The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick

by Charles Bradlaugh

On the examination of witnesses, and general inquiry, which lasted seven weeks, the evidence was overwhelming; but the Duke of York, having written a letter, pledged his honor as a Prince that he was innocent, was acquitted, although at least one hundred and twelve members of Parliament voted for a verdict of condemnation. In the course of the debate Lord Temple said that "he found the Duke of York deeply criminal in allowing this woman to interfere in his official duties. The evidence brought forward by accident furnished convincing proofs of this crime. It was evident in French's levy. It was evident in the case of Dr. O'Meara, this minister of purity, this mirror of virtue, who, professing a call from God, could so far debase himself, so far abuse his sacred vocation, as to solicit a recommendation from such a person as Mrs. Clarke, by which, with an eye to a bishopric, he obtained an opportunity of preaching before the King. What could be said in justification of his Royal Highness for allowing this hypocrite to come down to Weymouth under a patronage, unbecoming his duty, rank, and situation?"

Mr. Tierney—in reply to a taunt of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that Colonel Wardle had been tutored by "cooler heads"—said: "He would state that the Duke of York had got his letter drawn up by weaker heads; he would, indeed, add something worse, if it were not unparliamentary to express it. The Duke of York was, he was persuaded, too manly to subscribe that letter, if he were aware of the base, unworthy, and mean purposes to which it was to be applied. It was easy to conceive that his Royal Highness would have been prompt to declare his innocence upon a vital point; but why declare it upon the 'honor of a Prince,' for the thing had no meaning?"

Mr. Lyttleton declared that "if it were in the power of the House to send down to posterity the character of the Duke of York unsullied—if their proceedings did not extend beyond their journals, he should be almost inclined to concur in the vote of acquittal, even in opposition to his sense of duty. But though the House should acquit his Royal Highness, the proofs would still remain, and the public opinion would be guided by them, and not by the decision of the House. It was in the power of the House to save its own character, but not that of the Commander-in-Chief."

It is alleged that the Queen herself by no means stood with clean hands; that in connection with Lady Jersey and a Doctor Randolph, her Majesty realized an enormous sum by the sale of cadetships for the East Indies.

On the 31st May, 1810, London was startled by the narrative of a terrible tragedy. His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover, and who, while King of Hanover, drew £24,000 a year from the pockets of English taxpayers, was wounded in his own room in the dead of night, by some man whom he did not see, although the room was lighted by a lamp, and although his Royal Highness saw "a letter" which lay on a night table, and which letter was "covered with blood." The wounds are said to have been sword wounds inflicted with an intent to assassinate, by Joseph Sellis, a valet of the Duke, who is also said to have immediately afterwards committed suicide by cutting his own throat. General Sir B. Stephenson, who saw the body of Sellis, but who was not examined at the inquest, swore that "the head was nearly severed from the body." Sellis's cravat had been cut through and taken off his neck. Sir Everard Home and Sir Henry Halford were the physicians present at St. James's Palace the day of this tragedy, and two surgeons were present at the inquest, but no medical or surgical evidence was taken as to whether or not the death of Sellis was the result of suicide or murder; but a cheesemonger was called to prove that twelve years before he had heard Sellis say, "Damn the King and the Royal Family;" and a maid servant was called to prove that fourteen years before Sellis had said, "Damn the Almighty." Despite this conclusive evidence, many horrible rumors were current, which, at the time, were left uncontradicted; but on the 17th April, 1832, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland made an affidavit in which he swore that he had not murdered Sellis himself, and that "in case the said person named Sellis did not die by his own hands," then that he, the Duke, "was not any way, in any manner, privy or accessory to his death." His Royal Highness also swore that "he never did commit, nor had any intention of committing, the detestable crime," which it had pretended Sellis had discovered the Duke in the act of committing. This of course entirely clears the Queen's uncle from all suspicion. Daniel O'Connell, indeed, described him as "the mighty great liar;" but with the general character for truthfulness of the family, it would be in the highest degree improper to suggest even the semblance of a doubt. It was proved upon the inquest that Sellis was a sober, quiet man, in the habit of daily shaving the Duke, and that he had never exhibited any suicidal or homicidal tendencies. It therefore appears that he tried to wound or kill his Royal Highness without any motive, and under circumstances in which he knew discovery was inevitable, and that he then killed himself with a razor, cutting his head almost off his body, severing it to the bone. When Matthew Henry Graslin first saw the body, he "told them all that Sellis had been murdered," and although he was called on the inquest he does not say one word as to the condition of Sellis's body, or as to whether or not he believes it to have been a suicide. Of all the persons who saw the body of Sellis, and they appear to be many, only one, a sergeant in the Coldstreams, gave the slightest evidence as to the state in which the body was found, and no description whatever was given, on the inquest, of the nature of the fearful wound which had nearly severed Sellis's head from his body; nor, although it was afterwards proved by sworn evidence that Sellis's cravat "was cut through the whole of the folds, and the inside fold was tinged with blood," was any evidence offered as to this on the inquest, although it shows that Sellis must have first tried to cut his throat through his cravat and that having partially but ineffectively cut his throat, he then took off his cravat and gave himself with tremendous force the gash which caused his death. It is said that the razor with which Sellis killed himself was found two feet from the bed, and on the left-hand side; but although it was stated that Sellis was a left-handed man, no evidence was offered of this, and on the contrary, the bloody hand marks, said to have been made by Sellis on the doors, were all on the right hand. It is a great nuisance when people you are mixed up with commit suicide. Undoubtedly, Sellis must have killed himself. The journals tell us how Lord Graves killed himself long years afterward. The Duke of Cumberland and Lady Graves, the widow, rode out together very shortly after the suicide.

