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OBITUARY.

H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. July 8. At Cambridge House, Piccadilly, in his 77th year, H.R.H. Prince Adolphus Frederick of Brunswick-Lunenburgh, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Tipperary, and Baron of Culloden; a Privy Councillor, K.G., G.C.B., and G.C.H., Grand Master and first principal Knight Grand Cross of the Ionian Order of St. Michael and St. George, and Knight of the Prussian Orders of the Black and Red Eagle; Field-Marshal in the army, Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, Colonel-in-Chief of the 60th Rifles, and a Commissioner of the Royal Military College and Royal Military Asylum; Ranger of St. James's, Hyde, and Richmond Parks, Warden and Keeper of the New Forest; D.C.L., &c. &c.

The Duke of Cambridge was the seventh and youngest surviving son of King George the Third and Queen Charlotte; his younger brothers, the Princes Octavius and Alfred, dying in their infancy. He was born on the 24th Feb. 1774, and went by the name of Prince Adolphus for the first twentyfive years of his life, having no dignity of peerage until after the union with Ireland. On the 2nd June, 1786, together with his brothers Princes Edward, Ernest, and Augustus, he was elected a Knight of the Garter, the King on that occasion enlarging the number of the order to twentysix, exclusive of the sons of the Sovereign or his successors. Prince Adolphus received his earliest education at Kew, together with his brothers the King of Hanover and the late Duke of Sussex, under the care of Dr. Hughes and Mr. Cookson. At fifteen years of age he was sent with his brothers to Göttingen, to finish his studies. He also visited the court of Prussia to perfect his knowledge of military tactics.

In 1793 the Duke of Cambridge was appointed Colonel in the Hanoverian army. He served as a volunteer under his brother the Duke of York during the early part of the campaign of 1793, in Flanders, and during the latter part of that campaign with Marshal Freytag. On the retreat of the corps of observation under the Marshal, in September, the Duke of Cambridge received two wounds, and was taken prisoner near Rexpoode, but was soon after rescued by the Hanoverians.

At the close of 1793 the Duke of Cambridge was appointed Colonel of the Hanoverian Guards. His Royal Highness served the campaign of 1794 and part of 1795, as Colonel and Major-General in General

Walmoden's corps, and bore an active share in the various operations of that arduous campaign. His zeal, attention, and gallantry were always conspicuous, whilst his affability, and excellent character and conduct, secured him the respect and affection of all who approached him. In 1798 his Royal Highness was appointed Lieut.-General in the Hanoverian service. He was created a peer of the United Kingdom at the same time that his elder brother Prince Augustus-Frederick was created Duke of Sussex, on the 27th Nov. 1801. His titles, as in the case of his elder brother, were taken from each of the three kingdoms, being Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Tipperary, and Baron of Culloden. At the same time that he was thus honoured with the rank to which his princely birth entitled him, Parliament voted him a yearly allowance of 12,000. This was subsequently increased (on his marriage) to 27,000l. per annum. He was sworn a Privy Councillor on Feb. 3, 1802.

In 1803 he was transferred from the Hanoverian to the British service; on the 25th Sept. promoted to the rank of General; and on the 17th Nov. appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the King's German Legion, a force then taken into British pay, and which was destined for the relief of Hanover, then menaced, together with the rest of eastern and northern Europe, by the French armies. The revolutionary fever, however, had so far affected the people of the electorate, that they showed no great disposition to accept the aid thus proffered, but rather evinced an inclination towards the French. The Prince, therefore, solicited and obtained permission to return to England, leaving the British forces under the command of Count Walmoden, who soon after surrendered.

In 1804 the Duke of Cambridge was appointed to command the Home District; and on the 5th Sept. 1805 he received the Colonelcy of the Coldstream Guards.

In 1811 he was elected Chancellor of the University of St. Andrew's, on the death of the first Viscount Melville; but he resigned that office in 1814, after he had taken up his residence at Hanover, and was succeeded by the present Lord Melville.

