CHAP.

VI.

1821.

don was left open. It was in vain that the constables endeavoured to force a passage through the people. The people stood firm, and their firmness prevailed. The procession moved on to Hyde Park Corner, where it again attempted to wheel to the left. The people again resisted; but the troops prevailed. The head of the procession was turned from the City towards Cumberland Gate. But the populace were not prepared to abandon the contest. A desperate attempt was again made, near the spot where the Marble Arch now stands, to turn the procession once more towards the City. The populace assailed the troops with mud and stones. The troops fired upon the mob. Powder and lead, backed by discipline and authority, gained a victory. Two men, Honey and Francis, were shot dead, and the procession moved on.

Authority had so far prevailed. Lord Sidmouth had willed that her Majesty's remains should not pass through the City, and Lord Sidmouth's directions had been so far complied with that the funeral procession was passing down the Edgeware Road. Powder and lead had had their way; and, at a cost wholly disproportioned to the end, the object had been partially attained. But, though a temporary victory had been won, the contest had not been decided. The vociferations of the multitude which surrounded the procession pointed to the necessity for employing more force. Force was not again necessary till the troops arrived at Tottenham Court Road. Every avenue to the East was totally blocked with wagons, carts, and dense masses of the people. The avenues to the City were alone open. Powder and shot would have been powerless to force a way through the formidable barricades which thus arrested the progress of the procession. In sheer despair the troops turned down Tottenham Court Road, and, passing through Drury Lane, reached the forbidden precincts of the City. The Lord Mayor placed himself at the head of the procession; no

further resistance was attempted; and the remains of the unhappy queen were allowed to proceed to Romford and Harwich.

All classes of the people were excited to an extraordinary degree by the news of these discreditable proceedings. The Radicals compared the conduct of the troops with the proceedings of the military at Peterloo, and wrote of the 'spirit-stirring massacres of Manchester and Cumberland Gate.' Calm-judging men laid the blame on the Ministry, and thought their spite and their conduct incredible. The Ministry laid the blame on the police magistrate, Sir R. Baker, and removed him from his situation as a punishment for his irresolution. Sir Robert's solitary offence was that he had consented to the procession turning down Tottenham Court Road. The friends of the queen rejoiced at the victory of the people; the friends of the king clamoured for the punishment of the queen's supporters. The majority of these, indeed, were independent of the Government; but one person, who had made himself conspicous in the procession, was an easy mark for their resentment. Sir Robert Wilson had taken an active part in the procession; and he was, in consequence, removed from his commission in the army.

VI.

1821.

Wilson

The gentleman, who was thus selected to feel the full Sir R. weight of the king's displeasure, was a very distinguished removed. officer. He was the son of Wilson, a painter of repute; and his military service had commenced, when he was only sixteen years old, in the Low Countries. Since then he had been almost continuously employed on active service. He had assisted in quelling the Irish rebellion of 1798; he had taken a part in the discreditable campaign of 1799; he had had a share in the glories won by British valour in Egypt in 1800. He had served in the Brazils in 1805; he had been present at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope in 1806. He had been attached to the com

VL

1821.

CHAP. bined armies of Prussia and Russia from Pultusk to Friedland; he had commanded the advanced guard of Beresford's army in the Peninsula. He had been again employed as military attaché to the Russian Court in 1812; and he had done good service in the decisive campaign which rolled back the battalions of Napoleon from the Elbe to the Rhine. Nor were his military services, great as they undoubtedly were, his only claim to the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen. He had written the best account which had yet appeared of the Expedition to Egypt; he had written the only available description of the character and composition of the Russian army; he had kept, though he had not published, diaries of the campaign of 1812. His distinguished services had recommended him to the electors of Southwark, and at the general election of 1818 he had been returned for that borough. He had been re-elected at the general election of 1820.

