hand having been thrust through the first ranks, and a golden

fork having been seized, this operated as a signal to all, and was

followed by a "general snatch." In a short time all the small portable

articles were transferred to the pockets of the multitude. The Lord

High Chamberlain, hearing of the attack, hastened to the rescue,

and with the greatest difficulty saved the more important articles

of plate, and had them conveyed to Carlton Garden. Then followed a

scene unparalleled in the annals of coronations. The crowds in the

galleries had beheld with envy the operations at the banquet. They were

very hungry, and very thirsty, and seeing now that Westminster Hall

was "liberty hall," they rushed down different stairs and passages,

and attacked the viands and the wine. A raging thirst was the first

thing to be satisfied, and in a few minutes every bottle on the table

was emptied. A fresh supply was soon obtained from the cellarettes.

When the ravening selfishness of the hungry crowd was satisfied, the

gentlemen recovered their politeness, and began to think of the ladies.

Groups of beautiful women then found their way to the tables, and

every effort was made to afford them the refreshment of which they

stood so much in need. In the meantime, the plunderers took advantage

of the confusion to enrich themselves with trophies, breaking and

destroying the table ornaments to obtain fragments of things too

cumbrous to carry away. Thus, baskets, flowerpots, vases, and figures

were everywhere disappearing, and these were followed by glasses,

knives, forks, salt-spoons, and, finally, the plates and dishes. The

last were engraved with the royal arms and the letters "Geo. IV.," and

were therefore specially coveted as memorials. The dirty state of the

articles, however, was rather out of keeping with the costly dresses;

but the ladies and gentlemen got over the difficulty by wrapping up the

articles in their pocket-handkerchiefs. Having thus secured all the

spoils they could, they made all possible haste to their carriages. At

a subsequent period, it was with the greatest difficulty that the royal

plate could be kept from being carried away by the multitude outside

when the barriers were removed.

After the coronation, the queen resided at Brandenburgh House,

determined to lead a life of dignified retirement. But the violent

agitation and excitement, and the terribly painful mortification to

which she was subjected in her ill-advised attempt to form part of

the coronation pageant, were too much for her constitution. As soon

as it was evident that her end was approaching, much public sympathy

was excited, and the vicinity of her residence was incessantly

thronged with persons of all classes making anxious inquiries about

her health, and solicitous for her restoration. On the 4th of August,

when her professional advisers were receiving instructions about the

disposition of her property, one of them suggested the propriety of

sending a messenger to Italy to seal up her papers, in order to prevent

them from falling into the hands of her enemies. "And what if they

do?" she exclaimed; "I have no papers that they may not see. They can

find nothing, because there is nothing, nor ever has been, to impeach

my character." One of them said that he was aware of that, but her

enemies might put there what they did not find. She replied, "I have

always defied their malice, and I defy it still." Nevertheless, it

was her conscious failure in her efforts to make the public believe

this, coupled with the public humiliation to which she had been

subjected, that bowed down her spirit at last, and gave the victory

to her enemies. She had painted their characters in vivid colours in

her private diary, and might have transmitted their punishment to

posterity had she ordered it to be preserved and published; but she

gave directions to have it destroyed, and it was burnt in her presence

by one of her foreign maids. After suffering intensely for four or five

days, she sank into a stupor, from which she never woke, and on the

7th of August, after an entire absence of sense and faculty for more

than two hours, expired Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort of George

IV., in the fifty-fourth year of her age. She had by her bedside in her

last hours her faithful friends and constant attendants, Lord and Lady

Hood, and Lady Anne Hamilton; Alderman Wood, who had been devoted to

her interests from the first, was also present, as well as her legal

and medical advisers.

The king, who had set out on his long-premeditated visit to Ireland,

leaving his wife on her death-bed, was already at Holyhead when he

received the tidings of her decease. From that port Lord Londonderry

wrote a note to the Lord Chancellor, in which he said, "I add this

private note to the letter which the king has directed me to write,

to say that his Majesty is quite well, and has evinced, since the

intelligence of the queen's death was received, every disposition to

conform to such arrangements and observances as might be deemed most

becoming upon an occasion which cannot be regarded in any other light

than as the greatest of all possible deliverances, both to his Majesty

and to the country. The king feels assured that the events to which

my letters refer, once in your hands, will be sifted to the bottom

and wisely decided; and to the advice he may receive there will be

every disposition on his Majesty's part to conform; but where papers

connected with his daughter, as well as other branches of his family,

are in question, your lordship will estimate the deep interest the king

takes in your giving the whole your best consideration."

[Illustration: GEORGE IV.]

The king rejoiced too soon. The announcement to the public of the

queen's death was the knell of the popularity which he had recently

acquired. There was an immediate and powerful reaction in the public

mind against the king, which was strengthened by the ungracious

measures adopted in connection with her funeral. There was a clause

in her will to this effect:--"I desire and direct that my body be

not opened, and that three days after my death it be carried to

Brunswick for interment; and that the inscription on my coffin be,

'Here lies Caroline of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England.'"

The Government were very anxious to have the corpse sent out of the

kingdom immediately, in order that its presence might not interfere

with the festivities in Ireland; they therefore wished to have the

remains dispatched at once to Harwich for embarkation. Lady Hood

appealed in vain to Lord Liverpool for some delay on the ground that

the queen's ladies were not prepared to depart so soon, at the same

time protesting against any military escort. The military guard was

an ostensible honour; but its real object was to prevent popular

manifestations detrimental to the Government in connection with the

funeral. The friends of the queen could not even learn by what route

the body would be conveyed. It should have gone through the City, where

the Lord Mayor and Corporation announced their intention of following

the hearse; but to prevent that honour, it was ordered that the corpse

should be sent round by the New Road to Romford. The funeral passed

from Hammersmith to Kensington Church without obstruction; there the

conductors were turning off from the way to the City, in order to get

into the Bayswater Road, when they were met by a loud cry of wrath and

execration from the multitude. In a few minutes the road was dug up,

barricaded, and rendered impassable. The Life Guards and the chief

magistrate of Bow Street appeared, and seeing the impossibility of

forcing a passage, they ordered the _cortège_ to proceed on the direct

route through the City, amidst thundering shouts of victory that might

have appalled the king had he heard them. In the meantime the multitude

had been rushing through the parks in mighty surging masses, now in

one direction and now in another, according to the varying reports

as to the course the procession was to take. Orders had been issued

from the Government that it should go through the Kensington gate of

Hyde Park, but the people closed the gates, and assumed such a fierce

and determined attitude of resistance that the authorities were again

compelled to give way, and again the popular shouts of victory sounded

far and wide. Peremptory orders were given by the Government to pass

up the Park into the Edgware Road, either by the east side or through

Park Lane. In the effort to do this the line of procession was broken,

the hearse was got into the Park, and hurried onwards to Cumberland

Gate; but the people had outrun the military, and again blocked up

the way in a dense mass. Here a collision ensued: the populace had

used missiles; the military were irritated, and having had peremptory

orders, they fired on the people, wounding many and killing two. But

the people, baffled for the moment, made another attempt. At Tottenham

Court Road the Guards found every way closely blocked up, except the

way to the City. In this way, therefore, they were compelled to move,

amidst the exulting shouts of the multitude. Seeking an outlet to the

suburbs at every turn in vain, the procession was forced down Drury

Lane into the Strand. The passage under Temple Bar was accompanied

by the wildest possible excitement and shouts of exultation. The

Corporation functionaries assembled in haste and accompanied the

funeral to Whitechapel. On the whole way to Romford, we read, that

not only the direct, but the cross roads, were lined with anxious

spectators. The shops were closed, the bells were tolling, mourning

dresses were generally worn, and in every direction symptoms abounded

of the deep feeling excited by the death of the queen. The funeral

_cortège_ rested for the night at Colchester, the remains being placed

in St. Peter's Church. There the plate with the inscription "injured

Queen" was taken off, and another substituted. At Harwich the coffin

was unceremoniously conveyed to the _Glasgow_ frigate. At length the

remains arrived at their last resting-place in a vault beneath the

cathedral at Brunswick.

Sir Francis Burdett once wrote a letter of a single sentence to his

friend Lord Cloncurry, as follows:--"Dear Lord Cloncurry, I should like

to know what you think would allay Irish agitation? Yours truly, F.

B." It would have taken a volume to answer this question, and perhaps,

after all, Sir Francis Burdett would not have been satisfied. George

IV. thought that his visit would have had that effect, and appearances

for a time seemed to justify his sanguine anticipations. The visit had

been long meditated. He set out on a yachting excursion soon after

the coronation, and arrived at Plymouth on the 1st of August amidst

the huzzas of an immense concourse of people. On the following day

the royal squadron departed for Ireland, and anchored in the bay at

Holyhead on the 7th. The news of his approach threw the people of

Dublin into a paroxysm of joy, to which the newspapers of the day gave

expression in the most extravagant terms. The blessing that awaited

them seemed too great to be realised. Never had they comforted their

hours of despondency or flattered themselves in seasons of imagined

felicity, with anything approaching to the reality which fortune was

about to shower upon them. The king's name, they declared, was more to

them than a tower of strength; it had effected what neither patriots,

philosophers, nor moralists could ever accomplish.

