“I have sent your note, having read it. I daresay you think me unfeeling; but I declare that since I first heard I was proceeded against I have suffered more intensely than I ever did in my life. I had neither sleep nor appetite, and I attributed the whole of my illness (at least the severity of it) to the uneasiness of my mind. Now what is this uneasiness for? Not for my own character because, as you justly say, the imputation upon me is as nothing. It is not for the political consequences to myself, although I deeply feel the consequences that my indiscretion may bring upon those who are attached to me or follow my fortunes. The real and principal object of my anxiety and solicitude is you, and the situation in which you have been so unjustly placed by the circumstances which have taken place.”
It is likely that his passionate desire to convince her of his sympathy made him exaggerate a little. He cannot have suffered so profoundly as at the crisis of his marriage. But he was older now, he could stand these strains less well: and perhaps it is true that never before had he felt his nerves so wretchedly upset. Certainly it is the first occasion in this phase of his life that we find people saying that he looked depressed.
Meanwhile he asked the King if he should resign; he was willing to if it was thought proper. The King said no. He suspected the whole affair of being an underhand political plot: and with all his faults, William IV was not the type of man to connive at underhand plots. Nor had his own private life been of a kind to make him take a censorious view of Melbourne’s alleged misconduct. The Duke of Wellington also took steps to let Melbourne know that he saw no cause for resignation. On the contrary, he said he would refuse to take office in any Government that might be formed as a result of it. He too was not the man to be particular in such matters. Besides he was very anxious to dissociate himself from the intrigues of his shadier supporters.
The case came up for trial on 23rd June. Public excitement was tremendous. Couriers waited all day ready to carry the news of the verdict to every important capital in Europe. From early morning, the law courts were besieged by huge crowds trying to get seats: so much so that the Attorney General, Sir John Campbell, who was appearing for Melbourne, had considerable difficulty in pushing his way through the throng. During the whole day before he had been feeling acutely apprehensive. Who knew what apparently damning evidence George Norton might have contrived to concoct in order to gain his ends? Campbell need not have worried. Dickens was to satirize the case a year or two later in the Pickwick Papers: and in fact, the proceedings did turn out to be a scene of grotesque Dickensian farce. Hogarthian rather: for much of the evidence offered was of too scandalous a kind to find a place on the chaste pages of a Victorian novel. Melbourne and Caroline were not present, though Melbourne sent an affidavit asserting his innocence. George Norton could not by law go into the witness box himself. Instead, he relied on the evidence of a handful of servants once in his employ, whom he had tracked down after months of search in the underworld of London and then persuaded by means of lavish bribes to come forward on his behalf. They were of a type to cast a lurid light on the character of life below stairs in the Norton household. Two were women who had been discharged on account of their indiscreet familiarities with members of His Majesty’s Brigade of Guards; while the chief male witness was a groom called Fluke who had been dismissed for his habitual drunkenness. Fluke was an engaging character. It was reported that he had refused at the last moment to come to court unless he was brought in a chaise and four, and was given both chicken and duckling for breakfast before starting.
“I had had a drop too much,” he confided to the court, when relating an incident in his evidence.
“You like to speak the truth sometimes?” said Campbell sarcastically. “You took a drop too much, eh?” Fluke resented the tone of his remark.
“I don’t know who does not. We are all alike for that, masters and servants,” he answered.
“How often did you take a drop too much while in Mrs. Norton’s service?” asked Campbell.
“What Sir, during four years service!” exclaimed the astonished Fluke. “You have put a very heavy question!” It also transpired during his examination that Fluke had spent the last weeks living at a public house on the Norton family estate and had had several interviews with George Norton. The chief documentary evidence brought forward were three notes from Melbourne. The first ran, “I will call about quarter-past four. Yours, Melbourne.”
The second, “How are you? I shall not be able to come today. I shall tomorrow.”
The third, “No House today: I will call after the levee. If you wish it later I will let you know.”
Norton’s Counsel did what he could with these unpromising documents. He said they showed “a great and unwarrantable degree of affection,” because they did not begin My Dear Mrs. Norton, and added, “there may be latent love like latent heat in the midst of icy coldness.” This mysterious and imaginative reflection failed to make the impression on the court which its author desired. The proceedings, which lasted for nearly thirteen hours, were frequently interrupted by bursts of uproarious laughter. Campbell called no witnesses for the defence. Instead, rising at six o’clock and continuing till the candles guttered low in their sockets, he demolished the evidence offered on behalf of the plaintiff in a speech which all present agreed to be one of the most brilliant exhibitions of legal wit and eloquence ever heard in an English Court of Justice. The case ended just before midnight: the Jury acquitted Melbourne without leaving the box. The verdict was received with thunderous applause. Late as it was, Campbell went down to the House of Commons, where the news of his success had preceded him, and was met with another great outburst of cheering. Even the bitterest Tory did not dare to question the justice of the verdict. “As far as I can see,” said one acidly, “Melbourne had more opportunities than any man ever had before and made no use of them.”
