The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IVGreville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 1 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- George IV, 1820-1830; Great Britain -- History -- William IV, 1830-1837
and laid the whole correspondence before the King, who received
him very well, and approved of what he had done; but of course
when he saw the Duke of Cumberland and heard his story, he
concurred in all his abuse of the Chancellor. I think the
Chancellor treated the matter in the best way the case admitted
of. Had he taken it up, he must have resigned his office and
called the Duke out, and what a mixture of folly and scandal this
would have been, and how the woman would have suffered in it all!
[Page Head: QUARREL OF CUMBERLAND AND LYNDHURST.]
August 22nd, 1829 {p.226}
The day before yesterday Sir Henry Cooke called on me, and told
me that he came on the part of the Duke of Cumberland, who had
heard that I had seen the correspondence, and that I had given an
account of it which was unfavourable to him, that his Royal
Highness wished me, therefore, to call on him and hear his
statement of the facts. Cooke then entered into the history, and
told me that it was he who had originally acquainted the Duke
with the reports which were current about him, and had advised
him to contradict them, but that he had not found any opportunity
of taking it up till this paragraph appeared in the 'Age'
newspaper; that the Duke had given him an account of what had
passed, which was that Lady Lyndhurst had begged him to call upon
her, then to dine with her, and upon every occasion had
encouraged him. I heard all he had to say, but declined calling
on the Duke. As I wished, however, that there should be no
misrepresentation in what I said on the subject, I wrote a letter
to Cooke, to be laid before the Duke, in which I gave an account
of the circumstances under which I had been concerned in the
business, stating that I had not expressed any opinion of the
conduct of the parties, and that I did not wish to be in any way
mixed up in it. After I had seen Cooke I went to the Chancellor
and read my letter to him. I found he had not shown the King the
two last letters that had passed; and as Cooke had told me that
the Duke meant to go to Windsor the next day and lay the whole
correspondence before the King, the Chancellor immediately sent
off a messenger with the two letters which the King had not seen.
The Chancellor has since circulated the correspondence among his
friends, but with rather too undignified a desire to submit his
conduct to the judgment of a parcel of people who only laugh at
them both, and are amused with the gossip and malice of the
thing.
August 25th, 1829 {p.227}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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