"for X. expression of Mr Denman, that if she had her place at CHAP. all in the Prayer-Book, it was in the supplication all who are desolate and oppressed," found a responsive echo in the British heart. * 1820. 81. the Radical the occa sion. That these were the feelings of the vast majority of the British people, who hailed the arrival of the Queen Views of with such enthusiastic feelings, is beyond a doubt; and leaders on it was honourable to the nation that they were so general. But the Radical leaders, who fanned the movement, were actuated by very different and much deeper views. Better informed than the multitude whom they led, they had no confidence in the ultimate vindication of the Queen's innocence; but, so far from being deterred by that circumstance, they built on it their warmest hopes, and considered it as a reason for the most strenuous efforts. Innocent or guilty, they could not but gain by the investigation, and the agitation to which it would infallibly lead: "Careless of fate, they took their way, Scarce caring who might win the day; If her innocence were proved, they would gain a triumph over the King, force upon him a wife whom he could not endure, overturn his Ministers, and perhaps shake the monarchy: if her guilt, they would gain the best possible ground for declaiming on the corruption which prevailed in high places, and the monstrous nature of those institutions which gave persons of such character the lead in society. The views they entertained, and the hopes Life of by which they were animated, have been stated by one 363; Ann. of the ablest of their number, whose voluminous writings 139, 140; and sterling sense have given him a lasting place in Bri- 427, 429. tish annals.1* Lord Eldon, more correctly, as the event "The people, in their sense of justice," says Cobbett," went back to the time when she was in fact turned out of her husband's house, with a child in her arms, without blame of any sort having been imputed to her: they compared what they had heard of the wife with what they had seen of the husband, and they came to their determination accordingly. As far as related to the question of guilt or innocence, they did not care a straw; but they took a large 1 Twiss's Eldon, ii. Reg. 1820, Hughes, vi. 1820. CHAP. proved, foresaw the issue of the crisis, when he wrote at X. the time," Our Queen threatens to approach England; if she can venture, she is the most courageous lady I ever heard of. The mischief, if she does come, will be infinite. At first, she will have extensive popularity with the multitude; in a few short weeks or months, she will be ruined in the opinion of all the world." 82. tic recep tion of the Queen at Dover and The reception which the Queen met with was such as Enthusias might swell her heart with exultation, and flatter the Radicals into the hope of an approaching subversion of the Government. Nothing like it had been witnessed in London. since the restoration of Charles II. An immense multitude awaited her arrival at the harbour of Dover; the thunder of artillery from the castle, for the first and last time, saluted her approach; the road to London was beset with multitudes eager to obtain a glimpse of her person. She entered the metropolis, accompanied by two hundred thousand persons. Night and day her dwelling was surrounded by crowds, whose vociferous applause of herself and her friends was equalled by their vituperation of the King, and threats against his Ministers. Government were in the utmost alarm: meetings of Ministers were held daily, almost hourly. Their apprehensions were much increased by symptoms of insubordination being manifested in one of the regiments of the foot-guards stationed in the Mews barracks at Charing Cross, which, although ostensibly grounded on the inconveniences and crowded state of their barracks, were Strongly apprehended to be connected with the excited feelings of the populace in the metropolis, with whom the household troops were in such constant communication.1 The Duke of Wellington was sent for, and by his presence and courage succeeded in restoring order, and next morning the disaffected troops were sent off in two 1 Ann. Reg. 1930, 139, 143; Mar. tineau, i. 254; Sidmouth's Life, iii. 330, 331. view of the matter: they went over her whole history; they determined that she had been wronged, and they resolved to uphold her.”—COBBETT's Life of George IV., 425. ་ X. 1820. divisions to Portsmouth. The night before the last CHAP division marched, however, an alarming mob collected round the gates of the barracks, calling on the troops to come out and join them; and they were only dispersed by a troop of the life-guards, called out by Lord Sidmouth in person. 