On the 26th Nov. 1813, his Royal Highness was advanced to the rank of FieldMarshal, and was again appointed to command in the Electorate of Hanover, which had then been recently restored to the dominions of his royal father, after having

been annexed for a time by the decree of Buonaparte to the kingdom of Westphalia. Shortly after, his Royal Highness was appointed by his father Governor-General of Hanover, and he continued to fill that important post with satisfaction to the country, until, in the year 1839, the death of King William IV. opened the succession to the throne of Hanover to the Duke of Cumberland, when the Duke of Cambridge returned to England. His administration of the affairs of that kingdom was characterized with wisdom, mildness, and discretion. On the breaking out of a popular commotion there, in the revolutionary period of 1831, the Duke's conduct was such as to eventually pacify all parties, and to effect the perfect restoration of order; in fact, the great regard the people of Hanover had for a prince so kind and conciliating, and yet so firm and so tenacious of his honour, went a great way to preserve the Hanoverian crown for his family.

On the 7th of May, 1818, the Duke of Cambridge was united in marriage, at Cassel, to the Princess Wilhelmina Louisa, youngest daughter of Frederick Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and that marriage was renewed upon the arrival of their Royal Highnesses in England. Contrary, however, to the practice observed in most of the marriages of members of the Royal Family, this was celebrated privately, having been deferred to the 1st of June, in consequence of the ill health of Queen Charlotte. The only issue of this marriage were a son and two daughters: 1. Prince George-William-Frederick-Charles, born in 1819, and now Duke of Cambridge; 2. the Princess Augusta, born in 1822, and married in 1843 to the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz; and 3. the Princess Mary, born in 1833.

The Duke of Cambridge was nominated a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath, on the enlargement of the order, Jan. 2, 1815. He was nominated Grand Master of the Ionian order of St. Michael and St. George in 1826. In 1827 he was appointed Colonelin-chief of the 60th Foot.

In 1842 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the University of Cambridge.

On the 29th Aug. 1835, he was appointed Ranger of Richmond New Park; on the 31st May, 1843, Chief Ranger and Keeper of Hyde Park and St. James's Park; and on the 22d Feb. 1845, Warden and Keeper of the New Forest; all of which offices he retained to his death.

In this country his Royal Highness has always been popular, and most deservedly so. Like his late amiable brothers the Dukes of Kent and Sussex, the Duke of

Cambridge was a zealous and indefatigable supporter of those public charities which are the pride of England, and he was always ready to give them his efficient aid by presiding at their anniversary meetings and festivals, where the frankness of his manners, and the straightforward earnestness with which he advocated their claims, rendered him an universal favourite. Without the slightest pretension to eloquence, he had yet a manly, unaffected, and thoroughly English style of speaking and conducting himself, which endeared him much to all those with whom he came publicly in contact. His Royal Highness was President of the Foundling Hospital, the London Hospital, the Small-pox Hospital, St. Luke's Hospital, Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital, and the Royal Orthopedic Hospital; Patron of the Westminster Hospital, the Lock Hospital, the Jews' Hospital, Charing-cross Hospital, the Charitable Fund Dispensary, the Royal Asylum of the St. Ann's Society, the Royal Society of Musicians, the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men, the Society of Schoolmasters, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the London Society for the Protection of Young Females; Vice-Patron of the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, the Royal General Dispensary, the Westminster General Dispensary, the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear, the London Orphan Asylum, the British Orphan Asylum, the Royal National Institution, the Royal Humane Society, &c.

He was also Patron of the Art Union, and during the struggles that society has sustained to establish its reputation and the legality of its operations, he has stood in the front of its battle. In other cases, "he was not," as the Times has remarked, "found always in smooth water. He did not think it his sole duty to preside over turtle and venison, or to angle for banknotes. He did not seek solely to dignify that which was harmonious, or to give grace and solemnity to the administrative skill of others. On the contrary, wherever there was difficulty or dispute, there was the Duke of Cambridge in the midst of it. If a close committee of some charity in which he was interested became split into parties or torn by professional rivalry, he would suddenly make his appearance on a committee-day, take the chair as president of the charity without notice or ceremony, and, in a very short time, either compose the quarrel, or, what was equally important, put the burden and disgrace of the dispute on the right shoulders. He would sacrifice none of his own dignity in

