he kept alive in the mind of his Royal highness the hope of a divorce, and he prevented a settlement which might have saved the parties and the nation from the unheard-of disgrace now to be cast upon them.* I do not find that Lord Eidon took any part in these proceedings, from the formation of the Milan commission till the accession of George IV. The evidence being then laid before him, he most unfortunately joined in the resolution to exclude the Queen's name from the Liturgy; and, believing that she never would return to England, he consented that, if she did, some proceedings should be instituted for the purpose of exposing her misconduct: but he still resisted the notion of a divorce, seeing that, according to all principle as well as precedent, this would open the door for recrimination, and might be dangerous to the monarchy.

Before the plan of operations was finally agreed upon, a motion was made in the House of Lords to refer the papers contained in the Green Bag to a secret committee. This being strongly opposed by Lord Lansdowne and Lord Holland, and other peers, Lord Eldon said,—

"The object of Ministers, in proposing a secret committee, was to prevent injustice towards the accused. That committee would not be permitted to pronounce a decision: it would merely find, like a Grand Jury, that matter of accusation did or did not exist. Such matter, even if found to have existence, could not be the subject of a judicial proceeding, strictly so called. The offence of a Queen Consort, or Princess Consort of Wales, committing adultery with a person owing allegiance to the British Crown, would be that of a principal in high treason, because, by statute, it was high treason in him; and as accessaries in high treason are principals, she would thus be guilty of high treason as a principal. But as the act of a person owing no allegiance to the British Crown could not be high treason in him, so neither could a Princess be guilty of that crime merely by being an accessary to such a person's act. There were likewise great difficulties in a Sovereign seeking a divorce in the Ecclesiastical Courts according to the ordinary rules of law. Yet although, for this reason, there could be no judicial proceeding in such a case, there might be a legislative one; and the existence or non-existence of grounds for such legislative proceeding, was a matter into which it would be fit that a secret committee should inquire. In no case could injustice be done, because that committee's decision would not be final."‡

The motion for a secret committee was carried without a division.§ But all reasonable men were alarmed at the delirium of the King and Queen, by which the British nation was to be punished; and, by a motion in the House of Commons, proceedings were stayed, in the hope of a compromise, which was to be attempted between the Duke

* Some have supposed, probably without any sufficient reason, that Lord Liverpool had a personal grudge against the Princess, because she had strongly exerted her influence against him for Mr. Canning.

† Henry VIII. was divorced from Catherine of Arragon by the Ecclesiastical Court-and also from Anne Boleyn between the day of her conviction and execution. 1 Hansard, new series, 896.

§ Ib. 202..

of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh acting as plenipotentiaries for the King, and Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman for the Queen-upon the basis that she admitted nothing, and he retracted nothing, of what had been charged against her. While this was pending, Lord Eldon expressed his sentiments upon it in a letter to his daughter:

66

It seems to me that both houses of Parliament are determined to have an end of this business between the K. and Q. without inquiry and disclosure. All seem to be agreed that she shall not live in this country; but there is nothing but difference of opinion how she is to be treated abroad. The Ministers will be compelled to give way to Parliament, and they are in a pretty case: if they give way, the K. will remove them: if they do not, they will be ontvoted in Parliament, and cannot remain. At least I do not see my way honourably out of this difficulty. . . . . To-morrow will be a very busy day, if the Q. means to make any propositions for arrangement. The K. will make none, and, if he can find an Administration that will fight every thing to the last moment at any risk, he will receive none."

Such an Administration, after many cabinet councils had been held upon the subject, his Majesty seems to have thought that he already possessed; for his plenipotentiaries, by his orders, not only required that the Queen should ever after live abroad, but still insisted on excluding her name from the Liturgy, and refused the concession that she might be introduced officially at some one foreign Court, which she might select for her residence. The negotiation was accordingly broken off before a single article had been agreed to, and both parties prepared for war à l'outrance.

