pontically opposed to all of them, there appeared to be little probability of his being allowed to retain his seat in the cabinet. But the personal regard in which he was held by the king surmounted these obstacles. In the preliminary negotiations between the sovereign and Lord Rockingham, his majesty is said to have stipulated for the continuance of the chancellor in his office; a condition which was not granted without much hesitation and difficulty. In the ministerial explanations which followed the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, Mr. Fox declared, that he had felt strong objections to holding office with Lord Thurlow, and that the only thing that had induced him to associate with Lord Shelburne and the chancellor in office, had been the appointment of Lord Rockingham to the head of the administration.* That the stern and unbending mind of Lord Thurlow should accommodate itself to the views and measures of his new coadjutors was scarcely possible; yet that he should suffer the projects which he could not approve to pass in unassenting silence, might perhaps have been expected from him. But the chancellor had been little accustomed to restrain the expression of his opinions, especially when those opinions were harsh and condemnatory; and he did not now hesitate to oppose, with the full force of his singular character, the measures introduced by his colleagues, where he found them opposed to his own peculiar views. Soon after the formation of the Rockingham ministry, two bills were brought into the house; the one for the prevention of contractors sitting in parliament, the other to exclude officers of the customs and excise from voting at elections. So direct a blow at the influence of the crown immediately roused the jealous indignation of Thurlow, who, supported by Lord Mansfield, opposed vehemently, though vainly, the passing of the bills through the peers. So great was the interest taken by the other ministers in the fate of these bills, that Fox and Burke usually took their station on the steps of the throne while the debates were proceed

*Parl, Hist. vol. xxiii. p. 123.

ing in the lords; but not the whole ministerial array would have deterred the chancellor from the expression of his indignation. On many of the clauses in these bills he divided in the minority."

*

The obstinate part acted by Lord Thurlow during the Rockingham administration was not forgotten on the formation of the celebrated coalition ministry in 1783. When the king reluctantly consented to place the government in the hands of the Duke of Portland, or rather of Mr. Fox and Lord North, he again attempted to retain the chancellor, whose professed devotion and attachment to his person he highly regarded. At an audience which took place at St. James's with the heads of the new ministry, his majesty is said to have conceded every point in dispute, except that the chancellor should not be deprived of the great seal. If that nobleman, he said, were permitted to remain in office, he would allow the new ministers to dispose of all other employments at their pleasure. But no considerations could induce the ministers elect to consent to an alliance so dangerous to their very existence. They insisted that Thurlow should be displaced, and the great seal put into commission; and, on the king's refusal, the negotiation was for some time broken off.† A species of interregnum ensued, during which the king was, without doubt, very principally guided by the advice of the chancellor, who was denounced by Mr. Fox, in the house of commons, as the guilty adviser, to whose counsels the distracted state of the government was owing. Unable to resist the forces of the coalition, the king was at length compelled to give way, and on the formation of the new ministry, the great seal was put into com mission, at the head of which was placed Lord Loughborough.

Though driven from office, Thurlow still remained the friend, and probably the secret counsellor, of the sovereign. When the celebrated India bill, which ultimately proved the destruction of the administration

*Wraxall's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 176.

+ Id. p. 315.

which projected it, was submitted to the king, previously to its introduction into parliament, his majesty is said to have laid it confidentially before Lord Thurlow, with a request that he would state his legal opinion with respect to its nature. According to the rumour of the day, the opinion delivered by Lord Thurlow was, that the bill was calculated to render ministers independent of the crown, and that it contained many clauses injurious to the constitution; but at the same time his lordship's advice was said to have been, that his majesty should wait for the more complete development of the measure before he manifested his disapprobation.* In the debates which afterwards took place on the bill in the house of lords, Lord Thurlow played a very conspicuous part, declaring that, if the measure passed, the king would, in fact, take the diadem from his own head, and place it on that of Mr. Fox. It is not improbable that Thurlow, on this occasion, acted as the instrument of the crown, in conveying to those lords who had promised to promote the measure, and who subsequently withdrew their support, the intimation of the king's private wishes.

