I forgot to mention the Archduke Maximilian of Modena as one of the persons talked of for Greece. It seems uncertain whether any one of these Princes would take the coronet.
November 14, Saturday.
Cabinet room. Rosslyn and afterwards Lord Bathurst there. Read the Irish papers, that is, Lord Francis Leveson's private letters to Peel and Peel's to him, with a letter from Peel to Leslie Foster, asking his opinion as to education and Maynooth, and Foster's reply. The latter is important. He thinks the political and religious hostility of the two parties is subsiding. The chiefs alone keep it up. The adherents are gradually falling off. To open the questions of education, &c., now, would be to open closing wounds, nor would anything be accomplished. The priests would resist everything proposed, and the Protestants would not be satisfied. The Kildare Street Society, however defective, does a great deal of good, more than could be expected from any new system we could carry at this moment.
As to Maynooth, to withdraw the grant would not diminish the funds, while it would increase the bad feeling.
The increased prevalence of outrage, arising more from a disorganised state of society than from politics or religion, and the assassination plan, must be met by an extensive police, directed by stipendiary magistrates; and the expense of this police, and the indemnity to sufferers must be paid by the barony in which the outrage takes place.
All Peel's letters are very sensible. Lord Francis Leveson's are in an odd style, rather affected occasionally, and his ideas are almost always such as require to be overruled. He is a forward boy; but I see nothing of the statesman in him. We ought to have had Hardinge there.
Dined at the Duke's. A man of the name of Ashe is writing letters to the
Duke of Cumberland threatening his life if he does not give up a book in
MS.
This book of Ashe's is a romance detailing all sorts of scandals of the Royal Family, and of horrors of the Duke of Cumberland. The book is actually in the possession of the Duke of Wellington.
The King's violence, when there was an idea of Denman's [Footnote: The King always resented an offensive quotation of Denman's as counsel during the Queen's trial.] appearing for the Recorder, was greater, the Duke says, than what he showed during the Catholic question.
Lady Conyngham has been and is very ill. There is no idea of the Court going to Brighton.