CHAP. V. some Irish job, which induced Lord Grey to "descend from power." Lyndhurst thought the Great Seal already his,when, to the astonishment of all mankind, it was announced A.D. 1834. that the Whigs were to go on under Lord Melbourne as Premier. Many were astonished at Lyndhurst's inactivity for the remainder of the session. Brougham, still Chancellor,-boasting that he might have been First Lord of the Treasury himself, and that he put in Lamb as his subordinate, -played most fantastic tricks, which made his colleagues weep. These might have been turned to excellent account for the public amusement,-but Lyndhurst, who continued Chief Baron, was obliged to be out of town upon the circuit. He comforted himself by thinking that the best policy for the time probably was to abstain from the danger of resuscitating the popularity of the Whigs by any Tory assault upon them. dismissal of bourne by William IV. Had the Whig Ministers been allowed again to meet Indiscreet Parliament, Brougham holding the Great Seal, they must Lord Melhave been regularly and permanently turned out in a few weeks by a vote of want of confidence. But William IV., by an act of folly which was deplored by those whom he wished to serve, prolonged Whig rule for six years, with the interval of "the hundred days"* during which Lyndhurst Nov. 1834. was tantalized by holding the Great Seal in his slippery grasp. No one heard the news of the dismissal of the Whigs with more astonishment than the Lord Chief Baron. It was then term time, and he was sitting in the Court of Exchequer, when a note was brought to him from the Duke of Wellington announcing that his Grace had been summoned to attend the King at Brighton with a view to the formation of a new administration, and requesting the Chief Baron to call upon him at night when he expected to be again back in London. The manner of the noble and learned Judge, on this occasion, betrayed some excitement; but, without any communication to his brethren on the bench, he soon seemed to resume the * Sir Robert Peel's administration of 1835 was called "The hundred days," in reference to the designation given to Napoleon's reign after his return from Elba, which lasted exactly so long. e it CHAP. consideration of the case under discussion, and he continued to attend to the arguments of counsel for the rest of the day as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. He was in a state of great anxiety from the time of his leaving the Court till the moment arrived for knowing his fate at Apsley House. The Duke at once told him that Sir Robert Peel, who was then at Rome, was to be Prime Minister; but there could be no doubt that he would concur in recommending that Lord Lyndhurst should again be Chancellor, and that the King wished the transfer of this, and all the other offices of the Government, to take place as speedily as possible. It was then agreed between them that, to gratify His Majesty's impatience to be rid of his Reform Ministers, a sort of interim Government should be arranged till Sir Robert Peel's return home; that the seals of all the Secretaries of State should be demanded from them, and held by the Duke of Wellington; but that the Great Seal, as was usual, should be allowed to remain in the hands of the present Chancellor for a short time to allow him to give judgment in cases which had been argued before him. Lord Brougham having, in a manner rather unusual and uncourteous, returned the Great Seal to the King on the 22nd of November, it was the same day delivered to Lord Lyndhurst; but he continued to preside as Chief Baron till the end of Michaelmas Term. CHAPTER VI. LORD CHANCELLOR DURING THE 100 DAYS, AND EX-CHAN- NOVEMBER 1834-SEPTEMBER 1841. CHAP. WHEN Lord Lyndhurst appeared as Chancellor at the sittings after term, there was a divided feeling among those whose personal interests were not touched by political changes. A.D. 1834. The eccentricities of his predecessor weighed in his favour Lyndhurst as well as his own clear intellect and agreeable manners; but a recollection of his dislike of business and recklessness as to the fate of the suitors, caused some even to long for the conscientious cunctating and doubting Eldon. Sir Robert Peel, on returning from Italy, although he acquiesced in Lyndhurst's appointment as Chancellor, reposed little confidence in him, and without consulting him wrote the "Tamworth Manifesto," laying down the liberal principles on which the new Government was to be conducted. As he chose to dissolve Parliament, I was obliged to go down to Edinburgh, and to stand a formidable contest against the now Marquis of Dalhousie and Governor General of India, then Lord Ramsay, the Peelite candidate. When I was going to the Court of King's Bench the morning after my return to London, I encountered the Lord Chancellor stepping out of his coach at Westminster. He took me into his private room, and said, "Well! private friendship is more powerful than party feeling. I can hardly be sorry that you have won, and, behold! as a pledge of peace (so far as it can be permitted between an ex-Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor he wishes to turn out) take that splendid nosegay and carry it into the King's Bench, telling them that I gave it you." With proper acknowledgments, and a reciprocation again Chancellor. 