the Restrictive Laws, the Parliament was adjourned over the month of
January, 1820. On the 23rd of that month died Edward, Duke of Kent. He,
as well as his brothers, had been married on the suggestion of Government
in the year 1818, with the view of securing the succession. The pregnancy
of his Duchess, who was a Princess of Saxe-Coburg and widow of Duke of
Leiningen, was announced early in 1819, when he and she were in Germany.
They were desirous, for obvious reasons, that their child should be
born in England; but the Prince Regent had no inclination to facilitate
that object by offering any pecuniary assistance. They had not enough
for their journey, and a generous loan of several thousands from Lord
Fitzwilliam (not repaid, I believe, till Victoria’s accession) extricated
them from their dilemma. To that circumstance the present Queen and her
subjects are indebted for the satisfaction of maintaining a native, as
well as parliamentary and constitutional, sovereignty. The Regent, not
content with the above gratification of malice rather than stinginess,
perversely objected to the child, when born, receiving the name of
Charlotte. The Emperor Alexander was to be godfather. But the Regent
discovered some rule of etiquette which forbade the combination of his
mother’s name with that of a foreign Crowned Prince. He wished the name
to be Alexandrina, only from a spiteful hope that it might be unpopular;
but such a design was successfully frustrated by that of Victoria being
also adopted.
Living as we are, while I am writing this, under the Princess of that
name, there may be some increased curiosity concerning the character her
father bore among his contemporaries. I can furnish little to satisfy
it, from such slight communication as I had personally with him, and I
fear such report of his peculiarities as I can conscientiously repeat
from others, will not augment any regret at an untimely death, which
bequeathed to others the duty of forming the character of his far more
illustrious daughter. His exercise of authority both in Canada and
Gibraltar was liable to no exception on the score of negligence, but it
was deemed so harsh and vexatious that it rendered his removal from both
desirable.[284] His domestic life, though far from being dissolute or
indecorous, was not exemplary nor abounding in any very amiable traits of
disposition.
The state of the Royal Family at the period of Princess Charlotte’s death
had been singular enough. We had a King and Queen greatly advanced in
years, and with no less than seven sons and five daughters alive, and all
beyond forty years of age; and yet from the want of grandchildren there
was no small prospect of the succession devolving on some foreign Prince.
While the means of supplying this defect by marrying the King’s sons was
in contemplation, it was, no doubt, remarked in every company throughout
the kingdom that the robust frame and abstemious diet of the Duke of Kent
marked him out as the survivor of all his Royal relatives then living.
Yet he died before them all, leaving an infant daughter, destined to
succeed to the Crown, in the cradle. He was, indeed, if such terms can
agree, regular to excess in all his habits. Household and family were
more strictly disciplined than a regiment or a convent, and the duties,
the occupations, and the amusements of every branch of his establishment
recorded, docketed, and preserved, with a minuteness I hardly venture
to recount. His life was clockwork, and some ludicrous instances which
his brother, George IV., loved to relate were such as might have rescued
Sterne in his delineation of Mr. Shandy from all charge of extreme
improbability. This observance of form and details, and above [all] this
restless love of business which it caused, produced other results less
creditable to his memory and far more vexatious to those connected or
acquainted with him. It involved him in correspondence with many low
characters of doubtful repute, and he was suspected (I fear with too much
reason) of having indirectly countenanced and disseminated the calumnies,
and even fomented the plots, against the Duke of York in the memorable
business of Mrs. Clarke.
He certainly kept up a mysterious intercourse with almost every
discontented officer in the army, and he is much belied if he did not
secretly remunerate clerks in public offices, and inmates and servants
in private families, for what he deemed curious information. It is to be
hoped that he never earned, but he certainly obtained from his brothers,
the nickname of Joseph Surface: and the practices I have mentioned,
combined with assiduous attendance at public dinners, a specious
talent of speaking there, a plausible manner in society, and a formal
and dignified demeanour everywhere, gave some colour to uncharitable
imputations of very mischievous designs. Some certainly have thought it
fortunate that he did not live long enough to dabble in the troubled
waters, and prosecute the mysterious cabals which shortly after his death
harassed and degraded the Royal family, and went nigh to disturb the
peace of the country.