As the king was to land privately and to proceed to the Viceregal Lodge

in Phœnix Park without entering the city, it was uncertain whether

he would come by Dunleary or Howth. There was an idea that he would

land at the former place on Sunday, the 12th of August, and immense

crowds lined the coast during the day, watching for the approach of the

steamer. They were disappointed, for his Majesty arrived at Howth about

five o'clock. He was accompanied by the Marquis of Londonderry, the

Marquis of Thomond, Lord Mount Charles, Lord Francis Conyngham, and Mr.

Freeling, Secretary to the Post Office, England. A small ship-ladder,

covered with carpeting, was fixed to facilitate his landing. This he

ascended without assistance, and with great agility. As the narrow pier

was crowded to excess, he found himself jammed in by a mass of people,

who could not be displaced without throwing numbers of them into the

water. Though he had reason to be displeased with the want of proper

arrangements, he bore the inconvenience with good humour; indeed, his

Majesty was very jolly, owing to copious draughts of Irish whisky

punch with which he had drowned sorrow, during the voyage, for the

loss of the queen. On seeing Lord Kingston in the crowd, he exclaimed,

"Kingston, Kingston, you black-whiskered, good-natured fellow, I am

happy to see you in this friendly country." Having recognised Mr.

Dennis Bowles Daly, he cordially shook hands with that gentleman, who

at the moment was deprived of a gold watch, worth sixty guineas, and a

pocket-book, by one of the light-fingered gentry. The king also shook

hands with numbers of the persons present who were wholly strangers to

him. At length his Majesty managed to get into his carriage, and as

he did so, the cheers of the multitude rent the air. He turned to the

people, and, extending both his hands, said, with great emotion, "God

bless you all. I thank you from my heart." Seemingly exhausted, he

threw himself back in the carriage; but on the cheering being renewed,

he bent forward again, and taking off his cap, bowed most graciously

to the ladies and those around him. One of the horses became restive

on the pier, but a gentleman, regardless of personal danger, led him

till he became manageable. The cavalcade drove rapidly to town, and

proceeded by the Circular Road to the Park. On the way there was a

constant accession of horsemen, who all rode uncovered. When they came

to the entrance of the Park, the gentlemen halted outside the gate,

not wishing to intrude, when the king put out his head and said, "Come

on, my friends." On alighting from his carriage he turned round at the

door, and addressed those present in nearly the following words:--"My

lords and gentlemen, and my good yeomanry,--I cannot express to you

the gratification I feel at the warm and kind reception I have met

with on this day of my landing among my Irish subjects. I am obliged

to you all. I am particularly obliged by your escorting me to my very

door. I may not be able to express my feelings as I wish. I have

travelled far, I have made a long sea voyage; besides which, particular

circumstances have occurred, known to you all, of which it is better at

present not to speak; upon those subjects I leave it to delicate and

generous hearts to appreciate my feelings. This is one of the happiest

days of my life. I have long wished to visit you; my heart has been

always with the Irish; from the day it first beat I have loved Ireland.

This day has shown me that I am beloved by my Irish subjects. Rank,

station, honours, are nothing; but to feel that I live in the hearts

of my Irish subjects is to me exalted happiness. I must now once more

thank you for your kindness, and bid you farewell. Go and do by me as I

shall do by you--drink my health in a bumper; I shall drink all yours

in a bumper of good Irish whisky." Mr. W. H. Freemantle, writing to

the Duke of Buckingham, says, "I don't know whether you have heard any

of the details from Ireland, but the conduct of the Irish is beyond

all conception of loyalty and adulation, and I fear will serve to

strengthen those feelings of self-will and personal authority which

are at all times uppermost in '_the mind_.' The passage to Dublin was

occupied in eating goose-pie and drinking whisky, of which his Majesty

partook most abundantly, singing many joyous songs, and being in a

state on his arrival to double in sight even the number of his gracious

subjects assembled on the pier to receive him. The fact was that he

was in the last stage of intoxication: however, they got him to the

Park." But whatever happened on board ship, and whether or not the

king was "half-seas over," he acquitted himself so as to excite the

boundless admiration of his Irish subjects, and the visit, which lasted

twenty-two days, was an unqualified success from the spectacular point

of view.

If the scandalous gossip of the Court may be trusted, the king did not

allow affairs of State, or public displays, or the death of the queen

to wean him even for a week from his attachment to Lady Conyngham. Mr.

Freemantle, a rather cynical commentator on public affairs, wrote as

follows:--"Lady C. has been almost constantly at the Phœnix Park, but

has not appeared much in public." Again, the same writer remarks, "I

never in my life heard of anything equal to the king's infatuation and

conduct towards Lady Conyngham. She lived exclusively with him during

the whole time he was in Ireland at the Phœnix Park. When he went to

Slane, she received him dressed out as for a drawing-room; he saluted

her, and they then retired alone to her apartments. A yacht is left to

bring her over, and she and the whole family go to Hanover. I hear the

Irish are outrageously jealous of her, and though courting her to the

greatest degree, are loud in their indignation at Lord C. This is just

like them. I agree in all you say about Ireland. As there is no chance

of the boon being granted, no lord-lieutenant could have a chance of

ingratiating himself, or of fair justice done him, with the king's

promises and flattery."

[Illustration: LANDING OF GEORGE IV. AT HOWTH. (_See p._ 218.)]

The king had a stormy and rather perilous passage across the Channel.

Mr. Freemantle sarcastically alludes to the feelings of the royal

passenger in connection with this voyage:--"The king in his journey

home overtook Lord and Lady Harcourt, now the bosom friends of Lady

Conyngham, stopped them, got out of his carriage, and sat with them for

a quarter of an hour on the public road, recounting all his perilous

adventures at sea, and flattering reception in Ireland. Lady Harcourt

told me his _pious acknowledgment_ for his great escape of being

shipwrecked was quite edifying, and the very great change in his moral

habits and religious feelings was quite astonishing, and all owing to

Lady Conyngham." On his return to London, after a visit to Hanover, the

king devoted himself to a life of seclusion for a considerable time,

during which it appears that the Marchioness of Conyngham maintained

an ascendency over him most damaging to his character and Government.

She had not only made the royal favour tributary to the advancement of

her own family, but she meddled in political affairs with mischievous

effect. "Had it been confined to mere family connections," writes

Robert Huish, "no voice, perhaps, would have been raised against it;

but when the highest offices in the Church were bestowed on persons

scarcely previously heard of--when political parties rose and fell,

and Ministers were created and deposed to gratify the ambition of a

female--then the palace of the king appeared as if surrounded by some

pestilential air. The old hereditary counsellors of the king avoided

the Court, as alike fatal to private probity and public honour. The

entrance to Windsor Castle was, as it were, hermetically sealed by the

enchantress within to all but the favoured few. The privilege of the

_entrée_ was curtailed to the very old friends of the king, and even

the commonest domestics in the castle were constrained to submit to the

control of the marchioness. The Court of George IV. certainly differed

widely from that of Charles II., although the number and reputation of

their several mistresses were nearly the same in favour and character;

but George IV. had no confiscations to confer on the instruments of his

pleasures."

[Illustration: LOWER CASTLE-YARD, DUBLIN. (_From a Photograph by W.

Lawrence._)]

Thus passed the winter of 1821-22. Parliament met on the 5th of

February, 1822, for the transaction of business, and was opened by

the king. In his Speech from the Throne he expressed regret for the

agricultural distress that prevailed in England; and he had the

unpleasant task imposed upon him of referring to a state of things

in Ireland the reverse of what might have been expected from his

conciliation policy--"a spirit of outrage" that had led to daring

and systematic violations of the law which he submitted to the

consideration of Parliament. In the House of Lords the Address was

adopted without opposition. In the Commons amendments were proposed

by Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Hume, which were rejected by large

majorities. The state of Ireland was the first subject that occupied

the attention of the legislature. A salutary change had been effected

in the executive of that country. Lord Talbot, the late Viceroy,

was a man of narrow and exclusive spirit, wedded to the _régime_ of

Protestant ascendency. But according to a system of counterpoise which

had been adopted in the Irish Government, his influence was checked

by his Chief Secretary, Mr. Charles Grant, a man of large mind,

enlightened principles, and high character. This system tended to keep

the rival parties in a state of conflict, and naturally weakened the

authority of the Government. A modification in the English Cabinet

led to corresponding changes in Ireland. The spirit of discontent

among the commercial classes in England induced Lord Liverpool to

enter into a compromise with the Grenville-Wynn party, and the Marquis

of Buckingham, its chief, was created a duke; Lord Sidmouth retired

from the Home Office, and was succeeded by Mr. Peel; the Marquis

Wellesley became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; while Mr. Plunket, a man

of Liberal politics and transcendent abilities, was appointed Irish

Attorney-General in the room of Mr. Saurin, the champion of unmitigated

Protestant ascendency. The Liberal tendencies of these statesmen were

to some extent counteracted by the appointment of Mr. Goulburn, the

determined opponent of the Catholic claims, as Chief Secretary. Lord

Liverpool, however, defended the appointment on the ground that a man's

opinions on the Catholic question should not disqualify him for office

in Ireland, "it being understood that the existing laws, whatever they

may be, are to be equally administered with respect to all classes of

his Majesty's subjects, and that the Roman Catholics are in any case to

enjoy their fair share of the privileges and advantages to which they

are by law entitled."

