CHAP. Royal Highness the favourite answer of the day, "Non mi ricordo."' 1 VI. 1820. The defence. The examination of the witnesses against the queen lasted until the 7th of September. The Solicitor-General, Copley, summed up the evidence; and the House adjourned for three weeks, to enable the queen's counsel to prepare their reply. In the interval the popular sympathy for the queen continued to be loudly expressed. The sailors in the merchant service marched through the City with an address to her. Every important town presented their addresses of congratulation. That from Liverpool contained 30,000 signatures; and more than 11,000 ladies of Sheffield signed another. Lord Eldon, posting home to Dorsetshire, was mobbed at Ringwood. Denman, passing his holiday at Cheltenham, was drawn triumphantly into the town. The mob judged everyone by his declared opinions on the queen's case. a serious matter to reside in the neighbourhood of her Majesty. The Ministry were induced to promise to purchase the queen a house, and a list of suitable residences was sent to her to select from. She chose one in Piccadilly; but she was informed that it could not be obtained. She selected another, in St. James's Square; but that was also declared unobtainable. She was offered a third, in Hamilton Place, and accepted the offer; but the house had already found another purchaser. The residences of the Duke of Gloucester, of Lord Castlereagh, and of Lord Eldon were respectively adjacent to these houses.2 It was The peers reassembled on the 3rd of October, and Brougham opened the case for the queen. His speech was one of the most powerful orations that ever proceeded from human lips.' Nothing has ever exceeded the 1 Ann. Reg., 1820, Chron., p. 404. Brougham, vol. ii. p. 415. Hansard, New Series, vol. ii. p. 804. 2 Ann. Reg., 1820, Chron., pp. 407, 414, 415, 423. Arnould's Denman, vol. i. p. 165. Eldon, vol. ii. pp. 385, 386. Lord Eldon threatened to resign the Chancellorship if the Hamilton Place house were bought. VI. 1820. magnificence of his peroration: My lords, I pray you СНАР. to pause. I do earnestly beseech you to take heed. You are standing upon the brink of a precipice: then beware! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back against those who gave it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe; save yourselves from this peril; rescue the country, of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and the stem of the tree Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it; save the crown, which is in jeopardy; the aristocracy, which is shaken; save the altar, which must stagger from the blow that rends the kindred throne. You have said, my lords, you have willed-the Church and the King have willed--that the Queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has, instead of that solemnity, the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplications at the Throne of Mercy that that mercy may be poured down upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of their rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice.' The effects of this magnificent peroration were prodigious. arguments, his observations, his tones, his attitude, his eye, left an impression on my mind,' wrote Denman, 'which is scarcely ever renewed without exciting the strongest emotion. Erskine rushed out of the House in tears.' 1 'His On the 5th of October the House proceeded to hear the queen's witnesses, and their examination was not concluded till the 24th. There can be very little question 1 Denman, vol. i. p. 169. For the peroration see Brougham, vol. ii. p. 399, and cf. Hansard, New Series, vol. iii. p. 210. VI. 1820. CHAP. that the witnesses summoned for the queen enjoyed a higher social status than those who had been examined against her. The most material witnesses against her Majesty were Teodoro Majocchi, her Italian valet; and Louise Demont, a Swiss maid; Gargiulo, a captain, and Paturzo, a mate, in the Neapolitan mercantile marine; Barbara Kress, a waiting-maid at Carlsruhe; Raggazoni, an Italian mason; and Restelli, a superintendent of the stables. Majocchi's evidence was discredited by his 'Non mi ricordo.' Demont, after having placed the most injurious construction on her mistress's character, was proved to have written her the most flattering letters, and to have used her utmost endeavours to obtain for a young sister a situation in her Majesty's service. Raggazoni was proved to have been bribed by Restelli; and Restelli, after concluding his testimony, was sent out of the country; and it was proved that Powell, the solicitor for the bill, and a member of the Milan Commission, had sent him away. Restelli's absence probably did more good to the queen's cause than any other circumstance. Her counsel had a right to remonstrate on the absence of an essential witness, whom, on every principle of justice, the king's advisers on the other side were bound to have retained in the country. Indirectly, too, Restelli's absence gave Brougham an opportunity for making a formidable attack on the king. Powell was called by the peers to account for Restelli's disappearance; and, after he had been examined by Lord Grey, Lord Carnarvon, and others, Brougham rose to cross-examine him. His first question, Who is your employer or client in this case?' elicited shouts of No! no!' from the peers. Brougham maintained, in an elaborate argument, the propriety of the question: 'I have never been able to trace the local habitation or the name of the unknown being who is the plaintiff in this proceeding. I know not but it may 6 VI. vanish into thin air-I know not under what shape it CHAP. If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none Or substance might be call'd, that shadow seemed, queen's The queen's witnesses were, it has already been stated, The of high position. Mr. St. Leger, Sir William Gel!, and witnesses. Mr. Keppel Craven, her chamberlains; Lady Charlotte Lindsay, her lady of the bedchamber; Dr. Holland, her physician, were witnesses of undeniable status, and contradicted or explained much of the most damaging evidence which had been produced against their mistress. Their testimony may be cited to refute all the charges preferred against the queen's conduct during the whole of the time during which these witnesses were with her Majesty. Unfortunately, however, they all of them left the queen's service at a very early period; and they were none of them able to speak to the events which had happened on board the polacre, and in the course of the queen's journey to the East. For that part of her case she was compelled to rely on the evidence of two gentlemen who had been officers in the Royal Navy, Lieutenant Flinna witness who fainted on being pressed in his crossexamination—and Lieutenant Hownam, who made a damaging admission. The evidence of these two gentlemen, and especially of Lieutenant Hownam, did the queen 'her firm, dauntless, and most able CHAP. 1820. more harm than all the testimony furnished by the other side. The examination of the witnesses was not concluded Denman's until the 24th of October. Late on that day Denman speech. rose to sum up the evidence on behalf of the queen. His speech, which was delivered on two days, occupied ten hours. It was very eloquent, very independent, and very able. The advocate displayed his independence and earned the undying hostility of the king by comparing the queen to Octavia, the wife of Nero; and by quoting the retort which one of Octavia's maids returned to Tigellinus, who was presiding at her examination and torture. The retort implied an imputation which George IV., with all his faults, did not deserve, and which Denman, excited as he was, did not intend to make. The advocate showed his independence still further by an uncompromising attack on the Duke of Clarence, who had been industriously circulating the most atrocious stories against the queen. 'I know that rumours are abroad of the most vague but, at the same time, most injurious character. We have heard and hear daily with alarm that there are persons, and these not of the lowest condition, not even excluded from this august assembly, who are industriously circulating the most odious calumnies against her Majesty. Can this thing be? We know that if a juryman on such an occasion should affect to possess any knowledge on the subject of inquiry we should have a right to call him to the bar as a witness. "Come forward," we might say, "and let us confront you with our evidence." But to any man who could even be suspected of so base a practice as whispering calumnies to judges the queen might well exclaim, "Come forth, thou slanderer, and let me see thy face! If thou wouldst equal the respectability of an Italian witness, come forth and depose in open court. As thou art thou art worse than an Italian assassin! be |