different offices, and were all graciously re-appointed.* Of Lord Eldon's part in this ceremony we have an account from himself in the following letter from him to his sister-in-law, Mrs. H. Ridley: "DEAR FANNY, 66 London, Jan. 31st, 1820. "I have lost the master whom I have long served, and whom I have most affectionately loved. "The Acts of Parliament now in being would have continued me in office till the Royal pleasure should remove me; but I determined that, as I was acting under the appointment of him who was no more, I owed it as matter of respect to him, and as matter of respect to his successor, to consider my office as determined by the death of him who gave it me, and that I ought not, with respect to the latter, to leave him to the pain of removing me if he thought that fit—and especially as I know, and to his credit I say it, that he kept us, and me among the rest, originally, only because we were his father's servants. "I therefore yesterday resigned into his hands the Seals; and, as I told him, I hoped unsullied by any act of mine. Out of office, he thought proper to call me back into it; and now I am in the very singular situation that of a third Chancellorship † 66 Remain in it long I cannot-to be restored to it I did not wish; but I could not for the present withdraw from the offer graciously made to me by the son of my greatest benefactor, who certainly has behaved with great kindness to me, though he had been taught heretofore to hate me. "With our love to you all-to you all- It is amusing to observe how he enhances the delight he felt at the commencement of his third Chancellorship by protestations that he was reluctantly induced again to accept the worthless bauble, lest by declining it he should be chargeable with ingratitude. 30th January, 1820.-Memorandum, that the Right Hon. John. Lord Eldon, Lord High Chancellor of that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, called Great Britain, delivered the Great Seal to his Majesty in Council, at Carlton House, when his Majesty was graciously pleased to re-deliver to him the said Seal, with the title of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain; and on the 1st day of February, his Lordship, between the hours of ten and eleven in the forenoon, went into the Court of Chancery, at Westminster, attended by Masters Campbell, Stratford, and Alexander, and, standing in his place there in open court, took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and also the oath of the Lord Chancellor, which oaths were read to him by the Deputy Clerk of the Crown, Master Campbell, the senior Master present, in the absence of the Master of the Rolls, (who was prevented from attending by indisposition,) holding the book, which being done, the Attorney General moved that it might be recorded, which was ordered accordingly."—Min. Book, No. 2, fol. 118. His immediate successor has been four times Chancellor, and Lord Cottenham three times. He was probably not aware that one of his predecessors had been Chancellor five times. Parliament again met for a few days, but only to vote addresses of condolence and congratulation; for this House of Commons having been several times a little refractory, the resolution was taken to get rid of it as soon as possible. The Marquess of Lansdowne pointed out that there was not the usual reason for a dissolution which occurred upon a demise of the Crown; but Lord Eldon explained that, at common law, the Parliament died with the Sovereign in whose name it was called, and although by the statute of William III. it might sit six months longer, it was liable to be dissolved sooner; and constitutionally it ought to be dissolved as soon as public business will allow-so that noble lords who started any business to delay the dissolution [FEB. 28, 1820.] would be obstructing the due exercise of the royal prerogative. He, as Lord Commissioner, concluded the session by delivering the Royal Speech, which deplored the loss of a Sovereign, "the common father of all his people," and praised the prudence and firmness with which the Lords and Commons had counteracted the designs of the disaffected.* Yet the new laws were insufficient to prevent the formation of the most diabolical and the most preposterous plot recorded in our annals"the Cato Street conspiracy,"-by which it was intended to upset the monarchy by assassinating the Lord Chancellor and all his colleagues while assembled together at a Cabinet dinner. One Thistlewood, who had been a subaltern officer in the army, with about a score of others,-butchers, shoemakers, and of such low trades,—had agreed that when the Cabinet Ministers were dining at Lord Harrowby's, one of the confederates should gain admission at the outer door by pretending to deliver a letter; that all the others should then rush in, and, having executed their bloody purpose, they should constitute themselves the Government of the country. But two of them having "'peached," they were all apprehended in their conclave in Cato Street, when about to set forth for Lord Harrowby's. Being speedily brought to trial, the charge of high treason was satisfactorily made out against them, and five of them were executed. I do not think that Ministers deserved any censure for the manner in which they conducted themselves in this affair, unless that they somewhat unscrupulously yielded to the temptation of arguing that the plot was a justification of their recent coercive laws, and of pretending to infer from this insane scheme that there was a revolutionary spirit generally prevailing in the country. Lord Eldon, who considerably overrated his actual danger, piously wrote to a lady of his family: "For the past, thankfulness and gratitude, I trust, will relieve all other feelings: as to the future, I trust there is something to be hoped for of protection in human caution, and that we may all fully depend upon that Providence to which we are so largely indebted." 