This coalition was considered a matter of great importance, not as

giving strength to the Administration of Lord Liverpool, to which it

brought only a few votes in the House of Commons, but as indicating a

radical change of policy towards Ireland. Lord Eldon was by no means

satisfied with the changes. "This coalition," he writes, "I think, will

have consequences very different from those expected by the members of

administration who have brought it about. I hate coalitions." No doubt

they ill suited his uncompromising spirit; and any connection with

Liberal opinions must have been in the highest degree repugnant to the

feelings of one who believed that the granting of Catholic Emancipation

would involve the ruin of the Constitution.

Very strong hopes were entertained by the Liberal party from the

Administration of Lord Wellesley, but it was his misfortune to be

obliged to commence it with coercive measures, always the ready

resource of the Irish Government. The new Viceroy would have removed,

if possible, the causes of public disturbance; but, in the meantime,

the peace must be preserved and sanguinary outrages must be repressed,

and he did not shrink from the discharge of his duty in this respect

on account of the popular odium which it was sure to bring upon his

Government. Mr. Plunket, as Attorney-General, was as firm in the

administration of justice as Mr. Saurin, his high Tory predecessor,

could be. The measures of repression adopted by the legislature were

certainly not wanting in severity. The disorders were agrarian,

arising out of insecurity of land tenure, rack rents, and tithes

levied by proctors upon tillage, and falling chiefly upon the Roman

Catholic population, who disowned the ministrations of the Established

Church. The remedies which the Government provided for disturbances

thus originating were the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the

renewal of the Insurrection Act. By the provisions of the latter the

Lord-Lieutenant was empowered, on the representation of justices in

session that a district was disturbed, to proclaim it in a state of

insurrection, to interdict the inhabitants from leaving their homes

between sunset and sunrise, and to subject them to visits by night,

to ascertain their presence in their own dwellings. If absent, they

were considered idle and disorderly, and liable to transportation

for seven years! These measures encountered considerable opposition,

but they were rapidly passed through both Houses, and received the

Royal Assent a week after Parliament met. Under these Acts a number

of Whiteboys and other offenders were tried and convicted, several

hanged, and many transported. Lord Wellesley must have felt his

position very disagreeable between the two excited parties. To be

impartial and just was to incur the hostility of both. Possibly he

became disgusted with the factions that surrounded him. Whether from

this cause, or from an indolent temper, or from the feeling that he

was hampered and restrained, and could not do for the country what he

felt that its well-being required, or from ill health, it is certain

that he became very inactive. A member of the Cabinet writes about

him thus:--"I find the Orange party are loud in their abuse of Lord

Wellesley, for shutting himself up at the Phœnix Park, lying in bed

all day, seeing nobody, and only communicating with Secretary Gregory

by letter. Indeed, I believe that the latter is more than he often

favours Secretaries Peel and Goulburn with." In another letter,

the same Minister, Mr. Wynn, complains of his total neglect of his

correspondence with England. This, he said, was inexcusable, because

those on whom the chief responsibility rested had a right to know

his views upon the state of Ireland, in order to be able to meet

the Opposition during the sitting of Parliament. This was written

towards the end of April, and at that time the Government had not

for a month heard a syllable from him on the agitated questions of

tithes, magistracy, and police. The state of Ireland, indeed, became

every day more perplexing and alarming. A revolutionary spirit was

abroad, and all other social evils were aggravated by famine, which

prevailed in extensive districts in the south and west. The potato

crop, always precarious, was then almost a total failure in many

counties, and left the dense population, whose existence depended upon

it, totally destitute. The cry of distress reached England, and was

responded to in the most generous spirit. Half a million sterling was

voted by Parliament, and placed at the disposal of Lord Wellesley, to

be dispensed in charitable relief and expended on public works for

the employment of the poor. In addition to this, the English people

contributed from their private resources the sum of three hundred

thousand pounds for the relief of Irish distress. On the 30th of May

there was a ball given for the same object, in the King's Theatre,

London, which produced three thousand five hundred pounds.

The disabilities under which the Roman Catholics laboured were a

constant source of irritation in Ireland; the agitation upon the

subject was becoming every day more formidable. Mr. Plunket was anxious

to bring forward the question in the House of Commons, but he was

urged by his colleagues to postpone it, from an apprehension that the

time was not yet come to give it a fair consideration: the Cabinet was

divided, the Chancellor was obstinate, and the king vacillating, if not

double-minded. "As to the conduct of the king," writes Mr. Freemantle,

a member of the Government, "it is inexplicable. He is praising Lord

Liverpool on all occasions, and sending invitations to nobody but the

Opposition. With regard to Ireland, I am quite satisfied the great man

is holding the most conciliatory language to both parties--holding out

success to the Catholics, and a determination to resist them to the

Protestants."

Mr. Canning had been offered the Governor-Generalship of India.

Before his departure, he was resolved, if possible, to make a breach

in the system of Parliamentary exclusiveness. On the 29th of March

he gave notice of a motion to bring in a Bill for the admission of

Roman Catholic peers to seats in Parliament, and on the following day

supported it by a speech of great power of argument and brilliant

eloquence, illustrating his position very happily from the case of the

Duke of Norfolk, and his official connection with the ceremonial of

the coronation. He asked, "Did it ever occur to the representatives of

Europe, when contemplating this animating spectacle--did it occur to

the ambassadors of Catholic Austria, of Catholic France, or of states

more bigoted in matters of religion--that the moment this ceremony was

over the Duke of Norfolk would become disseized of the exercise of

his privileges amongst his fellow peers?--that his robes of ceremony

were to be laid aside and hung up until the distant (be it a very

distant!) day when the coronation of a successor to his present most

gracious Sovereign might again call him forth to assist at a similar

solemnisation?--that, after being thus exhibited to the eyes of the

peers and people of England, and to the representatives of the princes

and nations of the world, the Duke of Norfolk--highest in rank amongst

the peers--the Lord Clifford, and others like him, representing a long

line of illustrious ancestry, as if called forth and furnished for the

occasion, like the lustres and banners that flamed and glittered in

the scene, were to be, like them, thrown by as useless and trumpery

formalities?--that they might bend the knee and kiss the hand, that

they might bear the train or rear the canopy, might discharge the

offices assigned by Roman pride to their barbarian ancestors--

'Purpurea tollant aulæa Britanni;'

but that with the pageantry of the hour their importance faded

away?--that as their distinction vanished their humiliation

returned?--and that he who headed the procession of peers to-day could

not sit among them as their equal on the morrow?"

The debates were very animated, and excited the liveliest interest.

The Bill was read the first time by a majority of five. On the 10th of

May the House divided on the second reading, which was carried by a

majority of twelve, the numbers being, for the Bill, two hundred and

thirty-five; noes, two hundred and twenty-three. The exertions made to

defeat this Bill were extraordinary. There were twenty-seven pairs of

members who appeared in the House. The Duke of York canvassed against

it in all directions with the utmost zeal and activity. It was felt

that if it passed into law, the admission of Roman Catholics into the

Lower House must follow as a matter of course. The Bill, however, was

thrown out by the Lords.

This Session is memorable for the introduction of the subject of

Parliamentary Reform by Lord John Russell. His plan was to add one

hundred members to the House--sixty for counties and forty for large

towns. He argued that this enlargement of the representation was

rendered just and politic by increasing intelligence among the people,

especially the middle classes, of whom large numbers were unrepresented

in Parliament. His motion was negatived, on the 29th of April, by two

hundred and sixty-nine to one hundred and sixty-four, Mr. Canning

having led the opposition of the Conservatives, and defended the

Constitution as it stood. The motion, in fact, was premature, though

in the previous Session he had procured the disfranchisement of the

corrupt borough of Grampound--a victory which the Lords sought to

neutralise by transferring the seat to the county of York, instead of

to one of the great unrepresented cities.

