[358]George, third Lord Boston (1777–1869).
[359]Frederick, second Lord Boston (1749–1825).
[360]Daughter of the second Earl of Chichester; married in October 1837 to the Rev. and Hon. L. J. Barrington.
[361]Lady Melbourne was a daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, and William Lamb was her favourite son. When Peniston, her eldest son, died, she encouraged William to devote himself to politics and to abandon the Bar.
[362]The Canadian question was one of the most difficult of the early years of the Queen’s reign. Upper and Lower Canada were totally dissimilar in race, tradition, and natural position. Lower Canada was peopled mainly by French Roman Catholics, Upper Canada by Scottish Protestants, and the mode of Government in both was as cumbrous and inappropriate as it could well be, and afforded unquestionable ground for grievance on the part of the inhabitants. In 1836 a rebellion broke out in the Lower Province headed by Papineau, who had been Speaker of the Assembly. This was followed by an insurrection in the Upper Province, which was quelled in a striking and almost quixotic manner by Sir Francis Head, the Governor, who, dismissing all his regular troops to the Lower Province, trusted to the people to put down the malcontents, and succeeded. Lord Durham was sent out in 1838 as High Commissioner and Governor-General. His report on the proper method of administering the Colony is historical, and ultimately formed the basis of settlement. His acts were not approved by the Whig Government and were annulled by them. He anticipated his recall by resigning and coming home before the end of 1838.
[363]Charles, second son of Lord Grey, the ex-Premier. He was Equerry to the Queen, and had a year or two earlier defeated Disraeli at the High Wycombe election. He became Private Secretary to Prince Albert and later to the Queen. He spent all the years of his life in the Queen’s service, and was always helpful, wise, and unbiassed in the advice he tendered her. The present Earl Grey, Lady Victoria Dawnay, Lady Antrim, and Lady Minto are his surviving children. Many good judges considered his abilities of a higher order than those of his father.
[364]Lady Caroline Ponsonby, daughter of the third Earl of Bessborough, a lady of eccentric mind and habits. She was thrown off her mental and moral balance by her acquaintance with Lord Byron, not perhaps so surprising as the fact that she never recovered either even after Byron’s death.
[365]Lord Melbourne’s brother, afterwards Lord Beauvale, Ambassador Extraordinary at Vienna. As a diplomatist he was irreproachable, handsome, agreeable, and adroit. In private life he was not altogethersans reproche. Without his brother William’s literary acquirements, and with less sarcasm and pungent wit, he yet had a vigorous understanding, much information, and no little capacity for affairs. At sixty years of age, and in broken health, he married a very young lady, the daughter of Count Maltzahn, the Prussian Minister at Vienna.
[366]Henry Richard, third Lord Holland of the 1762 creation, was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Under the auspices of his wife, Holland House, Kensington, was for many years the Zoar of weary Whig politicians. Seeante, p. 101, note.
[367]Amelia, daughter of the Grand Duke of Oldenbourg, married to Otho I., King of Greece.
[368]Uncle of the Emperor.
[369]Nicholas I., reigned 1826–55.
[370]Ferdinand I., born in 1793, succeeded his father, Francis I., in 1835. He was brother to Napoleon’s second wife, Marie Louise.
[371]Charles, fourth Earl of Harrington, married Maria, daughter of Samuel Foote the actor.
[372]William, first Earl of Craven, married Louisa, an undistinguished actress, daughter of John Brunton of Norwich.
[373]Edward, twelfth Earl of Derby, married Elizabeth Farren, a Haymarket actress of considerable beauty and charm.
[374]Afterwards Field-Marshal and first Lord Seaton. He was one of Wellington’s generals in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. He was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and on Lord Durham’s recall was nominated to succeed him.
[375]Lord Francis Egerton was the second son of George Granville, first Duke of Sutherland. The immense fortune of Francis, third and last Duke of Bridgewater (the father of English inland navigation and, in conjunction with Brindley, constructor of the canal which bears his name) was devised to the first Duke of Sutherland for life, and thereafter to Lord Francis, who on attaining possession assumed the surname of Egerton, in lieu of Leveson-Gower. A “condition subsequent” tending to divest the property in a certain event was decided to be opposed to “public policy.” Lord Francis was created Earl of Ellesmere in 1846.
