'One act of the Queen Dowager I must tell you: the Queen sent a message by Colonel Wood and Sir Henry Wheatley requesting she would take anything she chose from the Castle; she selected two—a favourite cup of the King's, in which she had given him everything during his last illness, and the picture from his own room of all his family. It was a singular picture, all the Fitz-Clarences grouped, and in the room Mrs. Jordan hanging a picture on the wall, the King's bust on a pedestal, and all strikingly like. I think it shows a delicacy of feeling to her King which was beautiful. It was a picture better out of sight for his memory. Now, this you may believe, for Colonel Wood told us. He transacted the business, and Queen Adelaide has the picture.
'Believe me, 'Yours very truly, 'MARY CLITHEROW.'
Neither Queen Adelaide nor the three friends long survived the kindly monarch they loved so well. Colonel Clitherow died in 1841; his sister, who became totally blind, early in 1847; and his true and honest wife, the last of the Boston House trio, died in March of the same year.
X
AN APPRECIATION OF KING WILLIAM IV. AND HIS REIGN
TO the letters already given, which cover the seven years of William IV.'s reign, it seems appropriate to add two public utterances on the occasion of his death. The cuttings containing them are pasted in a MS. book belonging to Miss Clitherow's correspondent, himself a writer of repute,[*] and are preceded by the following notes:
[*] The Rev. Edward Nares, D.D., Rector of Biddenden, Kent, and Regius
Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford.
'No King ever departed this life with less of blame attached to him as a King, or with more credit as a well-meaning, good-natured, high-minded man. No King ever more truly acted upon the noble principles of Louis XII. in forgiving, as King, all offences committed against him while Duke of Orleans. When the Duke of Wellington was the Minister of George IV., he saw fit, with a view to retrenchment in the public interest of unnecessary expenditure, to remove H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence from the office of Lord High Admiral. When H.R.H. succeeded to the Crown, not only was this not resented, but nothing could exceed the attentions the Duke of Wellington was in the way of receiving from His Majesty on all anniversaries of the Battle of Waterloo. He constantly honoured the Duke with his company at dinner, and lamented the necessity of being absent on June 18, 1837, only two days before he died.
'This striking instance of a greatness of mind highly becoming a King of Great Britain was alluded to by the Duke of Wellington in the House of Peers on the first day of their meeting after the King's demise. There is extant in print what I believe to be a very authentic relation of the magnanimity with which His Majesty, as King, forgave a bold attack upon him as Duke of Clarence in his presence in the House of Lords by the present Chief Justice of England, Lord Denman. I allude to a memorable speech of the latter at the Queen's trial in 1820.
'Praises and commendations of Kings and Queens are so liable to the suspicion of flattery that it cannot but be pleasant to a mind constitutionally loyal to be able to produce testimony to that effect of indisputable authority. In the course of a speech at the nomination of candidates for North Lancashire, Lord Stanley, not long since a member of a Whig Cabinet, said: "The country had just lost a Sovereign whose virtues and transcendent attributes had earned for him an immortal name. Those who knew least of His late Majesty did not hesitate to ascribe to him an ever anxious delight in being kind and affectionate to his people, attached to their wishes, and determined to administer to their comforts. He thought little of himself when promoting the happiness of those around him. Those who had ever an opportunity of coming into immediate contact with the late Sovereign could justly appreciate his excellent qualities. His attention to business, his candour of manner in listening to the arguments of his advisers, manifested a full knowledge of his constitutional duties. He (Lord Stanley) had witnessed how His late Majesty had declined asserting his prerogative when it in the slightest degree seemed to interfere with public officers in the discharge of their public duties. In the discharge of his duties as a Minister of the Crown it had happened on three occasions that His Majesty had felt a deep interest in the appointment of three individuals to office, and it did so happen that he could not meet the private wishes of the Sovereign in making those appointments, and he intimated to His Majesty the public grounds on which he would rather they were not made. His Majesty immediately with pleasure declined pressing his own views, which, he said, were secondary compared with the public business of the country."'