318

THE REGENCY ESTABLISHED.

[BOOK II. wrote Lord Eldon1 to his brother, in this January; "and when I am attacked, day by day, and every man who was with me in administration in 1804 is obstinately holding silence, and the whole royal family, whose protestations of gratitude my boxes teem with, are among my enemies, God help me if I had not the means of proving that I have nothing to fear." The midnight protest of the Princes,2 enclosed to Lord Eldon by the Duke of Cumberland with "the greatest regret," must have caused consternation to the devoted friend of their father, declaring, as it did, that the proposed restrictions on the Regent were "perfectly unconstitutional," and "subversive of the principles that seated their family on the throne of these realms."

3

The proposed Restrictions were these. The term of the reRestrictions gency was to be limited to the 1st of February, 1812, on the Regent. supposing parliament to have been sitting for six weeks previously. The Regent was to consider his office a trust, and to conform to the statutes which regulate trusts. He was restrained from granting peerages (except for naval or military achievements), or offices or titles in reversion or abeyance. The Royal property was to be vested in trustees, for the King's benefit. The care of the King's person was to be confided to the Queen, who was to arrange his household: a Council being appointed to advise and assist her in her duties, with authority to examine the King's physicians. There were many, besides the Princes, who objected to the power being given to the Queen and her Council of deciding when the King should resume his functions, in case of recovery; and, after much discussion, safeguards against abuse were provided by an obligation to communicate the state of the King's health to the Privy Council, and thence to the "London Gazette." On this point, the Ministers were beaten in several divisions; and it was clear that they were tottering in their seats at the time that the Regency Bill passed, which was on the 5th of February. On the next day, the Royal Assent was (by a necessary fiction) given by a Commission acting under the authority of both Houses of Parliament. Prince took the oaths on the same day before the Privy Council, when some close observers were amused with watching the various expressions in the different countenances. And by this time, there was reason for much conflicting feeling,

The

Early in January, the Prince sent for Lord Grenville, and reNegotiation quested, with every appearance of graciousness and confidence, that he and Lord Grey should draw up for him a reply to the Address which the two Houses were about to present.5 He proposed that his friend, Lord Moira,

with Lords Grenville and Grey

1 Life, ii. p. 161. 4 Ibid. p. 1125.

2 Ibid. p. 136. 8 Hansard, xviii. pp. 1126-1144. 5 Life of Sheridan, ii. p. 385.

CHAP. IV.]

NO CHANGE OF MINISTRY.

319

should be joined with them in the task; but this proposal the Whig Lords declined. The task was a difficult one, because Lord Grenville stood pledged, by the records of previous regency debates, to opinions widely different from those of the Prince and Lord Grey. The points of difference were passed over with vague phrases, and the paper was sent to the Prince through Mr. Adam, in whose presence he read it. He "strongly objected to almost every part of it," made some curt marginal notes, and sent for his boon companion, Sheridan. There was no time to be lost, as the Addresses were to be presented the next day. Sheridan proposed that a new Reply should be drawn up; and he and the Prince set about it. At night, Sheridan met Lord Grey at Holland House, and the new paper was read, shown, with its offensive marginal notes, and warmly discussed. The Prince adhered to it; and on the following day, Lords Grenville and Grey transmitted to the Prince an indignant remonstrance on his levity in this affair, and on the affront they had received. Sheridan used his influence to reconcile the Prince to himself, and his wit in writing epigrams and quizzes on the dignified personages who had assumed a tone of dictation to the Regent. As might be expected, the alienation of the Prince from his former political friends was decided; and the new hope of a better government of the country was extinguished.