[376]Lady Falkland. Amelia Fitzclarence, daughter of William IV. Seeante, p. 113.
[377]Edward Berkeley Portman, representative of an old Dorsetshire and Somersetshire family, was created Baron Portman in 1837. In 1827 he married Emma, third daughter of the Earl of Harewood, who was at this time one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria.
[378]This high Constitutional doctrine was certain to meet with the approval of a Whig like Lord Melbourne. It has been the secret of ministerial responsibility and of executive power in the Constitution of this country, and its working has been admired by many foreign observers.
[379]Baron Alexander von Munchausen, a Hanoverian diplomatist, was then about twenty-five. He wasnotthe hero of a celebrated romance.
[380]That the Queen always retained a sentiment for her dolls may be realised from the care with which they were preserved. They are exhibited in the London Museum at Kensington, arranged and ticketed with the names given to them by Princess Victoria.
[381]Letitia, wife of Sir Hussey (afterwards Lord) Vivian. The child Lalage married, in 1857, Henry Hyde Nugent Bankes, son of the Right Hon. George Bankes.
[382]Seeante, p. 73.
[383]Mr. (afterwards Rt. Hon.) John Arthur Roebuck. A Liberal “free lance,” who earned thesobriquetof “Tear-’em.” Lord John Russell had brought in a Bill for suspending the Constitution of Canada, and Mr. Roebuck, who was not at the time in Parliament, claimed to be heard at the bar of both Houses as agent for the Lower Province. He made a very able but bitter speech.
[384]Catherine, widow of the twelfth Earl of Desmond, died in 1604, having survived her husband seventy years. There seems much doubt about the principal dates of her life,e.g.those of her birth and marriage, but she issaidto have attained the remarkable age of 140 years, and to have died by a fall from a cherry-tree. Sir Walter Raleigh records that he knew her and that she “was married in Edward IV.’s time.”
[385]Henry Brooke Parnell had been member for Maryborough in the Irish House of Commons, and was now member for Dundee. He was made Paymaster-General on that office being constituted in 1838. Afterwards created Lord Congleton.
[386]The Duke never allowed political feeling to interfere with what he considered public duty. As a politician he was a Tory; but as a soldier he had no politics.
[387]Lord Ellenborough (1790–1871) was a son of the Chief Justice, and sat in several Conservative Cabinets. He was Governor-General of India in 1844, and recalled from his post by the directors of the East India Company in opposition to the wish of the Cabinet, who at once recommended him for an earldom. He was too imaginative and daring for the post of Governor-General at this period of Indian administrative history; but his memory was often revived in the person of a more daring and more brilliant successor in that high office.
[388]Alexander, first Lord Ashburton, had been President of the Board of Trade in the brief Peel Administration of 1834–5. He married Miss Bingham of Philadelphia. Seeante, p. 199.
[389]David William, third Earl of Mansfield (1777–1840).
[390]Charles William, fifth Earl (1786–1857).
[391]Seeante, p. 261. Lady Francis was Harriet, eldest daughter of Charles Greville, the father of the diarist.
[392]Stafford House was built by the Duke of York. It is Crown property vested in the Commission of Woods and Forests. The present (1912) Duke of Sutherland obtained an extension of the Crown lease a few years ago.
[393]Charles Philip, fourth Earl of Hardwicke, had married Susan, daughter of the first Lord Ravensworth. Seeante, p. 84, n.
[394]Tempora mutantur.
[395]At the opening of the Queen’s first Parliament in 1837 Lord Leveson [afterwards Lord Granville and Foreign Secretary] had moved in the House of Commons the address in reply to her speech, looking, wrote Disraeli, himself also a new member, “like a child.” Lord Leveson was twenty-two years old, and the Queen had met him a few years earlier at Christ Church. Seeante, p. 60. His mother, Lady Granville, was Henrietta, daughter of the fifth Duke of Devonshire.
[396]Lady Lilford was a daughter of Lord and Lady Holland.
[397]Charles Christopher, first Lord Cottenham. On Lord Melbourne forming his second Ministry, the Great Seal was not offered to Brougham, but at first put into Commission. Pepys, Master of the Rolls, was one of the Commissioners, and became a little later Chancellor.
[398]William Henry, second Earl of Dunraven (1782–1850).