Of course, I do not allude to the horrid plot for murdering the Ministry,
which was about this time conceived and nearly perpetrated by a ferocious
enthusiast and resolute assassin of the name of Thistlewood.[285] That
was detected and punished in the ensuing month, but had no countenance
nor connection with any man of rank or indeed of public character
whatever. But there were certain consequences resulting from the death
of his father, in which the Duke of Kent, had he been alive, might have
acted, if not a conspicuous, a very important part.
George III. expired on January 30,[286] the anniversary of the execution
of Charles I., to whom he had been so often compared. It might have been
expected that after a King had reached the age of eighty-one, and had
been secluded for near ten years both from affairs and society, nothing
but a mere change of titles and names would have marked his descent to
the grave. But his son who was actually possessed, as well as successor,
of his prerogatives was so childishly averse to admitting of some formal
consequences of the demise of the Crown that he involved himself, his
Ministry, Parliament, and country in perplexity; which diverted all
attention from the real interests of the nation, threatened much internal
disturbance and calamity, and ripened, if it did not sow, seeds of what
fortunately became wholesome reforms, but might well have been confusion,
vengeance, and disorder. The reports of all that led to, and all that
occurred on, what is called the _Queen’s Trial_ are so voluminous and for
the most part so correct, and the subject is altogether so revolting to
good taste and so discreditable to the Government and the nation, that I
may be spared the mortification and disgust of doing more than touching
on such effects as it had on the state of political parties, and on a
circumstance here or there relating [to] the individuals, which escaped
the scrutinising curiosity awakened by that scandalous scene.
The Prince Regent had all along dreaded lest, on his Accession, the
wife whom he detested would return to England, claim her dignity and
station, and expose him to mortification and embarrassment. Long before
his father’s death he would willingly have instituted proceedings for
separation and divorce. He was constantly nibbling at that bait, but he
found no man of influence in his councils or in Parliament bold enough to
engage in so hazardous an undertaking.
It was thought, indeed, by several that the Princess might be persuaded,
cajoled, bribed, or intimidated into some deed of separation and a
promise never to return. This would, it was thought, spare the Prince
her presence on his Accession, and his Ministers many embarrassing
questions on which it would be difficult for _them_ to steer a course,
neither discreditable to their consistency and shocking to the sense of
justice and decorum, nor, on the other hand, offensive to the King and
fatal to their ascendancy at Court. Brougham was not at all unwilling
to lend himself to such a scheme. With his usual confidence in his own
dexterity, and with more than his usual effrontery, he obtruded some
such suggestion on the Prince Regent and his Ministry, implying and
much exaggerating his influence with the Princess. The basis of the
arrangement was to secure to her an ample income and a recognition of
rank and title on the demise of the Crown,[287] and to the successor to
it the certainty and comfort of her perpetual absence.
Of these proposals he had consented, if not offered, to be the bearer.