The complaints of agricultural distress prevalent in England, with

the sudden reaction from war prices at the establishment of peace,

had become so loud and general this year that Parliament undertook

to find a remedy. An agricultural committee had been appointed to

inquire into the subject, and had produced a report which was far from

satisfactory. On the 29th of April the House of Commons resolved itself

into a committee to consider the report. Three different schemes were

proposed for the relief of the farmers and landlords--the first by

the Marquis of Londonderry, the second by Mr. Ricardo, and the third

by Mr. Huskisson. There was no scarcity of produce in England; on the

contrary, it was very abundant, and the evil that oppressed the farmers

was excessive cheapness, by which they were disabled from paying the

high rents and heavy taxation entailed by the war. Some of the remedies

proposed were sufficiently radical in their character. The most natural

was the reduction of taxation by means of retrenchment in the public

expenditure. Some proposed that the tithes should be alienated from

the Church, and used for the purpose of reducing the national burdens.

The largest party insisted upon the reduction of the interest of the

National Debt, which was defended as an equitable measure on the ground

of the increased value of the currency since the passing of Peel's Bill

for the resumption of cash payments. The plan of relief proposed by

Lord Londonderry consisted of the repeal of the annual malt tax, and

the loan of a million by Exchequer Bills to the landed interest upon

the security of warehoused corn.

Mr. Vansittart introduced some financial measures which effected a

material saving. He proposed a plan for reducing the interest of the

Navy Five per Cents. to four per cent. Holders not signifying their

dissent were to have one hundred and five pounds in a New Four per

Cent. stock, and persons dissenting were to be paid off in numerical

order. By this scheme an annual saving to the public of one million

one hundred and forty thousand pounds would be effected; besides a

further saving of upwards of ninety thousand pounds of annual charge,

which would be gained by similar reduction of the Irish Five per Cents.

The high prices of the public funds obviated all difficulty in the

execution of this financial operation, and the holders of the Five per

Cent. stock found it expedient to acquiesce in the Minister's terms.

The dissentients were in number only one thousand seven hundred and

seventy-eight, and the stock held by them amounted to two million six

hundred and fifteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight pounds,

not a fifteenth part of the Five per Cent. capital. Another operation

related to what was called "The Dead Weight Annuity." The amount of

military and naval pensions and civil supernumeraries was about five

millions annually. Accordingly Mr. Vansittart brought forward an

amended scheme for relieving the immediate pressure of this dead weight

by extending it over a longer term of years than the natural lives

of the annuitants. For this purpose an annuity of two million eight

hundred thousand pounds was appropriated out of the existing revenue

for forty-five years, invested in trustees for the discharge of the

then payments, which for that year were estimated at four million nine

hundred thousand pounds, subject to a yearly diminution by deaths. It

was computed that, according to the ordinary duration of human life,

the annuities for the lives of the then holders would be equal to the

annuity of two million eight hundred thousand pounds for forty-five

years. The trustees were therefore empowered to sell from time to time

such portions of this annuity as would provide the funds required

for the payment of the dead weight, according to a computation made

of the amount which would probably be due in each year. The Bank of

England became the contractor for a portion of the annuity. There was

no novelty of principle in the project; it was only the old one of

anticipating distant resources by throwing the burden of the existing

generation on the next. It had the further disadvantage of incurring a

useless expense for management; whereas the Sinking Fund, amounting at

the time to about five millions, might have been applied to existing

exigencies, and a real saving effected.

A question was opened in the House of Commons, on a motion of Mr.

Western, which often subsequently occupied its attention. It referred

to the effect on prices of Mr. Peel's Act of 1819 for the resumption of

cash payments. According to the views of Mr. Western and Mr. Attwood,

the value of money had been enormously increased by the resumption

of payments in specie by the Bank, and its necessary preliminary,

a diminution of the circulation. Prices had in consequence fallen;

rents, taxes, annuities, and all fixed payments become more onerous.

These views were opposed by Huskisson, Peel, and Ricardo, and, on the

motion of the first-named, a resolution was carried, by one hundred and

ninety-four to thirty, "That this House will not alter the standard of

gold or silver in fineness, weight, or denomination."

[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT. (_After the Portrait by Sir Henry

Raeburn._)]

Marriage is one of the fundamental principles of the social system. The

law of marriage, therefore, ought to be plain and simple, intelligible

to all, and guarded in every possible way against fraud and abuse.

Yet the marriage laws of the United Kingdom were long in the most

confused, unintelligible, and unsettled state, leading often to

ruinous and almost endless litigation. A new Marriage Act was passed

in the Session now under review, which, like many Acts of the kind,

originated in personal interests affecting the aristocracy. It was said

to have mainly arisen out of the marriage of the Marquis of Donegal

with Miss May, who was the daughter of a gentleman celebrated for

assisting persons of fashion with loans of money. The brother of the

marquis sought to set this marriage aside, and to render the children

illegitimate, in order that he might himself, should the marquis die

without lawful issue, be heir to his title and estates. In law the

marriage was invalid; but it was now protected by a retrospective

clause in the new Act. By the Marriage Act of 1754 all marriages of

minors certified without the assent of certain specified persons

were declared null. A Bill was passed by the Commons giving validity

to marriages which, according to the existing law, were null, and

providing that the marriages of minors, celebrated without due notice,

should not be void, but merely voidable, and liable to be annulled only

during the minority of the parties, and at the suit of the parents or

guardians.

On the 20th of June, when the Bill was in committee of the Peers, the

Lord Chancellor urged his objection to the retrospective clause, as

unsettling the rights of property. The report being brought up on the

25th, he repeated his objections, and moved that the retrospective

clause should be omitted. The motion was negatived. On the 2nd of July,

the day fixed for the third reading, his brother, Lord Stowell, made

a similar motion, which was also defeated. The Lord Chancellor moved

the insertion of a clause for giving validity to deeds, assignments

and settlements made by persons having claims on any property affected

by the Bill. The Marquis of Lansdowne opposed this clause, which, he

said, would give the Bill the effect of declaring children legitimate

and yet disinheriting them--"of peopling the House of Lords with titled

beggars." This clause having been negatived on a division, the Lord

Chancellor proposed another to the same effect, with the addition

of the words, "for good and valuable consideration." This also was

rejected by a majority. This was too much for the temper of Lord

Eldon, so long accustomed to have his way in that House. Irritated at

being repeatedly thwarted in his efforts, on declaring the numbers he

exclaimed with vehemence, "My lords, ten days ago I believed this House

possessed the good opinion of the public, as the mediator between them

and the laws of the country; if this Bill pass to-night, I hope in

God that this House may still have that good opinion ten days hence.

But to say the best of this measure, I consider it neither more nor

less than a legal robbery, so help me God! I have but a short time to

remain with you, but I trust it will be hereafter known that I used

every means in my power to prevent its passing into law." Thenceforth

the Lord Chancellor became sulky with his colleagues, feeling himself

dragged on by their too rapid progress. He was very reluctant to attend

their Cabinet meetings, and absented himself whenever he could make

any excuse. In reply to a summons from Mr. Peel, the Home Secretary,

to attend a meeting on the Alien Act, he answered that he could not

possibly attend, adding, "My absence, however, can be of little, and

possibly of no consequence." The Session ended on the 6th of August;

the Parliament being prorogued by the king in person.

Lord Londonderry, wearied with the labours of the Session, had

retired to his country seat at North Cray Farm, near Bexley, in

Kent, to recruit his strength, and prepare to take his part as the

representative of England at the forthcoming Congress of Verona, which

was to be held in October. There, on the 12th of August, he committed

suicide by cutting the carotid artery with a penknife. Lord Eldon, in a

letter on the subject, says:--"I learn, upon the best authority, that

for two or three days he was perfectly insane; and the medical men

attribute that fact to the operation upon his head of the unceasing

attention to business which the last harassing Session (to him) called

for." The disease would appear to have been coming on some time

before; he had got the idea that he was beset by secret enemies--that

he was the object of conspiracies. He was full of apprehension of

being waylaid in the Park, and he felt that his life was every hour in

danger. His mind gave way under the pressure of these morbid fears,

and he put an end to his existence in the fifty-third year of his age.

Impartial history, we think, will come to the conclusion that, with

intellectual abilities not much above mediocrity, he owed his success

as a statesman, in a great measure, to his fixity of purpose, and to

his audacity, courage, and perseverance in adhering to his line of

action in the midst of the most formidable difficulties; while the

strength of his will was aided by a commanding person, an imperturbable

temper, extreme affability, and winning frankness of manner. Of the

policy of the Government in which he bore so long a leading part, it

must be said that it was narrow, exclusive, jealous of popular rights,

favourable to despotism abroad and at home, devoted to the interests

of the Throne and the aristocracy, at the expense of social order

and national progress. Such, at all events, was the impression of

the majority of the nation, and the detestation in which the London

populace held his character as a statesman was painfully evinced by

the shouts of exultation which followed his coffin into Westminster

Abbey, where it was deposited between the remains of Fox and Pitt.

