[1820 A.D.]

On the 7th Lord Liverpool proposed that the papers should be submitted to a secret committee of fifteen peers, to be appointed by ballot. Lord Liverpool, however, announced that the course to be pursued against the queen could not be an impeachment for treasonable conspiracy, seeing that Bergami, the alleged partner in her guilt, being an alien, was not amenable as a traitor to the crown of England, and that to constitute conspiracy there must be at least two criminals. The secret committee was appointed by ballot on the following day.

While this was passing in the lords there was another vehement debate in the commons. Mr. Brougham presented a message from the queen, which set forth that she had come to claim her rights and maintain her innocence; that she protested against a secret tribunal appointed by her accusers; and finally, that she appealed to the justice of the house of commons. Lord Castlereagh declared that ministers were neither persecutors nor prosecutors in this matter, and that the illustrious personage would not and could not be judged without an open inquiry and examination of witnesses. Mr. Canning, who entertained a kind and generous feeling towards the princess, solemnly vowed that he would never place himself in the situation of her accuser. The same eminent orator and statesman declared that he would take no further share in these deliberations; and, finding the cabinet resolved to proceed, he very soon resigned his office. Mr. Wilberforce moved the adjournment of the question to the next day but one, in the hope that during the interval some amicable arrangement would prevent a disgusting investigation, which might go far to taint the public morals, and which could not but degrade the two contending parties-the king as well as the queen. This motion was agreed to, and for several days there was silence in the house upon the subject.

Caroline of Brunswick had landed at Dover from the ordinary packet on the 6th, accompanied by Alderman Wood and Lady Ann Hamilton. Her entry into London was a kind of triumph, for she was received with joyful acclamations by the common people, and an immense mob followed her carriage, shouting, "The queen forever!" and heaping vituperations and curses upon the heads of her husband's ministers. On the 14th the somewhat radically composed common council of the city of London presented an address, congratulating her majesty on her arrival in the country. The example was speedily followed, and for many months the metropolis was kept in a ferment by addresses and processions, got up by all manner of people, of trades, and of bodies corporate and not corporate, in honour of the queen's happy return.'

The secret committee of the lords made its report on the 4th of July. The report declared 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," which might "be best effected in the course of a legislative proceeding, the necessity of which," the committee declared, "they cannot but most deeply deplore." The queen the next day declared, by petition to the lords, her readiness to defend herself, and prayed to be heard by counsel, in order to detail some weighty matters, which it was necessary to state in preparation for the inquiry. Her petition was refused, and Lord Liverpool proceeded to propose the Bill of Pains and Penalties,' which is the everlasting disgrace of his administration. The bill

[1"It is not our intention," says Knight," "to furnish even the very briefest abstract of the evidence that was brought forward to sustain, or to rebut, the charge against the queen upon which the Bill of Pains and Penalties was founded-namely, that her royal highness conducted herself towards Bartolomeo Bergami, a foreigner engaged in her service in a menial

[1820 A.D.]

was entitled "An act to deprive her majesty, Queen Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, of the title, prerogatives, rights, privileges and exemptions of queen consort of this realm, and to dissolve the marriage between his majesty and the said Caroline Amelia Elizabeth." It charged the queen with improper and degrading conduct generally during her residence abroad, and particularly with an adulterous connection with a menial servant, named Bartolomeo Bergami; and provided for her degradation and divorce. It was read a first time, and copies were ordered to be sent to the queen, and to her attorney and solicitor-general. The next day her majesty offered to the house of lords her protest, and a renewed prayer to be heard by counsel. Her counsel were called in, and instructed to confine themselves to the subject of the mode of procedure under the bill. The substance of their demand was that the whole business, if not dropped, should be proceeded with, without any delay, to a final issue. Brougham declared that her majesty "was clamorous" for this.

The second reading of the bill was fixed for the 17th of August, and it was at this stage that the attorney-general adduced the charges on the part of the Crown, and followed them up by the testimony of witnesses. From this day to the 8th of September the house of lords was occupied with the testimony offered on behalf of the bill. And it was not only that house that was thus occupied. Nothing else was heard of throughout the country-one might almost say throughout Europe. From day to day indecent tales were told by a party of Italian domestics-tales such as, at other times, are only whispered by the dissolute in private and are never offered to the eye or ear of the moral and modest who compose the bulk of the English nation. These tales were now translated by interpreters at the bar of the house of lords, given in full in the newspapers, and spread through every town, hamlet, and lone house within the four seas. The advisers of the king said much of what the queen had done for the tainting of public morals and the degradation of the dignity of the crown; but it was plain to most people then, and is to every one now, that nothing that it was in her power to do, if she had been all that her prosecutors declared, could have so injured public morals and degraded the crown as the king's conduct in pursuit of his divorce. If he had obtained it, it would have been at the cost of a responsibility towards his people, the weight of which could have been borne by no man worthy to occupy a throne.