investigating the most minute circumstances, and he took care that others should not peril the charity by their disputes or intrigues. This habit of rushing into the breach was strongly shown in 1847, when the very existence of the German Hospital at Dalston was perilled by a dispute amongst its officers; and still more successfully exhibited in the same year at the Middlesex Hospital, where, from similar causes, a disturbance had taken place." His private character was ever unexceptionable. When young his habits were very studious, and his acquirements as a scholar were far more considerable than was generally supposed. He was the favourite son of his father, who on one occasion said fondly of him that "Adolphus had not committed his first fault." His manners were affable and pleasing, no person, perhaps, possessing more completely that characteristic which the French term "bonhommie." He was a thorough English prince in habits, disposition, and bearing, and he seemed at all times at home with the English people, and they with him.

Of music he was a constant and a cordial patron. There was no pretence in the interest he took in the art. If sometimes it was amusingly demonstrated, it was always sincere, and for the most part well directed. In his day, too, the Duke bore a fair reputation among amateur performers.

In the House of Lords the Duke of Cambridge spoke but rarely, and on important occasions. In politics, he had from the beginning of his career acted generally in favour of the Tory party: his deep affection for his father made him resist all overtures on the part of Fox, Sheridan, his brother the Prince of Wales, and the other Whigs of that day; and, though latterly always ready to support the measures of the Government as chosen by his Sovereign, if he conscientiously could, he on all occasions displayed Conservative calmness and caution. His mode of address, though not eloquent, was sensible and impressive, and he was ever listened to with attention and respect.

As a friend to the soldier's widow and the soldier's orphan, his Royal Highness worthily imitated the example set by his brother the Duke of York: he almost weekly visited the Military School at Chelsea.

His Royal Highness was attacked on the 13th of June with cramp in the stomach, but, after the severity of the attack had passed away, all danger was thought to be over. He was attended by Dr. Francis Hawkins, Dr. Bright, Dr. Watson, Mr. Keate, and Mr. Illingworth; and within a

few days of his death it was thought he would recover, although suffering from loss of appetite and much debility. He sank rapidly during the last four-and-twenty hours, and expired without a struggle.

His body was on Wednesday, the 17th July, consigned to a temporary restingplace in Kew Church, in the immediate vicinity of Cambridge-cottage, his favourite suburban residence. It is intended to erect a family mausoleum in a portion of the royal grounds near the church, where the deceased prince had more than once expressed his desire to be laid after death. The funeral arrangements were unostentatious, in strict accordance with the Duke's wishes; and to insure the privacy of the ceremonial it was arranged that the procession should move from Cambridgehouse shortly after six in the morning, and that the interment should take place at the early hour of ten o'clock. The procession left Cambridge-house in the following order :

A detachment of Life Guards.

Seven mourning coaches, each drawn by four horses, conveying, 1. the pages of his late Royal Highness; 2. four Medical Attendants; 3. the Equerry of H.R.H. the Duchess of Gloucester, the Equerry of H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent, and two Equerries of his late Royal Highness; 4. three Equerries of his late Royal Highness; 5. the Equerry of His Majesty the King of Hanover, the representative of the Hanoverian Embassy, and the Groom in Waiting and the Equerry of Her Majesty the Queen; 6. the Lord in Waiting to the Queen, and two of the Bearers of the Pall, Lord Camoys, Sir James Macdonell, and Sir William Gomm; 7. the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, and two of the Bearers of the Pall.

The state carriage of his late Royal Highness, drawn by six horses, conveying the coronet and cushion and the baton and cushion of his late Royal Highness, borne respectively by Baron Knesebeck and Colonel Hay.

THE HEARSE,

drawn by eight horses, preceded and followed by Life Guards.

His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, Lord John Russell, the Marquess of Lansdowne, Viscount Palmerston, the Earl of Jersey, the Earl of Minto, Viscount Jocelyn, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Lord Forrester, and Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, were present, wearing scarfs and hatbands, seated in pews facing the altar. The Duchess of Cambridge, with the Princesses her daughters, entered the church by a private door, and sat in the Royal pew, which was hung round

with deep black curtains. Their Royal Highnesses were attended by Lady Augusta Cadogan, the Baroness Ahlefeldt, and the Lady in Waiting on the Duchess of Mecklenburgh Strelitz. Mr. Edmund Mildmay, equerry to the late Duke, was also in attendance. The coffin was borne by twelve colour-sergeants; the service was read by the Rev. James Hutchinson, M.A., one of the Domestic Chaplains to his late Royal Highness, and the Rev. R. P. Byam, Vicar of Kew, made the responses.

