“. . . Here is Brougham again. He has been at Harwich, where he saw the body of the Queen embarked about 3 o’clock on Thursday; and then immediately came across the country, and, after travelling all night, got here to dinner yesterday, and proceeds to Durham to-night to join the circuit there. I wish very much I had been at Harwich: according to Brougham’s account it must have been the most touching spectacle that can be imagined—the day magnificently beautiful—the sea as smooth as glass—our officers by land and sea all full dressed—soldiers and sailors all behaving themselves with the most touching solemnity—the yards of the four ships of war all manned—the Royal Standard drooping over the coffin and the Queen’s attendants in the centre boat—every officer with his hat off the whole time—minute guns firing from the ships and shore, and thousands of people on the beach sobbing out aloud. . . . It was as it should be—and the only thing that was so during the six and twenty years’ connection of this unhappy woman with this country. . . . The Queen appointed as executors of her will Bagot,* the Minister of this country to America, and Lord Clarendon, and she left them all her papers sealed up. The other day Lord Jersey received a letter from Lord Clarendon begging him to come to him, which he did. He [Lord Clarendon] then told him that he was going as executor to open his [Lord Jersey’s] mother’s papers.† The seal was then taken off, and letters from the Monarch to his former sweetheart caught Jersey’s eye in great abundance. Lord Clarendon then proceeded to put them all in the fire, saying he had merely wished Lord Jersey to be present at their destruction, and as a witness that they had never been seen by any one. Very genteel, this, on Lord Clarendon’s part to the
† Frances, wife of the 4th Earl of Jersey. Her relations with the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) were notorious. She died 25th July, 1821. |
| 26 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch I. |
“And now what do you think Brougham said to me not an hour ago?—that if he had gone with the Queen’s body to Brunswick, it would have been going too far—it would have been over-acting his part; ‘it being very well known that through the whole of this business he had never been very much for the Queen!’ Now upon my soul, this is quite true, and, being so, did you ever know anything at all to equal it?
“Brougham showed me a letter he has received from Pauline,* from Italy, requiring his influence with the Government to obtain permission for her to go out to St. Helena to her brother Bonaparte. It encloses a variety of medical and other reports, stating his rapidly declining health, and that she wishes to go out to him with all possible dispatch. Apropos to this subject, Brougham and Lord Roslyn called on Wilson† one day this week, and found Bertrand and Montholon with him. . . . There are two fellows in London from Talleyrand to negociate Bonaparte’s Memoires from them. This is believed to be their object, and Lady Holland writes from Paris that Talleyrand is cursedly alarmed about these said memoires.”
