BROUGHAM, Henry Peter (1778-1868), of Brougham Hall, Westmld.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

2 Feb. 1810 - 1812
21 July 1815 - Feb. 1830
16 Feb. 1830 - 1830
1830 - 22 Nov. 1830
1830 - 22 Nov. 1830

Family and Education

b. 19 Sept. 1778, 1st s. of Henry Brougham of Brougham Hall by Eleanor, o. ch. of Rev. James Syme, minister of Alloa, Perth. educ. Edinburgh h.s. 1785-91; Edinburgh Univ. 1792; north European tour 1799; adv. 1800; L. Inn 1803, called 1808. m. 1 Apr. 1819, Mary Anne, da. of Thomas Eden of Wimbledon, Surr., yr. bro. of William Eden*, 1st Baron Auckland [I], wid. of John Spalding*, 2da. d.v.p. suc. fa. 1810; cr. Baron Brougham and Vaux 22 Nov. 1830.

Offices Held

Charity commr. 1818-37.

Attorney-gen. to the Queen Apr. 1820-1; patent of precedence May 1827; ld. chancellor Nov. 1830-Nov. 1834; PC 22 Nov. 1830.

Rector, Glasgow Univ. 1824-6.

Biography

 

Heir to a modest paternal estate near Penrith, Brougham was an unabashed if unstable careerist. From dislike of being treated as a parvenu by the condescending Whig grandees blocking his path he bestowed on his family a fabulous and at times parliamentary past. He was also the most precocious and pretentious product of Edinburgh in the age of the Scottish enlightenment: his mother, ‘the best specimen of an old Scotch lady, well-informed and liberal minded, without the least cant’ was the niece of Dr William Robertson, the historian and principal of Edinburgh university, and kinswoman of William Adam*. Brougham aspired to omniscience, or as his associates teasingly called it ‘universality’, in order to dazzle the world. His remorseless tongue and facile pen were his weapons, and the torrent of abuse that poured from those he had outwitted, in their disillusionment, attests to his wizardry, which had to be swallowed whole or not at all: only a happy few who refused to be hectored by one who was, like most bullies, a coward, noticed the flaw which from an early age had led Brougham into antics and tantrums suggestive of insanity, the fate of his sister.1

Brougham first showed promise in the mathematical and natural sciences—he was a fellow of the Royal Society at 25—but, with a marked talent for debate, opened his career as an advocate. This soon bored him and he became a pioneer contributor to the Edinburgh Review in 1802, writing 58 articles between then and 1807. With a special interest in the abolition of the slave trade, he wrote An Enquiry into the Colonial Policy of European Powers, published in 1803. It was described by William Wilberforce as ‘manifestly the launcher, and a capital one too, of a shrewd man of the world’. Fox had reservations about it, and Dr James Currie of Liverpool, a straitlaced Whig, wrote apropos of a typically scathing review of Brougham’s in October 1804:

It is by a scatter-brained fellow, one Brougham, who wrote two volumes on colonial policy, the two practical objects of which were—to abolish the slave trade, and to propose that we should join our armies to those of the French for the extirpation of the negroes in St. Domingo ... He has got a sort of philosophical cant about him, and a way of putting obscure sentences together, which seem to fools to contain deep meaning, especially as an air of consummate petulance and confidence runs through the whole. He has been taken up, I am told, by Wilberforce, and is paying his court to Pitt. He is a notorious prostitute, and is setting himself up for sale. It seems Lord Lauderdale offended him by refusing to be introduced to him, but it is to pay court to Pitt, depend on it, that he writes as he does.