41 Parl. Deb. 1642. This plot bears a considerable resemblance to that of Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, in "The Tempest "—to murder Prospero, and make themselves Kings of the Enchanted Island. The new Parliament met on the 21st of April, and the session promised for some weeks to be very dull,-no subjects more stirring being brought forward, or announced, than the settlement of the Civil List, the discharge of insolvent debtors, the suppression of Sunday newspapers, and the reading of the Athanasian Creed,— [JUNE 6, 1820,] when a political storm was excited, such as had not been known in the country for a century, by a sealed green bag being laid upon the table of the House of Lords and of the House of Commons, with a message from his Majesty, that, "in consequence of the arrival of the Queen, his Majesty had communicated certain papers respecting her conduct, which he recommended to their immediate and serious altention."* At the commencement of the reign of George IV., Ministers were placed in a situation of much embarrassment with their royal master, who, ruling "proprio jam jure, animo paterno,”t became much more unmanageable than he had before been, and more inclined to listen to "private friends" than to his constitutional advisers. They first had a difference with him on arranging the Civil List; but this was easily accommodated, and was thus jocosely alluded to in a letter from Lord Eldon to his daughter: "Our royal master seems to have got into temper again,—as far as I could judge from his conversation with me this morning. He has been pretty well disposed to part with us all, because we would not make additions to his revenue. This we thought conscientiously we could not do in the present state of the country, and of the distresses of the middle and lower orders of the people, to which we might add, too, that of the higher orders."+ But a far more difficult subject remained behind; and, rather than not have his way here, he was ready to peril his crown, at any rate to try how far he might succeed with another Cabinet. He had resolved that his wife, although now by law Queen of England, and entitled to the well-defined privileges of that high station as much as he was to wear the crown, without regard to personal character,-should enjoy none of them, and that she should be degraded from her royal rank, even if the tie of marriage between them should not be dissolved. Till the death of King George III., she had been prayed for in the Liturgy as "Princess of Wales;" but King George IV. insisted that she should now be entirely excluded from it, and his Ministers very improperly yielded to his arbitrary will,-contenting themselves with saying, that "they would take no other step against her while she consented to remain abroad." They feebly defended themselves by alleging that she was prayed for under the words, "the rest of the royal family;" but, as her counsel, Mr. Denman, afterwards pathetically observed, "the general prayer in which she was embraced, was for all that are desolate and oppressed.' 999 When the news of this insult reached her in Italy,-as might have been foreseen by Lord Eldon, who from his long intimacy with her was well acquainted with her spirit, she announced her intention of * Hansard, 886. † Motto on the Coronation medal. 20th April, 1820. immediately revisiting England, to claim her legal rights. For some time he flattered himself that this was a vain boast, or that her courage would fail; and thus he wrote to his daughter::-"Our Queen threatens approach to England; but if she can venture, she is the most courageous lady I ever heard of. The mischief, if she does come, will be infinite. At first she will have extensive popularity with the multitude; in a few short months or weeks she will be ruined in the opinion of the world."* On a subsequent day, when the Queen must have been almost in sight of the shores of England, he again wrote: "I saw my royal master, as usual, yesterday. The committee to settle the forms of the Coronation have reported to him that, as there is to be no crowning of a queen, peeresses should not be summoned to attend, and so all former precedents, in like cases, appear to have been. But he says that, as Queen Elizabeth, though a lady, had both peers and peeresses, so he, though he has no queen, will have both ladies and gentlemen to attend him. I think, however, he will not persist in this. The town is employed in nothing but speculation whether her Majesty will or will not come. Great bets are laid about it. Some people have taken fifty guineas, undertaking in lieu of them to pay a guinea a-day till she comes, -so sure are these that she will come within fifty days; others, again, are taking less than fifty guineas, undertaking to pay a guinea a day till she comes,-so sure are they that she will not come. Others assert that they know she will come, and that she will find her way into Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall on the Coronation, in spite of all opposition. I retain my old opinion, that she will not come, unless she is insane. It is, however, certain that she has appointed maids of honour,-ladies to whom she is pleased to give that appellation."