When reminded of it in the House of Commons, he did not simply deny it,
but by vehement declamation and argumentative contradiction of collateral
points endeavoured to involve all that had passed between him, his
client, or the Government, in obscurity.[288]
How far he was authorised by her, how far invited or accepted by Prince
Regent or Ministers to take the steps, it would perhaps be difficult
for the parties themselves to explain, and is certainly so for the
historian to ascertain. It all came to nothing. Some accused Brougham
of a plot to betray his client and ingratiate himself with her enemies,
others, of a wish to inveigle the latter into concessions and offers
which would enable him to expose them afterwards and to place himself
at the head of a popular party. Perhaps each side suspected him of such
designs upon them respectively. Certain it is that though he repelled
those charges with great ability and force, and some parts of them
with obvious truth, yet there remained a strong suspicion on the minds
of many that the entire failure of all agreement was mainly owing to
the want of confidence, on both sides, in the honesty and judgment of
the proposed agent (termed, by a bad joke, rather an offic_ious_ than
offic_ial_ adviser), and not from any reluctance on his part to make
himself subservient to the views of either. Whatever was the effect
of his interposition, nothing had been settled at the Accession of
George IV.; and the Queen seemed retrospectively to approve of all
Brougham’s proceedings by appointing him without loss of time her
Attorney-General.[289]
One of the first public acts which the King in the ordinary course of
things was called upon to perform, was to sign an order for the omission
of the names of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and for the insertion
of himself as reigning King, and Queen Caroline as his Consort, in
the Liturgy. This he positively refused to do, and thereby astounded
his Ministers. An altercation ensued, which had wellnigh ended in the
dissolution of the Ministry. How exactly the matter was settled I do
not recollect; but the Royal Family including the Queen, and not naming
her, appeared in the _Gazette_, and the King, as the price of submitting
to such a compromise, exacted from his Ministers a promise that unless
the Queen were prevailed upon to remain abroad they would institute
proceedings against her immediately on her arrival in England. It was,
no doubt, foreseen by the King and by everybody else, the Ministers
excepted, that the Queen would consider the omission of her name and
title as an indignity, and hurry home to resent it. Even at this early
period some vague and indistinct communications were conveyed from the
King to leading individuals in Opposition. They betrayed the uneasy
footing on which he stood with his Cabinet, and must have shown him the
firm adherence of the Whig party to the public principles which they
professed; but they did no more.
The King was proclaimed on a very cold day at Carlton House, by the
same person (Sir Isaac Heard)[290] who had officiated at his father’s
proclamation _sixty_ years before. The new Sovereign was so affected
by the weather that he was near giving old Sir Isaac an opportunity
of proclaiming a third King. His life, however, was saved by the bold
practice of Sir Matthew Tierney, who resorted, without hesitation, to
profuse bleeding.
The Parliament was dissolved on February 28, and the atrocious plot of
Thistlewood and his accomplices was adroitly alluded to in the Speech as
substantiating the grounds on which the Coercive Acts had been passed.
Yet surely they rather confirmed the adverse remark, that penal laws
and precautionary measures of severity against sedition tend to provoke
schemes of assassination and to substitute the secret dagger for the open
tumult or riot. There was nothing in the character or conduct of the
criminals on this occasion to raise either sympathy or curiosity; nor
could the fate of men meditating such atrocities excite the slightest
commiseration. Yet the spectacle of the barbarous parts of the execution
was unsuited to the times; and the Government and Parliament felt that
they were more likely to disgust than to intimidate the public, and to
promote than to deter disaffection and conspiracy. They were soon after
silently abrogated by Act of Parliament in cases of high treason as well
as felony, although the yet more iniquitous consequence of that sentence,
the corruption of blood, was left unaltered.
Fortunately for the Ministry, the returns of the new Parliament were
completed before the ulterior proceedings regarding the Queen were
announced or the intentions respecting her had transpired or been clearly
understood. Her resentment at the omission of her name was not positively
known till Parliament met, and with equal good fortune the Civil List
was voted before she arrived in the country, and before the discussions
arising upon it had perplexed the House of Commons and inflamed their
constituents. The dissolution had given the Government a majority
adequate to ordinary purposes. The Civil List, having been settled as
recently as 1816, and being in some degree exonerated by the death of
Queen Charlotte as well as the King, passed rapidly and smoothly through
Parliament. Had the temper of the House been as much ruffled as it was
six weeks afterwards, its passage would probably have been much rougher
and much of its valuable cargo have been thrown overboard to lighten the
vessel before it reached its destination.