Brougham was certainly anxious for employment: he had unsuccessfully applied to Lord Hawkesbury for a diplomatic post and in 1804, when he arrived in London to study for the English bar (after failing to obtain the command of a troop of Edinburgh volunteers), he went on an unofficial fact-finding mission on the slave trade abolition prospects, that took him to Holland and Italy. His Concise statement of the question regarding the abolition of the slave trade had meanwhile attracted further public attention.2

Brougham’s friendship with Francis Horner*, Rev. Sydney Smith and John Allen drew him into Lord Holland’s circle, and when the latter’s uncle Charles Fox came to power in 1806 he was enlisted to write what Canning termed ‘that impudent manifesto of the Fox party "The Inquiry into the State of the Nation", which has been circulated with so much industry throughout the country as the creed of the government'. Brougham hoped to be rewarded with a seat in Parliament and in May 1806 coolly applied to Lord Lowther (through Wilberforce) for a county seat for Westmorland, then vacant. His father had been awarded a minor sinecure by the Duke of Portland for his opposition to the Lowther interest in the county. Brougham claimed government support, but Lowther not only treated the application with contempt but called his bluff by informing Lord Grenville, who denied all knowledge of it and scolded Fox for countenancing it behind his back, thus exposing the divisions within the government. Brougham vented his spleen not on Fox and Lord Holland, but on Wilberforce, to the prejudice of their 'incongruous and for that reason most indiscreet connection'. His friend Horner, aghast at Brougham's 'want of pride and principle', thought he would do well in parliamentary debate.

not by eloquence, but by his readiness and force, and prompt application of various knowledge, which though never quite accurate is always given with that confident clearness which answers the same purpose in a popular assembly and a powerful though never graceful fluency. I think I see too very distinctly that his success, as a political character, will be confined to the House of Commons. His dispatch in business is great, but it betrays him into inaccuracy and indiscretions; and he will never preserve the confidence of any party, or of any individuals who are not disposed to be entirely subservient. He will be a formidable debater; but he has neither comprehension nor refinement of mind to be the author of great measures of pacific policy, nor in a time of trouble ... would he be found, I think to have courage for great enterprises I guess he will always be inclined towards the party that is actually in power, or strong enough to seem on the point of getting it.3

Left without a seat, Brougham was obtained, as a salve, a diplomatic appointment as civil commissioner in Rosslyn's mission in Lisbon. Holland, who solicited this, further secured from Howick that Brougham should proceed to Madrid, ostensibly as a commissary for prisoners of war, 'to hear rather than to talk'. After his return, out of pocket, he managed the outgoing ministry's publicity campaign during the election of 1807. On 24 May Holland, in one of several letters written to boost Brougham's services, informed Howick:

in a fortnight he has not only organised a system of correspondence throughout the country but supplied all the papers of London and of England with paragraphs, letters &c. &c., some of which are excellent and all judicious and well chosen. I lose no time in acquainting you with this because praise and attention is the coin in which he wishes to be paid and he is entitled to it at sight.4

Though by now well launched as a party publicist and confident that 'a clever press attack would cause this weak ministry to founder', Brougham was still out of Parliament, though it appears that Howick wanted the Duke of Devonshire to bring him in for Dungarvan. He went on scribbling, and on 14 Nov. 1807 Howick assured Holland, when an opening seemed likely in the Duke of Bedford's interest at Camelford: 'I know no person who in every view would be so useful'. Neither there nor early in 1808, at Downpatrick , did Brougham obtain the option. After writing pamphlets on Portugal and Brazil , on continental alienation and in the effects of the orders in council on commerce, he took up special pleading and scored an instant success when Lord Grenville placed in his hands the advocacy of the merchants' petitions against the orders in council at the bar of the House, 18 Mar.-1 Apr. 1808. This, though unavailing, secured him more  'fees and fame': but no seat, Lord Grey for instance thinking he should stick to his profession. By July 1808 Francis Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review was advising him against his notion of setting himself up as leader of a third party, out of spleen against the Whigs: better 'to enter their church and being in, to reform their heresies'. It seemed clear that, until he was in the House, Brougham would be 'dissatisfied, restless, independent and ungovernable, and the longer he is excluded , the worse it will be for himself and all those with whom he is politically connected'. Matters were not helped by the frustration of his appication for a special call to the bar to go the northern circuit in July 1808. This was remedied before the end of the year and in the following spring he wrote of his having 'refused' Parliament.5

