XXXVI. 1837. CHAP. of my people. I esteem it also a peculiar advantage that I succeed to a sovereign whose constant regard for the rights and liberties of his subjects, and whose desire to promote the amelioration of the laws and institutions of this country, have rendered his name the object of general attachment and veneration. Educated in England under the tender and enlightened care of a most affectionate mother, I have learned from my infancy to respect and love the constitution of my native country. It will be my unceasing study to maintain the reformed religion, as by law established, securing at the same time to all the full enjoyment of religious liberty. And I shall steadily 1 Ann. Reg. protect the rights, and promote to the utmost of my power the happiness and welfare of all classes of my subjects." 1 1837, 237, 238. 76. of Hanover Britain, which goes to the Duke land. This By the accession of Queen Victoria the crown of Separation Hanover, which was destined to heirs-male, became sepaand Great rated from that of Great Britain, with which that state had been united under one head since the accession of of Cumber George I., then Elector of Hanover, to the throne of these realms in 1714. It descended to the Duke of Cumberland, the next surviving male heir of George III. severance of the two crowns, which had so long been united, however, excited very little attention, and was in no respect the subject of regret; so strong was the impression in the nation, that Great Britain was essentially a maritime power, and that the connection with a comparatively small German state was a source rather of weakness than strength, by involving us in Continental politics, and often compelling the nation to give protection, when no return on a corresponding scale could be afforded. The two states have since remained on terms of confidential amity, though the policy of their respective governments has often been materially different, and the position of Hanover, as one of the great German Confederacy, naturally led to a different dependence and separate interests. XXXVI. 1838. Mrs Fitz Shortly before the youthful heiress of England ascended CHAP. the throne of her fathers, another lady, in the fulness of years, descended to the tomb, who, under a different 77. state of English law, might have sat on it. On the 27th Death of March, Mrs FITZHERBERT expired at her house at Brigh- herbert. ton, at the advanced age of eighty years. Her history had March 27. been very remarkable, and savoured rather of the changes of romance than the events of real life. Born on 26th July 1756, the youngest daughter of Walter Smythe, Esq. of Bambridge, in Hampshire, she was married in 1775 to Edward Weld, Esq. of Lulworth Castle, in the county of Dorset ; and next to Thomas Fitzherbert, Esq. of Norbury in Surrey, who also died, without issue, in May 1781. When a widow for the second time, in 1785, in the enjoyment of an ample jointure, she met the Prince of Wales, with whom she immediately became the object of the most violent passion. Little accustomed to experience any resistance to his desires, he soon found that her virtue was proof against any but honourable intentions, while her beauty and fascination not only captivated his senses, but enthralled his imagination. The Marriage Act, however, opposed an invincible bar to a legal union with the fair enchantress; and Mr Fox, his intimate friend, in a long and eloquent letter, distinctly pointed out to him the extreme hazard with which any attempt to violate its provisions would be attended, both to the lady in question and himself. Such was the violence, however, of the Prince's passion, that he resolved at all hazards to persevere, and he at length obtained her consent to a private union, by the exhibition to her of a real or pretended attempt, in despair at her refusal, to commit suicide. The marriage ceremony was performed in private, and by a Protestant clergyman, though she was a Roman Catholic, but with perfect regularity, and in presence of witnesses; and the marriage certificate is in existence, in the hands of Messrs Coutts, the great bankers, at this moment. Mr Fox afterwards, as he said, "by VOL. VI. Q 1838. CHAP. authority," denied in Parliament that any such marriage XXXVI. had taken place-a falsehood on the part of some one, which she never forgave. "The union proved unfortunate, as that able man had predicted. After living together for eight years," the happiest," as the Prince himself said, "of his whole life," he was separated from her shortly before his marriage in 1797 with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick; and though she, after his severance from that Princess, again reverted, by advice of the Pope, to her conjugal connection with the Prince, yet the vexations arising from her ambiguous situation—a wife, and not a wife were such, that they were finally separated before he ascended the throne. Fortunately there was no issue of the marriage. Mrs Fitzherbert possessed uncommon talents for conversation, her manner was fascinating in a remarkable degree, and her disposition kindly and affectionate. She was always treated with the highest respect by all the members of the royal 1 Mrs Fitz. family, and with their consent