A ridiculous thing happened the other day in the Vice-Chancellor’s Court. Sugden had taken a brief on each side of a case without knowing it. Home, who opened on one side and was followed by another lawyer, was to be answered by Sugden; but he, having got hold of the wrong brief, spoke the same way as Home. The Vice-Chancellor said coolly, ‘Mr. Sugden is with you?’ ‘Sir,’ said Home, ‘his argument is with us, but he is engaged on the other side.’ Finding himself in a scrape, he said ‘it was true he held a brief for the other party, but for no client would he ever argue against what he knew to be a clear rule of law.’ However, the Court decided against them all.

February 13th, 1829

Still the Catholic question and the probable numbers in the House of Lords; nobody talks of anything else. Lord Winchelsea makes an ass of himself, and would like to be sent to the Tower, but nobody will mind anything such a blockhead says. Lord Holland talks of a majority of sixty in the Lords. I walked with Ebrington to O’Connell’s door the other day; he went in. The next day I asked him what had passed. He said that he had pressed him strongly to dissolve the Association; O’Connell said he could not press it himself, but would write to Ireland that it was the unanimous opinion of all the friends of the cause here that it should be done. The fact is, he does not dare to acquiesce in all the measures of Government, though there is little doubt but that he desires to see an end to associations and agitations. Lady Jersey affects to be entirely in the Duke’s confidence. She said to Lord Granville at Madame de Lieven’s the other night that ‘she made it a rule never to talk to the Duke about affairs in public,’ and she said to me last night that she had known what was to be done about the Catholics all along. Certainly she contrives to make the Duke see a great deal of her, for he calls on her, and writes to her perpetually, but I doubt whether he tells her much of anything. Some of the household have made a struggle to be exempted from the general obligation on all members of Government to vote for the Bill, but the Duke will not stand it, and they must all vote or go out. The Privy Seal was offered to Lord Westmoreland, but he refused, and his answer was good—that if he had been in the Cabinet, he might possibly have seen the same grounds for changing his mind on the Catholic question that the other Ministers did; but not having had those opportunities, he retained his former opinions, and therefore could not accept office.