In the autumn of 1809, having given up journalism except for the Edinburgh Review, in which his controversial articles of Spain and on the conduct of the war disconcerted the Whigs, Brougham commenced practising on the northern circuit, without any apparent relish. He received another disappointment when a vacancy occurred at Camelford on his friend Lord Henry Petty's succession to the peerage: Petty reported that his family borough Calne was out of the question and hoped the Duke of Bedford, as patron of Camelford, would accomodate Brougham. The duke expected Brougham to be returned for Calne and pointed out as snags the claims on him of Plunket and Lord Robert Spencer, but under pressure from Holland, Grey and Lauderdale he yielded, provided it was established that Brougham did not subscribe to the latest Whig fad of waiving Catholic relief if it debarred them from office, referring to the Whig leaders' refusal to join Perceval's government. Brougham, who had in a private letter of 26 Dec. 1809 denounced Catholic relief as a shibboleth, assured Holland, 3 Jan. 1810, for the duke's benefit, that he had always supported Catholic relief and had written in favour of it, though he had reservations about making it a sine qua non. In returning Brougham for Camelford, the duke took credit for devoting the seat to interests of the party, while Brougham took credit for giving up 'a very considerable professional income', whereupon Holland assured him that with his nine lives, he might retain his practice at the Cockpit in appeals, as well as his activity in the Edinburgh Review. Brougham also asked for a delay to consult his father, but the latter, who was at death's door leaving Brougham an encumbered estate, also left him to his own devices. He was doubtless encouraged to play hard to get by such notions as Grey's, that he was 'the first man this country has seen since Burke's time'.6

Although he was spared a journey to Camelford for his election, Brougham arrived in the House too late to take up his seat before a division on the Scheldt expedition in February 1810. He had allegedly prescribed silence to himself for the first month, but dined with the Whigs at George Ponsonby's on 17 Feb. and was ready to play his allotted part as 'the most auxiliary they could obtain'. In his extempore maiden speech, 5 Mar., he insisted that government and not the military executive should be blamed for the abortive Scheldt expedition, but censured Lord Chatham's confidential report to the King in the subject. A week later he felt on surer ground in a motion of his own to promote international concert for the abolition of the slave trade. On 30 Mar. he fared badly in a late attempt to speak in favour of the censure of the Scheldt expedition. According to Holland, Ponsonby did not give him opportunities to be of service.7

Brougham took Burdett's and the radicals' part in the divisions of 12 Mar., 5 and 16 Apr. 1810, but was anxious for the Whigs to steal Burdett's thunder by making their own proposals for parliamentary reform. Writing to Lord Grenville on 18 Apr., he suggested a place bill to reduce ministerial phalanx, Scottish county and burgh reform and the extension of the English county franchaise to copy-holders, as well as a slight redistribution of seats to benefit populous districts. The reply was evasive, though Brougham returned to the charge with the illustration of the way that Romilly's bid to reform the criminal law, which he was anxious to support was hampered by the opposition of placemen who, as he maintained in contradiction to George Rose's* pamphlet at that time, were swelling the influence of the crown. Although Brougham voted for Brand's motion of 21 May for parliamentary reform, he was publicly rebuked for his lukewarmness on the subject by William Roscoe*. He supported Tierney's motion against the crown's appropriation of the droits of Admiralty on 14 and 30 May and voted for sinecure reform, 17 May. On 23 May he rebuked Horner for vindicating the privileges of the House against popular feeling and on 6 June defended the reception of petitions, even if critical of the House's proceedings. On 15 June he introduced a well-received motion to expose the evasion of slave trade abolition, which he vowed to make a felony. On 20 June, in general defence of Charles Williams Wynn's bill to prevent election bribery, he referred to the furore caused by a public letter of his exposing the need for electoral reform in Scotland: which had not least annoyed the Scottish Whigs because they regarded it as a bid by Brougham to make a subject set aside for William Adam his own, without consultation. Those who knew that Brougham was the author of an onslaught on Pitt as a statesman in the Edinburgh Review were also ready to blame his indiscretion.8