[399]Seeante, p. 278.
[400]She was Louisa Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Grey the ex-Premier, mother of the “Master Lambton” of Lawrence’s portrait, who died, aged fourteen, and grandmother of the present Earl of Durham, K.G.
[401]King Otho had accepted the throne of Greece in October 1832, and ascended it three months later. This was done in virtue of a request from Greece to Great Britain, France, and Russia.
[402]Mahmud II., Sultan (1808–39), succeeded in the latter year by Abdul-Medjid.
[403]Of some fame, but little merit. He managed the stables of George IV., when Prince of Wales.
[404]This rule was followed with invariable and prudent strictness by the Queen throughout her reign. She was never swayed in action by gossip, however subtle or ill-natured—she required proof; and this rule governed her decision in regard to disputes as to the eligibility of all persons to be invited to Court.
[405]Lord Howe’s attitude was one of hostility to the Government. Seeante, p. 113.
[406]George Bartley (died in 1858), a Shakespearean actor who could play Orlando as well as Falstaff. For a time stage-manager at Covent Garden.
[407]Drinkwater Meadows (1799–1869), an excellent performer in comedy of the more eccentric type.
[408]Edgar William Elton (1794–1843) created this part of Beauséant; he also played Romeo, and (with much success) Edgar inLear.
[409]The disposal of these prisoners was a difficult matter which became acute in theinterregnumbetween the departure of Lord Gosford and the arrival of Lord Durham. Sir John Colborne postponed a decision of the matter, and ultimately the prisoners were dealt with according to the gravity of the case, some being merely bound over, others deported to Bermuda.
[410]Great complaints were being made of the cruelty of the Jamaica planters to their negro apprentices, and Brougham had put himself at the head of an agitation in favour of immediate emancipation. Accordingly the Government introduced a Bill regulating the hours of labour, erecting arbitration tribunals for appraising the value of apprentices desiring a discharge, and forbidding the whipping or cutting the hair of female apprentices, or their being placed on a treadmill, or in the chair of a penal gang.
[411]Street riots had broken out at Lisbon, but the Queen behaved with great courage, and, after Costa Cabral had been installed as Civil Governor of the city, the insurgent forces were dispersed. The occurrence of Donna Maria’s nineteenth birthday on 4th April was marked by an amnesty, purporting to blot out the revolutionary actions of the last eighteen months.
[412]John, second Marquess and fifth Earl of Breadalbane, F.R.S. (1796–1862).
[413]A distinguished Peninsular officer, who had commanded the Portuguese division at Vittoria; Commander-in-chief at Bombay 1825–9.
[414]John, afterwards eleventh Earl of Westmorland, son of John, tenth Earl and Sarah Anne his wife, only daughter and heir of Robert Child of Osterley Park. His sister, Lady Jersey (who died in 1867), succeeded to the banker’s great fortune. Seeante, p. 149.
[415]Major-General Sir A. Dickson, R.A., had been Superintendent of Artillery Operations in the Peninsula, and fought at Waterloo, and was Director-General of the Field-train Department.
[416]Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy (1769–1839), Captain of theVictoryat Trafalgar. In 1830 he was First Sea Lord, and, later, Governor of Greenwich Hospital, a post he was holding at this time.
[417]Lord Minto. Seeante, p. 200.
[418]Lord Howick. Seeante, p. 200.
[419]“Your Majesty’s most affectionate Friend, Aunt, and Subject, Adelaide.”
[420]Lord Melbourne’s sister, afterwards Lady Palmerston. See p. 242.
[421]Dietz had been Governor to Prince Ferdinand, and accompanied him to Portugal, where he took a considerable part in political affairs.
[422]George, Lord Byron, succeeded his cousin the poet in 1824. He was an extra Lord-in-waiting to the Queen.
[423]It was altered by King Edward in 1905, and the Prime Minister now takes rank immediately after the Archbishop of York.
[424]Whig M.P. for West Riding of Yorkshire.
[425]Joseph Pease, M.P. for South Durham, had been a pioneer of railway construction, and had assisted his father in forming (upon the persuasion of George Stephenson) the Stockton and Darlington line.