The funeral was conducted under the exclusive superintendence of the Lord Chamberlain's office. The College of Arms took no part in the ceremony, nor was Garter present to proclaim the style and titles of the deceased prince, as usual in the case of royal interments.

RT. HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL, M.P. July 2. At his house in Privy Gardens, Whitehall, in his 63d year, the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, the 2d Bart. (1800), a Privy Councillor of Great Britain and of Ireland, M.P. for Tamworth, an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, a Governor of the Charter House, D.C.L., F.R.S., and F.S.A.

Sir Robert Peel was born on the 5th Feb. 1788. The place of his birth was a small cottage in the neighbourhood of Chamber Hall, his father's residence, near Bury in Lancashire, the house itself being at the time under repair. His father, in conjunction with Mr. Yates, had established a cotton factory at Bury in the year 1773. This establishment attained extraordinary prosperity. It is stated that in the year 1803 the firm had in their employment no fewer than 15,000 persons, and that their contribution to the Excise in the shape of duty on printed goods amounted to no less than 40,0007. a year. In 1787 Mr. Peel married the daughter of his partner Mr. Yates, and the subject of our memoir was the eldest of a family of six sons and five daughters. Mr. Peel soon became a landowner on a large scale in the counties of Warwick, Lancaster, and Stafford, and in the year 1790 he was first returned to the House of Commons for Tamworth. He was one of the warmest supporters of Mr. Pitt's policy; and his admiration of that statesman and of his system was carried almost to the point of devotion. Shortly before he was returned to parliament, he pub. lished a pamphlet, entitled "The National Debt productive of National Prosperity;" of which the title alone indicates the spirit and character. In 1798, when the Government appealed to the community for pecuniary support in the war against France, the firm of which he was the

head gave no less a sum than 10,000. In 1800 he was created a Baronet; and when, in June, 1830, his will was proved, his personal property was sworn at the "upper value," that is, exceeding 900,000%.*

Sir Robert Peel's early education was received under his father's immediate eye, and then he went to Harrow. Lord Byron has left the following record of his school days:

"Peel, the orator and statesman ('that was, or is, or is to be '), was my formfellow, and we were both at the top of our remove. We were on good terms, but his brother was my intimate friend. There were always great hopes of Peel amongst us all-masters and scholars; and he has not disappointed them. As a scholar he was greatly my superior; as a declaimer and actor I was reckoned at least bis equal. As a schoolboy out of school, I was always in scrapes, and he never; and in school he always knew his lesson, and I rarely; but when I knew it, I knew it nearly as well. In general information, history, &c. I think I was his superior, as well as of most boys of my standing."-Moore's Life of Byron, i. 62.

Peel had scarcely completed his 16th year when he left Harrow, and became a gentleman commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the degree of A.B. in Michaelmas term, 1808, with unprecedented distinction. The present system of examination being then new, he was the first man that ever took the honours of a double first class-first in classics, and first in mathematics.

The year 1809 saw him attain his majority, and also take his seat in the House of Commons as member for the city of Cashel,-a place then returning the nominee of Mr. Richard Pennefather. He entered upon his parliamentary career as a supporter of Mr. Perceval, and one of his first efforts was a vindication of the unfortunate Walcheren expedition. At the commencement of the session in 1810 he seconded the address in answer to the speech from the throne; and before the close of that session, he first took office as Under Secretary of State in the Home Department, of which the Right Hon. Richard Ryder was then Chief Secretary.

In May 1812, Mr. Perceval fell by the hands of an assassin, and, after the formation of the Liverpool ministry, Mr. Peel was Chief Secretary in Ireland, where the Duke of Richmond was then Viceroy. On this appointment he was sworn a

*A memoir of the first Sir Robert Peel, and the substance of his will, may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1830.