Brougham was 'not a favorite with the House', there being 'a sort of hardness in his manner which does not take'. He did well on the northern circuit and established his 'fame and fortune' as an advocate by his successful defence of the Hunt brothers, indicted for libel in the Examiner, 22 Jan. 1811. Had the Regency led to a change of ministry, he was earmarked as joint under-secretary at the Foreign Office with John William Ward.9 This hope being disappointed, he became disillusioned with the Prince Regent, whom he began to compare with Nero and Tiberias, and still more impatient with the Whigs for their 'preposterous hankering after the Court'. He attended Parliament less often and there were rumours that he had fallen out with his patron. After voting with opposition on the adjournment and the Regency, 15, 29 Nov. 1810 and 21 Jan. 1811, and carrying his motion for a bill to make slave tradig felonious, 5 Mar. 1811, he was inconspicuous until 31 May when he voted for Catholic relief. He had lamented the division between Whigs and radicals in April on Folkestone's motion and could not be rallied for an extra-parliamentary meeting to promote constitutional reform. In June he re-emerged to do battle against the substitution of oppresive English laws for Spanish ones in Trinidad, to back Burdett's campaign against flogging in the army and to join that against solitary confinement in prison. He was particularly vehement in his objection  to the bank-note bill, against which he moved counter-resolutions in July, claiming that the enforced circulation of paper money, so reminiscent of the French revolution, was an ominous commencement of a 'new reign'. On 19 July he attempted to censure the Bank directors. His resentment arose from the suspicion that the Prince would dish the Whigs by drawing off from them a party of his own friends.10

In anticipation of the session of 1812, Brougham was anxious to prepare an opposition campaign by airing all major questions in the Edinburgh Review, to which his recent contributions had been unfinished and careless. This scheme met with a setback when he learnt in October 1811 that the Duke of Bedford could not again return him for Camelford. He had refused to believe the rumours of the duke's displeasure with his conduct and assured Holland that he was still a Foxite Whig, and that he had just declined an offer to contest Worcester on the popular interest, pledged to parliamentary reform. He was in favour of popular contests, but could not afford them and was doubtless relieved when his patron's proposed immediate sale of Camelford did not come off. Grey overruled his notions of concerting opposition for a campaign next session and he was drawn irresistibly towards the guerrillas of the Whig 'Mountain'.11

On 21 Jan. 1812 he outraged the Whig leader by a stinging attack on the crown's application of the droits of Admiralty 'to remunerate those vile minions, whose claims to reward the minister would not have the hardihood to bring under the cognizance of parliament'. Brougham was referring not to Col. John McMahon, whose sinecure he had joined in attacking on 9 Jan., but to the  Regent's favourite Lord Yarmouth. On 28 Jan. he led the attack on royal household bill, calling for a full inquiry before an additional £70,000 was added to the public burden. To the Regent Perceval characterized the first of these two speeches as 'long and in many very able and eloquent, but ... decidedly wrong in his law, and ...  extremely unfair in his exaggerated statement of the amount of the fund and the possible danger to the constitution from abuse of it'. Brougham's motion was met by a direct negative from Perceval, carried by 93 votes to 38, which brushed aside a floundering amendment by Ponsonby and Tierney. Brougham failed to carry a select committee of inquiry into the application of the droits on 25 Feb., but took care to expose instances of their present abuse.12

On 3 Mar. 1812 he began an unremitting onslaught on the orders in council and the licence trade, as being destructive of commercial prosperity and threatening to cause war with the United States. His motion for a select committee of inquiry was then defeated by 216 to 144, but after he had encouraged petitions from Birmingham and Liverpool and other places on the subject, on 28 Apr. government conceded a committee of the whole House to sit from day to day. He was prominent in its work and, undeterred by the political upheaval of the succeeding months—he 'would not vote' for a stronger administration on 21 May, considering it for Canning's benefit—or by lukewarm support from the Whig leaders, he moved the repeal of the offending orders on 16 June. Government made capitulatory noises, whereupon Brougham withdrew his motion, and after he had pressed them for action on 19 June they revoked the orders on 23 June. Although he also spoke that session against military flogging, for inquiry into ill-treatment of prisoners at Lincoln gaol, for Catholic relief (24 Apr.), presented petitions for retrenchment and subsequently opposed the taxes on leather and agricultural horses and the preservation of the peace bill, it was the revocation of the orders in council that placed him 'at the height of human glory'. William Roscoe assured Brougham from Liverpool, 25 June, that 'such a victory of public opinion has occurred in my time'.13

