Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

X.

1820,

portance in after times to the British empire. George IV. CHAP. reigned just ten years after his accession to the throne, the Duke of Clarence only seven; and his demise opened the succession to our present gracious sovereign, then an infant in the arms, who, uniting the courage and spirit of her Plantagenet and Stuart, to the judgment and integrity of her Hanoverian ancestors, has reunited, in troubled times, all hearts to the throne, and spread through her entire subjects the noble feelings of disinterested loyalty. The sequel of this history will show of what incalculable importance it was that, at a time when every crown in Europe was shaking on the brow of its wearer, and the strongest monarchies were crumbling in the dust, a Queen should have been on the British throne, whose virtues had inspired the respect, while her intrepidity had awakened the admiration of all her subjects, and who, like her ancestress Queen Mary, was regarded with warmer feelings of chivalrous devotion than any king, how eminent soever, could have been; for towards her, to all that could command respect in the other sex were united

[blocks in formation]

41.

illness of

The English were soon made aware on how precarious a footing the succession to the throne was placed, and Alarming how soon they might have to mourn a second death George IV. among their monarchs. Hardly had the new king

ascended the throne, when he was seized with a violent attack of inflammation in the chest, which was the more alarming, from its being the same complaint which had so recently proved fatal to the Duke of Kent. For several days his life was in imminent danger, and almost despaired of; but at length the strength of his constitution, and the skill of his physicians, triumphed over the virulence of the disease, and the alarming symptoms disappeared.1 i. 405, 406. He long continued, however, very weak, from the copious

1 Ann. Reg.

1820, 17,

18; Hughes,

X.

CHAP. bleedings which he had undergone; and when his royal father was laid in the grave at Windsor, on the 16th February, the highest in station was absent, and the Duke of York was chief mourner,

1820.

42.

Ominous questions regarding the omis

sion of

roline's

name in

the Liturgy.

Parliament met again, after the prorogation, on the 17th February. By the Constitution, the House of Commons must be dissolved within six months after the demise of the king, and the state of the public business Queen Ca- rendered it advisable that this should take place as soon as possible, in order to get it over by the ordinary time of prorogation. It was indispensable, however, for Ministers to obtain some votes in supply before the House was dissolved; and, in doing so, they received early warning of a serious difficulty which awaited them at the very threshold of their career as ministers of the new monarch. Hitherto Queen Caroline had been prayed for in the Liturgy as the Princess of Wales. But as the king was determined never, under any circumstances, to acknowledge her as Queen of England, it was deemed indispensable to make a stand at the very outset; and, accordingly, her name was omitted in the Liturgy by an order of the Privy Council. This gave rise to an ominous question in the House of Commons a few days after. Mr Hume asked, on the 18th February, whether the allowance of £35,000 a-year, hitherto made to her Royal Highness, was to be continued; and Lord Castlereagh having answered in the affirmative, no further notice of the subject took place, though Mr Brougham, her chief legal adviser, was present, and had made a violent attack on the Government. But on the 21st, when a motion was made that the House should resolve itself into a committee of supply, Mr Hume again introduced the subject, and said that, without finding fault with any 1820, 25, exercise of the prerogative, on the part of the sovereign, Deb. xli. as head of the Church,1 he might be permitted to ask why 1621,1623. an address of condolence and congratulation had not been voted to her Majesty on her accession to the throne,

Feb. 12.

Feb. 18.

1 Ann. Reg.

26; Parl.

1606, 1608,

X.

1820.

and to express his regret at the manner in which she had CHAP. been treated. Was she to be left a beggar upon the Continent, and the Queen of England to be thrown a needy suppliant on the cold charity of foreign princes? Something definite should be fixed in regard to the future provision for her.

[ocr errors]

43.

Brougham.

The speech of Mr Brougham on this occasion was very remarkable, and seemed to presage, as he was the Remarkable speech Queen's Attorney-general, a more favourable issue to this of Mr unhappy division than could have been at first anticipated. He deemed it unnecessary to lay any stress on the omission of her name in the Liturgy, or her being called by the King's ministers in this debate an "exalted personage instead of Her Majesty. Was she not the wedded wife of the sovereign? What she was called could not alter her position one way or other. These are trifles light as air, which can never render her situation either precarious or uncertain. If the advisers of the Crown should be able to settle upon her what was necessary to maintain her rank and dignity out of the civil list, there would be no need to introduce her Majesty's name. He had refused to listen to any surmise; he had shut his ears to all reports; he knew nothing of any delicate investigations; but if any charge was preferred against her Majesty, he would be prepared to meet it alike as her Majesty's confi- xli. 1616; dential adviser, and as an independent member of Parlia- 1820, 27. ment.1

1 Parl. Deb.

Ann. Reg.

conspiracy.

vious life.