83. Failure of the negotia commence After the Queen's arrival in London, an attempt was made by her able advisers, Messrs Brougham and Denman, to renew the negotiation, and prevent the disclo- tions, and sures, painful and discreditable to all concerned, to ment of the which the threatened investigation would necessarily inquiry. lead. The basis of the proposal was to be, that the King was to retract nothing, the Queen admit nothing, and that she was to leave Great Britain with an annuity, settled upon her for life, of £50,000 a-year. It failed, however, in consequence of her Majesty insisting on the insertion of her name in the Liturgy and a reception at foreign courts, or at least some one foreign court, in a manner suitable to her rank. On the first point the King was immovable; on the last, the utmost length he would go, was to agree to notify her being legally Queen of England to some foreign court, leaving her reception there to the pleasure of that court. The utmost mutual temper and courtesy were evinced by the commissioners on both sides, who were no less persons than Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington on the part of his Majesty, and Messrs Brougham and Denman on that of the Queen. But all attempts at adjustment of the differences were unsuccessful, and on the 19th June it was formally announced in both Houses of Parliament that the negotiation had failed, and on the 4th July, the secret July 4. committee of the Lords, to whom it had been referred, reported "that the evidence affecting the honour of the Queen was such as to require, for the dignity of the Crown and the moral feeling and honour of the country, a solemn inquiry." The Queen next day declared, by July 5. petition to the Lords, her readiness to defend herself, CHAP. 1820. 1 Protocol, and praying to be heard by counsel; and soon after Lord Liverpool brought forward, in the House of Lords, the famous Bill of Pains and Penalties, which, on the narraJune 15, 16, tive of improper and degrading conduct on the part of 182020, her Majesty, and an adulterous connection with a menial 159, 161; servant named Bartelomeo Bergami, proposed to dissolve ii. 167, 207, the marriage with his Majesty, and deprive her of all 248. her rights and privileges as Queen of England.1 Reg. 1820, Parl. Deb. 84. ensued on the trial. The die was now cast, and the trial went on in good Scene which earnest. But who can paint the scene which ensued, when the first of British subjects was brought to trial before the first of British assemblies by the most powerful of British sovereigns! Within that august hall, fraught with so many interesting recollections, where so many noble men had perished, and innocence had so often appealed from the cruelty of man to the justice of Heaven; where Anne Boleyn had called God to witness, and Queen Catherine had sobbed at severance from her children; where Elizabeth had spoken to the hearts of her people, and Anne had thrilled at the recital of Marlborough's victories; whose walls were still hung with the storied scene of the destruction of the Armada-was all that was great and all that was noble in England assembled for the trial of the consort of the Sovereign, the daughter of the house of Brunswick! There was to be seen the noble forehead and serene countenance of Castlereagh-the same now, in the throes of domestic anxiety, as when he affronted the power of France, and turned the scales of fortune on the plains of Champagne; there the Roman head of Wellington, still in the prime of life, but whose growing intellectual expression bespoke the continued action of thought on that constitution of iron. Liverpool was there, calm and unmoved, amidst a nation's throes, and patiently enduring the responsibility of a proceeding on which the gaze of the world was fixed; and Sidmouth, whose courage nothing could daunt, and whose tutelary arm had so long enchained X. 1820. the fiery spirit which was now bursting forth on every CHAP. side. There was Eldon, whose unaided abilities had placed him at the head of this august assembly, and who was now called to put his vast stores of learning to their noblest use-that of holding the scales of justice, even against his own strongest interests and prepossessions; and there was Copley, the terror of whose crossexamination proved so fatal on the trial, and presaged the fame of his career as Lord-Chancellor. There was Grey, whose high intellectual forehead, big with the destinies of England, bespoke the coming revolution in her social state; and Lansdowne, in whom suavity of manner and dignity of deportment adorned, without concealing, the highest gifts of eloquence and statesmanship. There were Brougham and Denman, whose oratorical powers and legal acuteness were sustained by a noble intrepidity, and who, in now defending the illustrious accused against the phalanx of talent and influence by which she was assailed, apparently to the ruin of their professional prospects, worthily won a seat on the Woolsack, and at the head of the King's Bench of England. Lawrence there gazed on a scene more thrilling and august than the soul of painting had ever conceived; and Kean studied the play of passions as violent as any by which he had entranced the world on the mimic stage. And in the front of all was the Queen of England, a stranger, childless, reviled, discrowned, but sustained by the native intrepidity of her race, and gazing undaunted on the hostility of a nation in arms.* 85. The trial-for trial it was, though disguised under the name of a Bill of Pains and Penalties-went on for several Progress of the trial, months; and day after day, during that long period, was and its the public press of England polluted by details, which difficulties. * The reader of Macaulay's incomparable Essay on Warren Hastings need not be told what model was in the author's eye in this paragraph; but no one can feel so strongly as he does the futility of all attempts to rival that noble picture. |