February 22nd, 1829

Went to Newmarket last Sunday and came back on Thursday. Still the Catholic question and nothing else. Everybody believed that the Duke of Cumberland would support Government till he made this last speech. He went to the King, who desired him to call on the Duke, and when he got to town he went uninvited to dine with him. There has been nothing of consequence in either House, except the dressing which Lord Plunket gave Lord Eldon, though that hard-bitten old dog shows capital fight. Peel has got a most active and intelligent committee at Oxford, and they consider his election safe. Inglis’s committee, on the contrary, is composed of men not much better than old women, except Fynes Clinton, the chairman. Every day the majority promises to be greater in the House of Lords, but it is very ridiculous to see the faces many of these Tory CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL. Lords make at swallowing the bitter pill. Too great a noise is made about Peel and his sacrifices, but he must be supported and praised at this juncture. It is not for those who have been labouring in this cause, and want his assistance, to reject him or treat him uncivilly now that he tenders it. But as to the body of the High Tories, it is impossible not to regard their conduct with disgust and contempt, for now they feel only for themselves, and it is not apprehension of those dangers they have been constantly crying out about that affects them, but the necessity they are under of making such a sudden turn, and bitter mortification at having been kept in total ignorance, and, consequently, having been led to hold the same violent language up to the last moment. If Canning had lived, God knows what would have happened, for they never would have turned round for him as they are now about to do for the Duke. The circumstances of the case are just the same; since 1825 the same game has been going on in Ireland, and in the same manner, and the Clare election was only what had happened at Waterford before. All this has given a blow to the aristocracy, which men only laugh at now, but of which the effects will be felt some day or other. Who will have any dependence hereafter on the steadiness and consistency of public men, and what credit will be given to professions and declarations? I am glad to see them dragged through the mire, as far as the individuals are concerned, but I am sorry for the effect that such conduct is likely to produce. There was a capital paper of Cobbett’s yesterday, in his best style. Many Liberals are uneasy about what are called the securities, and when the Duke tells Lord Colchester that if he will wait he will be satisfied with the Bill, it is enough to make them so; but my hopes predominate over my fears. Yesterday Vesey Fitzgerald said that ‘we had not yet seen what some people might consider the objectionable parts of the measure, but that, though certain things might be necessary, the Government are impressed with the paramount necessity of not leaving the Catholic question behind them, and that the Duke was a man of too firm a mind not to go through with it;’ and I think he said distinctly that Catholics and Protestants must be placed on an equal footing, or something to that effect. He went off into a panegyric on the Duke, and said that seeing him as he did for several hours every day, he had opportunities of finding out what an extraordinary man he was, and that it was remarkable what complete ascendency he had acquired over all who were about him. The English of this is (what everybody knew) that he dictates to his Cabinet. The fact is, he is a man of great energy, decision, and authority, and his character has been formed by the events of his life, and by the extraordinary circumstances which have raised him to a situation higher than any subject has attained in modern times. That his great influence is indispensable to carry this question, and therefore most useful at this time, cannot be doubted, for he can address the King in a style which no other Minister could adopt. He treats with him as with an equal, and the King stands completely in awe of him. It will be long before a correct and impartial estimate is formed of the Duke’s character and abilities; his talents, however, must be of a very superior, though not of the most shining description. Whatever he may be, he is at this moment one of the most powerful Ministers this country has ever seen. The greatest Ministers have been obliged to bend to the King, or the aristocracy, or the Commons, but he commands them all. M—— told me that he had not seen the King, but that he heard he was as sulky as a bear, and that he was sure he would be very glad if anything happened to defeat this measure, though he is too much afraid of the Duke to do anything himself tending to thwart it.

The Emperor of Russia is extremely disgusted at the language of the newspapers here, and desired his Minister to complain of it, and the Duke wrote the answer himself, in which he entered at great length into the character and utility of the press in this country, a dissertation affording a proof certainly of his quickness and industry, overwhelmed as he is with business. The Duke of Richmond offered to give up his Garter, but the Duke would not take it back.

February 26th, 1829

DEBATE OF THE ROYAL DUKES. The debate on Monday night in the House of Lords was very amusing. It was understood the Duke of Clarence was to speak, and there was a good deal of curiosity to hear him. Lord Bathurst was in a great fright lest he should be violent and foolish. He made a very tolerable speech, of course with a good deal of stuff in it, but such as it was it has exceedingly disconcerted the other party. The three royal Dukes Clarence, Cumberland, and Sussex got up one after another, and attacked each other (that is, Clarence and Sussex attacked Cumberland, and he them) very vehemently, and they used towards each other language that nobody else could have ventured to employ; so it was a very droll scene. The Duke of Clarence said the attacks on the Duke [of Wellington] had been infamous; the Duke of Cumberland took this to himself, but when he began to answer it could not recollect the expression, which the Duke of Clarence directly supplied. ‘I said “infamous.”’ The Duke of Sussex said that the Duke of Clarence had not intended to apply the word to the Duke of Cumberland, but if he chose to take it to himself he might. Then the Duke of Clarence said that the Duke of Cumberland had lived so long abroad that he had forgotten there was such a thing as freedom of debate.

February 27th, 1829

They say Plunket made one of the best speeches he ever delivered last night, and Lord Anglesey spoke very well. There was hardly anybody in the House. Peel’s election [Oxford University] is going on ill. The Convocation presents a most disgraceful scene of riot and uproar. I went to the Committee Room last night at twelve, and found nobody there but Dr. Russell, the head-master of the Charterhouse, who was waiting for Hobhouse and amusing himself by correcting his boys’ exercises. He knew me, though he had not seen me for nearly twenty years, when I was at school. I shall be sorry if Peel does not come in, not that I care much for him, but because I cannot bear that his opponents should have a triumph.