Thomas Creevey: The Creevey Papers

“. . . It is a well known fact that Lord Durham is doing all he possibly can to make Lord Grey act a part that shall force him into the Government, meaning in that event to go snacks himself in the acquisition of power and profit; which, considering that he got his peerage by deserting Grey and by helping Canning to defeat Wellington, is consistent and modest enough! So after dinner [at Lord William Powlett’s] the levee being mentioned, Grey said in the most natural manner he would never go to another; upon which Lambton [Lord Durham] remonstrated with him most severely and pathetically, and George Lamb thought Grey was wrong; but Grey held out firm as a rock—said that it was quite against his own opinion going the last time, but that he had been quite persecuted into it—that this last personal insult from the King in never noticing him was only one of a series of the same kind, and that for the future he should please himself by avoiding a repetition of them. You may easily fancy the amiability of Lambton’s face at his avowal. . . . You see these impertinent and base
202 THE CREEVEY PAPERS [Ch. VIII.
renegade young Whigs have had their appetites for office if possible sharpened at present by Lord Rosslyn having just accepted the Privy Seal. . . . Rosslyn told me of it himself in the street on Saturday. . . . I know that he accepted with Lord Grey’s concurrence, but I am equally sure, from Lord Grey’s manner, that he thinks he ought not to have done so.”

George Canning (1770-1827) Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.

James St. Clair Erskine, second earl of Rosslyn (1762-1837) He was Tory MP for Castle Rising (1781-84), Morpeth (1784), and Kirkcaldy (1790-1805); major-general (1798) and commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean (1805).

King George IV of Great Britain (1762-1830) Prince Regent (1811-20) and King of Great Britain (1820-1830).

Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845) Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl (d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).

George Lamb (1784-1834) Lawyer and Whig MP for Westminster (1819) and Dungarvan (1822-34), he was the son of Elizabeth Lamb Viscountess Melbourne, possibly by the Prince of Wales. He was author of a gothic drama, Whistle for It (1807) and served with Byron on the management-committee of Drury Lane. His sister-in-law was Lady Caroline Lamb.

John George Lambton, first earl of Durham [Radical Jack] (1792-1840) After tutoring by Francis Hodgson and Thomas Beddoes and service in the dragoons he was a Whig MP (1813-28) and governor of the British provinces in North America (1838).

William John Frederick Vane, third duke of Cleveland (1792-1864) The son of Sir William Henry Vane, first Duke of Cleveland; he assumed the name of Powlett. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and was a Whig MP for Winchelsea (1812-15), Durham County (1815-31), St. Ives (1846-52), and Ludlow (1852-57).

Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Soldier and statesman; commander in the Peninsular Campaign (1809-1813), he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and was prime minister (1828-1830).

INFORMATION FROM TEI HEADER

Source Description:

Author: Creevey, Thomas, 1768-1838

Title: The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence & Diaries of the late Thomas Creevey, M.P. (London: John Murray, 1903).

Electronic Edition:

Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

Encoding Description:

Markup and editing by: David Hill Radcliffe

Completed June 2011

Publication Statement:

Publisher: Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, Virginia Tech

Availability: Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License