Sir Robert Wilson was probably more gallant than discreet. He had already incurred the displeasure of the Court by assisting Lavalette to escape from France. Lavalette was one of the distinguished Frenchmen who, in the brief interval between the return and the fall of Napoleon, had betrayed the cause of the king and espoused that of the emperor. For a similar treachery Ney had been put to death; for his own treachery Lavalette was condemned to die. Au heroic wife changed her clothes with her husband, and Lavalette, in disguise, escaped from his prison. But, though he was able to reach the outside of the prison in safety, the search for him became every day more rigorous. Lavalette dared not leave Paris, and concealment in Paris was daily becoming more difficult. An appeal was suddenly made to Sir Robert Wilson to facilitate Lavalette's escape; and, with the assistance of two other British subjects, Sir Robert succeeded in doing so. His generous conduct exposed him to a prosecution in France and to a three

VI.

months' imprisonment. It elicited an expression of marked СНАР, disapproval from the Regent. But the public in general paid no attention either to the verdict of the French Court 1821. or to the censures of their own prince. They were almost unanimous in recognising that Sir Robert Wilson had done a generous action, and they almost universally commended him for his generosity.

Such was the man who was selected to bear the brunt of the king's displeasure. Sir Robert Wilson was dismissed from the service. The folly of the Ministry in assenting to his dismissal was as marked as the indiscretion of the officer which had in the first instance provoked it. A liberal subscription was at once raised for a gallant soldier who was now regarded as a martyr, and the liberality of the public fully compensated Sir Robert for the loss of his professional emoluments. The opinion of the public on the unhappy events which had marked the queen's funeral was displayed in other ways. Coroners' juries were, of course, assembled on the two unhappy men who had fallen at Cumberland Gate. One of the juries returned a verdict of manslaughter against the troops in general; the other a verdict of manslaughter against a Life Guardsman unknown.'1 The passions of the multitude had been temporarily allayed by the splendid fêtes with which the coronation had been celebrated. They were again excited by the folly of the Ministry which was responsible for the deplorable bloodshed at Cumberland Gate.

Ireland.

In the meanwhile the king was at Holyhead, anxiously The king expecting news from London. It was obvious that he reaches could not make his public entry into Dublin while his wife was on her deathbed, and he was compelled, therefore, to wait impatiently either for her death or her recovery. The news came: the queen was dead; and on Saturday, the 11th of August, before she was 'cold in her 1 Ann. Reg., 1821, Hist., p. 128.

VI.

1821.

A

grave,' as Byron put it in the tremendous philippic which
he wrote on the occasion, the king crossed over to Dublin.
The wind was contrary; and the king, leaving his yacht,
embarked on board the Lightning' steam-packet.
favourable passage of only six hours brought him to
Howth. His carriage was in readiness for him; but the
citizens generally had not expected his arrival. A signal
gun, however, announced that he had touched the Irish
shore. The Irish poured forth from street and alley to
welcome his arrival. The king, who had been drinking
all the way from Holyhead to Howth, was in a condition.
of rollicking good-humour.1 He shook hands with scores
upon scores of his subjects who crowded round his car-
riage; and, surrounded by the multitude, drove slowly
to the Phoenix Park. There he addressed the people in
one of the most singular speeches which ever proceeded
from the mouth of a monarch. He thanked them all;
he thanked them for escorting him to his very door; he
might not be able to express his feelings as he wished; he
had travelled far; besides which peculiar circumstances,
known to them all, had occurred, of which it was better at
present not to speak; he left it to delicate and generous
hearts to appreciate his feelings. Generous and delicate
hearts were the very last which could have appreciated
the feelings of the monarch at the death of his injured
wife. They might have imagined that, on the first tidings
of her death, her husband might have had the de-
cency to forget his own feelings and to think a little
of her wrongs. Had they any such anticipations the
king's next sentence must have rudely disabused them.
"This,' the king went on, this is one of the happiest
days of my life. I have long wished to visit you. My
heart has always been Irish. From the day it first beat
I have loved Ireland.' The lying compliment was fol-

6

1 Fremantle, repeating the gossip of the day to Lord Buckingham, says he was 'in the last stage of intoxication.'-Buckingham's George IV., vol. i. p. 194.