are contemptible, but you should bear in mind that they are likewise noxious, and steps should be taken which, in any future struggle, must secure the independence of the country against their efforts.

Mr. Brougham had been wise enough not to resign his seat for Winchelsea, for which he was returned now, and again two years afterwards, at the dissolution which succeeded the death of George III.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TRIAL OF QUEEN CAROLINE.

A.D. 1820.

Retrospect of the Life of the Queen-Her Persecutions-Mr. Brougham becomes her Legal Adviser-Accession of George IV., and his demand for a Divorce-The Queen's enthusiastic Reception in England - Preliminary Proceedings - The Trial Brougham's Great SpeechEvents subsequent to the Trial— Brougham's Defence of Ambrose Williams.

We have now arrived at a period in our narrative when Brougham reached the culminating point of his popularity and fame. We are not about to chronicle the noblest achievement of his many-featured life, still less to record the act which stands forth as the most beneficial service he conferred on his country. Were our search for this, we should pursue it in the three fields of what he did for the amendment and cheapening of our law, the extension of our political rights, and the diffusion of education among all classes. But the fact remains that no Englishman ever enjoyed a wider popularity and more enthusiastic admiration in the homes and hearts of the empire, than Brougham in 1820, when he was conducting the defence of the Queen of England against the charges of her libertine husband.

George, Prince of Wales, had been in no haste to marry; he preferred the syrens who ministered to his passions, or the victims whom he succeeded in ensnaring

into shame. But, addicted as he was to every form of vice, he had plunged himself into debt, the annoyance connected with which induced him to adopt any expedient which should relieve him from its pressure. His father's constitutional advisers informed him that they could not apply to Parliament for funds to meet his liabilities unless they could show something in the nature of a "quid pro quo." They suggested to him that he should take a wife, thereby render probable the direct lineal succession to the throne, and, also, at the same time, furnish some guarantee that the tenor of his life for the future would be of such a nature as to make further applications for money less likely. The calculating debauchee accepted the proposal, and his father's Ministers announced the expected matrimony, and solicited the money for the Prince at the same time. This was in 1795. The next thing to be done was to discover a suitable consort for the heir to the British Crown, facetiously known as "the first gentleman in Europe." George III. and his spouse thought that a niece of their own, a Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, would suit best. She was the daughter of the old Duke of Brunswick, one of the best of the fighting men trained in that excellent school for fighting men, the camps of Frederick the Great. She was also the sister of that Brunswick who afterwards fell fighting bravely at the head of his "Black Brunswickers" at Quatre Bras. The Princess Caroline had been brought up by her uncle, who kept open house for all soldiers. Her education appears to have been anything but queenly. She spent her girlish years rather in romping with dragoons than in the society of tutors. and "gouvernantes." Her worst crime seems to have been

the hoydenism which naturally resulted from this upbringing by her rough, hearty, soldier uncle. As she was, she was accepted by the Prince of Wales as his wife. From the first it is plain that he took her as the necessary accompaniment to the payment of his debts. It had been stipulated that his necessities would be relieved if he married. There was nothing in the bond about living cleanlily, as a husband should; about affection, or even delicacy and respect to be shown to his wife. All that the Prince was bound to do was to marry, and with that he contented himself. The Princess, who had already been, in conformity with the curious Royal custom, married by proxy at her uncle's palace, was conveyed to England, and in London she was married to her husband "in propria persona." The young couple lived together without, at least, any outward indication of discord, until a short time after the birth of their child, the Princess Charlotte. An heir being born, there was no longer any interested motive for the concealment of the aversion which, if well authenticated Court gossip be true, the Prince had audibly and insolently expressed when he first set eyes upon his bride. They continued to live together under the roof of Carlton House, but occupying separate apartments, and holding no intercourse with each other. Even this ostensible domestic harmony did not last long, and the Princess accepted a separate establishment, on the distinct understanding that, whatever happened-whether the child lived or not the separation should be final and irrevocable. She took up her abode at Blackheath, established her retinue of servants on a modest scale, lived a life of retirement, and found a vent for her amiable

nature in her abundant deeds of charity. The aversion of the Prince pursued her even to the retreat to which she had withdrawn herself, restricting, as far as he could, her intercourse with her child; and her condition was rendered still more worthy of pity by his influencing his mother, a woman who was heartless to all but her own children, against the unfortunate lady who had left her happy home, stating, in her girlish joy, that she was "vastly happy with her future expectations."

The Princess of Wales did not enter much into society, but a certain lady, a neighbour at Blackheath, Lady Douglas, the wife of Sir Charles Douglas, who was attached to the household of the Duke of Sussex, contrived to ingratiate herself with the Princess; and ere long a fast friendship sprung up between the two. Then they quarrelled, and the Princess forbade the visits of the lady. Lady Douglas was a peculiarly spiteful person, and there is some suspicion that from the first she designed to fabricate some story affecting the honour of her "friend." Whether or not the project was first dictated by revenge at the rejection of her friendship, she did communicate to the Prince the intelligence that his wife was the mother of a boy, born at such a date after the separation as to make it impossible that he was the father of it. Sir Sydney Smith, the hero of St. Jean D'Acre, was said to be the paramour of the Princess, and she was accused of a general levity of behaviour with other gentlemen. A commission was appointed by the King to inquire into these serious charges. Their investigation was careful and protracted, and its result, while not holding the Princess guiltless of the minor charge of a certain impropriety in her extremely trying and difficult