This conduct greatly shocked Lord Eldon. "This morning," he writes, "I

have been much affected by attending Lord Londonderry to his grave.

The concourse of people between St. James's Square and the Abbey was

very great; the great bulk of them behaving decorously, some behaving

otherwise; but I protest I am almost sorry to have lived till I have

seen in England a collection of persons so brutalised as, upon the

taking the coffin at the Abbey door out of the hearse, to have received

it with cheering for joy that L. was no more. Cobbett and the paper

called the _Statesman_ have, by the diabolical publications he and

that paper have issued, thus demoralised these wretches."

The honour conferred upon Ireland and Hanover by the royal visits

had excited the jealousy of Scotland; and the most ardently loyal of

the nobility and people of that country were extremely desirous that

a similar honour should be conferred upon them. The king complied

with their request, and started on the 10th of August. "There were

great preparations," says Lord Eldon, "to make his embarkation and

voyage down the river one of the finest exhibitions ever seen upon the

surface of old Father Thames." The river and its banks, from London to

Greenwich, appeared in the highest state of animation, swarming with

human life and gay with brilliant decorations. A party of hussars,

guarding a plain carriage, were his Majesty's only equipage. The shouts

of the different groups of spectators attended his progress along the

road to Greenwich, until the royal standard floating over the Hospital

announced his arrival. Thousands of voices hailed him as the yacht

departed with a favourable breeze; and as he passed Woolwich a royal

salute was fired, and the regiment on duty at the Arsenal presented

arms. At Tilbury Fort, Southend, and Sheerness he met with lively

demonstrations of loyalty. At the last named place the Lord Mayor,

and other authorities who had escorted him down the river, parted

from the royal squadron and returned in their barge to town. The tide

now checked the king's progress, and the ships lay-to in the channel

till morning. At Harwich, Scarborough, and other places, crowds of

people put off in boats as the squadron neared the shore. It was twice

becalmed; and it was not till the 14th that the _Royal George_ cast

anchor off Leith.

Sir Walter Scott was the master of the ceremonies on this memorable

occasion. He was now in the height of his popularity as the "Great

Unknown." His romances had revived or created the spirit of chivalry,

and ministered to the intense nationality of the Scottish people

in general, and the Highland clans in particular. In arranging

the programme Sir Walter had as many parts to play as ever tasked

the Protean genius of his friend Mathews. The bewildered local

magistrates threw themselves on him for advice and direction. He had

to arrange everything, from the ordering of a procession to the cut

of a button and the embroidering of a cross. Provosts, bailies, and

deacon-conveners of trades were followed, in hurried succession, by

swelling chieftains wrangling about the relative positions their clans

had occupied on the field of Bannockburn, which they considered as

constituting the authentic precedent for determining their respective

places in the procession from the pier of Leith to the Canongate.

The weather was so unpropitious when the royal squadron cast anchor

on the 14th, that it was found necessary to defer the landing until

the 15th. The officers of the Household and of the State, in splendid

uniforms and appropriate insignia, awaited the king's landing. He wore

the full-dress uniform of an admiral, with St. Andrew's cross and a

large thistle in his gold-laced hat. The Lord-Lieutenant of Midlothian

and the Lord Chamberlain received his Majesty on shore, while the

senior magistrate congratulated him on his arrival on Scottish ground.

The cavalry, the Highland infantry, and the Gentlemen Archers of the

Royal Guards saluted him. The Usher of the White Rod sent his herald

to give three knocks at the city gate, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh

going through the same mediæval forms as the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The

knocking, after proper delay, was answered, the keys were delivered

and returned, and the king was admitted into his ancient capital

with enthusiastic acclamations. The royal _cortège_ was peculiarly

interesting from the variety of costumes adopted. The king declared

that the beauty of the scenery, the splendour of the display, and the

enthusiasm of his welcome affected him more than anything in the whole

course of his life. The people, in their turn, were delighted beyond

measure with the condescension and affability of their Sovereign. He

took up his residence during his stay at Dalkeith Palace, as the guest

of the Duke of Buccleuch. The following day he held a levee in the

palace of Holyrood, restored for the occasion to its former splendour,

so far as upholstery could accomplish the renovation. The king on this

occasion wore the Highland costume, selecting for his dress the tartan

of the Stewarts. On the next day three thousand persons paid their

respects to his Majesty at a court held in the same place. He received

his visitors in a field-marshal's uniform. He completely won the hearts

of the Scottish ladies, dancing with the young and gaily chatting

with the old. A magnificent _fête_ was given by the Lord Provost in

the Parliament House, Sir Walter Scott officiating as croupier. When

the king's health had been drunk, his Majesty stood up and said, "I

am quite unable to express my sense of the gratitude which I owe to

the people of this country. But I beg to assure them that I shall ever

remember, as one of the proudest moments of my life, the day I came

among them, and the gratifying reception they gave me. I return you,

my Lord Provost, my lords and gentlemen, my warmest thanks for your

attention this day, and I can assure you--with truth, with earnestness

and sincerity--that I shall never forget your dutiful attention to

me upon my visit to Scotland, and particularly the pleasure I have

derived from dining in your hall this day." ("God save the King" and

immense cheering followed.) He continued: "I take this opportunity,

my lords and gentlemen, of proposing the health of the Lord Provost,

_Sir_ William Arbuthnot, Baronet, and the Corporation of Edinburgh."

When the king named the Lord Provost by the title he had conferred upon

him, the magistrate knelt, and kissed his hand, which was held out at

the moment, and the incident was loudly applauded by the company. The

king afterwards gave as a toast, "Health to the chieftains and clans,

and God Almighty bless the 'Land o' Cakes!'" He added, "Drink this with

three times three!" The delight of the company in drinking this toast

may well be imagined.

[Illustration: DALKEITH PALACE.]

[Illustration: GEORGE IV. HOLDING A LEVEE IN HOLYROOD PALACE. (_See p._

227.)]

The king attended the theatre one evening, and by his desire the drama

of _Rob Roy_ was performed. The theatre was of course crowded to

excess, the boxes presenting a dazzling galaxy of rank and beauty. When

the approach of the king was announced, there was a pause of deathlike

stillness; then an outburst of deep, honest enthusiasm never to be

forgotten. "A prolonged and heartfelt shout, which for more than a

minute rent the house," a waving of handkerchiefs, tartan scarfs, and

plumed bonnets, testified the joy of the assembly and delighted the

ears and eyes of the "chief of chiefs." Sir Walter Scott in a letter to

his son gives a vivid description of this royal visit. For a fortnight

Edinburgh had been a scene of giddy tumult, and considering all that

he had to do, he wondered that he had not caught fever in the midst

of it. All, however, went off most happily. The Edinburgh populace

behaved themselves like so many princes, all in their Sunday clothes;

nothing like a mob--no jostling or crowding. "They shouted with great

emphasis, but without any running or roaring, each standing as

still in his place as if the honour of Scotland had depended on the

propriety of his behaviour. This made the scene quite new to all who

had witnessed the Irish reception." The king's stay in Scotland was

protracted till the 29th of August. On the day before his departure,

Mr. Peel, who accompanied him as Home Secretary, wrote the following

letter to Sir Walter Scott:--"My dear sir,--The king has commanded me

to acquaint you that he cannot bid adieu to Scotland without conveying

to you individually his warm personal acknowledgments for the deep

interest you have taken in every ceremony and arrangement connected

with his Majesty's visit, and for your ample contributions to their

complete success. His Majesty well knows how many difficulties have

been smoothed, and how much has been effected by your unremitting

activity, by your knowledge of your countrymen, and by the just

estimation in which they hold you. The king wishes to make you the

channel of conveying to the Highland chiefs and their followers, who

have given to the varied scenes which we have witnessed so peculiar

and romantic a character, his particular thanks for their attendance,

and his warm approbation of their uniform deportment. He does justice

to the ardent spirit of loyalty by which they are animated, and is

convinced that he could offer no recompense for their services so

gratifying to them as the assurance which I now convey of the esteem

and approbation of their Sovereign."

The king left Scotland on the 29th, taking a route different from

that by which he entered. On his way to the place of embarkation he

visited the Earl of Hopetoun, at whose house he conferred the honour

of knighthood on Mr. Raeburn, the celebrated portrait-painter. At

Queensferry the country people assembled to testify their loyalty

with a last look and a parting cheer. The roar of cannon from all the

surrounding hills, and the shouts of the multitude, greeted him on his

embarkation at Port Edgar. The royal squadron arrived safely on the 1st

of September at Greenwich, where he was cordially welcomed home.