Nothing further followed on this conversation, and Par- 44. liament, having been prorogued to the 13th March, was Cato Street next day dissolved, and writs issued for the election of a Thistlenew Parliament to meet on 27th April. But ere it could wood's preassemble the nation was horror-struck by the discovery of one of the most atrocious murderous conspiracies that ever disgraced the annals of mankind, and which was only prevented from ending in the massacre of the whole Cabinet by the timidity or treachery of one of the members of the gang, who revealed the plot to the Government.

X.

1820.

CHAP. This was the CATO STREET CONSPIRACY, which may well take its place beside the worst outbreaks of Italian crime, and showed to what frightful extremities the English mind, when violently excited by political passions, is capable of being led. The author of the plot was Arthur Thistlewood, who was born in 1770, had received a tolerable education, and had served both in the militia and in a West India regiment. He soon, however, resigned his commission, and, notwithstanding the war, succeeded in making his way to Paris, where he arrived shortly after the fall of Robespierre. He there embraced all the extravagant ideas which the Revolution had caused to germinate in France, and he returned to England firmly persuaded that the first duty of a patriot was to massacre the Government, and overturn all existing institutions. He was engaged in Watson's conspiracy, already men1 Ante, c. tioned, and, like him, acquitted in the face of distinct proof, chiefly from the indictment having been laid for high treason, which was straining a point, instead of conspiracy and riot, as to which the evidence was clear. On his acquittal he sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth, for which he was handed over to the civil authorities, by whom he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment. He came out of prison at its expiration thirsting for vengeance, and burning with revolutionary passions, at the very time when the "Manchester massacre," as it was 1820, 29; called, had excited such a ferment in the country, and he Hughes, vi. 408; Mar- immediately engaged himself in the furtherance of a conspiracy, the object of which was to murder the Ministers and overturn the Government.2

iv. § 68.

* Ann. Reg.

tineau, i. 242.

45.

rators.

Feb. 19.

He soon succeeded, in that period of excitement, in Design of collecting a band of conspirators as determined and reckthe conspi- less as himself-men fit, indeed, "to disturb the peace of the whole world," though certainly not to "rule it when 'tis wildest." Ings, a butcher; Davidson, a creole ; Brunt and Tidd, shoemakers, were his principal associates, but with them were collected forty or fifty more,

X.

1820.

who were to be employed in the execution of their de- CHAP. signs. They met twice a-day, during February, in a hired room near Gray's Inn Lane, and their first design was to murder the king, but this was soon laid aside for the massacre of his ministers, who were to be despatched separately in their own houses. On Saturday, February 19th, their plans were arranged. Forty men were to be set apart for these detached murders, and whoever faltered in the great work was to atone for it with his life; while a detachment was, at the same time, to seize two pieces of artillery stationed in Gray's Inn, and six in the artillery ground. The Mansion House was to be immediately attacked, and a provisional government established there, the Bank assaulted, and London set on fire in several places. But this design was modified, in consequence of information given by Edwards, one of their number, who afterwards revealed the conspiracy, that the whole Cabinet was to dine at Lord Harrowby's in Grosvenor Square. 1 ThistleThistlewood immediately proposed to murder them all wood's at once when assembled there, which was assented to; 45; Ann. Reg. 1820, "for," said he, "as there has not been a dinner for so 30,31; Marlong, there will no doubt be fourteen or sixteen there; 242. and it will be a rare haul to murder them all together." 1 In pursuance of this plan, two of the conspirators were stationed in Grosvenor Square to see what was going on Their final there; and a room was taken above a stable in Cato plans. Street, off the Edgeware Road, where the conspirators were to assemble on the afternoon of the 22d February, when the dinner at Lord Harrowby's was to take place. The only access to this room, which was large enough to hold thirty persons, was by a ladder, which led up to a trap-door, and there, at six in the evening, Thistlewood, and twenty-four of the conspirators, fully armed, were assembled. It was arranged that one of the conspirators was to call at Lord Harrowby's with a note when the party were at dinner, and on the door being opened the whole were to rush in, murder the Ministers, and as

Trial, 37,

tineau, i.

46.

« ForrigeFortsett »