+ In a few hours, news was received that her Majesty had arrived at St. Omar's, and a negotiation was opened with her there;-but, indignantly refusing 50,000l. a-year under the condition of not using the title of Queen of England, or any other title attached to the British royal family, on the 6th of June she entered London amid the plaudits of the multitude. The following is Lord Eldon's account of this ovation:— 66 Contrary to all expectation, the Queen entered London yesterday in an open carriage, with the Alderman and Lady Anne Hamilton, and amidst a vast concourse of people in carriages and on horseback, who had gone out to meet her and to hail her approach. She drove to Alderman Wood's house in South Audley-street, where she exhibited herself and the Alderman from a balcony to all who chose to take a peep at them, the multitude in the street requiring all who passed by to make their reverences and obeisances to her Majesty. In the mean time messages were sent to both Houses of Parliament, which may be considered as the forerunners of long parliamentary proceedings relative to her conThese parliamentary proceedings are likely to be warm on both sides. At present, one can only conjecture what is to happen,-and conjecture deserves little confidence, when this lady's arrival has robbed conjecture of all credit."‡ duct. * 10th April, 1820. † 29th May. Letter, 7th June, to Honourable Mrs. Banks. In a few days after, he wrote to his daughter: "The lower orders here are all Queen's folks; few of the middling or higher orders, except the profligate, or those who are endeavouring to acquire power through mischief. The bulk of those who are in Parliainent are afraid of the effect of the disclosures and discussions which must take place, if there is not some pacific settlement: the Queen is obstinate, and makes no proposition tending to that—at least as yet;— the King is determined, and will hear of none-of nothing but thorough investigation, and what he, and those who consider themselves more than him, think and talk of-thorough exposure of the Q., and divorce. To this extent Parliament will not go; but amidst this mess of difficulties, something must arise in a few days; or it will happen, I think in a few days, that the K. will try whether he cannot find an Administration which can bring Parliament more into his views than the present Ministers. I don't see how matters can go on a week longer with the present Administration remaining; I think no Administration, who have any regard for him, will go the length he wishes, as an Administration—and if they will, they cannot take Parliament along with them. That body is afraid of disclosures-not on one side only-which may affect the monarchy itself. There is certainly an inclination to disquiet among the lower orders; but it is so well watched, that there is no great cause for uneasiness on that account." From the foregoing letter it appears that hitherto Ministers had resisted the King's wish for a Divorce Bill. This was the utmost extent to which he had ever proposed to go; and, according to the doctrine afterwards solemnly laid down, he could not, even on the completest proof of her infidelity, have attempted to make Caroline of Brunswick share the fate of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard,-her supposed paramour being an alien, and the alleged adultery having been committed beyond the seas,-so that neither party was guilty of high treason. It is deeply to be regretted that Ministers, from selfish motives or from defective judgment, did not continue steadily to protect the Sovereign from the effects of his own waywardness. Although Lord Eldon was to blame in concurring in the measure which was at last adopted, I am sorry to think that the responsibility of it chiefly attaches to Lord Liverpool, a statesman whose general character is most respectable, and whose administration is a brilliant portion of our history. But he was afraid to act with sufficient boldness in combating his Sovereign's inclination on this subject; and he followed a middle course, which is sometimes the most disastrous, instead of being the safest. Although he would not take up the divorce as a Ministerial measure when he was pressed to do so in 1818,--that he might not utterly quarrel with the Regent, he allowed Sir John Leach privately to frame the " Milan commission," he provided funds for defraying the expenses of it, and he from time to time read the ex parte evidence which the commissioners collected from very suspicious sources. He discussed it with the Prince, and he could not deny that, if it were believed, it established the guilt of the Princess. Thus, while he refused to originate any proceedings, |