It was a season of extreme heat. Horses dropped dead on the roads, and labourers in the fields. Yet, along the line of the mails, crowds stood waiting in the burning sunshine for news of the trial, and horsemen galloped over hedge and ditch to carry the tidings. In London the parks and the Westend streets were crowded every evening; and through the bright nights of July neighbours were visiting one another's houses to lend newspapers or compare rumours. The king was retired within his palace-unable to come forth without danger of meeting the queen, or of hearing cheers in her favour. She had her two-o'clock dinner parties-"Dr. Parr and a large party,”—now a provincial mayor, now a country baronet, now a popular clergyman come up to tender his own homage and that of his neighbours-and then came the appearance to the people in an airing, and on other days the going down to the house of lords. Elsewhere were the Italian witnesses-guarded like a situation, both in public and private, with indecent and offensive familiarity and freedom, and carried on with him a licentious, disgraceful, and adulterous intercourse. The impression of the character of the queen, produced upon all impartial persons by the publication of the evidence, was pretty much the same as that expressed by Sydney Smith" after the proceedings had closed: The style of manners she has adopted does not exactly tally with that of holy women in the days that are gone, but let us be charitable and hope for the best.'"]

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gang of criminals as they went to and fro; pelted and groaned at wherever they were seen; driven fast to back doors of the house of lords, and pushed in, as for their lives. Within the house there was the earnest attention of the lords to the summing up of the solicitor-general (Copley), previous to the production of the witnesses, the rushing out to see the eclipse when the pith and marrow of the matter were disposed of, and the rushing back presently during the mingling of his voice at the close with the sound of "the drums and flourish, announcing the queen's arrival"; and then the reception of her majesty, all standing as she entered and took her seat, as hitherto, on "the crimson chair of state, three feet from the bar"; and then the swearing-in of the interpreter, and the introduction of the first witness, at whose entrance the queen was looking another way, but on perceiving whom she uttered an inarticulate exclamation and hastily retired. She had nothing to fear from this witness, however; for his evidence was, on the face of it, so ludicrously untrustworthy that his name, Majocchi, became a joke throughout the country. The poor wretch was an admirable theme for the mob outside. in the intervals between their exhortations to the guards, and the peers, and all who passed to the house, to "remember their queen"-"remember their sisters," their "wives," their "daughters." Then there was the perplexity of underlings how to act. The sentinels at Carlton palace, “after a momentary pause, presented arms" as her majesty's carriage passed; "the soldiers at the treasury did not." Daily was the fervent "God bless her!" repeated ten thousand times, from the nearest housetop to the farthest point of vision; and daily did the accused appear "exhausted by fatigue and anxiety," on returning from hearing or being informed of the disgusting charges, the time for replying to which had not yet arrived. Those who remembered that July and August, when men's minds were fevered with passion or enthusiasm, and the thermometer was ranging from 80 to 90 degrees in the shade, could always be eloquent about the summer of 1820.

On the 9th of September her majesty's counsel applied for and obtained an adjournment to Tuesday, the 3rd of October. The defence consisted of attempts, generally successful, to overthrow the credit of the witnesses against the accused, and in bringing forward testimony in favour of her conduct and manners while abroad. On the 2nd of November the arguments of counsel on both sides being concluded, the lords proceeded to discuss the question of the second reading of the Bill of Pains and Penalties. The division was taken on Monday the 6th, when the majority in favour of the second reading was only 28 in a house of 218. On the third reading, which took place four days afterwards, the majority was reduced to 9. Such a result in this house, the stronghold of ministerial power, at once showed the government that it must yield, and that it would yield, "considering the state of public feeling, and the division of sentiment just evinced by their lordships," Lord Liverpool announced on the spot. The king's ministers had come to the determination not to proceed further with the measure.

The joy which spread through the country with the news of the abandonment of the bill was beyond the scope of record. Among the generality of persons who did not look beyond the interest of the particular case, the escape of the queen was a matter of congratulation; but to this persons of more reflection and a more comprehensive knowledge added a deeper joy. They felt as Lord Erskine did when he burst forth with his rejoicings on the announcement of the abandonment of the bill. "My life, whether it has been for good or for evil, has been passed under the sacred rule of the law. In this moment I feel my strength renovated by that rule being restored. The ac

[1820-1821 A.D.] cursed change wherewithal we had been menaced has passed over our heads. There is an end of that horrid and portentous excrescence of a new law, retrospective, iniquitous, and oppressive; and the constitution and scheme of our polity is once more safe. My heart is too full of the escape we have just had to let me do more than praise the blessings of the system we have regained."

Three nights of illumination in London, sanctioned by the lord mayor, followed the announcement of the triumph of the queen's cause. Prince Leopold, the son-in-law of both the royal parties, ordered Marlborough House to be illuminated; and no abode shone more brightly. The witnesses for the prosecution were burned in effigy in the streets; and there was some mobbing of the newspaper offices which had taken the government side in the question; but there was no serious breach of the peace.