Lord Eldon, who was by no means weary of political life, became

uneasy about his position, and certain arrangements at which the king

had mysteriously hinted. The Lord Chancellor religiously obeyed his

injunction to abstain from speaking on politics to anybody. But he was

revolving in his mind not less anxiously who was to be the new leader

of the House of Commons, and how the Constitution in Church and State

might be best protected against the spirit of innovation. On the king's

return from his northern metropolis the Lord Chancellor was about to

press upon him the promotion to the vacant leadership of the House of

Commons of Mr. Peel, who had won high distinction in the late debate

upon the Catholic peers, when he found, to his unspeakable chagrin,

that Lord Liverpool himself had selected Mr. Canning, and overcome the

royal objections to him on the ground of his having been formerly the

champion of the queen. He had represented to the king that this was

the only arrangement by which the Whigs could be effectually excluded,

and he gave him an assurance that Catholic Emancipation, though left

an open question, should be resolutely opposed. Great as Mr. Canning's

talents for Parliament were, and great as was the want of talent on the

Ministerial side of the House, it was not without the utmost reluctance

that the Cabinet consented to receive him as an associate. They invited

him to fill the place vacated by Lord Londonderry, because he was

forced upon them by circumstances, and they felt that the Government

could not go on without his aid. His only competitor was Mr. Peel, who

had not yet had sufficient opportunity of evincing his great powers for

the conduct and discussion of public affairs to command the station

which many of his colleagues would have gladly seen assigned to him.

Canning was unpopular with the anti-Catholic party in general, and

particularly obnoxious to the Lord Chancellor; and, besides, there

was the great objection of his having been the friend and adherent of

the queen. But Lord Liverpool, the Premier, having been associated

with him from early life, was so thoroughly convinced that he was the

fittest man for the post, and so well acquainted with his transcendent

powers of intellect, that he prevailed upon him to relinquish the

Governor-Generalship of India, to which he had been appointed, and to

accept the vacant Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, together with the

leadership of the Commons.

This was not the only bitter pill that poor Lord Eldon was compelled

to swallow. Without one word of intimation from the king or the Prime

Minister, he learnt for the first time from the _Courier_ that Mr.

Huskisson had been introduced into the Cabinet. Mr. Huskisson was

made President of the Board of Trade, and in his stead Mr. Arbuthnot

became First Commissioner of the Land Revenues. Mr. Vansittart, who

had proved a very inefficient Chancellor of the Exchequer, was raised

to the peerage by the title of Lord Bexley, and got the quiet office

of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was succeeded in the more

important office by a much abler financier, Mr. Robinson.

It was very generally understood that it had been definitely arranged

that Lord Londonderry should represent England at the Congress of

Verona, and it was universally believed, as we have seen, that this

fact weighed on his mind and led to his suicide; but Mr. Gleig states

that in consequence of the reluctance expressed by Lord Londonderry to

undertake the mission, it had for some time been settled that England

should be represented there by the Duke of Wellington, and that he

had begun to make his preparations, when a severe illness fell upon

him, from which he did not sufficiently recover to set out upon his

journey till after Lord Londonderry's death. The Duke of Wellington

started for his mission when Mr. Canning had been only forty-eight

hours in office. Stress has been laid upon the fact that he received

his instructions from Mr. Canning, and this has been declared to be the

turning-point in our foreign policy, when England began to disengage

herself from the Holy Alliance. She was not formally a party to that

alliance, but the despots composing it had counted on her aid and

influence in keeping down the nations which they oppressed. But Mr.

Gleig states that Lord Londonderry himself had compiled a letter of

instruction for the representative of England at the Congress, and

that this was transferred without a single alteration to the Duke of

Wellington. It is, he says, "a very interesting document. It touches

upon every point which could be expected to come under consideration at

the Congress, and it handles them all so as to guard with scrupulous

care not only the honour of Great Britain, but the rights of foreign

peoples as well as of their Governments. It assumes that the subjects

of general discussion would be three: first, the Turkish question,

external and internal; secondly, the Spanish question, European and

American; and, thirdly, the affairs of Italy. With this last question

the representative of England was directed not to concern himself

at all. As England had been no party to the military occupation of

Naples and Sardinia--as she had merely acquiesced in it with a view

to prevent worse things--so she felt herself precluded from advising

upon the arrangement now that it was complete, lest by so doing she

should appear to admit the justice of a proceeding against which from

the outset she had protested. The representative of Great Britain was

therefore instructed to hold aloof from all meetings at which Italian

affairs were to be discussed, and, if possible, to avoid connecting

himself with the Congress till these should have been settled."

With regard to the Turkish question, all possible measures were in the

first instance to be tried, with a view to reconcile the differences

between Russia and Turkey. These referred to the Russian protection

of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and the navigation of the

Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. When these matters were disposed of,

then, and not till then, was the condition of Greece to be considered,

and in dealing with this question the British plenipotentiary was

to use great caution, to avoid committing England either to the

recognition or subjugation of that country.

The case of Spain was the most perplexing of all. The British Cabinet

expressed the opinion that no foreign Power had any right whatever

to interfere with any form of government which she had established

for herself, and that her king and people were to be left to settle

their own differences as best they could. The representative of Great

Britain was directed to urge this point with all his influence upon

the Allies, and especially upon France. But the case of her revolted

colonies was different. It was evident, from the course of events, that

their recognition as independent States was become a mere question of

time. Over by far the greater portion of them Spain had lost all hold,

and it had been found necessary, in order to admit their merchant

vessels into British ports, to alter the navigation laws both of

Britain and Spain. The letter of instructions accordingly directed

the British plenipotentiary to advocate a removal of the difficulty

on this principle: that every province which had actually established

its independence should be recognised; that with provinces in which

the war still went on no relation should be established; there was

to be no concert with France, or Russia, or any extraneous power, in

establishing relations with the new States. "The policy projected was

exclusively English and Spanish, and between England and Spain alone

its course was to be settled. Other nations might or might not come

into the views which England entertained; but upon their approval

or disapproval of her views England was not in any way to shape her

conduct."

There were other matters which the British representative was to bring

forward, and foremost among them all was the suppression of the

slave trade, either by a general declaration from the Allies that it

should be treated as piracy, or by obtaining from them an engagement

that they would not admit into their markets any article of colonial

produce which was the result of slave labour. "It will be seen," says

Mr. Gleig, "that the recognition of the actual independence of many

of the Spanish colonies had already been determined upon by Great

Britain, and that the establishment of diplomatic relations with them

all had come to be considered as a mere question of time. This is a

point worthy of notice, because of the misunderstanding in regard to

it which originated in a speech subsequently delivered by Mr. Canning

in the House of Commons, and which still, to a considerable extent,

prevails. It will be further noticed that the principle observed by

Lord Londonderry as the true principle was that of non-interference by

Great Britain in the internal affairs of foreign nations. That the Duke

of Wellington entirely coincided with Lord Londonderry in this respect,

his conduct both now and in the future stages of his career clearly

demonstrates. The leading object of his political life was to preserve

the peace at home and abroad which it had been the great aim of his

military life to conquer."

The Sovereigns of the Holy Alliance, however, acted on principles

and with designs very different. Their general principle was not to

tolerate any change in the European Governments that did not emanate

from themselves. The Greek Revolution they denounced as a rebellion

against the legitimate authority of the Sultan. The actual Government

of Spain they regarded as incompatible with the safety of monarchical

power, and France called upon the Sovereigns to re-establish the

despotism of Ferdinand. Russia, Austria, and Prussia took the same view

of the Spanish Revolution, but were unwilling to interfere by force of

arms. France was not so scrupulous upon that point. Chateaubriand and

other votaries of absolutism in Church and State were busy fomenting

conspiracies in Spain, and secretly supplying arms and ammunition

to the priest-ridden enemies of constitutional government in that

country. An army which during the previous year had been assembled on

the frontier, under the ridiculous pretence of preventing the fever at

Barcelona from spreading into France, changed its name from that of

a sanitary cordon to an army of observation. M. de Villele, the new

French Prime Minister, threw off the mask, and in a circular note

stated that unless Spain altered her political constitution, France

would use force to convert her from her revolutionary theories.

Such was the state of things with which the Duke of Wellington had to

deal as British plenipotentiary when he left London on his mission

early in September, taking Paris on his way. There he had some

interesting conferences with the king and his Minister. The latter

could hold out no hope that France would fulfil her engagements as to

the slave trade. He spoke, indeed, of their African settlements as

useless to the French people, and proposed to make them over to Britain

in exchange for the Isle of France; but farther than this he declined

to go, because there were too many interests, both public and private,

engaged to thwart his efforts, should he be so unwise as to make any.

His language with regard to South America was not less vague and

unsatisfactory. He stated that France had not entered into relations

with those provinces in any form, and did not intend to do so till they

should have settled their differences with Spain one way or another. M.

de Villele did not add, as he might have done, that France was feeling

her way towards the severance of Spain from her colonies, and towards

the establishment in the New World of one or two monarchies, with

younger branches of the House of Bourbon at their head.

[Illustration: VERONA.]