Privy Councillor on the 13th Aug. 1812. At the general election in the same year he had been elected for Chippenham in Wiltshire.

Pledged by all the ties of party to maintain the Protestant supremacy in Ireland, Mr. Peel found his bitterest opponent in the demagogue Councillor O'Connell ; who abused him heartily on every opportunity. At length, in 1815, Mr. Peel felt so highly provoked that he sent Colonel Brown to arrange the preliminaries of a hostile meeting. Before the parties could act upon this, Mr. O'Connell was arrested in Dublin upon information sent to the sheriff by his wife, and again he was arrested, but on what information is not known, in London, as he was on the point of proceeding to Dover for the purpose of meeting Sir Robert. Subsequently Mr. O'Connell, according to his biographer Mr. Fagan, on more than one occasion acknowledged he was wrong in the observations which were the cause of offence.

During the six years that he held the Irish Secretaryship (under the three viceroyalties of the Duke of Richmond, Earl Whitworth, and Earl Talbot,) Mr. Peel introduced and defended many Irish measures, including some peace-preservation bills. The establishment of the constabulary force in that country is amongst the most permanent results of his administration. It is, moreover, one which may be considered as the experimental or preliminary step to the introduction of that system of metropolitan police which gives security to persons and property amidst the congregated millions of the vast cluster of cities, boroughs, and villages which we call London, and which has since been extended to every considerable provincial town.

In June 1817, when the elevation of Mr. Speaker Abbot to the peerage caused a vacancy in the representation of the University of Oxford, Mr. Peel was unanimously elected one of its burgesses.

On the 4th Feb. 1819, he was chosen chairman of the famous committee on currency, the result of which was one of the measures on which his political celebrity mainly rests-the return to cash payments the act for which passed in the same session. The first Sir Robert Peel altogether differed from his son as to the tendency of this measure. But it was roundly asserted at the time, and very faintly denied, that it rendered that gentleman a more wealthy man, by something like half a million sterling, than he had previously been.

On the 17th Jan. 1822, Mr. Peel was appointed Home Secretary on the retirement of Lord Sidmouth: and from that

period he filled that office during the remainder of the Liverpool administration.

In 1826 he brought forward, and carried, his measures for the reform of the Criminal Code.

On the accession of Mr. Canning as premier in April 1827, Mr. Peel determined to retire, because he considered that minister pledged to yield to the demands of the Roman Catholics, to which Mr. Peel had always offered an uncompromising resistance.

On the 25th Jan. 1828 he was reinstated in office as one of the ministry of the Duke of Wellington. And then it was that the Roman Catholics, and their Protestant advocates, finally defeated all attempts to restrain their agitation. After the discussions in the two Houses of Parliament on the Catholic question in the session of 1828, frequent communications took place between the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel respecting the position of that question, and each of them came to the conclusion that it could not safely be left in the position in which it had stood for so many years, the members of the King's government having no opinion in common upon it, and the two Houses of Parliament coming to opposite decisions. In August, 1828, Mr. Peel wrote a letter to the Duke, in which he gave a deliberate opinion-that there was, upon the whole, less of evil in making a decided effort to settle the Catholic question, than in leaving it, as it had been left, an open question. He expressed his readiness to commit himself to the support of a measure of ample concession and relief, but desired to give it out of office.

In Jan. 1829, the Duke of Wellington convinced him that his assistance in office was indispensable. The King referred to his own scruples-to his own uniform opposition to the measure in question-and said, "You advise this measure; you see no escape from it; you ask me to make the sacrifice of opinion and of consistency -will you not make the same sacrifice?" Mr. Peel felt he could return to his Sovereign no other answer but the one he did return-viz. that he would make that sacrifice, and would bear his full share of the responsibility and unpopularity of the measure he advised. He moved the Relief Bill in the House of Commons on March 5, 1829; but it is a fact since published by himself that on the preceding day the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, and he, after a long interview with his Majesty, at Windsor Castle, felt it necessary, on account of his Majesty's scruples with respect to parts of the intended measure of relief which they deemed indispensable, to tender their re

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