April 8th, 1829
I have mentioned above (March 4th14), p. 180, the Chancellor, the Duke, and Peel going to the King, and the alarm that prevailed here. That day the Catholic question was in great jeopardy. They went to tell the King that unless he would give them his real, efficient support, and not throw his indirect influence into the opposite scale, they would resign. He refused to give them that support; they placed their resignations in his hands and came away. The King then sent to Eldon, and asked him if he would undertake to form a Government. He deliberated (then it was that it was question of the Duke of Richmond being First Lord or Lord-Lieutenant), but eventually said he could not undertake it. On his refusal the King yielded, and the Bill went on; but if Eldon had accepted, the Duke and his colleagues would have been out, and God knows what would have happened. It was, of course, of all these matters that the King talked to Eldon in the long interview they had the other day. He is very sulky at the great majority in the House of Lords, as I knew he would be.
Lady Jersey is in a fury with Lord Anglesey, and goes about saying he insulted her in the House of Lords the other night. She was sitting on one of the steps of the throne, and the Duchess of Richmond on the step above. After Lord Anglesey had spoken he came to talk to the Duchess, who said, ‘How well you did speak;’ on which he said, ‘Hush! you must take care what you say, for here is Lady Jersey, and she reports for the newspapers;’ on which Lady Jersey said very angrily, ‘Lady Jersey is here for her own amusement; what do you mean by reporting for newspapers?’ to which he replied with a profound bow, ‘I beg your Ladyship’s pardon; I did not mean to offend you, and if I did I beg to make the most ample apology.’ This is his version; hers, of course, is different. He says that he meant the whole thing as a joke. It was a very bad joke if it was one, and as he knows how she abuses him, one may suspect that there was something more than joking in it.
The other night Lord Grey had called Lord Falmouth to order, and after the debate Falmouth came up to him with a menacing air and said, ‘My Lord Grey, I wish to inform you that if upon any future occasion you transgress in the slightest degree the orders of the House, I shall most certainly call you to order.’ Lord Grey, who expected from his air something more hostile, merely said, ‘My Lord, your Lordship will do perfectly right, and whenever I am out of order I hope you will.’ Last night old Eldon got a dressing again from the Chancellor.
Notes
14 [It was on the 3rd of March that this interview took place, as related by Sir R. Peel himself in his ‘Memoir’ (vol. i. p. 343). The King asked his Ministers to explain the details of the measure they proposed to bring in. They informed his Majesty that it would be necessary to modify in the case of the Roman Catholics that part of the oath of supremacy which relates to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and supremacy of the Pope. To this the King said he could not possibly consent. Upon this Mr. Peel and his colleagues informed his Majesty that they must resign. His Majesty accepted the resignations, and the Ministers returned to London (after an audience of five hours) under the full persuasion that the Government was dissolved. In the interval some attempt was made to form a Protestant Cabinet; but on the evening of the following day, the 4th of March, the King wrote a letter to the Duke of Wellington, informing him that his Majesty anticipated so much difficulty in the attempt to form another Administration that he could not dispense with his Ministers’ services, and that they were at liberty to proceed with the measures of which notice had been given in Parliament.]