The third topic discussed at these conferences was the nature of the

relations then subsisting between France and Spain, and the projects of

the former power in reference to the latter. These were explained by

the Minister without any reserve, and with no symptoms of apprehension

that they would be disagreeable to Britain, or of anxiety as to the

result, whether they were so or not. He frankly avowed that, under

cover of the sanitary cordon, 100,000 French troops were assembled;

that it was proposed to throw them in two columns into Spain; that one

column, of 40,000 men, was to pass into Catalonia, while the other,

of 60,000, was to march by the great road through Irun upon Madrid.

He stated that the sole object of this invasion was to insure the

personal safety of the king, to afford him the opportunity to collect a

native force strong enough to enable him to protect himself against the

schemes of the Revolutionists--that is, to put down the Constitution.

Of course, France said she entertained no views of conquest or

aggrandisement, or even of prolonged occupation. She would withdraw

her troops whenever the King of Spain said he could do without them,

and yield up every inch of territory. In reference to this matter the

Duke of Wellington wrote home for instructions, and in reply Canning

said:--"If there be a determined project to interfere by force or by

menace in the present struggle in Spain, so convinced are his Majesty's

Government of the uselessness and danger of any such interference--so

objectionable does it appear to them in principle, as well as utterly

impracticable in execution--that when the necessity arises--or, I would

rather say, when the opportunity offers--I am to instruct your grace at

once frankly and peremptorily to declare that to any such interference,

come what may, his Majesty will not be a party." To say that England

peremptorily declined "to be a party" to the invasion of an independent

state, in order to force upon the people a government contrary to

their will, was not saying very much, nor putting the objection very

strongly. We are assured, however, that the Duke steadily set his face

against the project, pointing out that the step would be not only

unjust, but impolitic; that it would precipitate the catastrophe which

the French Government feared; that the Revolutionists would probably

remove Ferdinand from Madrid as soon as they heard of the passing of

the frontier by the French troops, and that, even if these troops

should reach the capital, the Spaniards would not therefore submit, nor

would the king be set at liberty. He argued that a war between France

and Spain for such a purpose would be pronounced a war to put down free

institutions, and that if France sought the support of her allies, the

only one amongst them that had free institutions would feel it her duty

to meet such a request with a refusal. Europe would be ranged into two

hostile camps, that of absolutism on the one side and of revolution

on the other; amid which not thrones only, but settled governments in

every form, might be overthrown. In reply to these arguments, both

the king and his Minister stated that whatever France might do in the

matter she would do single-handed, and that she would not only not

apply for assistance from without, but that, if such assistance were

offered, she would refuse it. The Duke could not, however, prevail upon

the French Government to refrain from bringing the question between

France and Spain before the Congress. The king and his Minister both

contended that vast moral good would accrue from a joint remonstrance

on the part of the Allies against the treatment to which the King of

Spain was subjected, and a joint threat that if any violence were

offered to his person or family all would unite to avenge the outrage.

Having reported to Mr. Canning the result of his diplomatic efforts at

Paris, the Duke set out on his journey to Vienna, where he arrived on

the 29th of September, and where he expected the Congress to be held.

But there again England's plenipotentiary, the great conqueror of

Napoleon, who had restored the legitimate despots to their thrones, was

treated with as little consideration as at Paris. Not till his arrival

did he learn that the Congress which he was invited to attend was not

to be held at Vienna at all, but at Verona. Meanwhile, in the interval

between the adjournment from one city to another, the Allied Sovereigns

were paying a visit of friendship to the King of Bavaria, whose system

of government no doubt met with their unqualified approval. As the

Duke's instructions forbade him to meddle with Italian affairs, he

tarried at Vienna till he should receive further instructions from

his own Government. While awaiting an answer he had opportunities of

conferring personally with the Czar, who had obtained an ascendency in

the councils of the Holy Alliance which rendered him the virtual master

of every situation. With regard to the affairs of Turkey, the Duke

succeeded in obtaining from his Imperial Majesty an assurance that,

unless driven to it by some unforeseen and irresistible necessity,

he would not come to an open rupture with the Sultan. He was not so

successful in his exertions with regard to the Spanish question, on

which the Czar was in an irritable mood. He said that Spain was the

very centre and focus of revolutionary principles, and he felt it to be

the duty not less than the policy of the Allied Sovereigns to trample

them out at their source, and for this purpose he had proposed to

contribute 150,000 men, whom he intended to march into Spain through

French territory. In reply to the Duke's earnest remonstrances against

this course, the Czar put a question which betrays the aggressive

policy of military despots. He asked what he was to do with his army.

It insisted upon being led against Turkey, and was only restrained

because he had expressed his determination of employing it in putting

down what he called Jacobinism in the west.

The British Cabinet having come to the conclusion that the Duke of

Wellington ought not to abstain from attending the Congress because of

its meeting in an Italian city, and thinking so himself, he set out for

Verona, after a fortnight's sojourn in Vienna.

Wellington acquitted himself as well as could be expected in the

circumstances. Austria was induced to acknowledge an old debt to

Britain, and to pay an instalment. The utmost which she could obtain

from the Allies on the slave trade was a reissue of the joint

condemnation of the traffic which had been pronounced in 1815 at

Vienna, and a special assurance from France that as soon as public

feeling would admit, steps would be taken to carry out the treaty with

Great Britain. In the discussion of the affairs of Italy the Duke took

no part; but the peace which he had urged upon Russia and Turkey was

happily concluded, on terms honourable to both. With regard to the

struggles for freedom in Spain and other countries, the Duke found the

Allied Sovereigns in the worst possible temper. They had no patience

with Britain on account of her dissent, however mild, from their

policy. "Hence, though England never expressed her approval of the

military revolts in Spain and Italy, or even in South America, still,

because she declined to be a party to the suppression of the free

institutions in which they issued, Austria, Prussia, and Russia spoke

of her as the champion of revolutionary principles all over the world."

Accordingly, the Duke found himself alone in his opposition to the plan

of an armed intervention in Spain. It was at first proposed that all

the Allies should unite in this; but it was ultimately agreed that a

_procès verbal_ should be jointly adopted, in which the King of Spain

and his family should be declared to be under the protection of Europe,

and Spain threatened with a terrible vengeance if any injury were done

to them. This _procès verbal_ was addressed to the head of the Spanish

Government, with an explanation of the reasons for its adoption. The

Duke was disappointed and mortified at the obstinate self-will of the

crowned despots. He had gone to Verona in the hope that they would at

all events be open to arguments in favour of peace; he found them bent

on such a course as would render its preservation impossible. When the

Ministers reduced their ideas to a definite shape, the incidents which

they agreed to accept as leading necessarily to war appeared to him

fallacious in the extreme. They were these:--First, an armed attack by

Spain upon France. Second, any personal outrage offered to Ferdinand

VII., or to any member of the Spanish royal family. Third, an act of

the Spanish legislature dethroning the king, or interfering in any way

with the right of succession. Austria, Prussia, and Russia accepted the

conditions readily, adhering, at the same time, to the substance of the

notes which they had previously put in.

The Duke produced a paper of his own, in which the three hypothetical

causes of war were considered separately. He showed, "First, that an

attack by Spain upon France was an occurrence beyond the range of human

probability; next, that though, according to the usages of civilised

nations, the persons of monarchs were held to be sacred, to extend a

character of sanctity to those of other members of the Royal Family was

a thing never before heard of in the history of the world; and lastly,

that, till the Allies should be informed on sufficient authority

that a plan for dethroning Ferdinand or changing the succession in

Spain was actually in progress, to assume that such crimes might be

perpetrated was to insult the whole Spanish nation. For his own part,

he must decline to have any share in the transaction, or to deliver an

opinion upon purely hypothetical cases further than this--that if the

independence of Spain were assailed without just cause, Great Britain

would be no party to the proceeding."

So prejudiced were the Allied Sovereigns against England, that they

were ready to believe any tale to her disadvantage. One story which

was circulated amongst them at the time was that Great Britain had

bound herself to support Spain against France in return for certain

stipulated commercial advantages. Another was that she had entered

into a secret treaty to defend Portugal against France, even though

Portugal should join Spain in the war. After all the Duke's arguments,

explanations, and remonstrances, the French plenipotentiary was about

to set off for Paris, representing all the Powers as being perfectly

unanimous on the policy adopted towards Spain, and the Duke was obliged

to threaten him with a public contradiction if he did not alter that

statement and except Great Britain.

