[64] [The Government had brought in a Bill in June to restrict the purchase of arms in Ireland. It was vehemently opposed by the Liberal Party.]
[65] [It appears from letters published in the 'Life of the Prince Consort' that Sir R. Peel began about this time to doubt the duration of his own Administration.]
[66] [This remark applies to Henry VIII. In later times it is notorious that William III. frequently visited the Continent, and George I. and George II. their Hanoverian dominions.]
[67] [Lord Eliot, afterwards Earl St. Germans, was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1841 to 1845.]
[68] [This was the memorable agreement afterwards so signally violated by the French Government. It is remarkable that it should be recorded here, but the terms in which it is stated are not strictly accurate. Indeed, it is corrected in the next page. The French Government always declared that they held the Queen free to marry any of the descendants of Philip V. The idea of a Carlist marriage was a mistake. It never was entertained at all.]
[69] [An insurrection broke out in Catalonia in the month of June against the Government of Espartero, then Regent of Spain. Barcelona was bombarded from the citadel, though without much serious damage. The insurrection, headed by General Narvaez, spread to other parts of Spain, and on July 30 Espartero was compelled to fly from Seville and take refuge on a British vessel off Cadiz. It was believed, at the time, that the French Government, which had always been very hostile to Espartero, had favoured this revolution.]
[70] [Miss Berry and her sister Agnes, who both died at a very advanced age in 1852, were the last surviving friends of Horace Walpole, who called them his 'Strawberries,' and had established a great intimacy between their youth and his own age. Miss Berry's house in Curzon Street was one of the last salons that existed in London, and the most agreeable. It was frequented by all the rank, beauty, and talent of those times. Whenever the lamp over the hall door was lit, any habitué of the house was welcome. Of the two sisters, Mary Berry was born in March 1763, and died in November 1852; Agnes Berry was born in May 1764, and died in January 1852. They were buried in Petersham Church, where Lord Carlisle placed an inscription to their memory.]
[71] [On October 7th a proclamation was issued by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland prohibiting the great Repeal Meeting which was to take place on the following day at Clontarf. O'Connell then abandoned the meeting, but gave the people of Ireland fresh assurances of Repeal. On October 14th he and his son were called upon to enter bail against any charge of conspiracy and misdemeanour which might be brought against them. Such was the commencement of the prosecution of O'Connell.]
[72] [This was Lady Georgiana Fullerton's first novel, entitled 'Ellen Middleton.' It was published in 1844.]
[73] [The House of Lords, having decided in the Auchterarder case in favour of the right of patronage in the Church of Scotland, the Disruption which led to the establishment of the Free Church took place on May 18th, 1843. Lord Aberdeen brought a bill into the House of Lords on June 13th to remove doubt as to the rights of patrons, but it was then too late to heal the breach.]