On the whole the Prime Minister’s reputation was affected wonderfully little by the affair. The newspapers indeed, on the morning after the trial, maintained the lofty and censorious tone which, as self-appointed guardians of public morality, they had assumed throughout. The Times, though it accepted the verdict, reproved Caroline’s conduct as “imprudent, indiscreet, and undignified, and the very last we should hold up as an example to an English wife.” As for Melbourne, a man who could waste his own and the lady’s time on such “contemptible and unnecessary frivolities” was, it said, utterly unfit for his high office.
This view does not seem to have been shared by any one in the world of politics and fashion in which Melbourne lived: while, as might have been expected, his own relations, little as they cared for Mrs. Norton—why must William always involve himself with such impossible women?—rallied round him with all that sense of family solidarity which was characteristic of them. “The whole thing seems to leave the lady in a position where, with a little protection, she may do very well,” wrote Frederick Lamb to his sister Emily. “We know them for canaille, but we must help her as well as we can. Do not let William think himself invulnerable for having got off again this time. No man’s luck can go further.”
William did not think himself invulnerable. No doubt it was a great load off his mind. The night of the trial, walking home by Storey’s Gate, he saw a young lawyer of his acquaintance staring curiously at Mrs. Norton’s house. Melbourne touched him on the shoulder. “What does this mean, Mr. Solicitor?” he asked with a roguish look. But he did not feel so carefree as to imagine he could risk resuming his intimacy with Caroline on anything like the old terms. It was sad; for he had grown in his loneliness to depend on her very much. But it was inevitable. All the same, he still felt responsible for her and very much concerned about her future prospects. Those were not bright. In spite of the fact that she had been exonerated, the trial was a disaster for her. It cut her off indefinitely from her children: and, for all that Frederick Lamb might say to the contrary, it struck a dangerous blow at her precarious social posit
ion. Many people still thought her guilty; at the best, she had shown herself extremely indiscreet. Nor did her flamboyant personality enable her to play the role of innocent, injured woman in such a way as to disarm the suspicions of the censorious. Besides, she was very poor. Legally everything she possessed down to her very jewels belonged to George Norton, even if she got a legal separation from him: and he was prepared to claim all his legal rights. Melbourne was all the more worried about her because for some time after the trial he did not hear a word from her, though he had written more than once. He began to wonder if she had not turned against him as one of the authors of her troubles. At last she did answer, miserable and bitter indeed, but against Norton, not himself. He replied in a series of letters in which are apparent the mingled strains of his feelings in regard to her: regret, affection, pity, a sense of personal responsibility and chivalrous indignation with Norton.
“Well, come what may, I will never again from silence or any other symptom think that you can mean anything unkind or averse to me. I have already told you that most of the bitterness which I have felt during this affair was on your account. I do not think your application to Norton was judicious.12 Every communication elates him and encourages him to persevere in his brutality. You ought to know him better than I do and must do so. But you seem to me to be hardly aware what a gnome he is, how perfectly earthy and bestial. He is possessed of a devil, and that the immensest and basest fiend that disgraces the infernal regions. In my opinion he has made the whole matter subservient to his pecuniary interests . . . Now that he has nobody to advise or control or soothe him, what follies or what abominable conduct he may pursue it is impossible to conjecture. I pity you about the children . . . It is most melancholy not to know where they are or with whom. I have never mentioned money to you. I hardly like to do it now. Your feelings have been so galled that they have naturally become very sore and sensitive. I know how you might take it. I have had, at times, a great mind to send you some but I feared to do so. As I trust we are now upon terms of confidential and affectionate friendship, I venture to say that you have only to express a wish and it shall be instantly complied with. I miss you. I miss your society and conversation every day at the hours at which I was accustomed to enjoy it: and when you say that your place can be easily supplied, you indulge in a little vanity and self-conceit. You know well enough that there is nobody who can fill your place . . . I saw Brinsley and his wife the other night at Lord Hertford’s. I thought him rather cold. None of them seemed really glad to see me, except Charles. But there is no reason why they should be. If they went upon my principle, or rather my practice of disliking those who cause trouble, uneasiness, vexation, without considering why they do it, they certainly would not rejoice in my presence.”
Towards the end of the year his private life was disturbed by yet another shock. For some months, Augustus Lamb’s health had shown signs of breaking up. The attacks from which he has suffered since a child came oftener and more violently. In spite of all his other preoccupations, Melbourne had watched over him as carefully as he could: had him with him when he was working, and sat in his room for hours together observing vigilantly every varying symptom of his condition. One evening in November they were together and Melbourne was writing when Augustus suddenly said, “I wish you would give me some franks that I may write to people who have been kind in their enquiries.” Words and tone were those of a sane, mature man: Melbourne’s pen dropped from his hand in astonishment. “I cannot give any notion of what I felt,” he related, “for I believe it to be, as it proved, the summons they call the lightening before death. In a few hours he was gone.” Melbourne’s words are calm and he went back to work at once, to all outward appearance his usual smiling self. But Augustus was his only child, and he had loved him with the ardour of a starved and tender heart. The event cast a greyer shadow on the last months of 1836.