The Duke withdrew much dissatisfied with the turn affairs had taken,

and distrustful of the issue. In a parting interview with the Emperor

of Russia, the latter spoke at length in strong disapprobation of the

refusal of England to co-operate in putting down revolution, and said,

in conclusion, that Russia was prepared for every eventuality. "She was

able, with the support of Austria and Prussia, to crush revolution

both in France and Spain; and, if the necessity should arise, she was

determined to do so." The Duke heard his Imperial Majesty to an end,

and then ventured to assure him that the only thing for which Great

Britain pleaded was the right of nations to set up whatever form of

government they thought best, and to manage their own affairs, so long

as they allowed other nations to manage theirs. Neither he nor the

Government which he represented was blind to the many defects which

disfigured the Spanish Constitution; but they were satisfied that they

would be remedied in time. The Emperor could not gainsay the justice

of these remarks, but neither was he willing to be persuaded by them;

so, after expressing himself well pleased with the settlement of the

Turkish question which had been effected, he embraced the Duke, and

they parted.

The Duke arrived at Paris on the 9th of December, having spent more

than two months at diplomacy with very unsatisfactory results. He

found the king and his Minister, M. de Villele, much cooled in their

feelings towards the Spanish Government, in consequence of the tone of

moderation it had assumed after its defeat of the Royalist insurgents.

The king was now disposed to recall his army of observation, if he

could do so with honour, and all he pressed for now was that Spain

should so modify her system as to make the Constitution emanate from

the king, by resting it upon a royal charter and not upon the will of

the people. If this were done, and done in time for him to explain

the case to the Parliament, when they met on the 28th of January,

everything else, every matter of arrangement and detail, would be

left to the undisturbed management of the Spanish Cabinet and Cortes.

This was truly very accommodating. If Spain would only recant her

constitutionalism, and adopt the absolutist creed of Divine Right, the

Allies would not send their armies into the country for the protection

of the king against his people. The Duke having reported the altered

state of feeling in the French Government, and all that had passed,

to Mr. Canning, the Foreign Secretary instructed him to deliver an

official note to M. de Villele, containing a direct offer from England

to mediate. This offer was declined. On the 20th of December the Duke

quitted Paris, and arrived in London early in January. Subsequently the

diplomatic war was carried on between M. Chateaubriand and Mr. Canning,

both men of genius, and masters of a brilliant style of rhetoric, to

which the Duke of Wellington had no pretensions. Mr. Canning, alluding

to the proposed armed intervention in Spain, with a view to stamp out

the revolution, said, "The spirit of revolution--which, shut up within

the Pyrenees, might exhaust itself with struggles, trying indeed to

Spain, but harmless to her neighbours, when restricted--if called forth

from within these precincts by the provocation of foreign attack, might

find, perhaps, in other countries fresh aliment for its fury, and might

renew throughout Europe the misery of the five-and-twenty years which

preceded the peace of 1815."

On the 29th of January, 1823, the King of France opened the Chambers

with a speech of decidedly warlike tone. It spoke of 100,000 French

soldiers prepared to march under a prince of the blood for the

deliverance of Ferdinand VII. and his loyal people from the tyranny of

a portion. A few weeks afterwards the march commenced, and from the

Bidassoa to Madrid it was a continued triumph. The king was set at

liberty, and the gates of Cadiz were opened. The Spaniards were not

true to themselves, the mass of the people being unable to appreciate

liberal institutions. There was also a counter-revolution in Portugal,

aided by foreign bayonets, restoring the despotic system. These events

produced great dissatisfaction in England, and the Duke was strongly

censured for the timidity of his tone in the Congress. Replying to

attacks made in the Upper House by Lords Ellenborough, Holland, and

Grey, he asked whether it would be becoming in one who appeared in the

character of a mediator to employ threats, especially if he had no

power to carry them into effect:--"Were they for a policy of peace or a

policy of war? If for the former, could he go farther than to declare

that to any violent attack on the independence of Spain the king his

master would be no party? If for the latter, all he had to say was that

he entirely differed from them, and he believed that his views would be

supported by all the intelligent portion of the community."

The conduct of the Government in reference to the Congress was the

subject of an animated debate in the House of Commons, which began

on April 28th and lasted three days. It was on a motion for a Vote

of Censure for the feebleness of tone assumed by the Government in

the negotiations with the Allies, an amendment having been proposed

expressive of gratitude and approbation. In Mr. Canning's speech on the

third day there was one remarkable passage, which clearly defined his

foreign policy, and showed that it had a distinct purpose, and aimed

at an object of the highest importance. He said:--"I contend, sir, that

whatever might grow out of a separate conflict between Spain and France

(though matter for grave consideration) was less to be dreaded than

that all the Great Powers of the Continent should have been arrayed

together against Spain; and that although the first object, in point of

importance, indeed, was to keep the peace altogether, to prevent any

war against Spain, the first in point of time was to prevent a general

war; to change the question from one affecting the Allies on the one

side and Spain on the other, to a question between nation and nation.

This, whatever the result might be, would reduce the quarrel to the

size of ordinary events, and bring it within the scope of ordinary

diplomacy. The immediate object of England, therefore, was to hinder

the impress of a joint-character from being affixed to the war, if

war there must be, with Spain; to take care that the war should not

grow out of an assumed jurisdiction of the Congress; to keep within

reasonable bounds that predominating _areopagitical_ spirit which the

memorandum of the British Cabinet of May, 1820, describes as beyond

the sphere of the original conception and understood principles of the

alliance--an alliance never intended as a union for the government of

the world, or for the superintendence of the internal affairs of other

states; and this, I say, was accomplished."

The sense of the House was so completely with the Government, that

Mr. Brougham, who led the Opposition, declined to go to a division. A

division having been called for, however, on the part of Ministers,

the whole assembly poured into the lobby, till it could hold no more;

and then the remaining members who were shut in were compelled to pass

for an opposition, though there were Ministerialists among them. They

amounted to twenty, in a House of three hundred and seventy-two.

The aggressive policy of the Holy Alliance, and the French invasion of

Spain, despite England's remonstrances, provoked Mr. Canning to hasten

the recognition of the revolted colonies in South America. It was in

defending this policy that he uttered the memorable sentence so often

quoted as a specimen of the sublime:--"Contemplating Spain such as our

ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should

not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to

redress the balance of the Old."

CHAPTER VI.

REIGN OF GEORGE IV. (_continued_).

Prosperity of the Manufacturers--Depression of

Agriculture--Resumption of Cash Payments--A restricted

Currency--The Budget of 1823--Mr. Huskisson--Change of the

Navigation Acts--Budget of 1824--Removal of the Duties on Wool

and Silk--Repeal of the Spitalfields Act and the Combination

Laws--Speculative Mania--The Crash--Remedial Measures of the

Government--Riots and Machine-breaking--Temporary Change in

the Corn Laws--Emigration--State of Ireland--Efforts of Lord

Wellesley--Condition of the Peasantry--Unlawful Societies--The

Bottle Riot--Failure to obtain the Conviction of the Rioters--The

Tithe Commutation Act--Revival of the Catholic Question--Peel's

Views--The Catholic Association and its Objects--Bill for its

Suppression--Plunket's Speech--A new Association formed--Rejection

of Burdett's Resolution--Fears of the Moderates--General

Election--Its Features--Inquiry into the Bubble Companies--Death of

the Duke of York--Canning's vigorous Policy in Portugal--Weakness

of the Ministry and Illness of Liverpool--Who was to be

his Successor?--Canning's Difficulties--Peel and the Old

Tories resign--State of Canning's Health--His arrangements

completed--Opposition to Him--His Illness and Death--Collapse of

the Goderich Ministry--Wellington forms an Administration--Eldon is

omitted--The Battle of Navarino--"The Untoward Event"--Resignation

of the Canningites--Grievances of the Dissenters--Lord John

Russell's Motion for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation

Acts--Peel's Reply--Progress of the Measure--Lord Eldon's

opposition--Public Rejoicings.

The year 1823 opened auspiciously, and continued to exhibit unequivocal

marks of progressive prosperity. Every branch of manufacturing industry

was in a flourishing state. The cotton trade was unusually brisk. There

was a considerable increase in the quantity of silks and woollens

manufactured; and in consequence of augmenting exportation, the demand

for hardware and cutlery was quickened from the state of stagnation in

which it had remained since the conclusion of the war. The shipping

interest, which had been greatly depressed, fully shared in the general

improvement. The agriculturists, however, were still embarrassed and

discontented. In January no less than sixteen English counties had

sent requisitions to their sheriffs to call meetings to consider the

causes of their distresses. The principal remedies proposed were

reduction of taxation; reform of the House of Commons; depreciation

of the currency; commutation of tithes; and appropriation of the

redundant wealth of the Church to public exigencies. At the Norwich

meeting a series of resolutions was proposed and seconded by the gentry

of the county, but they were rejected and put aside on the motion of

Mr. Cobbett, who read a petition which was adopted with acclamation.

It recommended an appropriation of part of the Church property to

the payment of the public debt; a reduction of the standing army; an

abolition of sinecures and undeserved pensions; the sale of the Crown

lands; an equitable adjustment of contracts; the suspension of all

legal processes for one year for the recovery of rents and tithes; and

the repeal of the taxes on malt, soap, leather, hops, and candles.