[426]Sir George Grey of Falloden, Northumberland, second Baronet (1799–1882), Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Appointed Judge Advocate-General in 1839, and in 1846 Home Secretary under Lord John Russell, an office which he held for nearly twenty years. He was a man of fine presence and great social charm. His high moral qualities and freedom from personal ambition gained for him the esteem of both political parties and the confidence of his countrymen. He has been worthily succeeded in his title and all else by his grandson, Sir Edward Grey, K.G.
[427]This brilliant advocate, who died at the age of forty-seven, had been Peel’s Solicitor-General, and became Attorney-General in 1841. He appeared for Norton in his action forcrim. con.against Melbourne, without any success, for the charge was triumphantly refuted.
[428]Seeante, p. 149.
[429]The Hon. F. G. Byng, sometime Gentleman Usher of the Privy Chamber.
[430]He would have been 50 on January 22, 1838.
[431]She was an illegitimate daughter of Edward Walpole (second son of Sir Robert) by Mary Clement, a sempstress in Pall Mall. Their two other daughters became Countess of Albemarle and Countess of Dysart respectively.
[432]Married her cousin George, seventh Earl Waldegrave.
[433]Wife of George, second Duke of Grafton.
[434]Father of the Admiral, Sir Beauchamp Seymour, Lord Alcester.
[435]To William, second Earl, when Lord Cavendish.
[436]Holland House was built by Sir Walter Cope in 1607. His daughter and co-heiress married Henry Rich, first Earl of Holland.
[437]Wife of James Howard, afterwards third Earl of Malmesbury.
[438]Sir William Knighton had been physician to George IV., when Prince of Wales, and was private secretary and Keeper of his Privy Purse when King. The King employed him in various confidential matters.
[439]Queen Victoria in 1872 wrote of Louis as “the former faithful and devoted friend of Princess Charlotte—beloved and respected by all who knew her—and who doted on the little Princess who was too much an idol in the House. This dear old lady was visited by every one, and was the only really devoted attendant of the poor Princess, whose governesses paid little real attention to her, and who never left her, and was with her when she died.” See p. 62.
[440]Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, was appointed Ambassador of the King of the French at Queen Victoria’s Coronation. He had been Wellington’s antagonist in the Peninsula, and this added to his popularity with the masses of the London streets.
[441]General Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, K.C.B., G.C.M.G., second son of the third Earl of Bessborough, and brother of Lady Caroline Lamb. He was the father of the late Sir Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria’s private secretary and Keeper of her Privy Purse.
[442]Lady Charlotte Campbell, daughter of the fifth Duke of Argyll, married, first, Colonel Campbell, and second, Rev. E. J. Bury; was Lady-in-Waiting to Caroline, Princess of Wales. She was a friend and patroness of Sir W. Scott, and wrote several novels. In 1838 appearedA Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV., which was attributed to her by Lord Brougham—a charge which was never denied. The work was severely criticised.
[443]Francis Charles, third Marquess (1777–1842), the “Lord Monmouth” ofConingsby. His son, here called Lord Yarmouth, succeeded him and died unmarried in 1870. The fourth Marquess was the founder of the magnificent collections now the property of the nation at Hertford House.
[444]Her paternity was in dispute between the Duke of Queensberry and George Selwyn.
[445]Lord Yarmouth, afterwards fourth Marquess, and his brother Lord Henry Seymour always lived in Paris. Lord Hertford possessed a fine apartment at the corner of the Rue Lafite and a country place called “Bagatelle” in the Bois de Boulogne. Subsequently they passed to Sir R. Wallace and later to Sir John Murray Scott. Bagatelle is now the property of the Municipality of Paris.
[446]Hortense Eugenie Claire, daughter of Duc de Bassano, Minister of Napoleon I., married 1833 to Francis Baring, afterwards third Lord Ashburton.
[447]Comte de Flahaut, son of Comtesse de Flahaut Adele, who was afterwards Baronne de Souza, had once been French Ambassador in London, as Sebastiani now was, but there was a competition between Flahaut and Soult as to which should be specially appointed to represent the King of the French at the Coronation. His likeness to Napoleon III. was considered remarkable and significant.
[448]Wife of Major-General Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., and daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his wife Pamela, daughter of Madame de Genlis.
[449]Afterwards George IV.
[450]Garth was an eminent physician in the time of William III. and Queen Anne. He wrote occasional verses fluently, and his poem “The Dispensary” had a great vogue for fifty years.
