speech, when he said he had the cordial support of his Majesty, he turned round with energy to the Duke of Cumberland. Several Peers upon one pretext or another have withdrawn the support they had intended to give to the Duke's Bill. Fourteen Irish bishops are coming over in a body to petition the King against this Bill, and most foolish they. The English bishops may by possibility be sincere and disinterested in their opposition (not that I believe they are), but nobody will ever believe that the Irish think of anything but their scandalous revenues. The thing must go; the only question is when and how. The Kent petition to the King is to be presented, I believe, by Lords Winchelsea and Bexley; they would not entrust it to Peel. Lord W. wanted to march down to Windsor at the head of 25,000 men. March 14th, 1829 {p.188} Arbuthnot told the Duke what was said about not turning out the refractory members, and he replied, 'I have undertaken this business, and I am determined to go through with it. Nobody knows the difficulties I have in dealing with my royal master, and nobody knows him so well as I do. I will succeed, but I am as in a field of battle, and I must fight it out my own way.' This would be very well if there were not other motives mixed up with this--jealousy of the Whigs and a desire to keep clear of them, and quarrel with them again when this is over. Herries told Hyde Villiers that _their_ policy was conservative, that of the Whigs subversive, and that they never could act together. All false, for nobody's policy is subversive who has much to lose, and the Whigs comprise the great mass of property and a great body of the aristocracy of the country. Nobody seems to doubt that the Bill will pass. The day before yesterday the Duke of Newcastle went to Windsor and had an audience. Lord Bathurst told me that they had reason to believe his Grace had told the King his own sentiments on the Catholic question, but that the King had made no answer. But as nobody was present they could not depend on the truth of this (which they had from his Majesty himself, of course), and he begged me to find out what account the Duke gave of it. March 15th, 1829 {p.188} The Duke of Newcastle was with the King an hour and a half or two hours. After he had presented his petitions he pulled out a paper, which he read to the King. His Majesty made him no answer, and desired him if he had any other communications to make to him to send them through the Duke of Wellington. I dare say this is true, not because he says so, but because there has been no notice taken of the Duke's visit in any of the newspapers. They now talk of thirteen bishops, and probably more, voting with Government. I suppose the majority will be very large. [Page Head: PERSONAL HABITS OF GEORGE IV.] March 16th to 17th, 1829