Sir Herbert Taylor, George III.'s private secretary, with whom once upon a time Princess Amelia fell hopelessly in love, who was said to be without influence under George III., and who was a model of discretion under George IV., occupies the same position under the present King. I have always suspected him of being a devoted friend of the Whigs and especially of Lord Palmerston. He was the only man at Windsor to whom the King could speak during the crisis, and through whom all the necessary communications could have passed. His prompting and his subterranean, yet active and long prepared intrigues are believed to be the cause of what is now happening.
Rumours succeed and destroy each other. One is wearied out with curiosity, unsatisfied and unjustified. It is said again that Lord Melbourne will be quite at liberty to govern his Ministry as he will. It is also said that the King, who has certainly not left Windsor, has sent Sir Herbert Taylor to Sir Robert Peel.
Again it is asserted that Dom Pedro is dead and Don Carlos gone. In fact the city and the clubs are amusing themselves (to kill time I suppose) by disseminating the most extraordinary and contradictory news. People end by believing nothing and listening to no one, and meanwhile one waits patiently with a sort of lassitude until the Gazette announces officially who is going to take up the heavy and difficult task of the Ministry.
Meanwhile Lord Grey occupies himself with little dinners at Greenwich, where he consoles himself for his fall and the treachery of his friends, Madame de Lieven for her gilded exile, and M. de Talleyrand for the conflict of unsatisfied ambition and a natural weariness. The other day Lord Grey said very happily in his farewell speech in Parliament, that when one was seventy years old as he was, one might manage affairs very well in ordinary times, but that in a period so critical as the present it needed the activity and energy which belong only to youth.
This is a truth which I have had the opportunity of verifying in my own circle, and I have felt that in public life it is above all things necessary to choose a good moment for retreat, not to lose the proper moment, and so to quit politics gracefully, thus carrying with you the applause of the spectators and avoiding their hisses.
London, July 14, 1834.—This morning people were writing from Windsor to London to find out what was going on. The King's silence had been complete; and in his long walks with his sister, the Princess Augusta, or his daughter, Lady Sophia Sidney, all conversation was carefully avoided, and nothing was talked of but the weather.
The Queen's journey has met with some difficulties; and Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, who it appears is not a very skilful sailor, had some difficulty in finding the way, and besides, the royal yacht drew too much water. Fortunately, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, and the Prince and Princess of the Netherlands had come in a Dutch steamer to meet her Majesty, who was able to go on board the latter vessel with her maid, and proceed to The Hague direct; the suite reached Rotterdam with some difficulty.
It seems to have been very fortunate that the Queen was able to avoid Rotterdam herself, for they are so much annoyed that they had prepared an ugly reception for her. It had been arranged here that she was to meet neither the King nor the Queen of the Netherlands, and this condition had been strongly insisted on by the King of England. A "chance meeting," however, which might take place at the palace of Loo, had been talked of.
Sir Herbert Taylor has of late been the centre of interest for a good many people, and has been discussed in many conversations. In this way I learned that when he was proposed as private secretary to George III., who had become blind, it was also proposed that he should be made a Privy Councillor. The mere idea roused the King to fury, and, in the presence of all his Ministers, he said to Mr. Taylor: "Remember, sir, that you are to be my pen and my eye, but nothing else; that if you should presume but once to remember what you hear, read, or write, to have an opinion of your own or to give any advice, we should part for ever." And, as a matter of fact, under George III. and later under George IV., Mr. Taylor was never more than a kind of lay figure without eyes to see or ears to hear, or a memory to remember. They say that things are changed now, though he still keeps up the appearance of the greatest reserve and the most profound discretion. I heard on the same occasion that, until he grew blind, George III. never used a secretary, even for making envelopes or sealing his letters. His correspondence was extensive as well as secret; he always knew what was going on in society and all the political intrigues; and when displeased with his Ministers or distrusting their measures he would secretly take the advice of the Opposition. He was never taken by surprise, followed public opinion, and combined considerable learning with a great dignity of carriage.
Since the day before yesterday a rumour has been afloat that Don Carlos has already quitted London and has already landed in France, everybody supposing that he was lying ill at Gloucester Lodge. This though generally believed is not yet proved. What makes me doubt it is that M. de Miraflorès claims that it is true, and boasts that he has led Don Carlos into this proceeding by means of an agent in his pay who, he says, persuaded the unfortunate Prince to take this step in order to betray him to the first Spanish patrol on the frontier, from whom he would receive short shrift. This singular and horrible boast would have to be taken seriously if uttered by any other person. But M. de Miraflorès is as idiotic in politics as in love, and it is quite likely that the whole story is false, or at any rate, that the agent who is said to have inveigled the Prince has only duped the diplomat.