[451]Elizabeth, wife of Peregrine, third Duke of Ancaster.
[452]Georgiana, daughter of the third Duke of Ancaster, and widow of the first Marquess of Cholmondeley.
[453]Priscilla, also daughter of the third Duke of Ancaster. On the death of their brother unmarried, the barony of Willoughby de Eresby fell into abeyance between the sisters, which was terminated by the Crown in favour of Priscilla, the elder, in 1780.
[454]The barony of Fauconberg, of an earlier creation, was revived in 1903 in favour of the present (1912) Countess of Yarborough, daughter and co-heir of the twelfth Lord Conyers.
[455]Cromwell’s son-in-law was promoted from Viscount to be Earl Fauconberg. He left no child. His great-nephew was again created Earl, and married a sister of Peniston, first Viscount Melbourne. Their daughters married as follows: Lady Charlotte Bellasyse to Thomas Edward Wynn, Anne to Sir George Wombwell, Elizabeth successively to the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Lucan.
[456]Henry Fox (afterwards fourth and last Lord Holland) married Lady Augusta Coventry; at her death in 1889, Holland House, Kensington, became the property of Lord Ilchester.
[457]21st December, 1785.
[458]Daniel Maclise (1806–70). His first success was a sketch of Sir Walter Scott drawn by him unobserved. His best-known works are the two cartoons in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1840.
[459]John, sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, Premier Earl of England. This question of the oath to be taken by Roman Catholic peers and members had been repeatedly brought forward by the Bishop of Exeter. It pledged the jurant to do nothing to “disturb or weaken the Protestant Religion or Protestant Government, or to subvert the Church establishment.” A gentleman wrote to the Bishop to say that he could not take the oath, as his wish was to upset the Church establishment, and he was therefore excluded from Parliament. Seeante, p. 56.
[460]Prince George of Cambridge. Seeante, p. 77.
[461]Eldest son of the third Earl of Roden, and died in his father’s lifetime. In 1841 he married Lady Fanny Cowper. Seeante, p. 188.
[462]Grandson of the Duke of Norfolk. Seeante, p. 190.
[463]Afterwards fourth Earl of Radnor. Seeante, p. 60.
[464]Edward Vernon, fourth Lord Suffield (1813–53).
[465]Georgiana, Lady Seymour, Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton Tournament. One of the Sheridan sisters. Seeante, p. 192.
[466]Daughter of Mr. Canning, the Prime Minister, and wife of the first Marquess of Clanricarde. See Vol. II. pp. 75 and 261.
[467]Daughter of the second Earl de Grey, K.G., and sister of Lady Cowper. She was married to Mr. Henry Vyner.
[468]Daughter of G. G. Vernon Harcourt, M.P. Lord Norreys succeeded in 1854 to the earldom of Abingdon. Seeante, p. 132.
[469]Daughter of the eleventh Earl of Pembroke, afterwards wife of Viscount de Vesci. Seeante, p. 77.
[470]Sister of Lady Emma Herbert, and wife of the third Earl of Clanwilliam.
[471]Daughter of the first Earl of Verulam. She married Lord Folkestone (see preceding page) in 1840. Seeante, p. 189.
[472]Sister of Lord Jocelyn (see preceding page) and wife of the sixth Viscount Powerscourt.
[473]Daughter of the third Viscount Hawarden.
[474]Clementina, sister of the fourteenth Lord Elphinstone, afterwards wife of the fourth Viscount Hawarden.
[475]Daughter of Lord Anglesey, and sister of Lord Uxbridge. She married in 1851 Frederick, son of the third Earl Cadogan.
[476]Sir Thomas Acland, tenth Bart.
[477]Alexander, tenth Duke (1767–1852).
[478]Edward Adolphus, eleventh Duke. Seeante, p. 68.
[479]James, sixth Duke (1816–1879).
[480]To rescind the Irish Church resolution of 1835.
[481]Charles William, third Marquess, half-brother of the eminent statesman, better remembered as Lord Castlereagh. Lord Londonderry was a soldier and diplomatist.
[482]George O’Brien, third Earl of Egremont, died unmarried in November 1837, aged eighty-six. Lady Munster was his illegitimate daughter, but his estates in Sussex and Cumberland were devised to other adopted heirs.