Holland, assert, or even suggest, that the King had any suspicion, much less any notice, that this despatch went an iota beyond what had been previously agreed to-the Irish Act. Lord Holland proceeds to say, that though Lord Grey made the motion that day (the 4th), it was not till that day week (his next levee) that the King remonstrated against it both to Lords Grenville and Grey. This is inaccurate; for Lord Grey, in his explanatory speech of the 26th March, 1816, confessed that, on the Thursday or Friday, he heard serious objections from some of his colleagues, and that Lord Grenville was aware that the King was dissatisfied.'

But there had intervened a circumstance which Lord Holland does not allude to, though it was very significant. In both the Cabinet Minute and Lord Grenville's persuasive letter it was stated, as an additional motive for his Majesty's consent, that the enactment should be made in the annual Mutiny Bill, in order that it might be annually in the power of the Government to omit it if any inconvenience should arise. That palliative was now withdrawn. The proposition made on the 4th March by Lord Grey was not, as had been previously settled, a clause in the Mutiny Bill, but to execute their purpose by a separate and permanent act a change which, if the affair had been bona fide, would have been more prudent than the embarrassing the pending and all future Mutiny Bills with so contentious a question; but, under the existing circumstances, it had a different bearing, not only as to the Royal power over the measure in future years, but because it was evident that a substantive bill of concession was opening a wider door for other encroachments, and establishing a precedent for what both the King and the country were decidedly adverse to. Of this transformation of the clause into a substantive bill, Lord Holland, we say, takes no notice; but, on the 15th March, the Cabinet-minus the Lord Chancellor Erskine, the Lord President Sidmouth, and Lord Chief Justice Ellen'borough, who were not now, nor had been lately, summoned to the Cabinets-informed the King that they had resolved to abandon their bill. Lord Holland says that he, Lord Grey, and Mr. Windham opposed this resolution; and we are not surprised that he should have been uneasy at such a shabby proceeding; but they had, he says, agreed to abide by the opinions of the majority, and so, in spite of principles and dignity, they submitted to give up their bill and hold their places. They endeavoured, however, to put a bold face on their compliance; and in the Cabinet Minute in which they announced to the King their temporary submission, they threatened him with a recurrence to the same weapons whenever they should find it convenient. The substance of this important document was known at the time, and stated by

both

both Lords Grenville and Grey in their explanations; but we do not recollect to have ever before seen the actual text, which is much stronger than what we had remembered of those parliamentary statements of its purport. It is worthy of more notice than it seems at the time to have attracted.

In stating to Parliament the determination to make this very painful sacrifice to what they conceive to be their painful duty, they trust your Majesty will see the indispensable necessity of their expressing with the same openness by which their language on that subject has uniformly been marked, the strong persuasion which each of them individually entertains of the advantages which would result to the empire from a different, course of policy towards the Catholics of Ireland. These opinions they have never concealed from your Majesty. They continue strongly impressed with them; and it is obviously indispenit sable to their public character that they should openly avow them both on the present occasion and in the possible event of the discussion of the Catholic Petition in Parliament.—pp. 313, 314.

11

bear bluole 951919 70 706 ft me of That is, the King's Ministers reserved to themselves a right, and pledged themselves toma determination, to exert, jointly and severally, their personal and official influence in furtherance of a measure so odious to the Sovereign, and so injurious, as he believed, to the interests and wishes of his people. So strange a proposition as that the Royal influence should be thus left in bands pledged to exercise it whenever they pleased against the Royal conscience, left the King no alternative than to insist on such a retractation of it as should save him from any future pressure of the obnoxious measure. The Ministers, we think, must have anticipated this result, which they lost no time in denouncing as an unconstitutional attempt to fetter their Ministerial duties and responsibility; and they thought this point a more popular, or at least more plausible, pretext for resignation than any preceding circuinstance of their insincere, vacillating, and contradictory manœuvres; and great efforts were accordingly made in and out of Parliament to narrow the whole case to this merely accessory point. But the answer to it was so obvious as to deprive it of all effect. It was their own Minute which had first raised the question of a pledge. It was they who had volunteered to close the doors of their Cabinet against all future counsel, compromise, or conciliation, by requiring from the Sovereign an acquiescence in their own fixed and unalterable course on the Catholic question. This determination of theirs, thus deliberately made and solemnly recorded, was just as much a fetter on their Ministerial responsibility as any opposite engagement could be--indeed much more so than what their pledge had driven the King to require ; all he wished was in self-defence that he, at the age of sixtyeight,

