The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 3) / A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV - Charles Greville

The King did write to the Archbishop of Canterbury a severe reproof to be communicated to the bishops for having voted against his Government upon a question purely political (the Portuguese), in which the interests of the Church were in no way concerned. He sent a copy of the letter to Lord Grey, and Brougham told Sefton and Wharncliffe the contents, both of whom told me. It is remarkable that nothing has been said upon the subject in the House of Lords. The Archbishop, the most timid of mankind, had the prudence (I am told) to abstain from communicating the letter to the bishops, and held a long consultation with the Archbishop of York as to the mode of dealing with this puzzling document. If he had communicated it, he would as a Privy Councillor have been responsible for it, but what answer he made to the King I know not. Never was there such a proceeding, so unconstitutional, so foolish; but his Ministers do not seem to mind it, and are rather elated at such a signal proof of his disposition to support them. I think, as far as being a discouragement to the Tories, and putting an end to their notion that he is hankering after them, it may be of use, and it is probably true that he does not wish for a change, but on the contrary dreads it. He naturally dreads whatever is likely to raise a storm about his ears and interrupt his repose.

Lyndhurst is in such a rage at his defeat in the House of Lords on the Local Courts Bill that he swore at first he would never come there again. What he said—that ‘if they had considered it a party question the result would have been very different,’ which Brougham unaccountably took for a threat against the Government—was levelled at his own Tory friends for not supporting him. On the third reading they mean to have another fight about it. I understand the lawyers that the Bill is very objectionable, and calculated to degrade the profession. I sat by Talleyrand at dinner the day before yesterday, who told me a good deal about Mirabeau, but as he had a bad cold, in addition to his usual mode of pumping up his words from the bottomest pit of his stomach, it was next to impossible to understand him. He said Mirabeau was really intimate with three people only—himself, Narbonne, and Lauzun—that Auguste d’Aremberg was the negotiator of the Court and medium of its communications with Mirabeau; that he had found (during the provisional Government) a receipt of Mirabeau’s for a million, which he had given to Louis XVIII.