“No, they have not; they should have done so by all decent precedents; but, instead of behaving like gentlemen, they resolved to appeal to the country. We sat all night quarrelling on this subject; but at five in the morning I was worn out with the stifling, roaring House, and sick with the smell of dying candles, and the reek and steam of quarrelling human beings, so I stepped out and took a few turns on Westminster Bridge. It was a dead-calm, lovely morning, and the sun was just rising over the trees of the Abbey and the Speaker’s house, and I had a bit of heart-longing for Atheling.”
“Why did you not run away to Atheling, Father?”
“I could not have done a thing like that, Kitty, not for the life of me. I went back to the House; and for three days we fought like dogs, tooth and nail, over the dissolution. Then Lord Grey and Lord Brougham did such a thing as never was: they went to the King and told him, plump and plain, he must dissolve Parliament or they would resign, and he must be answerable for consequences; and the King did not want to dissolve Parliament; he knew a new House would be still fuller of Reform members; and he made all kinds of excuses. He said, ‘The Crown and Robes were not ready, and the Guards and troops had not been notified;’ and then, to his amazement and anger, Lord Brougham told him that the officers of State had been summoned, that the Crown and Robes were ready, and the Guards and troops waiting.”
“My word, John! That was a daring thing to do.”
“If William the Fourth had been Henry the Eighth, Lord Brougham’s head wouldn’t have been worth a shilling; as it was, William flew into a great passion, and cried out, ‘You! You, my Lord Chancellor! You ought to know that such an act is treason, is high treason, my lord!’ And Brougham said, humbly, that he did know it was high treason, and that nothing but his solemn belief that the safety of the State depended on the act would have made him bold enough to venture on so improper a proceeding. Then the King cooled down; and Brougham took from his pocket the speech which the King was to read; and the King took it with words; that were partly menace, and partly joke at his Minister’s audacity, and so dismissed them.”
“I never heard of such carryings on. Why didn’t Brougham put the Crown on his own head, and be done with it?”
“I do not like Brougham; but in this matter, he acted very wisely. If the King had refused to dissolve a Parliament that had proved itself unable to carry Reform, I do think, Maude, London would have been in flames, and the whole country in rebellion, before another day broke.”
“Were you present at the dissolution, John?”
“I was sitting beside Piers, when the Usher of the Black Rod knocked at the door of the Commons. It had to be a very loud knock, for the House was in a state of turbulence and confusion far beyond the Speaker’s control; while Sir Robert Peel was denouncing the Ministry in the hardest words he could pick out, and being interrupted in much the same manner. I can tell you that a good many of us were glad enough to hear the guns announcing the King’s approach. The Duke told me afterwards that the Lords were in still greater commotion. Brougham was speaking, when there were cries of ‘The King! The King!’ And Lord Londonderry rose in a fury and said, ‘He would not submit to–’ Nobody heard what he would not submit to; for Brougham snatched up the Seals and rushed out of the House. Then there was terrible confusion, and Lord Mansfield rose and was making a passionate oration against the Reform Bill, when the King entered and cut it short. Well, London went mad for a few hours. Nearly every house was illuminated; and the Duke of Wellington, and the Duke of Richmoor, and other great Tories had their windows broken, as a warning not to obstruct the next Parliament. I really don’t know what to make of it all, Maude!”
“Well, John, I think statesmen ought to know what to make of it.”