66

The Queen's first move was to intimate to the Lord Chancellor, that she meant to come in person to the House of Lords when her case should be next discussed there-meaning to go in state, with half the population of London at her heels. He sent her back word that, as Speaker, he could not permit her to enter without the authority of the House, for which she must previously apply. She then desired that he would deliver a message to the House in her name, but he told her that the House did not receive messages from any body but the King, unless they were sent as answers to addresses from the House." So far he was correct; but I think he was quite wrong in refusing to present a petition from her to the House of Lords. By the Constitution, every subject has a right to petition either House of Parliament, and a petition can only be presented by a member of the House. I have therefore always understood the rule to be (and I have myself always acted on this rule,) that if a petition is respectfully worded, and is upon a subject within the jurisdiction of Parliament, any member, when asked, is bound, in the discharge of his parliamentary duty, to present it, however much he may disapprove of its prayer. The Lord Chancellor, although Speaker of the House, has in all respects the duties and privileges of other peers. Lord Eldon stated, in a letter written at the time, "When they brought a petition from her, to be presented to the House by me, this I declined also; and for this Messrs. Grey, Lans

downe, and Holland abused me pretty handsomely. However, I don't think that I suffered much by all that, and I am resolved I will not be employed in any way by this lady."

The Queen's petition being presented by Lord Dacre, with some observations upon the manner in which the duty of presenting

it had been cast upon him, an entire stranger to her Ma- [June 26.] jesty, "the Lord Chancellor declared, upon his honour, that when he declined to present the petition, he entertained no objection to its being submitted to the consideration of the House; but it appeared to him better that it should be presented by any other noble lord rather than by himself; a due regard to the situation in which he stood, induced him to pause, and he had not three minutes for the consideration of the question: he would sooner suffer death than admit any abatement of the principle, that a person accused is not therefore to be considered guilty."

Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman, her Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor General, were then called in to support the petition, which prayed that their Lordships would not prosecute a secret inquiry against hers, -and they began that series of orations in her defence, which raised the reputation of British forensic eloquence.

The following day, Earl Grey, in the hope of saving the country from the disgrace about to be heaped upon it, having moved to discharge the order for the appointment of the secret committee, which had hitherto suspended its operations,-the Chancellor ably vindicated the propriety of inquiry after the communication from the Throne, and thus more suo concluded: "For my own part, my Lords, if after this inquiry further proceedings should be deemed necessary, I shall enter upon them in the spirit so ably described by an eminent English Judge,t who declared that he had made a covenant with God and himself, that neither affection nor any other undue motive should ever make him swerve from the strict line of his duty.' In that spirit I have always continued to act during the past, and I shall endeavour to act for the future. The consciousness of doing so will be the best consolation I can possess, if I should appear to the friends whom I esteem to act wrongly, and will form my best title to pardon at the hands of that God before whose tribunal all mankind must sooner or later stand to be judged." Lord Grey's motion was negatived by a majority of 102 to 47.9 This was the first division on the proceedings against the Queen, and gave great confidence to the King's party.

The secret committee proceeded to open the Green Bag, and in a few days reported to the House, "That allegations, supported by the concurrent testimony of a great number of persons in various situations of life, and residing in different parts of Europe, [JULY 4.] appeared to be calculated so deeply to affect the character of the Queen, the dignity of the Crown, and the moral feeling and honour of the coun

1 Hansard, 1325, 1327, 1329.

+ 2 Hansard, 24.

† C. J. Crewe.

§ Ib. 49.

try, that it was indispensable that they should become the subject of a solemn inquiry which would best be effected in the course of a legislative proceeding."*

Lord Dacre having next day presented another petition from the Queen, praying to be immediately heard by her counsel, the Chancellor said he would be glad to know where in the history of [JULY 5.] Parliament it was to be found that counsel were admitted to be heard against a measure of some kind or other not yet submitted to their lordships, but which some noble lord was expected to propose. Their lordships differed from the practice of the other House of Parliament, by allowing a peer to lay a bill on the table without asking previous leave to do so; and would they now hear counsel against this privilege of the peerage?" The motion, that counsel be called in, was negatived without a division.

