[14] [Mr. Knight Bruce, afterwards Lord Justice in Equity.]
August 6th, 1835
Yesterday to Brighton, to see my horse Dacre run for the Brighton stake, which he won, and back at night. The day before I met the Vice-Chancellor[15] at Charing Cross, going down, to the House of Lords. ‘Well,’ said he, shrugging his shoulders, ‘here I am going to the House of Lords, after hearing evidence all the morning, to hear it again for the rest of the evening.’ ‘What is to happen?’ I asked him. ‘O Lord, it is the greatest bore; they have heard Coventry and Oxford; they got something of a case out of the first, but the other was beyond anything tiresome; THE KING AND LORD TORRINGTON. they are sick to death of it, and Brougham and Lyndhurst have agreed that it is all damned nonsense, and they will hear nothing more after Saturday next.’ So this is the end of all this hubbub, and here are these two great comedians thundering against each other in the House of Lords overnight with all imaginable vehemence and solemnity, only to meet together the next morning and agree that it is all damned nonsense. There is something very melancholy and very ludicrous in all this, and though that great bull calf the public does not care about such things, and is content to roar when he is bid, there are those on the alert who will turn such trilling and folly to account, and convert what is half ridiculous into something all serious. Winchelsea and Newcastle after all did not vote the other night; they said they wanted no evidence, that they would have no such Bill, and would not meddle with the discussion at all except to oppose it point-blank. Fools as they are, their folly is more tolerable and probably less mischievous than the folly of the wise ones.
[15] The Great Seal being in Commission, the Vice-Chancellor of England (Sir Lancelot Shadwell) sat as one of the Commissioners on the Woolsack.
August 9th, 1835
On Wednesday last at the levee the King made a scene with Lord Torrington, one of his Lords of the Bedchamber, and a very disgraceful scene. A card was put into Torrington’s hands of somebody who was presented, which he read, ‘So and so, Deputy-Governor.’ ‘Deputy-Governor?’ said the King, ‘Deputy-Governor of what? I cannot tell your Majesty,’ replied Torrington, ‘as it is not upon the card.’ ‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said the King; ‘you had better go home and learn to read;’ and shortly after, when some bishop presented an address against (I believe) the Irish Tithe Bill, and the King was going as usual to hand over the papers to the Lord in waiting, he stopped and said to Lord Torrington, who advanced to take them, ‘No, Lord Torrington; these are not fit documents to be entrusted to your keeping.’ His habitual state of excitement will probably bring on sooner or later the malady of his family. Torrington is a young man in a difficult position, or he ought to have resigned instantly and as publicly as the insult was offered. The King cannot bridle his temper, and lets slip no opportunity of showing his dislike, impotent as it is, of the people who surround him. He admits none but Tories into his private society, wherever he goes Tories accompany him; at Windsor Tories only are his guests. This provokes his Ministers, but it necessarily makes them more indifferent to the cultivation of his favour, and accustoms them to consider themselves as the Ministers of the House of Commons and not of the Crown.
My brother writes me from Paris very interesting details of the funeral of the victims of the assassination plot,[16] which was an imposing and magnificent ceremony, admirably arranged, and as it has produced a burst of enthusiasm for the King, and has brought round the clergy to him, it will serve to strengthen his throne. His undaunted courage ingratiates him with the French.
[16] [The victims of the Fieschi conspiracy.]
August 15th, 1835
On Wednesday the Lords commenced proceedings on the Corporation Bill. The Ministers were aware that they meant to throw it out, for Lord John Russell and Lord Lansdowne both told me at the levee that they had heard such was the intention of the Tories. However, they never had such a design, and the second reading passed without a division; on Thursday they went into Committee, and the freeman’s clause was carried against Government by a majority of 93—130 to 37—the debate being distinguished by divers sallies of intemperance from Brougham, who thundered, and menaced, and gesticulated in his finest style. When somebody cried, ‘Question,’ he burst out, ‘Do you think to put me down? I have stood against 300 of the House of Commons, and do you think I will give way to you?’ This was uttered with all imaginable rage and scorn.[17] This amendment was DEBATE ON THE CORPORATION BILL. always anticipated, and though the Government object to it, Lord Lansdowne told me that as the rate-paying clause had passed without opposition, he did not care for the other alterations, but the minority appeared to everybody bordering upon the ridiculous; a Minister who could only muster thirty-seven present, and who was in a minority of three to one, presented a novel spectacle. Nobody could account for the carelessness of their muster, for many Peers were absent who might easily have been there, and several who belong to Government by office or connexion. It did not, however, occur to anybody that they would feel themselves compelled to resign upon it, except perhaps to a few Tories, who hinted their notion that Melbourne could not go on with such a majority against him, which, however true it may be in the long run, signifies nothing as to any immediate change.