All this was very well; no great harm in it; more affable, less dignified than the late King; but when this was over, and he might very well have sat himself quietly down and rested, he must needs put on his plainer clothes and start on a ramble about the streets, alone too. In Pall Mall he met Watson Taylor, and took his arm and went up St. James’s Street. There he was soon followed by a mob making an uproar, and when he got near White’s a woman came up and kissed him. Belfast (who had been sworn in Privy Councillor in the morning), who saw this from White’s, and Clinton thought it time to interfere, and came out to attend upon him. The mob increased, and, always holding W. Taylor’s arm, and flanked by Clinton and Belfast, who got shoved and kicked about to their inexpressible wrath, he got back to the Palace amid shouting and bawling and applause. When he got home he asked them to go in and take a quiet walk in the garden, and said, ‘Oh, never mind all this; when I have walked about a few times they will get used to it, and will take no notice.’ There are other stories, but I will put down nothing I do not see or hear, or hear from the witnesses. Belfast told me this in the Park, fresh from the scene and smarting from the buffeting he had got. All the Park was ringing with it, and I told Lady Bathurst, who thought it so serious she said she would get Lord Bathurst to write to the Duke directly about it. Lord Combermere wanted to be made a Privy Councillor yesterday, but the Duke would not let it be done; he is in a sort of half-disgrace, and is not to be made yet, but will be by-and-by.
Grove Road, July 21st, 1830
I came and established myself here last night after the Duchess of Bedford’s ball. Lady Bathurst told me that the Queen spoke to her yesterday morning about the King’s walk and being followed, and said that for the future he must walk early in the morning, or in some less public place, so there are hopes that his activity may be tamed. He sent George Fitzclarence off from dinner in his silk stockings and cocked hat to Boulogne to invite the King of Würtemberg to come here; he was back in fifty-six hours, and might have been in less. He employs him in everything, and I heard Fitzclarence yesterday ask the Duke of Leeds for two of his father’s horses to ride about on his jobs and relieve his own, which the Duke agreed to, but made a wry face. Mount Charles has refused to be Lord of the Bedchamber; his wife can’t bear it, and he doesn’t like to go to Windsor under such altered circumstances. I hardly ever record the scandalous stories of the day, unless they relate to characters or events, but what relates to public men is different from the loves and friendships of the idiots of society.
July 24th, 1830
Went to St. James’s the day before yesterday for a Council for the dissolution, but there was none. Yesterday morning there was an idea of having one, but it is to-day instead, and early in the morning, that the Ministers may be able to go to their fish dinner at Greenwich. I called on the Duke yesterday evening to know about a Council, but he could not tell me. Then came a Mr. Moss (or his card) while I was there. ‘Who is he?’ I said. ‘Oh, a man who wants to see me about a canal. I can’t see him. Everybody will see me, and how the Devil they think I am to see everybody, and be the whole morning with the King, and to do the whole business of the country, I don’t know. I am quite worn out with it.’ I longed to tell him that it is this latter part they would willingly relieve him from.
I met Vesey Fitzgerald, just come from Paris, and had a long conversation with him about the state of the Government; he seems aware of the difficulties and the necessity of acquiring more strength, of the universal persuasion that the Duke will be all in all, and says that in the Cabinet nobody can be more reasonable and yielding and deferential to the opinions of his colleagues. But Murray’s appointment, THE KING GOES DOWN TO PARLIAMENT. he says, was a mistake,[2] and no personal consideration should induce the Duke to sacrifice the interests of the country by keeping him; it may be disagreeable to dismiss him, but he must do it. Hay told me that for the many years he had been in office he had never met with any public officer so totally inefficient as he, not even Warrender at the Admiralty Board.
[2] [Sir George Murray was Secretary of State for the Colonial Department.]
In the meantime the King has had his levee, which was crowded beyond all precedent. He was very civil to the people, particularly to Sefton, who had quarrelled with the late King.
Yesterday he went to the House of Lords, and was admirably received. I can fancy nothing like his delight at finding himself in the state coach surrounded by all his pomp. He delivered the Speech very well, they say, for I did not go to hear him. He did not wear the crown, which was carried by Lord Hastings. Etiquette is a thing he cannot comprehend. He wanted to take the King of Würtemberg with him in his coach, till he was told it was out of the question. In his private carriage he continues to sit backwards, and when he goes with men makes one sit by him and not opposite to him. Yesterday, after the House of Lords, he drove all over the town in an open calèche with the Queen, Princess Augusta, and the King of Würtemberg, and coming home he set down the King (dropped him, as he calls it) at Grillon’s Hotel. The King of England dropping another king at a tavern! It is impossible not to be struck with his extreme good-nature and simplicity, which he cannot or will not exchange for the dignity of his new situation and the trammels of etiquette; but he ought to be made to understand that his simplicity degenerates into vulgarity, and that without departing from his natural urbanity he may conduct himself so as not to lower the character with which he is invested, and which belongs not to him, but to the country.
At his dinner at St. James’s the other day more people were invited than there was room for, and some half-dozen were forced to sit at a side table. He said to Lord Brownlow, ‘Well, when you are flooded (he thinks Lincolnshire is all fen) you will come to us at Windsor.’ To the Freemasons he was rather good. The Duke of Sussex wanted him to receive their address in a solemn audience, which he refused, and when they did come he said, ‘Gentlemen, if my love for you equalled my ignorance of everything concerning you, it would be unbounded,’ and then he added something good-humoured. The consequence of his trotting about, and saying the odd things he does, is that there are all sorts of stories about him which are not true, and he is always expected everywhere. In the meantime I believe that politically he relies implicitly on the Duke, who can make him do anything. Agar Ellis (who is bustling and active, always wishing to play a part, and gets mixed up with the politics of this and that party through his various connections) told me the other day that he knew the Duke was knocking at every door, hitherto without success, and that he must be contented to take a party, and not expect to strengthen himself by picking out individuals. I think this too, but why not open his doors to all comers? There are no questions now to stand in his way; his Government must be remodelled, and he may last for ever personally.