1834.
Belvoir Castle, January 7th, 1834
After many years of delay, I am here since the 3rd, to assist at the celebration of the Duke of Rutland’s birthday. The party is very large, and sufficiently dull: the Duke of Wellington, Esterhazy, Matuscewitz, Rokeby, Miss d’Este (afterwards Lady Truro), and the rest a rabble of fine people, without beauty or wit among them. The place is certainly very magnificent, and the position of the castle unrivalled, though the interior is full of enormous faults, which are wholly irretrievable. This results from the management of the alterations having been entrusted to the Duchess and Sir John Thurston (the former of whom had some taste but no knowledge), and they have consequently made a sad mess of it. There is immense space wasted, and with great splendour and some comfort the Castle has been tumbled about until they have contrived to render it a very indifferent house; no two rooms communicating, nor even (except the drawing-room and dining-room, the former of which is seldom or never inhabited) contiguous. The gallery, though unfinished, is a delightful apartment, and one of the most comfortable I ever saw. The outside of the Castle is faulty, but very grand; so grand as to sink criticism in admiration; and altogether, with its terraces and towers, its woods and hills, and its boundless prospect over a rich and fertile country, it is a very noble possession. The Duke lives here for three or four months, from the end of October till the end of February or March, on and off, and the establishment is kept up with extraordinary splendour. In the morning we are roused by the strains of martial music, and the band (of his regiment of militia) marches round the terrace, awakening or quickening the guests with lively airs. All the men hunt or shoot. At dinner there is a different BELVOIR CASTLE. display of plate every day, and in the evening some play at whist or amuse themselves as they please, and some walk about the staircases and corridors to hear the band, which plays the whole evening in the hall. On the Duke’s birthday there was a great feast in the Castle; 200 people dined in the servants’ hall alone, without counting the other tables. We were about forty at dinner. When the cloth was removed, Esterhazy proposed His Grace’s health, who has always a speech prepared in which he returns thanks. This time it was more simple than usual, and not at all bad. To-night there is a ball for the servants, which could not take place on the real birthday, as it fell on a Saturday.
I have had snatches of talk with the Duke of Wellington, and yesterday morning he retired with Matuscewitz, and had a long conference with him. The absolute Courts have a great hankering after the Duke, though their Ministers here can hardly look for his return to office; nor do I believe that if he was to come back he would be found indulgent to the projects of Russia, though he might be disinclined to continue so very intimate as we now are with France. He told me this morning he thought the French King’s speech to his Chambers exceedingly good. He of course disapproves of all our foreign policy, particularly in the Peninsula. He says he sees no daylight whatever through the Portuguese affair. The Spanish may terminate in the success of the Queen, but only by her opposing Liberalism. He is convinced that if she introduces Liberal principles she will be lost. He says that the Spanish Government will be too happy to interfere in the Portuguese contest (as in fact I know that they have offered to do), but that we never can allow this, which besides the consequences of interference (as a principle) would necessarily make Portugal dependent on Spain. Arbuthnot, who is here, told me (and he hears these things from the Duke) that Matuscewitz had expressed the greatest contempt for Palmerston, and not the less for Lord Grey; and that, with regard to the latter, he had been much struck with his ignorance. I do not know on what points he meant, but it must be in history or diplomacy, which I am surprised at, because I thought he was a man of a cultivated mind and general information, who would be found, as far as knowledge goes, competent to any discussion. He likewise said that he found him slow of comprehension.
Belvoir, January 8th, 1834
There was a ball for all the servants and tenants on Monday, which the Duke of Rutland opened with Lady Georgina Fane, and the Duke of Wellington followed with Lady Brownlow. Yesterday half the people went to Belton; it was nearly impossible to get any talk with the Duke. He told me that the Russians were in no hurry to do any overt act in Turkey, and that their policy was as it had always been—to work very gradually. I asked him if he thought they really intended a permanent occupation of Turkey. He said certainly not; that they could not bear the expense of a war, which in that case would ensue; that the difference of the expense between their own and a foreign country was as between 10d. and 4s. a man.
To-day I have been all over this Castle; the arrangements are admirable, and the order and cleanliness of every part of the offices and the magnitude of the establishment are very remarkable, and such as I have never seen elsewhere. This afternoon Gosh [Mr. Arbuthnot] came and sat with me, and talked over all matters, which I have heard from him before, though he has forgotten it, which he well may, for his intellect, never very bright, seems to be almost entirely obscured. I daresay I have put down these things before, but as they are curious scraps of history they may as well go down again. It all relates to the break-up of Lord Grey’s Government in ’32, and the abortive attempts of the Duke to form an administration.
The King had given his word that he had never promised to make a single peer. Doubts arose whether he had not told a lie; they pressed him on this point (Wellington and Lyndhurst); he persisted in his denial, upon which they requested Taylor might be sent for, and all the correspondence produced, when they found he was pledged up to the throat, and without reserve. The King then attempted to get out of it by saying he had consented to call up the sons of DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND MR. PEEL. Scotch peers and give to Irish peers English peerages, which he did not consider a creation of peers!
When the Duke accepted the commission to form a Government, it was resolved to prorogue Parliament, and Lyndhurst was desired by the King to go to Lord Grey and tell him such was his pleasure. Lyndhurst forgot it! In after times, those who write the history of these days will probably discuss the conduct of the great actors, and it will not fail to be matter of surprise that such an obvious expedient was not resorted to, in order to suspend violent discussions. Among the various reasons that will be imagined and suggested, I doubt if it will occur to anybody that the real reason was that it was forgotten.