DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING THEIR MAJESTIES’ VISIT TO LONDON.
The embarrassment to which ministers were exposed was greatly increased by a domestic occurrence. Some time before the meeting of parliament the king and queen had promised to honour the lord-mayor’s feast at Guildhall with their presence: great preparations had been made by the citizens on the approach of that civic festival, and all London was on tip-toe expectation of the splendid procession. On the 7th of November, however, all their expectations were disappointed: the lord-mayor received a note from the home-secretary, stating that his majesty had resolved, by the persuasion of his ministry, to postpone his visit to a future opportunity, because, from information recently received, “there was reason to apprehend that, notwithstanding the devoted loyalty and affection borne to his majesty by the citizens of London, advantage would be taken of an occasion which must necessarily assemble a vast number of persons by night to create tumult and confusion, and thereby to endanger the property and lives of his majesty’s subjects; and it would be a source of deep and lasting concern to their majesties were any calamity to occur on the occasion of their visit to the city of London.” This announcement filled the metropolis with doubt and alarm. Men conceived that some atrocious conspiracy had come to light—that a new gunpowder-plot had been discovered—and that the crisis of the constitution and of the country had arrived. The funds fell three per cent.; and in the country every man expected that the next mail would bring intelligence that London was in a state of insurrection. All, however, remained calm; and ministers were naturally called upon to explain the grounds on which they had acted. It appeared that the principal foundation of their proceedings was a note from some person in private life, stating that he was apprehensive the Duke of Wellington would not be very favourably received. Mr. John Key, lord-mayor elect, wrote to his grace informing him that “in London, as well as in the country, there was a set of desperate characters,” fond of every opportunity of producing confusion, and that, according to information received by him, some of these desperadoes intended to make an attack on his grace’s person on his approach to the hall; and, therefore, suggesting that his grace should come strongly and sufficiently guarded. The Duke of Wellington stated in the house of lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the commons, that on receiving this letter it was considered an imperative duty to recommend to his majesty the postponement of his visit to a future occasion. “But, besides the letter of the lord-mayor elect to the Duke of Wellington,” remarked Sir Robert, “information had been received that an attack was to be made on his house in the course of the night, when the police were at a distance, under the pretence of calling for lights to illuminate. Any such attack must be accompanied by riot; and the attempt to suppress such riot by force, when the streets were filled with women and children, must be accompanied by consequences which all of us must lament. That, however, is only one of the causes which I have for believing in the possibility of such an attempt at riot taking place. Every one is aware that there exists in the public mind considerable excitement against those authorities which have been appointed, under the sanction of the house, to maintain the public peace—I allude of course to the body which is known by the name of the new police.” In the course of Saturday and Sunday the most industrious attempts were made in various quarters to inflame the public mind against the new police. Thousands of printed handbills were circulated for the purpose of inciting the people against that portion of the civil force which is entrusted with the preservation of the public tranquillity. These were not written papers drawn up by illiterate persons, and casually dropped in the streets, but printed handbills, not ill adapted to the mischievous purposes which they were intended to answer. After reading some of these missives, Sir Robert continued:—“Now, after hearing the inflammatory language of the bills, I call upon the house to consider how great the likelihood is that, after the police had returned to their ordinary duties in their respective portions of the town, a desperate attack would have been made upon them. If it were made, it would of course be resisted by the civil force; if the civil force were insufficient to repel it, military aid would be called in; and then on that night of general festivity and rejoicing, in the midst of crowds of unsuspecting men, women, and children, there might be resistance, and if resistance bloodshed, occasioned by the necessity of supporting civil authorities.” In reply, Mr. Brougham observed that, so far as the statement made did not proceed on the unpopularity of the Duke of Wellington, it amounted simply to this—that it was a bad thing to have a large assembly on the 9th of November; and for this reason, that though nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of one thousand might be peaceable and loyally disposed, yet the odd units, the few who were riotously inclined, might put out the lights in the streets, might involve the town in darkness, and might afterwards commence a scene of riot and confusion which could not end without bloodshed. If this were any objection to his majesty’s attendance at the civic festival, it was not an objection to which the course of events had suddenly given birth within the last two or three days. Every one must have known that such an event as the visit of his majesty to the city of London must, from its rarity, collect thousands, if not myriads, to witness it; so that any accident to which the metropolis was exposed at present, from the collection of a large mass of people together, must have been as palpable a month ago as at the present moment. In the course of his speech Mr. Brougham contrasted with severity the popularity of the king with the hostility exhibited towards the premier.
MAJORITY AGAINST MINISTERS FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE CIVIL LIST.
