1820]

THE QUEEN'S TRIAL

1367

have designed to part from her; she was early sent into a sort of banishment at Blackheath, a watch was set upon her conduct, an investigation before the Lords was set on foot, and though declared innocent of any grave offence, disgusted at such treatment, she unwisely withdrew abroad in 1814. She was followed in her retirement, by the advice of Sir John Leach, by emissaries to collect evidence against her, unknown to herself. It would have been wise had she remained abroad, but the treatment she had received rendered her desperate; she had been excluded from foreign courts, and when her husband came to the throne her name was omitted from the Liturgy. It seems to have been this last insult which roused her to action. In June she came to England, and was received with enthusiasm by the people, who regarded her as a persecuted woman. She thus placed the ministers in the awkward position of being obliged to fulfil the compromise under which they had retained office and to proceed to extremities against her. On the 6th of June the King sent a message to the Lords, ordering them to institute an inquiry into the Queen's conduct, and proofs were laid on the table. On the following day, Mr. Brougham, who undertook the management of her case as her Attorney-General, read a letter to the Commons demanding a public inquiry. Some efforts were made to effect a compromise, but as the King refused to demand her reception abroad or to insert her name in the Liturgy, all negotiations failed. The secret committee of the Lords therefore proceeded to make its report, declaring that a solemn inquiry was necessary; and Lord Liverpool shocked public feeling by introducing, for the Queen. purpose of producing such an inquiry, a Bill of pains and penalties to deprive her Majesty of her position as Queen, and to dissolve the King's marriage. The trial in fact came on with the second reading of the Bill, when the charges against the Queen were stated before the Lords; and for nearly a month the House was occupied in hearing witness. By this time the feeling in England was strongly excited. The ministers were insulted whenever they appeared abroad, and every opportunity was taken by the crowd of showing their sympathy with the Queen. The question had become in fact a political one, and the Queen lent herself only too readily to a somewhat ostentatious display of her sufferings. In October the defence commenced, and at length, on the 6th of November, the second reading of the Bill was passed by a majority of twenty-eight Two days afterwards, on the third reading, there was a majority ot only nine. As this was in the House of Lords, where the ministers

Trial of the

Aug. 17.

were strongest, they saw it was useless to persevere, and Lord Liverpool declared that the Bill was abandoned. A burst of joy was heard throughout the country, for three nights London was illuminated, even Prince Leopold joining in the rejoicings. Declining all offers from the Government, the Queen placed her cause in the hands of the Commons. An annuity of £50,000 was given her the following session. But she was determined upon some more public announcement of her innocence; she still tried, though in vain, to secure the introduction of her name in the Liturgy, and was foolish enough on the occasion of the coronation in July of the following year to attempt to force her way into the Abbey. She had already begun to lose the sympathy of the people when, in August, she died.

Consequent alienation

between the

However right it may have been to raise the question of the Queen's guilt, there was a general feeling that the ministers had at all events mismanaged the question, and after exciting strongly the temper of the people, had dropped their ministry and Bill without excuse or apology. Advantage was taken people. of the popular anger, excited by what was thought an act of oppression, to give currency to all sorts of charges against the ministry, and to impute to them unconstitutional principles, and connivance or even approbation of scandalous conspiracies against the Queen's character, of which they were certainly guiltless. But, before all, the late events had given a popular rallying-point for all sections of the Opposition, and had demonstrated how deep was the alienation between the ministry and the body of the people. It is from this time that we find serious and sometimes successful efforts made to begin the work of reform, which it was believed would render such an alienation impossible. Although, as was to be expected in a House elected under the old system, any wide measure, such as that produced by Lambton (subsequently Lord Durham, April 1821), recommending equal electoral districts, was sure to be defeated by a large majority, Lord John Russell succeeded in procuring the disfranchisement of Grampound, a notoriously corrupt borough in Cornwall (May 30). He and his friends were wise enough to accept this small beginning, even though his Bill was changed in the Upper House, where the vacant seat was transferred, not to one of the great unrepresented cities, as would have been just, but to the county of York. In the same way the great question of Catholic disabilities was brought forward with renewed strength. Those who were in favour of their removal were successful in the Lower House, and the Bill only lost after passing through most of its stages in the Lords.

1821]

