[18] [It is a vulgar error, which it would scarcely be necessary to notice here except for the purpose of correcting it, that the Lord Mayor of London has some of the privileges of a Privy Councillor during his year of office. The mistake has probably arisen from his being styled ‘Right Honourable,’ but so are the Lord Mayors of Dublin and of York. But he has none of the rights of a Privy Councillor. He is, however, summoned to attend the Privy Council at which a new Sovereign is proclaimed, but having heard the Proclamation he retires before the business of the Council is commenced. See infra, March 27th.]
It is a very trite observation, that no two people are more different than the same man at different periods of his life, and this was illustrated by an anecdote Lord Holland told us of Tom Grenville last night—Tom Grenville, so mild, so refined, adorned with such an amiable, venerable, and decorous old age. After Lord Keppel’s acquittal there were riots, and his enthusiastic friends with a zealous mob attacked the houses of his enemies; among others they assaulted the Admiralty, the chiefs of which were obnoxious for their supposed ill-usage of him. The Admiralty was taken by storm, and Tom Grenville was the second man who entered at the breach!
March 23rd, 1838
On Wednesday I attended a Levée and Council. The Queen was magnificently dressed, and looked better than I ever saw her. Her complexion is clear and has the brightness of youth; the expression of her eyes is agreeable. Her manner is graceful and dignified and with perfect self-possession. I remarked how very civil she was to Brougham, for she spoke to him as much as to anybody. He was in high good-humour after it.
Yesterday we had a Judicial Committee, with a great judicial attendance: the Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, Brougham, the Vice-Chancellor, Lord Abinger, Lord Langdale, and Tom Erskine, with the Lord President. It was to consider a petition of certain apprentices in British Guiana, who wanted to stay execution of the judgement of a Court there. Glenelg had it referred to the Privy Council Committee in order to shift the responsibility from himself. He expected that Brougham would get hold of the case and make a clatter about it; but at the Board Brougham treated it purely upon legal grounds, and was adverse to the prayer of the petition.
They had come (i.e., the Chancellor, Lyndhurst, and Brougham) from the House of Lords, where they had been reversing Lyndhurst’s famous judgement in ‘Small v. Attwood.’ Lyndhurst was very hoarse, having just made a long speech in support of his former judgement; but the Chancellor and Devon had spoken against, and Brougham was prepared to side with them. Sic transit gloria! It was this judgement which was so lauded and admired at the time, and upon which, more than upon any other, or even upon the THE QUEEN’S ATTACHMENT TO WILLIAM IV. general tenor of his decisions, Lyndhurst’s great judicial fame was based; and now it turns out that, although it was admirable in the execution, it was bad in point of law.[19]
[19] [The main question in the celebrated case of Small v. Attwood was whether the sale of certain ironworks in Staffordshire, by Mr. Attwood, to the British Iron Company, should be set aside for what, in the Courts of Equity, is termed fraud. Lord Lyndhurst, as Chief Baron of the Exchequer, held that an amount of misrepresentation had been practised by the vendor, which annulled the sale. The House of Lords was of opinion that if the purchasers had paid too much for the property, it was their own fault. This decision rested, of course, on the special circumstances of the case. It was argued with great ability by Serjeant Wilde and Mr. Sugden, who received fees in this case to an amount previously unknown to the Bar. It is remarkable that Lord Lyndhurst sat on the appeal from his own judgement and supported it; the fifth vote, which decided the case, was that of Lord Devon, who had never held a judicial office.]
March 25th, 1838
Lady Cowper told me yesterday that the Queen said to Lord Melbourne, ‘the first thing which had convinced her he was worthy of her confidence was his conduct in the disputes at Kensington last year about her proposed allowance,’ in which, though he knew that the King’s life was closing, he had taken his part. She considered this to be a proof of his honesty and determination to do what he thought right. Though she took no part, and never declared herself, it is evident that she, in her heart, sided with the King on that occasion. It is difficult to attribute to timidity that command over herself and passive obedience which she showed in her whole conduct up to the moment when she learnt that she was Queen; and from that instant, as if inspired with the genius and the spirit of Sixtus V., she at once asserted her dignity and her will. She now evinces in all she does an attachment to the memory of her uncle, and it is not to be doubted that, in the disputes which took place between him and her mother, her secret sympathies were with the King; and in that celebrated scene at Windsor, when the King made so fierce an attack upon the Duchess’s advisers, and expressed his earnest hope that he might live to see the majority of his niece, Victoria must have inwardly rejoiced at the expression of sentiments so accordant with her own. Her attentions and cordiality to Queen Adelaide, her bounty and civility to the King’s children, and the disgrace of Conroy, amply prove what her sentiments have all along been.