Windsor Castle, November 29th.
My dear Reeve,—I send you in a separate cover my notes of a judgement in Rugg v. Bishop of W. for printing and circulation; and I enclose in this a letter which I have had from Lord Westbury, which is in accordance with the judgement as it stands, but which it would perhaps be best to put in print and circulate along with the judgement. I hope in a week or ten days to have Mackonochie ready—that is, if I am not smothered in the meantime by the books and pamphlets which the Ritualists daily shower upon me.
Yours faithfully, CAIRNS.
As the general election had left his party in a minority of about 130, Disraeli resigned on December 4th, and Mr. Gladstone, who had put the disestablishment of the Irish Church prominently before the electors, formed a ministry which was from the beginning pledged to the measure. It was known that this would meet with no support from Lord Westbury, so that he was necessarily 'left out in the cold,' not without some misgivings as to what a man so cunning in fence might say or write when his opinions were sharpened by a sense of personal injury. To Lord Westbury, however, the slight was lost in his wrath at the barefaced avowal of a plan of spoliation; and, without taking the trouble to date his letter, he wrote:—
From Lord Westbury
[December].—These written judgements are a great bore. I imagine (no doubt from vanity) that, at the end of the argument, I could have pronounced viva voce a much more effective and convincing judgement than that which I have written. The vis animi evaporates during the slow process of writing; the conception fades and the expression becomes feeble. What we shall do with the other case of Mackonochie I dread to think. I wish we had knocked it off while the iron was hot, as we used to do the running down cases. There is no chance of a decision this side of Christmas.
I have come up to town on some private matters, and have not the least notion of mingling in any political matters. In fact, I gave my people to understand so clearly last session that I would reject with abhorrence any measure that embodied these two wicked things—l. Stripping the Irish Church of its property to convert it to secular uses, which is robbery; 2. Destroying episcopacy in, and the Queen's supremacy over, the Established Church in Ireland, which is a wanton, unnecessary, and most mischievous act—that of course I could not expect any communication from them.
The weakness of the Government in its legal staff in the House of Commons will be very great, but the opposition will be weaker. It cannot be expected that Palmer [Footnote: Sir Roundell Palmer, afterwards Earl of Selborne, had been successively Solicitor—and Attorney-General during the whole of the Liberal Administration 1859-66; but on the formation of Mr. Gladstone's Government declined the Great Seal with a peerage, on account of his disapproval of the proposed disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church. Notwithstanding Lord Westbury's forecast, he did speak very strongly against the Bill on the second reading (March 22nd, 1869), voted with the minority against it, and took an active part against it in the Committee.] will take a very active part in opposition. Then what lawyer have they? But in the House of Lords I hope the principles of English law and of political expediency will be abundantly illustrated and explained, and shown to be in direct opposition to the Government's destructive and revolutionary measure; and if this be done, as the people of England are a law-loving and law-abiding people, there may be a great reaction in public feeling. And what will Wood be able to do against those opposed to him?
What a Cabinet! 'Misery,' says Trinculo, 'makes one acquainted with strange bedfellows'—so, it seems, does unlooked-for prosperity. Only fancy Granville, Clarendon, and the rest, pigging heads and tails with John Bright in the same truckle bed! I am very thankful that I have an opportunity of conversing in quiet with philosophers and poets at Hinton.
The following, written in a feminine hand on a half-sheet of note-paper, belongs to this time. It is endorsed by Reeve—'Lord Derby's acrostic on Gladstone;' but it does not appear whether the attributing it to Lord Derby was on positive knowledge or on mere current gossip. The name of the author was certainly not generally known.