It was now obvious that the duke’s administration had received a shock from which it could not recover. The opposition made a final and successful attack upon it on the 15th of November, when the chancellor of the exchequer stated to the house his arrangement for the civil list, which he proposed to raise to the annual sum of £970,000. They insisted that government in many of its departments was extravagant, and, above all, that the portion which was incurred on the personal account of the monarch ought to be kept apart from every other item. Sir Henry Parnell moved, “That a select committee be appointed to take into consideration the estimates and accounts, presented by command of his majesty, regarding the civil list.” The debate on this proposition was brief. Messrs. Calcraft and Hemes, both members of government, opposed the motion, chiefly on the ground that it had never been customary to submit the civil list to a committee, and that retrenchment and simplification had been earned as far as was practicable or prudent. The motion was supported by Lord Althorp and Messrs. Bankes, Wynn, and Holme Sumner, three of which members would in other times have been loath to lend their votes to unseat a Tory ministry; and on a division there appeared a majority in its favour of two hundred and thirty-three against two hundred and four, thus defeating ministers. The consequence of this vote was that on the next day the Duke of Wellington in the lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the commons, announced that they had tendered, and his majesty had accepted, their resignations, and that they continued to hold their offices only until successors should be appointed. They afterwards declared that they came to the resolution not so much on account of the vote on the civil list as from anticipation of the result of a division on Mr. Brougham’s proposition for reform, which stood for the day on which this announcement was made. But if the civil list question had not been deemed important enough to justify a resignation, the majority that decided it showed a settled and stern system of opposition, which must have convinced ministers that they could no longer rule the country. At the request of his friends, Mr. Brougham postponed his motion for reform till the 25th of November, professing to do so with reluctance, “because he could not possibly be affected by any change in administration.” He pledged himself to bring forward his motion on the day appointed, whoever might be his majesty’s ministers. He repeated the same declaration on a motion made by Sir M. W. Ridley to postpone the consideration of election petitions till after Christmas; but two days afterwards Mr. Brougham was gazetted as lord high chancellor of Great Britain with a peerage.
FORMATION OF EARL GREY’S ADMINISTRATION.
WILLIAM IV. 1830—1831
The Tories had lent their votes to displace the ministry, but they had formed no plan, and taken no steps, to ensure to themselves any share in the succession. Earl Grey was authorised by the king to form a new administration, of which he himself should be the head; and his lordship accepted the office on condition that he should have authority to make parliamentary reform a cabinet measure. The ministry was formed in about a week, and it consisted of Whigs, and of those who had been formerly adherents of Messrs. Canning and Huskisson, and who had held office with the leading members of the displaced administration. The greatest difficulty lay in managing Mr. Brougham, who had just declared that no change could affect him, by which it was found he meant that no change would bring him the offer of an office sufficiently high for his ambition. Earl Grey was afraid to leave him neglected or discontented in the lower house, and the honourable gentleman was determined not to sacrifice his importance in that home for any subordinate office. The negotiation ended in Mr. Brougham being made lord-chancellor—a striking instance of the most important judicial functions in the empire being entrusted, as the reward of merely political services, to a man who possessed splendid talents, but who was unprovided with judicial learning, and, above all, destitute of habits and capacity in judicial thinking. No man pitied the fate of Sir James Scarlett, but many thought the Irish chancellor, Sir Anthony Hart, who had stood impartially between contending parties, harshly treated in being made to resign for Lord Plunkett—the new premier considering it necessary to have an Irish chancellor whom he could fully trust and employ in Irish politics. The Duke of Richmond was the only leading member of the old Tory party who entered the new cabinet, and he became postmaster-general. The other members of government were as follows:—Lord Althorp was appointed to lead the house of commons as chancellor of the exchequer; the offices of home, foreign, and colonial secretaries were given respectively to Lords Melbourne, Palmerston, and Goderich; Sir James Graham was made first lord of the admiralty; Lord Lansdowne became president of the council, and Lord Durham privy seal; Messrs. Denman and Home were attorney and solicitors general; Lord Hill was commander-in-chief; Lord Auckland, president of the board of trade, and Mr. C. Grant, of the board of control; Lord Holland, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; the Duke of Devonshire, lord chamberlain; the honourable Agar Ellis, chief commissioner of the woods and forests; Mr. E. Grant, judge-advocate; Lord John Eussell, paymaster of the forces; Mr. Poulett Thompson, vice-president of the board of trade and treasurer of the navy; Sir Edward Paget and Sir Robert Spencer, master and surveyor-general of the board of ordnance; Mr. C. W. Wynne, secretary at war; and Messrs. Ellice and Spring Rice appointed joint secretaries of the treasury. In Scotland there were no offices liable to change except those of the lord-advocate and the solicitor-general, the former of which was given to Mr. Jeffrey, and the latter to Mr. Cockbum, both of them long-tried friends of the lord-chancellor, and at the head of their profession. Ireland received, as its chief governor, the Marquis of Anglesea, with Mr. Stanley as secretary, Lord Plunkett as chancellor, and Mr. Pennefather, attorney-general. It was necessary that the new ministers, who had vacated their seats by taking office, should be reelected, and this afforded an opportunity to the radical party of showing their strength. Thus Mr. Stanley was defeated at Preston by the notorious democrat, Plenry Hunt. After the new ministry had secured seats, no business of importance was transacted during the remainder of the year, except the passing of a regency bill in conformity with the recommendation in the speech from the throne. This bill had been introduced into the house of lords on the day when the fate of the late cabinet was sealed in the commons. It provided that in the event of a posthumous child of the present queen, her majesty should be guardian and regent of the kingdom; and that if such an event did not occur, then the Duchess of Kent was to be guardian and regent during the minority of her daughter, the Princess Victoria, the heir-presumptive. The princess herself was not to marry while a minor without the consent of the king, or, if he died, without the consent of both houses of parliament; and the regency was to be at an end if the Duchess of Kent, while regent, married a foreigner. A select committee was appointed on the 9th of December to inquire what reduction could be made in the salaries and emoluments of offices held during the pleasure of the crown by members of either house of parliament, and to report their opinion and observations thereupon to the house. On the 23rd both houses adjourned to the 3rd of February—ministers declaring that a long adjournment was necessary, in order to enable them to prepare the different measures which they intended submitting to parliament, especially that plan of reform to which they had pledged themselves on accepting office, and by which alone they could hope to retain it.