Tod

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bowoys 942

eight, affected with Blaness, and in most delicate and precarious health should not again have this harassings and dangerous THOD Oe question pressed upon lum by' yu yon lum by his own confulential servants ; but

he had, too much good sense to make the slightest suggestion is to what those gentlemen might think proper todos either in to what those santether character, except only as his Minisfuture times, or in or in any

9

ters. Such was the case of the dismissal of All the Talents, which the misrepresentations of Lord Holland's narrative, and the corrective evidence of his documents, Will, we hope, excuse TOT 19 to noiniqo zid b92291q for having thus reproduced.

Th

761

There was also another question' that very much embarrassed that Cabinet, one w abinet, one which is now Happily of little interest; though

VI

it once seqined to shake our isle from its proprietyto the conduct Hognel m of the Princess of Wales. The lesson, However, that it gives us of the force of faction and the extravagance of popular dehisions ought not to no o to be forgotten. That sathe Government some of the leading members of which subsequently interested themselves is soubor her champions became highly unpopular for sanctioning even to her conduct! b bas Isit 89 Inquiry into her Sin B6 97 60 TT 9dt tot abпvoTO 9700 919W, 919dt .11 The knowledge, says Lord Holland, that such an inquiry was established did tunquestionably, even in the outset, exasperate the people against the Prince, and expose the Ministry, who entertained it to much Suspicion and obloquy, Yet M. "Wildham supposed that the nature of the facts inquire if made public, would in this prudish country divert the popular wrath from the -Prince to the Princess; and they not unreasonably liferred from that

2.

Z natural speculoffat her daviskety would be more carefuli to

102

I

suppress than to publish What was so inaptly termed the delicate idvestigation." The even beledo both these expectationsod The publi-Cationis, whether matitated orendire, alloriginates with the thicjal gavisers, or at least with the warm partisans of the Princess; and the : appearances of Itvity (to use the very mildest phrase), far fr Used far from shocking taller austerity of the English public, seemed to endear her to the popualabdinand | Contajuly strengthened the prejudices and inflamed the oanimosity of all classes against her husband. A share of the odium fell don all who either conducted or sanctioned any inquiry the Prince's request or instigation. And yet, whatever may Besthought afte treatment to which she was exposed on her arrival in England or of the malignity, and possibly the falsehood, of some lofenhet changesuerbsequently brought against her, or of the sonfewhat vindictive prosecution of her when Queet she was at besta strange woman, andha very sOPLY bauifinterestingeronto She had, theyanayome talentrosome -pleasantry some good-hunoun, and great spirit and courageo But she -was utterly destititute of all feniale delicacy, and exhibited in the whole → course of the transactions relating to herself erself very little feeling for anyabody, and very little regard for honour or truth, or even for the interests Pf those who were devoted to her, whether the people tĥ'the'a