Brougham's Liverpool friends had urged on him that summer 'the too splendid and seductive idea of representing Liverpool', where he had become something of a popular hero. As his patron had sold Camelford, he was in need of a seat; but at Liverpool he was to have Thomas Creevey as a running partner and, although a subscription covered his expenses, he doubted whether the Whigs could gain both seats. Lincoln was another possibilty and he had hopes that John Calcraft might give him a seat at Wareham to fall back on. He was further embarrassed by the failure of the revocation of the orders in council to prevent an Anglo-American war and, spurred on by his commercial clients, offered his services as mediator to Castlereagh in a bid to obviate it: they were at first declined, and when Castlereagh changed his mind in mid September it was too late for Brougham to accept. His Whig friends thought he had a lucky escape from a thankless task, and he was by then unwilling to prejudice the democratic cause in the American elections and was already committed at Liverpool. Another temptation ha had to avoid was a compromise there whereby he was returned with either Tarleton (against whom he had no objection) or more likely with Canning, whom he could not but regard as a rival in public life. As it was, he was reconciled in advance to the possibility of defeat. He assured Creevey:

I am fond of my profession ... I do really delight in it more and more every day. I see also how greatly I should rise in it by this means, and how infallibly I should also command anything parliamentary that I might choose, after a few years. This is clear, and I might be as much of a demagogue as I thought fit to be—I mean in a good sense—and these times require looking out of Parliament in my opinion, as much as any we have lived in.

By 13 Oct. 1812, Brougham had made 206 speeches at Liverpool, but the outstanding one, he thought, was his attack on Pitt of 14 Oct., 'describing his immorality as proclaimed by the desolation of his own country, and the subjugation of mankind'. According to Creevey, the applause 'shook the very square and all the houses in it'. Brougham, who had been provoked to it by Canning, followed it up by a tribute to Fox's memory which was not only intended as a rebuke to Pittites but also those Whigs who seemed oblivious of their champion and regarded Brougham as 'an indifferent party man'. These speeches he disseminated.14

His defeat, he insisted, was not a popular one: 'Liverpool is not in any sense whatever a popular election'. It emphasized the need for parliamentary reform. Meanwhile no Whig borough owener would provide an opening for 'a restive party man'. Calcraft could not oblige at Wareham, nor Lord Thanet at Appleby. Lauderdale, it is true, put Brougham up, at Grey's request, as a forlorn hope for Stirling Burghs, where he was defeated and declined his Scots Whig friends' advice to pursue a petition: he quite rightly questioned their legal case and disliked the expense. Once adopted for Liverpool, he had turned down feelers from other populous constituencies such as Canterbury, Hertford, Middlesex, Warwickshire and Westminster (where he failed to satisfy the radicals on the point of annual parliaments). He was nevertheless embittered by the failure of the Whig grandees to devote their boroughs to their men of talent without a seat—they neglected 'real Foxite courses':

Once more the game is in their own hands. There is nearly an end of Burdett and Cobbett ... When I say the game, I mean of course not the game of places and offices. Let them come if they happen to come, but I allude to the re-establishment of the ancient intercourse between the Whigs and the people. I have done my poor endeavour at Liverpool and elsewhere to set this right.

The Whig pundits feared that Brougham would, as Rosslyn put it to Grey, turn to 'more popular courses than either you would approve or he would really like'. Horner thought that Brougham, who had been 'becoming daily more a Whig', might be induced by 'his temper and his love of the lead' to command the radicals, while John William Ward, who had gone over to Canning from the Whigs, prophesied that Brougham would 'turn downright Jacobin'. His own thoughts were rather of revenge: he might take up parliamentary practice until he had earned enough to buy a seat and then blackguard the grandees 'for their cool way of taking leave' of him. Justification for their attitude was supplied by John Goodwin, a Whig agent who assured Grey that

it might perhaps be advantageous to the party that Brougham is out, for had he carried his election for Liverpool, his vanity would have led him to consider himself head of the opposition, and I can tell you that would have lost us many country gentlemen, amongst others Coke and his party who were disgusted with his presuming consequence last session.