There was nothing to dissipate it in his professional life. The Government continued, as it had for some months past, to jolt and creak along its accustomed round, checked and harassed as before by King and Peers, Irish and Radicals. The King’s moods were various. Violently out of temper during August, he was sufficiently softened by November to send his Ministers an invitation to dinner, accompanied by the alarming proviso that he expected them each to drink two bottles of wine. In December, however, he had turned against them once more: and, though his experiences in 1834 had taught him not to try and get rid of them on his own initiative, he remained for the rest of his reign hostile. The House of Lords, too, was very obstreperous. It threw out the Irish Church Bill at the end of 1836; mainly because it still objected to the clause appropriating Church revenue to secular purposes. Melbourne took the opportunity to persuade his colleagues to drop this clause. The House of Lords was not sufficiently pacified to pass the Bill; and the Irish were very much annoyed. One evening in December sitting at Lord Sefton’s, Creevey told Melbourne that he had heard O’Connell was likely to stop supporting the Government.
“God!” remarked Melbourne with placid interest. “It’s a curious thing—two or three people have said the same thing to me.”—and then after a pause, “God, perhaps it is so!” Creevey was amazed at the detachment with which the Prime Minister seemed to contemplate an event that must lead to the downfall of his Government. In fact O’Connell still preferred the Whigs to the Tories and so did not withdraw his support. His followers, however, were displeased. So were the Radicals. Every concession to the opposition made them harder to control. Meanwhile the Government appeared so weak that moderate opinion in the country was veering more and more round to Peel. The effect of all this was to exhaust the patience of Ministers to breaking point. John Russell began periodically threatening resignation again; and from the beginning of 1836 there was a growing party in the Cabinet who wanted to stop compromise, even if it meant that the Government went out. Melbourne felt a good deal of sympathy with them. The strain of accommodating himself to the King’s temper and what he called “Peel’s low creeping policy” was becoming more than he could bear. But his view of the general political situation had not altered; and against his private inclinations he still thought the Whigs ought to stick on. “A Minister has no more right to treat a case as desperate than a physician,” he remarked, “events are too uncertain and results differ too much from anticipation, to permit such conduct.” As late as May, 1837, he is still telling John Russell that he feared lest the fall of the Whigs might throw the country into a dangerous chaos. All the same, he cannot have thought the Government able to hang on much longer.
If it should fall, Melbourne’s career might well seem to have come to its end. The Whig wave was spent, the Tories were likely to be in for a considerable time. Melbourne was fifty-seven, and old for his years: it was improbable that he would be Prime Minister again. Dawning late, his difficult, frustrated, unrewarding day of eminence looked as if it would soon be over. In fact his unpredictable fate had yet one more surprise in store for him. The most brilliant phase of his whole history was just round the corner.
* * *
9 There are various conflicting accounts of the Government’s actual dismissal. Croker says that Melbourne resigned voluntarily. The account in Lord Holland’s unpublished diary shows that if this was so, he concealed the truth, not only from the world but from his closest colleagues. This is not in keeping with his character. Besides they must have found out: and would have lost all confidence in him in consequence.
10 Melbourne, who both as an Englishman and a gentleman disliked O’Connell, professed to know nothing of this compact. But he certainly took advantage of it as indeed was necessary for the success of his own Irish policy.
11 It must be admitted that Melbourne on his side had no great opinion of the Bishops. “What a good, simple-hearted old man the Archbishop of Canterbury is!” said a colleague to him one day. “He is the damnedest fool alive!” replied Melbourne.
12 T
his appears to have been an application for money.
Chapter Fourteen
The Queen: First Phase
(1)
In the middle of May, 1837, political circles in London were thrown into fresh agitation by an unforeseen event. King William IV fell dangerously ill. After several weeks hovering between life and death, he breathed his last in the early hours of 20th June. At nine o’clock of the same morning the Prime Minister, in the full dress uniform of a Privy Councillor, arrived at Kensington Palace to pay his respects to the new Queen. He was ushered into a small room where he found himself alone in the presence of a round-cheeked, blue-eyed little figure, dressed very plainly in deep mourning, who with an air at once childish and regal held out her hand for him to kiss. In artless words and a sweet, clear treble, she told Melbourne that she wished him and his colleagues to continue in office; and then listened with attention, while he read to her the speech he had written for her to make later in the morning to the Privy Council. He asked if she would like to be supported by the chief officers of her realm on entering the room at this, her first public appearance as a sovereign. The Queen replied, at once and with composure, No—she preferred to come in alone. Melbourne then kissed hands again and withdrew. A short time before the Council, he returned in case she wanted any further advice as to how to conduct herself at it. He need hardly have bothered. Once or twice, the Queen was observed to look enquiringly at her Prime Minister as if in doubt what to do next; but for the most part, she amazed all beholders by the modest and graceful self-possession with which, in the face of a large and august audience, she went through the stately ceremonies of her inauguration. After dinner that night, Melbourne came back once more for an hour’s leisurely talk with her. “I had a very important and very comfortable conversation with him,” wrote the Queen in her diary that evening.
The Young Melbourne & Lord M Page 31