The address also passed unanimously on April 17. There seemed, indeed,
sufficient in foreign and domestic events to occupy the Parliament and
the public during the Session. In Spain, insurrectionary movements and
military mutinies had compelled the ever base and cowardly Ferdinand to
proclaim that Constitution of 1812, which his treachery and ingratitude
had subverted.[291] This revolution produced a mighty sensation
throughout the Continent, and it was obvious either the infection of
liberty would spread or an endeavour be made to crush it by the Holy
Alliance and the restored Bourbons of France.
At home the great oracles on currency and bullion—such as that consistent
and philosophical observer, Lord King—pronounced some legislative
measures and some further approach to perfect liberty of trade and
currency necessary to avert impending embarrassments, and to establish
a wholesome condition of things. The trials of Mr. Hunt and Sir Francis
Burdett, the first, for sedition and riot at Manchester,[292] the
latter, for a seditious libel upon it, involved many questions on which
the public, at any other time, would have been apt to take fire and some
of a nice nature on the construction of Statute and the principles of
Common Law. The Irish Roman Catholics, too, often over sanguine, began to
speculate on the consequences of the Accession, and of a King who, though
lately estranged from their cause, had been long supposed to be a friend,
and might, as they fondly imagined, revert to his early predilections.
Mr. Grattan, though in a feeble state of health, was hurrying over at
their earnest instigation, and in fervent hope of closing his glorious
career by a striking, if not successful, effort of expressing eloquence
on behalf of his countrymen. But he breathed his last the day after
he reached London, almost at the moment when the Queen’s triumphant
arrival extinguished for a time all interest about that great question
more effectually than the death of its ablest advocate, overwhelmed the
Government with consternation, adjourned all incipient reform on the
business of Grampound,[293] and obliterated the consideration of all
topics of public concern; thereby furnishing a beautiful comment on the
institution of monarchy, which can render the personal and disgusting
squabbles between a man and his wife, neither remarkable for their
talents nor respectable for their virtues, a much keener object of
solicitude to an enlightened people than the fate of surrounding nations
or the improvement and welfare of their own!
Lord Grey did not attend the early part of the Session. He intrusted
to me a petition from a parson of the name of Pike Jones,[294] a man
of coarse manners, but not deficient in learning or understanding,
whom the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Pelham, the weakest sycophant on the
Bench, had refused to induct to a living. The pretext was that he had
spoken irreverently of the Articles and the Athanasian Creed at a
public meeting; the real motive was to pay his court to George IV., by
persecuting a clergyman who had at that meeting manfully and charitably
maintained the principles of universal toleration.
My case was strong. I endeavoured, not without success, I believe,
to demonstrate that were the Church of England to be judged, as the
Anti-Catholics among them judge of the Papist, by such maxims and
professions as she is unwilling to renounce but does not practically
act up to, she might, through her Articles, Homilies, and Creeds, be
convicted of bigotry, if not perhaps so extensive, full as inveterate
and odious as that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Bishop, however
callous to reproach, was scared at the severity with which several grave
and church-going peers, especially Lord Carnarvon and Lord Lansdowne,
stigmatised the transaction; and though the Bishop of Durham,[295] the
highest Churchman on the Bench, censured the language both of Mr. Jones
and Lord Carnarvon, it was obvious enough that he, as well as Ministers
and the other Spiritual Lords, if compelled to pronounce a verdict on the
subject, would have condemned his conduct as intemperate and illegal.
The Queen, with an intrepidity defying legal advice as well as King,
Cabinet, and Parliament, made a strange and triumphant entry into London,
with Alderman Wood[296] at her side and her ladies opposite, on June
[7], 1820. The Ministers redeemed their pledge to the King, and on the
6th brought down a message to Parliament, accompanied by papers in a
green bag relating “to the conduct of the Queen since her departure.”
The negotiations preceding her determination to come to London were all
brought in great detail before the public.
