White's, July 14, 1821.
It is impossible to describe to you half the lies or inventions that daily take place. To-day it is said, and confidently, that the King has nominated four extra Knights of the Thistle—Lauderdale, Cassilis, Melville, and Aboyne. The preparations for the Coronation are going on with infinite energy, but I should think with equal confusion. A grand quarrel between the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal, the latter engrossing all the Abbey, and the other all the Hall, and not allowing the smallest interference or even suggestion from each other. The King perfectly absorbed in all these petty arrangements of dress, seats, &c. A private box prepared in the Hall for the Great Chamberlain, in which Lady Conyngham is accommodated. Lord Conyngham said to-day, at White's, that he and family were to depart for Ireland immediately after the levee; not to wait for the ball which is to be given on Friday, 27th, at Carlton House. It is generally believed that Lord Sidmouth forgot to sign his name to the letter to the Queen; but the extraordinary part is, that yesterday it was generally understood, even by the Government, that the Queen was to have a place at the Abbey, and this I fully believe; but that the King said he had a full and complete control over the Hall, and there she should not come; and I believe this is the cause of the rejection altogether.
You can have no idea what an impression it makes in the public, the conduct of the King towards his Government. The flirtation he holds with the Opposition, and his general estrangement from them; the appointments he makes, without the least communication with them. I dined yesterday at the Duchess of Rutland's, where there was a large party of Government people, and where nothing else was talked of. The arrangement for reduction is this at present—ten men reduced from every troop in every cavalry regiment, and twenty-five per cent. from all official situations, high and low; this is what I heard to-day.
I go out of town early to-morrow. You will no doubt have much communication with the Duke of Wellington when you come, and, if he is as full as when I last saw him, you will hear much to astonish, and, I think, to alarm you.
Lord Lansdowne's appointment is confirmed.
Ever yours,
W. H. Fremantle.
MR. W. H. FREMANTLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Stanhope Street, July 11, 1821.
My dear Lord,