When, on the defeat of ministers in the house of lords, and their dismissal by the king, Mr. Pitt assumed the reins of government, the great seal was of course replaced in the hands of Lord Thurlow, who filled that place in the upper house which the first minister sustained in the commons.

The attachment and loyalty of the chancellor to the person of his sovereign were put to the test in a very striking manner during the debates respecting the regency, which occurred on the king's illness in 1789. The vigour and animation with which Lord Thurlow supported the propositions of Mr. Pitt, and especially the resolution for intrusting to the queen the custody of his majesty's person, and the control and management of the household, attracted the attention and applause of the country. His speech on this occasion may be re

* Wraxall's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 412..

garded as an adequate specimen of his forcible and effective style of speaking. "He completely concurred with the other side of the house, that the man who endeavoured to sow dissensions in the royal family, and to set the different branches at variance, deserved the execrations of his country, and acted with a degree of baseness beyond any other species of human depravity. He declared that it was far beyond his power to conjecture in what manner it was conceived to be possible to place the king in the hands of his royal consort, without giving her the superintendence and control of the household. If they rejected a part of the resolution, they might as well proceed to treat the king as an ordinary individual, and put him upon board wages, or send him to one of those boarding-houses that take in unfortunate invalids. Let the house remember that the queen was to have the care of her royal patient, not as a wretched being destitute of friends, an obscure individual, without name, without honour, and without reputation, forsaken by all the world; but as a king whom his people looked up to with loyalty and affection, whom they anxiously wished to see enabled to reascend his throne, and again distributing blessings to a grateful nation. As far as his voice could go, he should utter it with energy and sincerity, to claim for the king all the dignity that ought to attend upon the royal person in the hour of his indisposition; and who would dare to refuse his demand? No man alive to the least sense of loyalty, alive to a principle of compassion, alive to any one generous feeling, could lend his hand to so cruel a dilapidation. He protested to God, that he did not believe there was a noble lord in the house who wished to strip his majesty of every mark of royalty, and reduce the king to an abject and forlorn situation, while he was labouring under a misfortune equal to any misfortune that had ever happened since misfortune was known in the world. The intention of separating the second from the first part of the proposition was cruel in the extreme. It must operate like a total extinction

of pity for that royal sufferer, whose calamity entitled him to the most unlimited compassion, and even increased respect.

'Deserted in his utmost need

By those his former bounty fed.'

"The obvious feelings of mankind went so directly to the wish of paying every mark of reverence, respect, and attention to the sovereign in the hour of his misery, that he was persuaded the public would be shocked at the idea of the committee persisting for a moment to hesitate whether the king should be attended by the royal council or not.” *

The climax of the chancellor's loyalty was exhibited in his celebrated declaration, that "his debt of gratitude to his majesty was ample, for the many favours he had graciously conferred upon him, which when he forgot, might God forget him!"

The generous devotion to the person and fortunes of his afflicted sovereign which Lord Thurlow thus manifested rendered him at the time highly popular in the country. Men beheld him, in the immediate prospect of a removal from his high office, regardless of his own interest, passionately advocating those of the kind master and condescending friend who had so frequently, in his happier moments, extended to him every mark of his royal confidence and attachment. They imagined that they witnessed the singular spectacle of a disinterested friendship subsisting between the sovereign and his minister; a friendship which, though obscured in the alienated mind of the afflicted monarch, still survived in the gratitude of the faithful servant. What a quick revulsion would these sentiments have experienced, had the world been acquainted with that scene of duplicity which has since been brought to light! It appears from subsequent disclosures, that, at the commencement of the king's afflicting illness, overtures were made by Sheridan, who acted throughout as the confidential adviser of the prince, to the chancellor, for the purpose of securing his

* Annual Register for 1789, p. 125., and Parl. Hist, vol. xxvii. p. 1082.