1 e t CHAP. of good-will equally sincere, I took the nosegay which had been prepared for the Lord Chancellor after ancient custom, A.D. 1834. in the fashion of that used by Lord Keeper Guildford in the reign of Charles II., to conceal his dying lineaments from the gazing crowd. Entering the Court of King's Bench in my robes, I exhibited the nosegay in testimony of my Edinburgh triumph and of the magnanimity of the Lord Chancellor. Feb. 1835. Meeting of liament. Upon the meeting of the new Parliament, the Lord Chancellor had a very distasteful task to perform, which was to a new Par express the King's approbation of the Speaker elected by the Commons contrary to the wishes of his Ministers-a bitter foretaste of what was to follow. Nevertheless, said his Lordship, with a serene countenance:-"Mr. Abercromby, his Majesty is fully satisfied of your zeal for the public service, and his Majesty therefore does most readily and fully approve of the choice of his faithful Commons, and confirms you as their Speaker." The King's Speech was most conciliatory to the Liberal party, recommending the reform of the ecclesiastical courts, a marriage bill for the relief of Dissenters, the reform of municipal corporations, and almost all the other measures which the late Government had promised. But this attempt seemed only to inflame party animosity, and the debate upon the address was carried on with extreme rancour. The late Chancellor and his successor, although afterwards on terms of the closest intimacy and cordial co-operation, assailed each other in language which, had they not presided on the woolsack-supposed to constitute a status of non-combatancy or pugnacious incapacity-would have rendered a hostile meeting Logomachy on Wimbledon Common next morning indispensable. Lord Brougham began the affray by denouncing as unconstitutional the dismissal of the late Ministers while they fully enjoyed the confidence of the House of Commons. contended that the present Ministers, by accepting office, were answerable for it, whether they had previously advised it or not; and he particularly taunted the Chancellor with his sudden apparent conversion (manifested by the King's Speech) to liberal measures, which he had been in the habit of violently between Lyndhurst *26 Hansard, 62. He СНАР. VI. opposing. He at the same time insinuated that this conversion could not be sincere, and referred in a very galling manner to his miraculous change of opinion on the question A.D. 1835. of Catholic emancipation. Lord Lyndhurst rose in a real passion, and after complaining that the noble and learned Lord had maligned him, thus continued: "The noble and learned Lord has dared to say that I pursued the course I took for the purpose of retaining my possession of office. I deny peremptorily the statement of the noble and learned Lord. I say, if I may make use of the expression, he has uttered an untruth in so expressing himself. So far from that measure being brought forward and supported by us with a view to preserve our places, it must be well known that we hazarded our places by pursuing that course. What right, then, has the noble and learned Lord in his fluent, and, I may say, flippant manner, to attack me as he has dared to do?" He then referred to what Lord Brougham had said about the Duke of Wellington's explanation of the manner in which the change of Government had been brought about: "The view given of that statement was a misrepresentation by the noble and learned Lord. His quickness and his sagacity must have caused him to understand the noble Duke, and I can ascribe what he affirmed only to an intention to misrepresent."(Cries of Order! order!) Lord Brougham. "I will just use the same language to the noble and learned Lord that he uses to me, if he chooses to make this an arena of indecency." Lord Lyndhurst." Perhaps I had no right, in strictness, to say that the noble and learned Lord intended to pervert, but I have stated my reasons for the conclusion to which I have come ; those reasons are satisfactory to my own mind, and the noble and learned Lord has not denied the correctness of my statement." Lord Brougham." Every word of it is incorrect." Lord Lyndhurst then vindicated the manner in which the late ministers had been dismissed: "I should have acted exactly as his Majesty has acted. sider myself, as one of the ministers, responsible for what has been done, and I should have been ashamed of myself if I had been called upon to advise his Majesty and I had not advised him to dismiss the late ministers." VOL. VIII. H |