Apart from Coke, Charles Western, another leading Whig country gentleman, thought Brougham 'was getting a d—d too conceited'.15

Thomas Creevey, who was 'perfectly amazed ... at the marvellous talent of Brougham in his addresses to the people', summed up Whig reservations when he remarked 'but still I cannot like him. He has always some game or underplot out of sight, some mysterious correspondence, some extraordinary connection with persons quite opposite to himself.' In December 1812 he was counsel for the Hunt brothers and, though 'exceedingly eloquent', failed to secure an acquittal for a virulent attack on the Prince Regent. He next appeared as a counsel for Luddite machine-breakers. A month later he took up the cause of the Princess of Wales, whose friendship he had cultivated for several years, in her public vendetta with her husband. In doing so, he toppled Burdett as her champion and also curried favour with Princess Charlotte, heir to the throne. John William Ward commented: 'Did you ever see such a letter as Brougham has written for the Princess ... They must have taken leave of their senses.'16 The Princess of Wles proved a dangerous acquaintance and the equivocal merits of her case and her willingness to strike a bargain for herself without reference to his advice caused him to transfer his attentions to her daughter, while it damaged his prospects of being adopted candidate for Westminster in 1814, when Lord Cochrane's disgrace seemed likely to cause a vacancy there. He was still reluctant to satisfy the radical requirement that he pledge himself to universal suffrage as well as annual parliaments, but he had done nothing to improve his standing with the Whig grandees either: Grey, who had in april 1813 injudiciously applied again to the Duke of Bedford for a seat for Brougham, was rebuked by him for his hostility to the 'Mountain' of the party; Brougham grumbled that 'Foxite means Pittite, or something very near it'.17 He had, moreover, fallen out with Lord and Lady Holland, whose company he had shirked for some years past, in January 1814, over a scheme of Henry Martin's* to get him returned for Downpatrick, a plan that Brougham knew nothing of till it fell through, but was alleged by Lady Holland to have spoilt by his own tongue-wagging. Nothing came of a scheme of Creevey's to give up his seat for Thetford for Brougham's benefit, and when Canning went abroad he declined vacating his seat for Liverpool in case Brougham captured it.18 As a contributer to the Edinburgh Review, he was also becoming a liability because of his jealousy of others and what John William Ward called 'his exaggerated and offensive notions on many topics, and the defects of his style (if style it can be called) which was originally bad, and which in a dozen years of incessant pracitice has not at all improved', though 'the vigour and fertility of his mind will always procure him readers'. Brougham's review article of 1814 on the 'constitutional character if the Queen consort' was found particularly ill-advised in view of the Princess of Wales's levities abroad. He himself went to Paris in the autumn of 1814, and on his return gave Lord Ellenborough 'such a drubbing as he will not soon recover' in the court of King's bench.19

In July 1815, having declined uncertain openings at Southwark and Berwick in January, Brougham agreed to be Lord Darlington's Member for Winchelsea. Grey was his sponsor and hostile wits thought it fitting that a 'disappointed courtier' should be his patron. 'The length of our sittings will not be abridged by the last return from Winchelsea', commented Richard Ryder. Brougham's resurrection came in the nick of time for him: he had become hypochondriacal hermit and had even received medical advice against going into Parliament.20 Samuel Whitbread's death gave him more scope and he began to spur the Whigs on for the next parliamentary campaign deluging the Edinburgh Review with articles on pertinent issues. The liberty of the press, tithe reforms and popular education, he hinted, were subjects he was already considering when he was 'turned out of Parliament'. In general, he was satisfied that a peace free if foreign entanglements, and retrenchment at home, 'whether we regard liberty or property', must be the main issues. He helped draw up the amendment to the address and urged Grey to promote a hearth for opposition rallies in London and a Whig evening paper.21

