CHAP. II.] ABANDONMENT OF THE BILL. 285 On the 9th of September, her majesty's counsel applied for and obtained an adjournment to Tuesday, the 3d of The defence, October. The defence consisted of attempts, generally October 3. successful, to overthrow the credit of the witnesses against the accused, and in bringing forward testimony in favor of her conduct and manners while abroad. On the 2d 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 favor of the second reading was only 28, in a House of 218.1 On the third reading, which took place four days afterwards, the majority was reduced to 9.2 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. Abandon ment of the bill, Novem ber 10. 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: 4 "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 accursed 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." In the midst of the enthusiasm, the law-officers of the Queen became the idols of the nation. The Queen's In the face of the world, they were the champions of law-officers. an oppressed woman; and the thoughtful saw in them also the defenders of the constitution which the Lord Chancellor was daily talking about, but not at this time taking the best care of; the defenders of the dignity of law which, as Mr. Ward said on the present occasion,5 "outsteps its just functions when it 2 Ibid. p. 1744. 3 Ibid. p. 1746. 5 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 265. 1 Hansard, iii. p. 1698. interferes to punish misconduct " granting the guilt, for argument's sake-"that has been provoked by outrage, and facilitated by neglect." And nowhere could there be a difference of opinion about the disinterestedness and courage of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman. Friend and foe could not but see how they exposed themselves to the displeasure of the court and government, and to all the consequences of that displeasure, for a term too long for calculation. There appeared every probability that they would suffer professionally for their advocacy of the Queen's cause, through the present reign, and the one which was to succeed; for the Dukes of York and Clarence voted for the bill throughout its course. It is a cheering fact in human life that the oppressed, when once his grief is known, never has to wait long for a champion. The work has never to wait for the workman, in the case of the defence of helplessness, any more than in other matters. And the honor due in each instance is not the less for the certainty that it will be claimed. These gentlemen suffered as they expected to do - suffered a long delay of their professional advancement and rewards; but they were not men who, in a free country, could be kept down by royal or official discountenance; and they received first the esteem and gratitude of the nation, and finally, the prizes of their profession. The occasion was one which, by its appeal to their highest feelings, could not but rouse their intellectual powers to the fullest action; and both of them surpassed all expectation in the conduct of the business. "The display of his power and fertility of mind in this business," says Mr. Ward of Mr. Brougham,1 "has been quite amazing; and these extraordinary efforts seem to cost him nothing." 3 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 23d, the Queen sent down a message 3 to the House of Prorogation, Commons, which Mr. Denman had begun to read, Nov. 23. 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 prose1 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 268. 2 Annual Register, 1820.~ Chron. Chron. p. 487. 3 Hansard, iii. p. 1750. CHAP. II.] THE QUEEN'S CLAIM TO BE CROWNED. 287 an event cution; 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, strongly apprehended by herself, and by some others more fitted to exercise a cool judgment. 6 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,1 Queen goes to return thanks for her deliverance from a great to St. Paul's 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 honor 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 Mr. 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. When parliament met again, the time of the nation was largely occupied,3 and its temper tried, by discussions on the Queen's affairs, caused by her continued exclusion from public prayers, and by recriminations on the inexhaustible subject of last year's prosecution. An annuity of 50,000l. was provided for her, by act of parliament; and some attemps were made to obtain for her a share in the honors of the ensuing coronation. It was natural that one so long an outcast, and at length borne back into social life by the sympathies of a nation, should accept too much from those sympathies, and fail to stop at the right point in her demands. It would have been well if the Queen had retired into silence after the grant of her annuity, and the final refusal to insert her name in the liturgy. Her demand to be crowned with the King was, besides being properly untenable, far from prudent in regard to herself, or humane towards the 1 Annual Register, 1820. Chron. p. 503. 2 Ibid. Chron. p. 505. Queen's claim to be July, 1821. crowned, 3 Hansard, iv. King. He could not meet her under such circumstances; and the being crowned was not essential to her womanly honor, which was now as much vindicated and protected as it could ever be. Whether the claim to be crowned was or was not a false step in prudence and taste, there can be no doubt that the endeavor to obtain an entrance to the Abbey, to witness the ceremony, was a mistake. The Queen was fairly turned away from the door, amidst contending utterances of derision, sympathy, and indignation at the exclusion.1 It was a piteous sight; the personages on the leads,"" in grotesque dresses," drawn out of the procession to see the transaction; and the "fashionable ladies," all with tickets, no one stopping to offer hers to the pausing Queen, but all hurrying on, "without taking the slightest notice of her; the people below, meantime, shouting her name “with great enthusiasm." This was the last time of her giving trouble to her enemies, or perplexity to the fashionable who crossed her path, or smiles to the people whose hearts warmed towards her. She must have been often and long, if not perpetually, since the accession of the King, in a fever of spirits which could not but wear her frame. The tension of mind which she had now long undergone would have crazed most women, and could not be forever sustained even by one of "so little substance" and so much versatility as, following Lord Malmesbury's testimony to her early character, we may attribute to her still. Her mortification at the Abbey door happened on the 19th of July; on the 2d of August a bulletin was issued,2 which showed that she was seriously ill of in Queen's death, August 7, 1821. ternal inflammation. She was in no condition to contend with disease, and, on the 7th, she sank. It is testified that she said, with a mournful earnestness, on that last day, that she had no wish to live: "I do not know whether I shall have to suffer bodily pain in dying; but I shall quit life without any regret." No wonder! And who could wish that she should live? At the best, her future years must have been forlorn. Supposing her conduct, and that of the people towards her, to have been all that could be wished, to the end of a long life, she would still have been a desolate being. To a woman it can never be enough to be a queen much less to be a nominal queen, under perpetual solicitude for the very name. That her long home opened to her thus early was an event of comfort to those who knew she could never have any other home, or any natural work or food for her domestic affections. Yet the news of her death —joyful enough to her husband, who was on a pleasure-trip at the time-spread mourning over the land; and 1 Annual Register, 1821. Appendix, p. 348. 2 Ibid. Chron. p. 118. 3 Ibid. Chron. p. 121. CHAP. II. THE QUEEN'S DEATH AND FUNERAL. Queen's funeral. 289 a countless multitude thronged to her funeral-procession. There were some riots on this occasion, caused by the determination of the people to have the hearse pass through the city; a point which they gained after some conflict with the soldiers,1 during which two men were killed by shots from the horse-guards on duty. After the lord mayor quitted the head of the procession, outside the city, the funeral company proceeded quietly enough to Harwich, where the body was immediately embarked for Stade, on its way to Brunswick. Times had changed since she arrived at the shores whence she thus departed; arrived, "vastly happy with her future expectations," with her prince's portrait in her bosom, and a place on the greatest throne in the world within her view. She had soon found her prince "not nearly so good-looking as his picture ;" and she found the same thing in regard to the "prospects" about which she had been so "vastly happy." For her the grave could never open untimely; and we see it open, as she did, "without any regret,” though not without sadness. She had just entered her fifty-third year. We have finished the story of Queen Caroline at once, that we might not have to recur to it, with pain, at intervals. We must now revert to the beginning of the year, and the early transactions of the new reign. 1 Annual Register. Chron. p. 127. VOL. II. 19 |