I have sent forth my pamphlet, and there seems a chance of its being read. Lord Melbourne said to me, ‘What is to be done about this Precedence?’ I said, ‘I have told you[27] what I think is to be done. Have you sent my pamphlet to the Queen?’ ‘I have sent it her, and desired her to show it to Prince Albert; and I have sent it to the Chancellor, and desired him to give me his opinion on the law, as it requires great consideration and great care.’[28] I asked him, ‘if he had any doubt about the law, that is, about my law.’ He said, ‘he had doubts whether the Act of Henry VIII. was not more stringent.’ I told him I had consulted Parke, Bosanquet, and Erskine, that we had read the Act together, and they were all clear that the Prerogative was not limited except as to Parliament and the Council. At all events, I said, he ought not to be made a Privy Councillor till after this matter was settled, and to that he agreed; and it was settled that he should not be sworn at the Council to-morrow. So thus it stands, and if the Chancellor sees no objection, my plan will be adopted, and I shall have settled for them, having no earthly thing to do with it, what they ought to have settled for themselves long ago, and have avoided all the squabbling and bad blood which have been the result of their unlucky Bill. In the meantime the Duke read my pamphlet yesterday, and to-day I went there to hear what he said to it, and found that he agreed with me entirely, and that he is all for the adoption of my suggestion. This I forthwith despatched to Clarendon, who was gone to the Levée, and desired him to tell Melbourne of it.
[27] I had already sent my pamphlet to Melbourne and to a few other people.
[28] [Mr. Greville contended in his pamphlet that the Act of Henry VIII. for ‘Placing the Lords’ applied only to their precedence in the House of Lords and in the Privy Council, which being statutory could not be changed; but that it was competent to the Crown to confer any precedence elsewhere. Prince Albert was not a Peer, and he was not at this time a Privy Councillor; therefore, the provisions of the statutes of Henry VIII. did not apply to him. He was subsequently introduced into the Privy Council, where by courtesy rank was given him next the Queen when no other member of the Royal Family was present. As this pamphlet has some legal and historical interest, it is reprinted in the Appendix to this volume.]
February 21st, 1840
On Thursday morning I got a note from Arbuthnot, desiring I would call at Apsley House. When I got there, he told me that the Duke of Cambridge had sent for Lord Lyndhurst to consult him; that they were invited to meet the Queen on Friday at the Queen Dowager’s, and he wanted to know what he was to do about giving precedence to Prince Albert. Lord Lyndhurst came to Apsley House and saw the Duke about it, and they agreed to report to the Duke of Cambridge their joint opinion that the Queen had an unquestionable right to give him any precedence she pleased, and that he had better concede it without making any difficulty. The Duke acquiesced, and accepted the invitation. Melbourne told me the Queen was well satisfied with my pamphlet, but ‘she remarked that there was a very high compliment to the Duke of Wellington at the end of it.’ I asked if she had said it was a just one. He said, ‘No, she did not say that.’
I heard from Arbuthnot this morning that the Duke has set his face resolutely against any Bill in the House of Lords to settle the Privilege question; and that Lyndhurst, though not so strong in his opinion as the Duke, is resolved to abide by his determination, and to go with him. The Duke, in fact, goes as far as any of the opponents of the Privilege, for he not only thinks that the dicta of the Judges are not to be questioned, but that the House of Commons ought not to have the Privilege at all—that is, that their papers ought not to be sold, and that they ought not to be circulated BILL ON THE PRIVILEGE QUESTION. without anything being previously weeded out of them which the law would consider libellous. This strong opinion of his renders the question exceedingly difficult and embarrassing, for it was become very clear that nothing but the intervention of the House of Lords could untie so ravelled a knot. All the Tories are in a state of mingled rage and despair at the impetuosity with which Peel has plunged into this matter, and at the irretrievable manner in which he has identified himself with Lord John Russell upon it. Stanley and Graham have always voted with him, but have never once opened their lips, from which it is sufficiently clear that they don’t go nearly so far as he does, and now Graham is acting as a sort of mediator and negotiator, to try and effect some compromise or arrangement, but the case seems nearly hopeless. Peel, on the other hand, is evidently as much annoyed and provoked with his party as his party with him. The other day, Arbuthnot, Peel, and Graham met at Apsley House, and talked upon every subject, Arbuthnot told me, but that of Privilege, on which none of them touched—a pretty clear proof how tender the ground is become. The Tory press has grown very violent, and treats Peel with no more forbearance for his conduct on this question than the Whig and Radical did John Russell for his speech about Church rates; so rabid and unscrupulous are all Ultras of whatever opinion. I told Melbourne how matters stood, at which he seemed mightily disconcerted.
February 25th, 1840
Yesterday I saw the Duke of Wellington, whom I had not seen for above six months, except for a moment at the Council just after his first illness. He looked better than I expected—very thin, and his clothes hanging about him, but strong on his legs, and his head erect. The great alteration I remarked was in his voice, which was hollow, though loud, and his utterance, which, though not indistinct, was very slow. He is certainly now only a ruin. He is gone to receive the Judges at Strathfieldsaye, and he will go on again when he comes back to town, and hold on while he can. It is his desire to die with the harness on his back, and he cannot endure the notion of retirement and care of his life, which is only valuable to him while he can exert it in active pursuits. I doubt if he could live in retirement and inactivity—the life of a valetudinarian.
Besides the Precedence question, another is now raised about the Liturgy. The Queen wants to insert the Prince’s name in it; they sent to me to know if Prince George’s (of Denmark) had been inserted, and I found it had not. There was a division of opinion, but the majority of the Cabinet were disposed to put in Prince Albert’s. Before deciding anything they consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yesterday, however, on looking into the Act of Uniformity, I satisfied myself that the Queen has not the power to insert his name; and I believe that the insertion, on former occasions, of Princesses of Wales was illegal, and could not have been sustained if it ever had been questioned. This I imparted to Lords Lansdowne and Clarendon, to deal with the fact as they pleased; and I asked the opinions of Parke, Bosanquet, and Lushington, who were sitting at the Judicial Committee, and they all agreed that she had not the power, under the 25th sec. of the Act of Uniformity.