In the morning I went to Graham to ask him to advocate my cause in the Sinecure Committee and defend my interests there. After talking over my case (about which he was very obliging and promised his zealous assistance) we discussed general politics at great length. It is very evident that he and Stanley have no leaning towards the Whigs, and look now solely to a junction with Peel and the construction of a Liberal and Conservative party and Government. He talked of this, and of the mode of accomplishing it, with as much zeal and fervour as if he had been a member of the Cabinet which has just fallen, and I think his opinions coincide very much with my own. He wants the King to be well endoctriné, and that his firmness (if he has any) should be directed to one or two points, and his mind not puzzled with complicated instructions. He should be advised never to admit O’Connell to any office, and to resist a creation of Peers. He thinks, if his Majesty is stout on these points, that things will come round, and he by no means despairs of the feeling and animus of the country. I told him the Tories and late Government people still contended that if he and Stanley had joined the thing would have gone on, which he vehemently denied, and declared that they could not have saved Peel and should have entirely compromised themselves; he talked with great admiration of Peel, and of the reception he had met with from him in the interview they had on his return, which he said was cordial and obliging to the greatest degree, and without any appearance of that coldness and reserve of which he has been so often accused. He then talked of Stanley with great openness—of his talents, character, and political views. I told him that Stanley had not raised himself this session, that he had given much offence by the general levity of his conduct, and especially to the Tories by the occasional flippancy or severity of his attacks upon them, that as it was clear that any Conservative Government must depend upon the great body of the Tory party for support, it was improvident in him to make himself obnoxious to them, and that he would do well to exert his influence over Stanley for the purpose of restraining those sallies in which he was too apt to indulge, and showing him the expediency of conciliating that not very wise but still powerful body. He asked in what way Stanley had offended. I told him generally in the sarcastic or reprobating tone he had used, and particularly in his personal attack on the Duke for holding the offices. He owned there was truth in this, ‘but what could you do? it was impossible to change a man’s character, and Stanley’s was very peculiar. With great talents, extraordinary readiness in debate, high principles, unblemished honour, he never had looked, he thought he never would look, upon politics and political life with the seriousness which belonged to the subject; he followed politics as an amusement, as a means of excitement, as another would gaming or any other very excitable occupation; he plunged into the mêlée for the sake of the sport which he found it made there, but always actuated by honourable and consistent principles and feelings, and though making it a matter of diversion and amusement, never sacrificing anything that honour or conscience prescribed.’ I said that this description of him (which I had no doubt was true) only proved what I already thought—that, with all his talents, he never would be a great man. He said he always must be very considerable; his powers, integrity, birth, and fortune could not fail to raise him to eminence. All this I admitted—that nothing could prevent his being very considerable, very important, as a public man—but I argued that one who was animated by motives so personal, and so wanting in gravity, to whom public care was a subsidiary and not a primary object, never could achieve permanent and genuine greatness. He said that Stanley had a great admiration for Peel, without any tincture of jealousy, and that he was quite ready to serve under him, though he could not help doubting whether it would be possible for two such men, so different in character, to go on DISTRESS OF THE KING. well together in the same Cabinet. I told him what Wharncliffe had told me, that no man was ever more easy to act with, more candid and conciliatory, and less assuming than Peel in the Cabinet, and Graham said that Stanley was likewise perfect as a colleague, so that it may be hoped there would not be any such incompatibility if they were to come together. I was with him two hours and a half, and we discussed very fully all political contingencies with the freedom of twenty years ago, when we were great friends.
April 10th, 1835
Nothing decisive yesterday. Lord Grey was with the King in the morning; he there met Lord Melbourne, Lord Holland, Lord John Russell, and Lord Lansdowne, and went back to St. James’s. It was said in the evening that Lord Grey was to assist in the formation of the Government, but not to take office himself.
April 11th, 1835
The intention of Lord Grey evidently was to avoid office if he could, but if strongly urged by the King, and his feelings appealed to, to yield. The King, however, did not urge him at all, probably much to his astonishment, but assuming apparently that he would under no circumstances return to office, consulted him as to the course he should adopt. All my information as to what has hitherto taken place amounts to this:—His Majesty has been in a very composed state of mind, has received the Whig leaders in a way that has given them complete satisfaction, and as far as personal intercourse goes the embarrassment appears to be removed. He has given Melbourne carte blanche to form a Government, and he is proceeding in the task. Notwithstanding the good face which the King contrives to put upon the matter in his communications with his hated new-old Ministers and masters, he is really very miserable, and the Duchess of Gloucester, to whom he unbosoms himself more than to anybody, told Lady Georgiana Bathurst that with her he was in the most pitiable state of distress, constantly in tears, and saying that ‘he felt his crown tottering on his head.’
It is intended to leave O’Connell out of the arrangement, and at the same time to conciliate him and preserve his support. In this they have apparently succeeded. O’Connell ‘has behaved admirably well,’ and the difficulty with regard to him is at an end. Of the Radicals some are to be included and no notice taken of the rest. Brougham is to be set at defiance; his fall in public estimation, his manifold sins against his own colleagues, and his loss of character all justify them, and enable them (as they think) to do so with impunity. Melbourne, who when Lamb[1] is here is greatly influenced by him, is strongly against any Radical measures or Radical colleagues, and has no thought of a creation of Peers or of any desperate expedients, and he is not at all satisfied with the resolution which John carried, and which was the immediate cause of Peel’s resignation, being fully alive to all the inconvenience of it.
[1] [Meaning Sir Frederick Lamb, his brother, usually residing abroad in the diplomatic service.]
Just now Tavistock was here, having come from St. George’s Church, where he went to assist at Lord John Russell’s marriage, and as the ceremony could not begin for half an hour, he came over to pass the interval with me.[2] He told me that ‘there still existed one difficulty, one only, which I should not think of, apparently unimportant, but which circumstances rendered important, and if this was got over, the Government would be formed and go on, that he thought it was an even bet whether it was got over or not. What this difficulty is, so little obvious, but so important, I do not guess; but in such affairs one difficulty will not stand in the way of completing an arrangement the consummation of which has cost such incredible exertions, and such sacrifices of consistency and of public interests to the interests or ambition of a party.
[2] [Lord John Russell married, in April 1835, Theresa, widow of Lord Ribblesdale. Mr. Greville lived at this time on the north side of Hanover Square.]