I have already stated my reasons for not recounting or commenting on
them, or upon those, with a like failure, which were instituted by the
Commons to induce Her Majesty to acquiesce in some arrangement which
would avert the necessity of any public investigation. In some of the
preliminary steps to the inquiry I took a part, with a view that the
whole proceeding might be quashed in the earliest stages, and stifled
without casting blame on either party. I was even induced, by an idle
hope of abrogating an unjust and unnatural law (from which I apprehended
future mischief to monarchy), to propose the Repeal of the Royal Marriage
Act, which passed in the year 1772 to gratify the malice and feed the
pride of George III.[297] I had no view, retrospective or immediate,
to the squabble, then existing in the Royal Family and disturbing
at once business of Parliament and the peace of the country; but I
vainly imagined that a sense of those inconveniences, arising from the
constraints under which Royal marriages are contracted, might dispose
men’s minds to relax or remove such constraints in future. Friend and foe
scouted the proposition, and seemed to suspect it to be a manœuvre to
answer some immediate but concealed purpose. The fact is, all minds were
intent on giving a triumph to one of the contending parties on the matter
before them, and reckless of everything else. I, of course, let my bill
drop after the first reading.
Lord Liverpool asked me in private if I would sit on the second Committee
about to be appointed for an examination of the papers; I declined, but I
did so, as I told him, on private rather than public grounds, thinking my
name by no means an advantageous one to be selected for judicial inquiry
on a matter connected with divorce. Lansdowne consented to be named, but
he afterwards publicly withdrew; and as in the _interim_ the Commons had
shown their distaste and the public their resentment of the proceeding,
his change of conduct, though judicious, natural, and prudent, was
for that very reason, by the promoters of the measure, stigmatised as
irresolute and unhandsome. Most of our party, and all who had been of
Cabinet in 1806, were, in truth, at first very unwilling to espouse the
cause of the Queen. We had no great confidence in its merit and none
whatever in her character; and we thought such a line of conduct would
expose us to the charge of faction or revenge. On the other hand, we were
as little disposed, after the treatment we had received, to identify
ourselves a second time with the King, and to brave unpopularity by
encouraging him in an ungenerous and unnecessary vexation of a half-crazy
woman.
Several, however, of our friends, Lords Donoughmore and Hutchinson,
Sir John Leach,[298] Lord Lauderdale, and perhaps the whole Cavendish
connection, either felt disgusted with the Queen or deemed it in their
hearts a good opportunity for recovering Court favour, and possibly for
outbidding those who were in possession of office. But some few in the
Lords, very many in the Commons, and nearly all out of doors, wrought
upon by Brougham and either sincerely biassed by indignation at what they
deemed persecution or stimulated by faction and revenge, were panting for
the exposure of the King and ready to exalt the Queen as their heroine
and to inflict mortification and defeat upon him.
We were not the only party perplexed at the position we had assumed.
Mr. Canning was in a yet more awkward predicament. He had been
intimate, scandal said, too intimate, with the Queen. The rumour was
countenanced by the King’s marked aversion to him; and the notoriety of
her consultations with him, before she quitted, had served to confirm
the suspicion. Yet he had acquiesced in the exclusion of her name from
the Liturgy. He did not appear either in Council or in Parliament to
have made any very strenuous exertions to screen her from prosecution
or aspersion. But when that provocation was determined and announced,
he lamented it loudly, spoke in warm terms of his obligations and of
the charms of her society. He asked an audience of the King, and stated
to him the impossibility of taking any part in the proceedings against
her. The King commanded him to remain in his service, but permitted him
to state that he did so exclusively in consequence of that command,
and allowed him to adhere to his resolution of taking no part. This he
considered as a postponement of his resignation, which was tendered and
accepted in the winter of 1820.[299]
Surely this was a strange course. It afforded her no assistance or
protection. It must have grievously offended his colleagues and the King,
and so far from rescuing her character from reproach, it seemed to imply
some secret and mysterious reason that disqualified him for a judge or an
accuser....