MINISTERIAL CHANGES

1369

So shaken indeed was the predominance of the extreme Tory party, that in the year 1821 they found it necessary to strengthen themselves by a coalition with the Conservative section of the Opposition, hoping by this means to give a more broad and liberal appearance to the administration. Lord Grenville Peel Joins himself declined office, but several of his followers were the ministry. admitted to the ministry, while a still further improvement was made by the retirement of Lord Sidmouth, who had played so prominent a part in all the late repressive measures, and the substitution in his place of Mr. Peel, as yet Tory in his views, but capable, as was subsequently proved, of constant advance, and of an intellect so clear and sensible as to be able to learn, as his predecessor never could, the growing requirements of the time. At the same time Lord Wellesley was sent as Lord-Lieutenant to Ireland, with Mr. Plunkett as his Attorney-General, both of them supporters of the Catholic claims; and although Wellesley's statesmanlike character and moderation excited the anger of extreme men on both sides, the mere fact of such a man being placed at the head of the Irish Government was a clear mark of the relaxation of the principles of the Tory system. These new appointments were but the beginning, to be followed in a few months by other changes far more important, which were to effect an entire alteration in the position which England occupied in Europe, and in the principles which governed her financial policy. These changes were the admission, in 1822 and 1823, of Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson to the ministry. Throughout the trial of Queen Caroline, Canning had held himself studiously aloof. He had been early one of the Queen's advisers, had declared from the first his intention to avoid any participation in her trial, and had in fact remained abroad during its continuance. On his return in December, thinking it impossible for a minister to be entirely absent from his duties, but determined to take no part in the discussions on the trial which were inevitable, he insisted on resigning his place at the Board of Trade. He was therefore at first excluded from the new ministerial arrangements. The India Company indeed had decided upon sending him as Governor-General to India. His preparations for taking the post were being made, and he was at Liverpool on a farewell visit to his constituents, Castlereagh. when a piece of news was heard which caused a profound movement both at home and abroad,-Lord Castlereagh, of State. now become Lord Londonderry, had committed suicide. The man who was regarded as the real soul of the Tory party, as

Death of

Canning
Secretary

Sept. 11, 1822.

the type of the arbitrary and absolutist temper which distinguished it, had passed away. Honourable and amiable in his private life, he had contrived to render himself so unpopular that the news of his death was received with unseemly rejoicings, and his coffin was followed to the Abbey with shouts of gladness from his enemies. Europe was in a critical condition. Lord Londonderry had been in the act of going to an European Congress held at Verona. Canning appeared to be the only man fitted to supply his place. When asked to join the ministry as Secretary of State for foreign affairs, after some consideration, he threw up the great post for which he was at the moment destined, and accepted the office.

Retrospect of the affairs

of Europe.

Position of

To understand the importance of this change it is necessary to say a few words on what had passed in Europe since the Peace. The hopes of the liberal party in Europe had received a heavy blow at the Congress of Vienna. England had so constantly put herself forward as the champion of freedom, and her influence had been so preponderating in the late events of the war, that she was expected to have taken up England abroad. strong ground in the settlement of Europe, and to have demanded and secured some sort of popular rights in the countries to which her assistance had been given. The nation had shown itself so full of resources, and had been so exceptional in the success of its opposition to Napoleon, that a general belief had arisen that there was something peculiarly excellent in the character of its constitution. So strong was this feeling, that many of the sovereigns of Europe promised constitutions to their people. It was forgotten that the freedom for which England had been fighting meant deliverance from external conquest, and had no connection with the internal freedom of national constitutions, that, on the contrary, the war against France had been originally undertaken, if not ostensibly yet really, to oppose the revolutionary temper of France. It was a severe disappointment when the English minister was seen joining with Talleyrand in upholding legitimacy, and for the sake of that principle, and to preserve in its old lines the balance of European power, himself demanding the destruction of the liberty of Belgium and of Genoa, and calmly acquiescing in the absorption of much of Saxony, the final division of Poland, and the destruction of Norway. Even the one constitutional effort which was made, the establishment of a limited monarchy in France, was rendered nugatory by the fact, that the privileges were given as a grant and charter from the crown, and the

1820]

INSURRECTIONS ABROAD

1371

first principle of the English Constitution-that power is from the people-ignored.

policy.

But though in the general triumph of the moment his foreign policy was accepted and even approved, it will be remembered that even Castlereagh felt himself compelled to respect public opinion at home and to hold aloof from the Holy Alliance, which seemed to assert the unity of interests of the crowned heads and their sole right, as of divine origin, to be the governors of the world. It Effect of was the extension of the principles of the Holy Alliance Castlereagh's which had produced the present critical state of Europe, with which his moderate abilities, his natural tendency towards repressive government, aggravated by domestic affairs, and the entanglements in which his policy at the Vienna Treaty had involved him, rendered Castlereagh unable to cope. It was no use to ignore the fact that the French Revolution had given a great impulse to the ideas of constitutional freedom. Even the conquests of Napoleon, followed as they always were by democratic changes, had fostered these ideas in the very countries which had suffered most from them; and when it appeared that all hopes and promises of freedom were entirely illusory, insurrections of the deceived people burst out in several parts of Europe, and where the strength of the government rendered such outbreaks impossible, secret societies, more dangerous and extravagant because they were secret, sprang everywhere into existence.

1820.

The first outbreak was in Spain, where Ferdinand had entirely refused the constitution to which he was pledged, and had Insurrection shown his character by directing his vengeance chiefly in Spain. against those very men who had been most prominent in saving his kingdom from the French. During the occupation of Spain by the French, when the central authority of the mother country was virtually destroyed, the South American colonies had, one after the other, thrown off their allegiance, and were still engaged in making good their independence. It was an army collected at Cadiz for the purpose of reducing the victorious colonies which set the example of insurrection. It mutinied in the beginning of the year 1820, and was so successful that the King was compelled, on the 7th of March, to accept the constitution of 1812, which had been drawn up under the influence of Napoleonic and American ideas. In August the constitutional spirit passed to Portugal. Since the departure of the royal family from Lisbon in 1808, the King had not returned to his European dominions,