In the Rev. Erskine Neale's Life of the Duke of Kent it is stated that a surgeon of note, who saw Sellis after his death, declared that there were several wounds on the back of the neck which it was physically impossible Sellis could have self-inflicted. In a lecture to his pupils the surgeon repeated this in strong language, declaring that "no man can behead himself."

The madness of George III. having become too violent and too continual to permit it to be any longer hidden from the people, the Prince of Wales was, in 1811, declared Regent, with limited powers, and £70,000 a year additional was voted for the Regent's expenses, and a further £10,000 a year also granted to the Queen as custodian of her husband. The grant to the Queen was the more outrageous, as her great wealth and miserly conduct were well known. When the Regent was first appointed, he authorized the Chancellor of the Exchequer to declare officially to the House of Commons, that he would not add to the burdens of the nation; and yet, in 1812, the allowance voted was made retrospective, so as to include every hour of his office.

In the discussion in Parliament on the proposed Regency, it appeared that the people had been for a considerable period utterly deceived on the subject of the King's illness; and that, although his Majesty had been for some time blind, deaf, and delirious, the Ministry, representing the King to be competent, had dared to carry on the Government whilst Greorge III. was in every sense incapacitated. It is worthy of notice that the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the great Conservative party in this country, publicly declared on September 26th, 1871, that her present Majesty, Queen Victoria, was both "physically and morally" incapable of performing her regal functions. One advantage of having the telegraph wires in the hands of Government is shown by the fact that all the telegraphic summaries omitted the most momentous words of Mr. Disraeli's speech. During the debate in the session of 1811, it was shown that when the King was mad in the month of March, 1804, he had on the 4th been represented by Lord Eldon as if he had given his assent to a bill granting certain lands to the Duke of York, and on the 9th as if he had signed a commission.

Earl Grey stated that it was notorious that on two occasions the Great Seal had been employed as if by his Majesty's command, while he was insane. The noble earl also declared that, in 1801, the King was mad for some weeks, and yet during that time councils were held, members sworn to it, and acts done requiring the King's sanction. Sir Francis Burdett said, "that to have a person at the head of affairs who had long been incapable of signing his name to a document without some one to guide his hand; a person long incapable of receiving petitions, of even holding a levee, or discharging the most ordinary functions of his office, and now afflicted with this mental malady, was a most mischievous example to the people of this country, while it had a tendency to expose the Government to the contempt of foreign nations."

One of the earliest acts of the Prince Regent was to reappoint his brother, the Duke of York, to the office of Commander-in-Chief. A motion was proposed by Lord Milton, in the House of Commons, declaring this appointment to be "highly improper and indecorous." The Ministry were, however, sufficiently powerful to negative this resolution by a large majority. Though His Royal Highness had resigned his high office when assailed with charges of the grossest corruption, he was permitted to resume the command of the army without even a protest, save from a minority of the House of Commons, and from a few of the unrepresented masses. The chief mistress of the Prince Regent at this time was the Marchioness of Hertford; and the Courier, then the ministerial journal, had the cool impudence to speak of her as 'Britain's guardian angel,' because her influence had been used to hinder the carrying any measure for the relief of the Irish Catholics. Amongst the early measures under the Regency, was the issue in Ireland of a circular letter addressed to the Sheriffs and Lord Lieutenants of the counties, forbidding the meetings of Catholics, and threatening all Catholic committees with arrest and imprisonment. This, however, was so grossly illegal, that it had shortly after to be abandoned, a Protestant jury having refused to convict the first prisoners brought to trial. It is curious to read the arguments against Catholic Emancipation pleaded in the Courier, one being that during the whole of his reign, George III. "is known to have felt the most conscientious and irrevocable objections" to any such measure of justice to his unfortunate Irish subjects.