On the 23rd the queen sent down a message to the house of commons, which Mr. Denman had begun to read, when he was stopped by the summons to the commons to attend the house of lords, which preceded the prorogation of parliament. The contents of the message were, of course, made known. Her majesty had declined offers of money and a residence, made by the government since the dropping of the prosecution; and she commended herself to the house of commons, for a due provision, and for protection, in case of a resumption, under some other form, of the proceedings against her-an event strongly apprehended by herself, and by some others more fitted to exercise a cool judgment.

Addresses were presented to the queen from all parts of the country and almost all descriptions of people. On the 29th of November she went in procession to St. Paul's, to return thanks for her deliverance from a great peril and affliction. Her reception was everything that could be wished, as far as the conduct of the vast multitude was concerned; and they did honour to her by the utmost propriety of bearing; but, within the cathedral, we stumble upon an incident characteristic of that time, but scarcely credible in ours. "In the general 'thanksgiving,' the officiating clergyman, Mr. Hayes, one of the minor canons of St. Paul's, omitted the particular thanksgiving which, at the request of any parishioner, it is customary to offer up, and which it was understood her majesty desired might be offered up for her on the present occasion. It is said that Hayes refused, on the ground that the rubric directs that those may be named as returning thanks who have been previously prayed for; but that the queen, not having been prayed for, could not be named in the thanksgiving.' Thus the same interdict which deprived her of the prayers of the nation, wrought to prevent her from returning thanks-a privilege which is commonly supposed to be the right of every worshipper within the Christian pale. The life of this unhappy lady offers but little more for record; for the life itself was drawing to a close.m

PARLIAMENTARY REFORMS OF 1821 A.D.

The parliament of 1821 which commenced its session on the 23d of January, was characterised by the exhibition of a new spirit. An important proceeding was the introduction of the subject of parliamentary reform, which had been dinned into the ears of the legislature by the long and loud outcry from without, and which could no longer be safely neglected. One motion on the subject, which defeated itself by its own violence, was that of Mr. Lambton (afterwards Lord Durham), who proposed to divide the kingdom into elective districts, extend the franchise to every householder, and limit

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the duration of parliaments to three years. Another, and a more moderate one, was that of Lord John Russell, who proposed to extend the right of election to the more populous towns that were still unrepresented, and to disfranchise every borough which might thereafter be convicted of corruption. It was lost, indeed, but the subject itself was too firmly implanted to be rooted out, and after years of blight and storm it was to produce the desired fruits. An earnest even already was afforded of this result, by the disfranchisement of the borough of Grampound, from which the right of election was transferred to the county of York. It was a most important feature in the history of this session that the cause of parliamentary reform had commenced in it. Another question which in like manner was to wait its time, and be successful at last, was that of Catholic emancipation, which was brought forward by Mr. Plunkett on the 28th of February, and supported by Canning. It consisted of two bills, one for repealing Roman Catholic disabilities; the other, for securing the safety of the Protestant church, and the Protestant succession to the crown. They were thrown out in the lords, chiefly through the protest of the duke of York, the presumptive heir to the throne. "Educated," said his royal highness, "in the principles of the established church, the more I inquire, and the more I think, the more I am persuaded that her interests are inseparable from those of the constitution. I consider her as an integral part of that constitution; and I pray that she may long remain so. At the same time, there is no man less an enemy to toleration than myself; but I distinguish between the allowance of the free exercise of religion, and the granting of political power." By these sentiments the duke took the place of his venerated father, and was recognised as the head of those who were opposed to Catholic emancipation.

CORONATION OF GEORGE IV; DEATH OF THE QUEEN

While these important parliamentary proceedings were going forward, the tables of both houses continued to be inundated with petitions in behalf of the queen. The opening speech had recommended a suitable provision to be made for her, instead of that which she had enjoyed as princess of Wales; but she had expressed her firm determination to accept of no settlement while her name was omitted in the liturgy. Not deterred by this declaration, £50,000 had been voted to her for life; and after some demur, the pressure of poverty prevailed; she consented to accept the boon, and by doing so lost much of that popularity which her previous rejection had procured for her. But the coronation, which her arrival had delayed, must now be solemnised at every risk, for George IV valued the pomp of royalty more than even its power, and he could not feel himself "every inch a king" until his head had been surmounted by the crown. The 19th of July was therefore fixed for the pageant; and here the queen had determined to take her final stand. On the 25th of June, she lodged her claim to be crowned, like her royal predecessors, and her claim was ably supported by her law advisers, Messrs. Brougham and Denman; but after a long antiquarian and historical exploration, it was found that the coronation of a king did not necessarily imply that of his consort, and that since the reign of Henry VIII only six out of thirteen queen consorts had been crowned; so that, on the strength of these precedents, her claim as a right was rejected. Caroline then wrote to Lord Sidmouth, stating her determination to be present at the ceremony, and desiring that a suitable place should be provided for her accommodation; and when this was refused, she made a similar application to the duke of Norfolk