One of the King's physicians had meantime been working on the mind of the Prince.1 After having for some weeks led the Prince to believe that the King could never recover, he now gave him exaggerated accounts of the improvement in health of which the newspapers were beginning to speak; and he intimated that if, on recovery, the King should hear of a change of Ministry, he might probably die of the news. An artful letter of flattery and coaxing was also sent by the Queen, communicating sayings of the King, which she could not have really known, as she had not seen him. The Prince acutely conjectured this letter to be Perceval's, as the lawyer-like word "pending" appeared in it, a word which the Queen was the last person likely to use. It produced upon him, however, an effect which concurred but too well with his existing feeling towards Lords Grenville and Grey; and on the 1st of February, he announced to Lord Grenville, by letter, his decision to leave the Ministry substantially unchanged." The next day, the leading Whigs waited upon him at Carlton House, and found that he was indeed determined. The streets were full of people, anxious to hear the latest reports of the King's health, on which mainly the important decision was sup'posed to hang; and clusters of Opposition members were on the pavement, questioning their acquaintance as they left Carlton 1 Memoirs of Romilly, ii. p. 360.

2 Ward's Memoirs, i. p. 377.

320

The ministry unchanged.

REMONSTRANCE OF CIVIC OFFICERS. [Book II.

House. On the 5th, after taking the oaths, the Regent wrote to Mr. Perceval, to say what everybody was expecting. He said it in an ungracious manner, as everybody but Mr. Perceval thought; but he was too well pleased to admit any uncomfortable feelings. He, as his friend Ward tells us, 66 was not of that opinion," though the wording of the announcement was this: 1 "The irresistible impulse of filial duty and affection to his beloved and afflicted father leads him (the Prince) "to dread that any act of the Regent might, in the smallest degree, have the effect of interfering with the progress of his sovereign's recovery, and that this consideration alone dictates the decision now communicated to Mr. Perceval." No assurances of physicians had nearly so much effect in preparing the public to expect the King's recovery as this letter; for, as everybody said, the Prince could not so ill discharge his new duty as to retain in power a Ministry which he thought bad for the country, if he believed that he had really time and power to change it. Among those who were not disposed to acquiesce in the Regent's decision were the civic officers of the metropolis. They went home discontented, and soon presented to his Royal Highness, by the hands of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen,2 an Address of great boldness, in which were set forth the miseries resulting from the misgovernment of the country, the popular discontent at the conduct of Ministers in carrying on the government in the King's name, when he was incapacitated, and at the restrictions laid on the Regent, and the absolute need of reform of parliament, in order to rescue the people from ruin. In his reply, the Prince prudently dwelt, to the exclusion of almost everything else, on the joy he should feel in the act of rendering his office to the King, on the blessed occasion of his Majesty's recovery.

up

3

It was rumored, at the time, that when Sheridan went to Lord Holland's, in Pall-Mall, to discuss the rival replies, the Prince stole thither too, disguised in a large cloak. It was said that Mr. Peel saw him issue from the gates of Carlton House, and recognizing him, observed him till he entered Holland House. It was also said that the Prince then again offered the government to the offended lords; and that it was the representation of the physician before alluded to which held them back; and this seems to be confirmed by the clear declaration of the " Morning Chronicle," that they might have had office if they would. It is certain that the Prince declared openly that he would never see the Ministers he was compelled to retain. He would dine with his old comrades, but never with his Ministers; and, what2 Ibid. p. 11.

1 Annual Register, 1811, p. 8.

8 Life of Canning, p. 284.

CHAP. IV. PROPER OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.

1

321

ever anybody might say, he would have Sheridan, and Adam, and Lord Moira, and other Whigs, about him to consult with, under any circumstances. Of course, he was told that this would be impossible; and of course, the contradiction roused his selfwill. He was, however, as feeble and fickle as he was self-willed. In a few months 1 we find the Queen and Lord Eldon congratulating each other and the world on the Prince having succeeded to the government, under circumstances which enabled him to detect "the horrible falsehoods with which wicked politicians had filled his mind;" and, as the Queen expressed it, which enabled her son George to learn that his poor father knew better who were his son's best friends than that son himself did. "At present,” wrote Lord Eldon at that time, “many, I believe, think he is too much attached to me. He certainly was; and there was little to be hoped from a man who, at fifty, could turn from a Grenville and a Grey to enjoy the flattery of an Eldon, and permit the cant which called the best friends of his life, and men whose honor was too lofty to bend at the most critical moment of their career, "wicked politicians."