Brougham's speech on the address, 1 Feb. 1816, was agreed by the Whigs to be excellent. Lady Holland received him back at arms' length. Henry Grey Bennet reported that it 'shook Castlereagh ... It is well given in the Chronicle but his sneers and also all his tone and manner are not there.' In it Brougham announced the themes of his reiterated attacks on government that session: the reduction of wartime taxes, particularly the property tax; the revision of export, usury and poor relief legislation to meet the depression of agriculture and commerce; and the retrenchment of the establishments, military and civil at home. Abroad he called for a review of the treaties that allied Britain to untrustworthy legitimist regimes, like that of the 'contemptible tyrant' Ferdinand of Spain, and for enforcement of the abolition of the slave trade.22 In a succession of motions he dealt with these themes in detail: on 9 Feb. his ill-supported attack on the 'Holy Alliance' gave him an opportunity to plead for Poland, a cause he had taken up two years before. On 15 Feb. he spoke up for the Spanish Liberals against their reactionary government. On 12 Feb. he reviewed the financial situation and called for reductions on taxation and retrenchment, deploring the retention after the war of so many island colonies. At every turn he lectured ministers on their failure to economize on salaries. On 22 Feb. he presented his first petition against the property tax; on 27 Feb. he pressed government to give it up and claimed next day that it ws universally disliked. On the army estimates, 26 Feb., he decried 'the visage of a military monarchy' and pointed to the Duke of York as a potential instrument of reaction; on the same grounds he was a leading critic of the embryonic United Services Club, 4 Mar. He claimed 'there was now no jacobism' to fear, 11 Mar., and that all this was 'a childish and contemptible passion for military parade'. In March, too, his daily opposition to the property tax bore fruit: the ministerial circular for attendance inquired of Members 'whether they were willing to throw [the government] into hands of Mr Brougham.23

The defeat of the property tax on 18 Mar 1816 was felt to be something of a personal triumph by Brougham, but there was, as usual, a demur. On 10 Feb. John Whishaw, an habitué of Holland House, reported Creevey:

Brougham with occasional impudence, has shown great courage and great readiness and familiarity with his subjects, and, as Mackintosh thinks, most of the talents of a leader, a situation to which he aspired, but which will not easily be granted to him.

Sir James Mackintosh recorded his impression of Brougham's attack on Vansittart on finance on 12 Feb.:

Brougham, in his answer, showed a sort of talent quite different from that of the first day. He was calm, acute, full of detailed knowledge, and sometimes pleasant, but was rather tedious; and he is evidently not a favourite performer with the House.

By 18 Feb. Whishaw had this to say:

Brougham has distinguished himself very much, and has shown many of the talents of a leader; but he has not yet made himself acceptable to the older and regular part of the Whigs. He is somewhat rash and imprudent, as, for instance, in the motion against Ferdinand of Spain; but with all his faults, which experience will gradually correct, he is an invaluable acquisition to the country.

It was Holland House orthodoxy to jib at Brougham's motion on Spain, which Lord Holland feared would prejudice his subscription for the persecuted Spanish Liberals, but Charles Western, for the Whig country gentlemen, also assured Creevey that Brougham went too far:

I have often marvelled at the want of sense, discretion, judgement and common sense that we see so frequently accompany the most brilliant talents, but damn me if I ever saw such an instance as that I have just witnessed in your friend Brougham. By heaven! he has uttered a speech which, for power of speaking, surpassed anything you ever heard, and by which he has damned himself past redemption. You know what my opinion of him has always been: I have always thought he had not much sound sense nor too much political integrity, but he has outstripped any notion I could form of indiscretion; and as to his politics, they are, in my humble opinion, of no sterling substance (but that between ourselves). He has been damaging himself daily, but tonight there is not a single fellow that is not saying what a damn'd impudent speech that of Brougham's—four or five driven away—even Burdett says it was too much. He could not have roared louder if a file of soliders had come in and pushed the Speaker out of his chair. Where the devil a fellow could get such things and such a flow of jaw upon such an occasion as this surpasses my imagination.

