PROCEEDINGS AGAINST QUEEN CAROLINE. 213

husband to the throne, had become Queen Consort, and thence arose series of dangerous complications. Contrary to the advice of her best friends, she came back to England, resolved to compel an acknowledgment of her claims as the wife of the Sovereign. The King immediately determined upon vengeance. He had already intimated to his ministers his desire to obtain a divorce; but at that time they had firmly opposed him, and stated their objections in Cabinet minutes as decisive as they were able. But, with the exception of Canning, they had promised to withdraw their opposition if the Queen returned to England. To prevent her return, they had offered her an annuity of £50,000, if she would renounce the title and continue to reside abroad. Irritated by the insults and persecutions to which she had been subjected, she refused the offer; but, after her arrival in England, she, in her turn, undertook to withdraw her pretensions, if her name were entered in the Prayer Book of the Church of England, and her title recognised in at least one foreign court. The King met this proposal with a stern refusal; and the Ministers, Canning still holding aloof, moved in the House of Lords that certain papers criminating the Queen* should be referred to a Committee of Secrecy. On the report of this Committee was founded a Bill of Pains and Penalties, depriving the Queen of her titles, rights, and prerogatives, and dissolving her marriage. The Government were not blind to

* These papers contained the evidence collected by Sir John Leach's Commission, the members of which assembled at Milan in September, 1818, and made their report to the Cabinet in the following July.

214

THEIR GROSS IMPOLICY.

the difficulties into which this procedure would plunge them. Lord Eldon himself had said only a few months before: "I think no Administration who have any regard for him [the King] will go the length he wishes, as an Administration,—and if they will, they cannot take Parliament along with them; that body is afraid of disclosures,-not on one side only,-which may affect the monarchy itself." But, with unequalled political fatuity, they yielded to the King's desire for revenge on a woman whose failings were in no small measure due to his ill-usage of her.*

*The Ministers, however, having once made the plunge, showed a considerable degree of ardour. We need not here repeat the details of the disgusting investigation into the unfortunate Queen's conduct, which was carried on before the Lords. Brougham and Denman acted as her counsel, and exhibited the utmost dexterity and courage in her defence; while the tide of popular feeling against the King and his Ministers rose higher every day. "The discussion of the Queen's business," says Mr. Greville, "is now become an intolerable nuisance in society; no other subject is ever talked of. It is an incessant matter of argument and dispute what will be done and what ought to be done." The Whig leaders took up the Queen's cause, on the ground that the proceedings against her were unjust and unconstitutional; and one effect of this was to draw them nearer to the Radical party. Political feeling was thus introduced into the matter; the Whigs became the Queen's friends, and the Tories the King's friends. Greville, writing on the 15th of October, says:— "Ministers look upon this trial in the light of a campaign, and upon each day's proceedings as a sort of battle, and by the impression made by the evidence they consider that they have gained a victory or sustained a defeat. Their anxiety that this Bill should pass is quite inconceivable, for it cannot be their interest that it should be carried; and as for the King, they have no feeling whatever for him. The Duke of Portland told me that he conversed with the Duke of Wellington upon the subject, and urged as one of the reasons why this Bill should not pass the House of Lords the disgrace that it would entail upon the King by the recrimination that would ensue in the House of Commons. His answer was that the King was degraded as low as he could be already.'"-C. GREVILLE, 'Journal of the reigns of George the 4th and William the 4th,' i. 36, 37.

REFECTION OF THE BILL.

215

Canning, in the House of Commons, had openly disavowed the ministerial measures. Referring to the Queen, he said: "So help me God! I will never place myself in the situation of an accuser towards that individual." He hastened to tender his resignation to the King, but unwilling that the Cabinet should be weakened by his withdrawal, the King insisted on refusing it, giving him full liberty to hold aloof from the proceedings against his unfortunate Consort (June 25th). In the following August, Canning went abroad. It was at this time that the Lords began to examine the King's witnesses, and to hear the arguments of counsel on both sides,-after which the Pains and Penalties Bill was read a second time by 123 to 95 votes. It then went into Committee. The Opposition were aware that many of the Peers favourable to the Bill were nevertheless unwilling to accept the divorce clause; and that, therefore, by securing the retention of this clause, the majority for the third reading would be diminished. Hence was seen the extraordinary spectacle of the Opposition Lords voting in favour of the clause, and nine of the Ministers voting against it. The result was the retention of the clause by 129 to 62 votes. On the 10th of November the Bill came up for the third reading, which was carried by only 108 to 99. So small a majority foreshadowed its rejection in the Commons, and the Ministers, therefore, much to the popular satisfaction,* withdrew the bill.

* "London was spontaneously, though partially, illuminated for three successive nights-those who did not concur in the general joy, and they were many, joining in the festivity from a dread of the sovereign mob, and

216

CANNING'S RESIGNATION.

He

Canning now returned from the Continent. found the Government greatly weakened by their injudicious proceedings; and he foresaw that the discussions which these would necessarily originate in the session of 1821 would be exceedingly damaging. He again tendered his resignation, which, this time, was accepted. Lord Dudley writes:-"Canning, you see, is out. He has, however, no sort of quarrel with his late colleagues. His reason for retiring is simply this :-he had from the beginning determined to take no share in the proceedings as to the Queen. These proceedings, or at least questions connected with them, are to form the main business of the approaching session. He thinks that absence or neutrality of one of the King's principal servants would be disrespectful towards his master and discreditable to himself. . . The loss of him will be severely felt in the House of Commons. Peel, I take for granted, is to be his successor. We shall witness a most terrible struggle. The parties are more nearly balanced than they have been for many years. On the one hand is the immense power of the Crown; on the other a most decided superiority of parliamentary talent. The Ministers have the old Tory feeling in their

of the instant penalty of having their windows broken, which in general followed any resistance to its mandates. Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, Liverpool, and all the great towns, followed their example. For several days 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, till the Reform Bill was passed. Addresses were voted to the Queen from the Common Council of London, and all the popular constituencies in the kingdom."-ALISON, 'History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon,' ii. 467.

ON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

217

favour; the Opposition are aided by the cry against the late measures to the Queen, and by the great personal unpopularity of the King. I think the Ministers will stand their ground; but the first advance of the Saracens under their renowned Emir Brougham will be firm and terrible." *

On the 28th of February, 1821, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Plunkett, in a speech of remarkable eloquence, submitted a motion in favour of Catholic Emancipation. On this question Canning had always preserved an entire consistency of opinion, if not of conduct, and he supported Plunkett's motion with evident earnestness :-"We are in the enjoyment of a peace," he said, "achieved in a great degree by Catholic arms, and cemented by Catholic blood. For three centuries we have been erecting mounds, not to assist or improve, but to thwart nature; we have raised them high above the waters, where they have stood for many a year frowning proud defiance on all who attempted to cross them; but, in the course of ages, even they have been nearly broken

* Henry Brougham, born in Edinburgh in September, 1778, was educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh, and at a very early age gave abundant promise of extraordinary abilities. He was one of the most versatile of men; in science and literature, as well as in law and politics, pressing forward to the front rank. Having qualified for the English bar, he began to practise in the Queen's Bench in 1808. He entered parliament in 1810; but his public career dates from 1816, when he became the most powerful opponent of Canning, and the chief debater on the Whig side of the House. As leading counsel for Queen Caroline he gained an immense popularity. His extraordinary gifts were to some extent neutralised by his inconsistency, his arrogance, and his extravagant self-assertion. On the whole he failed as a politician; but he accomplished some memorable legal reforms, and laboured successfully for the diffusion of useful knowledge.