The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 2 November 1820
“House of Lords, 2 o’clock, 2nd November.
“Eldon begun
this morning, and it was expected he would have made a great masterly judicial
summing up; instead of which, he spoke for an hour and a quarter only, and a
more feeble argument for his own vote I never heard in all my life. He begun by
intimating very clearly that the preamble of the Bill was to be altered, and
the divorce part given up: then, without reserve or shame, he abandoned
Miocci and Demont, and, in truth,
all the filth of his own green bag, and all the labours of the Milan
commission. Howman’s evidence and the admitted fact
of Bergami’s sleeping on the deck
under the same awning as the Queen, was
his sheet anchor. . . . He said he was perfectly convinced of her guilt, and he
further said that no one who had not the same opinion ought to vote for the
second reading. Erskine followed, and had
spoken for about three quarters of an hour, when he fainted away, and was
carried out of the House; since when, that villain Lauderdale has been speaking.
“Yesterday and today have altered most materially
the state of public opinion as to the fate of this diabolical Bill. The cursed
rats are said to have returned most rapidly to their old quarters, and the
ministerial majority is rising in the market to 40, 45 and 50. It is added,
too, that the Bill is certainly to pass, and to be with us on the 23rd. I will
not give my assent to any one of these reports till I have ocular proof of
their being true; at the same time, with such rogues and madmen as one has to
speculate upon, it is being almost mad oneself to expect anything being done
that is right . . . .”
“Brooks’s, evening.
“Primrose,* who
is a government man, and one of the 16 Scotch Peers, made a very good speech
after Lauderdale—against the Bill. . . . I have just been over Norfolk House with the
duke, and a capital magnificent shop
it is. I dined yesterday at Rogers’s, with Hutchinson, Brougham,
Denman, &c.: to-morrow with
Foley. Seymour Bathurst has just told Lambton
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that the Bill will not go beyond the 2nd reading. God send
this may be true!
Hon. Thomas Seymour Bathurst (1793-1834)
A younger son of the third earl of Bathurst; he served in the 1st Foot Guards and fought
at Waterloo.
Baron Bartolomeo Bergami (1820 fl.)
Queen Caroline's Italian chamberlain and reputed lover; he placed his sister Angelica,
Countess of Oldi as a maid in waiting.
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Queen Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1768-1821)
Married the Prince of Wales in 1795 and separated in 1796; her husband instituted
unsuccessful divorce proceedings in 1820 when she refused to surrender her rights as
queen.
Thomas Denman, first baron Denman (1779-1854)
English barrister and writer for the
Monthly Review; he was MP,
solicitor-general to Queen Caroline (1820), attorney-general (1820), lord chief justice
(1832-1850). Sydney Smith commented, “Denman everybody likes.”
Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823)
Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending
the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the
short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).
Thomas Foley, third baron Foley (1780-1833)
Whig peer, the son of the second baron (d. 1793); educated under Samuel Parr at Hatton
and at Christ Church, Oxford, he was a privy councillor and Lord-Lieutenant of
Worcestershire (1831-33).
Bernard Edward Howard, twelfth duke of Norfolk (1765-1842)
Educated at the English College at Douai, in 1815 he succeeded his third cousin, Charles
Howard, eleventh duke (d. 1815), and took his seat in Parliament after passage of the Roman
Catholic Relief Bill of 1829.
James Maitland, eighth earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839)
Scottish peer allied with Charles James Fox; he was author of
An
Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, and into the Means and causes of
its Increase (1804) and other works on political economy.
Archibald John Primrose, fourth earl of Rosebery (1783-1868)
Son of the third earl, educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge; he succeeded his father
in 1814 and sat in Parliament as a Scottish representative peer (Whig) until being created
a peer of the United Kingdom in 1828.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
John Scott, first earl of Eldon (1751-1838)
Lord chancellor (1801-27); he was legal counsel to the Prince of Wales and an active
opponent of the Reform Bill.