There was now an end of the irregularities and fictions in the carrying on of the government, which all deplored as dangerous and perplexing, but which could not, by any means, be helped. There was a vast deal of debate, and very properly, about each irregularity and fiction as it arose; but everything was settled at last; and the cases in dispute are sufficiently recorded in the chronicles of the time. It is enough to say that there was difficulty about calling parliament together, at first; and then about appointing a royal commission; and then about the method of drawing money for appropriations voted in the preceding session,

the auditors declining to justify accounts and draw money, without full assurance of the legality of their proceedings; and then, Parliament hesitating before the unconstitutional act of assuming executive power. Then, when the conditions of the regency were determined, it was necessary to open parliament in form, by a commission under the Great Seal, sanctioned by the authority of that very parliament which was supposed not to have been sitting; and lastly, when the Regency Bill was passed by the two Houses, it received a nominal Royal Assent from the very personage whose incapacity to assent was the ground of the Bill. Everybody was glad when these solemn shams were over, and when parliament was, for the third time, opened Proper openin regular form, on the 12th of February. The Re- ing of par2 liament. gent did not go down in person, but by Commission; and the Speech was, as nearly as possible, what it would have been if sent down by his father. The universal remark was, that 1 Life of Lord Eldon, ii. p. 245. 2 Hansard, xviii. p. 1140. 21

VOL. I.

322

THE REGENT'S FETE.

[BOOK II. these were clear indications of his being on bad terms with the Ministers. He intended to be a mere mechanical Regent, at least for the short original term of the regency.

The King's

He relaxed from his moodiness as the year went on; and before it was half over, the conviction was general that health. his office would last as long as the life of the King. In May, the people in the streets supposed that the King was getting better, as he appeared on horseback with his daughters. After some rumors, the fact was made known in Windsor that one of the equerries had ordered the King's saddle-horse to be got ready; and the multitude who flocked to the Castle saw the favorite horse Adonis actually brought out. The King presently appeared,1 conversing cheerfully with two of the princesses, mounted his horse with ease, and rode for more than an hour, without any appearance of eccentricity. But at that very time, the Duke of York was writing to Lord Eldon of the imbecility into which his father appeared to be sinking.2 His talk was hopelessly rambling and frivolous. In July, the bulletin of the physicians declared his general health to be much strengthened, without any corresponding improvement in his mind. The physicians declared that they did not yet despair of his ultimate recovery; but before the expiration of the term of the regency, they had nearly dropped the subject of their hopes. He understood that the Duke of York had been reinstated in his office of Commander-in-Chief, and rejoiced in it; and he was aware of the regal fête given by the Regent in June, in lieu of the ordinary festival of the King's birthday; but, while these events excited his feelings, they brought out no evidence of improving reason. He must henceforth be considered as excluded from Court affairs; and the Court proceeded on that understanding. The Regent's fête, given on the plea of encouraging British manufactures at a time of appalling distress, was declared to be the most splendid ever seen in England; and its splendor did more harm to the feelings of the starving poor than good by the small consequent reduction of the manufacturer's stock. It was made a sort of demonstration against Napoleon by Louis XVIII. and the French Princes being brought to it, out of their retirement; but the people would have preferred an opposite kind of action the repeal of the Orders in Council, to which much of their distress was owing. When, on the expiration of the first term of the regency, the Prince desired to have Lord Sidmouth in his Cabinet, as President of the Council, Lord Sidmouth made it a positive stipulation that the Orders should be suspended; and, as will soon appear, for sufficient

The Court.

3

1 Annual Register, 1811. Chron. 57. 3 Life of Lord Sidinouth, iii. p. 85.

2 Life of Lord Eldon, ii. p. 174.