The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 3 (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 3 (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
present all very vague, and we shall see what his notion is of a
Liberal course of policy. I fear that he and Peel are both too
deeply committed on the Irish Church question to suffer them to
propose any compromise likely to be satisfactory with regard to
it, and then the difficulties of the question are so enormous
that it seems next to impossible to compose them. The respective
parties drive at different objects; one wants to appropriate the
surplus revenue, the other wants to secure to the parsons their
tithes, and while they are quarrelling with unmitigable
fierceness upon these points, the Irish settle the question by
refusing to pay any tithe, and by evading every attempt that is
made to procure the payment in some other shape or under some
other denomination.
The Duke told Wharncliffe that both he and the King were fully aware
of the importance of the step that his Majesty had taken--that this
is, in fact, the Conservatives' last cast--and that he (the King) is
resolved neither to flinch nor falter, but having embarked with
them, to nail his flag to the mast and put forth all the
constitutional authority of the Crown in support of the Government
he is about to form. I am strongly inclined to think that this
determination, when properly ascertained, will have considerable
influence, and that, provided a respectable and presentable Cabinet
be formed and Liberal measures adopted, they will succeed. Though
the Crown is not so powerful as it was, there probably still remains
a great deal of attachment and respect to it, and if the King can
show a fair case to the country, there will be found both in
Parliament and out of it a vast number of persons who will reflect
deeply upon the consequences of coming to a serious collision with
the Throne, and consider whether the exigency is such as to justify
such extremities. It may be very desirable to purify the Irish
Church, to remodel corporations, and to relieve the Dissenters in
various ways, and nobody can entertain a shadow of doubt that all
these things must and will be done; but the several cases are not of
great and pressing urgency. The fate of the nation does not depend
upon their being all accomplished and arranged off-hand, and if the
Government which the King may form exhibits no spirit uncongenial to
the public feeling generally, and wars not with the genius of
Reform, which is dear to the people, it is my belief that a great
majority of the nation will shrink from the mere possibility of a
direct breach with the King, and from offering him an insult in the
shape of dictation and peremptory demand, which he would consider
himself bound in honour and in conscience to resist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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