66

Lord Liverpool forthwith introduced the "Bill of Pains and Penalties against her Majesty," which, reciting that "she had carried on an adulterous intercourse with Bergami, her menial servant," enacted that she should be degraded from the title and station of Queen, and that her marriage with the King should be dissolved." After her counsel had been heard at the bar against this mode of proceeding, the bill was read a first time, and was ordered to be read a second time on the 17th of August, when the preamble was to be proved, and the "trial" was to begin.

In the meanwhile, Lord Erskine having made the very reasonable motion, that the Queen should be furnished with a list of the witnesses to be produced against her, the Lord Chancellor resisted it with a long speech, in which he pointed out the inconvenience which [JULY 14.] this practice produces in trials for treason,-insisted that it should not be extended to other cases-and, reminding their lordships that the rank of the party accused should not weigh with them-in spite of his early failure in quoting Shakspeare, exclaimed-

"The poor beetle that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great

As when a giant dies."§

He might have recollected that the Queen was substantially charged with high treason, and that in Scotland (of which she was Queen as well as of England,) no criminal of any degree can be brought to trial without the advantage which she claimed.

I think he likewise erred in resisting a motion afterwards made by Lord Erskine, that as the charge in the preamble of the bill

extended over several years, and over many countries in [JULY 24.] Europe and Asia, she should, for the purpose of preparing her defence, he furnished with a specification of the times and places when and where the offence was supposed to have been committed. The Chancellor said, "there was no analogy between the common law of this country and a proceeding before Parliament; and his noble and learned friend"

*

2 Hansard, 167.

† lb. 199.

Ib. 207.

§ Ib. 440.

had not pointed out a single instance in which, in a proceeding like the present, their lordships had gone the length to which their lordships were now requested to go: the demand for a specification was unsupported by any principle, and unsanctioned by any precedent."* But surely he had not consulted his oracle, Sir William, that great Consistorial Judge, who would have told him that in an ordinary divorce suit the libel must articulately set forth the charges-with time and place-and that to these charges the proofs are confined. Indeed, by the standing orders of the House of Peers, a bill to dissolve a marriage for adultery cannot be introduced till there has been a sentence of divorce à mensâ et thoro in the Ecclesiastical Court, after such specific allegations established by evidence.

These violations of the sacred principles of impartial justice excited much sympathy in favour of the party accused, and inclined the public to be incredulous to the formidable case that was afterwards made out against her.

When the trial actually began, and during the whole course of it, Lord Eldon's conduct as President of the Court was much to be admired; displaying not only dignity and ability, but impartiality and candour. In the midst of great provocation, he always preserved his equanimity; and while he firmly checked the irregularities of counsel when they exceeded the latitude to be fairly expected in the discharge of their arduous duty, he treated them with uniform courtesy. He summoned to his aid the Judges of the land, and upon the many difficult questions of evidence which arose he always decided according to their opinion. I must, likewise, point out his high merit, by which every good lawyer must be struck, in framing the questions to be submitted to these sages. It should be remembered, that, being only advisers, there is a jealousy in putting to them in the concrete the very point which the House is to decide, and that they are generally consulted by an abstract question arising out of a supposititious case. Some dexterity may be evinced by the framing of such questions, so as to obtain an answer which may meet the wishes of the framer; but Lord Eldon-in his imaginary ejectments and trials upon ejectments-with the greatest fairness and felicity submitted the exact matter in controversy for their advice, without the slightest regard to the manner in which their answer might operate.t Amidst the humiliation caused by the proceeding, it was consolatory to observe, not only the unexampled display of talent at the Bar, but, though the contending parties were so unequal, the strict regard to the rules of law and to the principles of enlightened criminal procedure exhibited by the Court.

When the evidence for the prosecution had closed, Lord Eldon very properly resisted the proposition made by Mr. Brougham, in his laudable zeal for his client, that he should then be allowed to open the evidence for the defence, with a delay of some weeks, to enable him to * 2 Hansard, 576.

† Our Law of Evidence was much enriched by the decisions in the "Queen's Case," although two or three of them have since been doubted.