Ο

aggregate

te, wollobr

or the indiyiduals who enthusiastically espoused her cause. She a avowed her dislike of many she rarely, concealed her contempt for all. In short, to speak plainly, if not mad, she was a very t mad, she was a her y worthless woman. Pub19-1242 taondzila od odem of sange book ai wheatfitical a To those who recollect, or who may read, the part that the majority of Lord Holland's colleagues and politica and political friends 'took inthel Queen's case, these observations, penned it seems about the very time of her trial, will appear extremely curious. We Durselves have, no doubt that Ford Holland need not have expressed his opinion of her in this alternative form.: certainly a very worthless, woman Putous valea we think is equally certain that she was what, the world commonly calls 1. The only other matter of any interest, or, we should of curiosity, that we find in this volume, are some details Concerning the supposed, marriage, of George IV when Prince of Mra we Wales, with Fitzherbertsto we have always considered, and thought that we had good reason reason for doing non anoidlenscandal but eord Holland produces some substantial and documentary evidence which certainly implies that there were more grounds for the rumour than we had imagined. The affair was first brought before the public, by a speech of Mr. Rolle, on the 24th of April, 1787; which alluded to it in terms, Nague indeed, but universally understood, as a matter by which the constitution both in wm both in church and state might be essentially affectort. i log-in On the 27th, Sheridan came down with a declaration on the part of the Prince that he desired inquiry into every circumstance of every his conduct and that no part of it should be should be treated with am-biguity, concealment, or affected tenderness On the 30th, Fox, -who had been absent from the former debates, renewed the discussion, and, after stigmatizing the rumour as scandalous and malicious, gave the fact of any marriage a distinct and indignant denial. This was, no doubt, by the direct authority of the Prince; d in this denial the Prifice persisted to the last in But what shakes our co confidence in solution 153 that Lord Holland has found and produces a rough draft of an earnest letter from Fox to the Prince, dated two years earlier 10th Dec. 1785 by which sit appears that Fox, then believed that the Prince had some -serious intentions of marrying Mrs. Fitzherbert, itzherbert, and thought i mecessary, in this long and argumentative letter, to show is my his Royal Highness not only the flagrant illegality of such a step, but the personal mortifications and difficulties of all sorts which it would entail on himself and the lady, bile earnestness of this remonstrance shows Fox's éoneietlong hot merely of the precertain bability, but the imminence of the dangers This letterthe Tourin vansieringods Punce, appears to have lost an follows:

197, bu

BINA

it

MY

'My dear Charles,-Your letter of last night afforded me more true satisfaction than I can find words to express: as it is an additional proof to me (which I assure you I did not want) of your having that true regard and affection for me which it is not only the wish but the ambition of my life to merit. Make yourself easy, my dear friend. Believe me,

the world will now soon be convinced that there not only is not, but never was, any grounds for these reports, which of late have been so malevolently circulated.'-p. 137.

The letter then goes off to other subjects. Now, as this discussion was above two years earlier than Mr. Fox's absolute denial of the marriage in April, 1787, it is highly improbable that he should not have in the interval satisfied himself on so important a point; and as no one can doubt his personal integrity and truth, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that he had so satisfied himself, and made his subsequent declaration en pleine connaissance de cause. But still we must admit that the very fact of his former apprehension leaves some doubt on one's mind that there might have been some ground for the rumour. This doubt Lord Holland fortifies by the statement of a direct confession made by the Prince to Lord Grey. Fox's denial in the House of Commons was in terms so strong as gave great offence to Mrs. Fitzherbert, who insisted, it is said, on some public reparation. The Prince, equally unable to resist the lady's tears and indisposed to ask Fox to contradict himself, had, says Lord Holland, recourse to Lord Grey :

'He actually sent the next morning for Mr. Grey (Lord Howick and Earl Grey), who was then in high favour with him, and after much preamble, and pacing in a hurried manner about the room, exclaimed, "Charles" (he always so called Mr. Fox) "certainly went too far last night. You, my dear Grey, shall explain it :" and then in distinct terms (as Grey has, since the Prince's death, assured me), though with prodigious agitation, owned that a ceremony had taken place.'-p. 139.

6

6

This application to Lord Grey (but not the confession) Moore, no doubt on Lord Holland's authority, produced in his Life of Sheridan (i. 484); and we are bound in fairness to say, that on the appearance of that work, George IV. deliberately and distinctly declared that there was not a word of truth in it, and that he had never had any communication with Lord Grey on the subject; and he further went on to deny that absurd story of his supposed marriage.' This was, we need hardly add, during Lord Grey's life, and was intended by the King to be publicly repeated. We might possibly, in such a balance of testimony, have leaned to that of so disinterested a witness as Lord Grey, if we were sure that we had Lord Grey's own assertion uncontaminated, but we have not the same confidence in Lord Holland's secondhand

report;