her servants wore the herbert's royal livery; and when George IV. descended to the tomb in 1830, he was interred, at his own request, with a miniature round his neck, which is supposed to have been that of the only person through life who had commanded his entire affections.1 Memoirs, 5, 75, 86; Ann. Reg. 78. IV.: his Like all other sovereigns whose reign has been marked William by important changes in the balance of parties or the character. structure of government, the character of William IV. has been very differently drawn by opposite parties, and even by the same party at different periods of his reign. At one time he was the idol of the populace, and the "most popular king since the days of Alfred," as long as it was supposed he headed the popular movement, and the well-devised fable of the hackney-coach had not lost its influence on the public mind. These sentiments gave way to others of the opposite description when it was discovered he hesitated in following the movement party in their last measures; that he had refused to create peers XXXVI. 1838. to coerce the House of Lords; and sent for the Duke of CHAP. Wellington to extricate him from the thraldom to which he was subjected. In truth, both opinions were exaggerated, and consequently erroneous. The sailor-king was neither the hero which he was called in April 1831, nor the demon which he was styled in November 1834. He was an open-minded, kind-hearted man, with good intentions, but no great range of intellect, and few of the qualities requisite for government in the extremely difficult circumstances in which he was called to the throne. Personally brave, and with the hereditary firmness of his race, he had also a secret vein of vanity in his character, which made him sometimes court the populace when they required no courting, and led him to overlook in present applause the effect of measures which, when they appeared, he was the first to regret. In perfect ignorance of its results, he gave a willing consent to the £10 clause in the Reform Bill; and the last years of his life were spent in vain endeavours to elude the effects, and bitter regrets for having consented to the introduction, of that great and decisive innovation. 77. complaints servatives. More serious charges were brought against him at the time by the Conservatives, of having first precipitated the Ill-founded march of revolution by his dissolution of the House of against him Commons in April 1831, and then been premature in his by the Conattempt to stop it by his change of Ministry in November 1834. Neither charge appears to be well founded. Without disputing the decisive effect of the dissolution in 1831, which, beyond all doubt, was the turning-point in the contest, it is now evident, from subsequent events and revelations, that matters had then gone so far that they could not be arrested; and that, in truth, the Sovereign was then under such an amount of moral coercion that he was not a free agent. Possibly the revolution might have been arrested at an earlier period, but then it was impossible to do so. To have attempted it would certainly have led to a civil war, headed by a portion at XXXVI. 1838. CHAP. least of the Liberal chiefs, in the course of which, whatever party ultimately prevailed, the constitution and liberties of the country would as certainly have perished as those of Rome did in the democratic convulsion headed by Cæsar. 80. It is equally clear that the change of Ministry, and Beneficial dissolution consequent on it, in the end of 1834, though not attended with the effect expected from it at the time, and dissolu. either by the Sovereign or the Conservatives, was a most im effect of the change of Ministry tion. portant step, attended with highly beneficial consequences in the future progress of the convulsion. It gained for the friends of the constitution what is of inestimable importance in arresting the march of revolution-time. The dissolution having reduced the former Liberal majority of 300 to 10, the House of Peers was emboldened to step forward and resume its functions as an independent branch of the legislature. The attempt to coerce them by a creation of peers could not be renewed when the Sovereign was known to be hostile to such a measure, and experience had proved that another dissolution on such a question would probably lead only to the Conservatives obtaining a majority in the House of Commons. The Ministers, however little in reality inclined to it themselves, were forced to go on with revolutionary measures by their democratic allies; and as the Irish Catholic members constituted their entire majority, those measures were necessarily directed against the property of the Established Church. This is generally the second step in revolution: the first is to get the command of the legislature, the next to realise the fruits of victory by confiscating the property of the church. So it was in France so it was in Spain and Portugal. But the vast majority of Liberals in the first reformed Parliament having been almost extinguished in the second, this course of measures, though attempted in this country, could not be carried through-the progress of organic change was stopped. The Radicals and Irish Catholics raised a pro |