I was sitting in the gallery by myself, and he made my head spin in such a style I thought I should tumble over. He quite overcame one's understanding for a time, but when I recovered, I began to think—this will never do—impossible—I will go down and see what other lads think of it: perhaps my nerves are a little too sensitive. I soon found, however, that everybody was struck in the same way, and even more. Now, when I say that he has damaged himself past redemption, I mean as a man aspiring to be leader, for to that his ambition aspired, and for that he is DONE now ... Brougham has put them [the ministry] up 20 per cent; that is to say by inducing people more to support them to keep opposition out.24

These criticisms of Brougham had come to a head on 20 Mar. 1816, when after a sarcastic reception of government's abandonment of the malt tax, he launched an attack on their failure to retrench in the debate on Methuen's motion on Admiralty salaries. His peroration was such a vehement attack on Court extravagance and Court favouritism that, though many of his co-oppositionists cheered him on at the time, the sober view afterwards was that he had overshot the mark and spoilt their chances of defeating government. The story was that five Members altered their vote, while 27 floating voters went away in disgust rather than support such an opposition. Robert Heron commented:

Brougham is desirous of taking Whitbread's place in the House of Commons, but he is inferior to him in talents, in character, and in consequence: and he is possessed of no sound judgment. He speaks, sometimes, very ably, but he is not ready, and never succeeds when suddenly called upon. Like Whitbread, he refuses to submit himself to the leading of Ponsonby, and aims to be himself at the head of the party; but his indiscretion has already diminished, if not annihilated that hope, too hastily adopted. His speech against the Prince consisted of violent and unqualified invective, unconstitutionally applied to the person of the Regent, instead of his advisers. It was universally disapproved.

Brougham himself complained of being treated as a scapegoat. To Leigh Hunt he wrote that his assault in the 'scandalous and unfeeling profligacy of the Court' had been condemned by the Whigs because

a few timid and trimming tories whose votes they had reckoned upon, took fright and went away—or at least gave my attack in the Court as their reason for going. The offence of lessening the minority was thus imputed to me and to hear them talk you'd think I had kept them out of place. I care not even if I had done so—and as for a few votes—much better let wholesome truth be told to Parliament through the press (our grand and guardian power) to the people, than have a dozen more of our adversaries now and then vote with us. What I spoke I spoke deliberately and with the design of its exciting a sesation throughout the country, whether it pleased the party or not.

Despite this language, he had been inclined to gloss over the offensive peroration when it was assailed in debate and to Grey he wrote the same day (21 Mar.):

if you think my going out of Parliament would in the smallest degree tend to relieve the party from the injury they think I have brought upon them, I am ready and desirous to do so and authorize you to take the steps necessary for the purpose only begging it may be known that the offer came from myself.25

Brougham's speech was far from damaging him in radical opinion and redeemed his credit with Francis Place and the Westminster radicals, who had written him off as a Whig but now proposed to groom him for their parliamentary representation. Yet the imputation of being the author of schism among the Whigs and, so his critics maintained the prospect of office under them in the near future deterred him. He could always pull the wool over Grey's eyes, at least. Sir Samuel Romilly, who doubted whether ministers would have resigned on a defeat in the division lobby, thought much should be forgiven him:

It would be difficult to overrate the services which he has rendered the cause of slaves in the West Indies, or that of the friends to the extension of knowledge and education among the poor, or to praise too highly his endeavours to serve the oppressed inhabitants of Poland. How much it is to be lamented that his want of judgment and of prudence should prevent his great talents, and such good intentions, from being as great a blessing to mankind as they ought to be.26

Although in confrontation with Castlereagh in debate Brougham affected to be unrepentant, he was studiously moderate for the next few months. On 27 Mar. he was busy 'sifting the [navy] estimates to the bottom', and when Croker accused him of a tone 'not only unusual in that House, but scarcely to be tolerated in society', insisted that he had made 'no more than a plain, dry, minute statement'. Nobody, certainly, could accuse him of an 'elevated style' and his best efforts were 'in a conversation-like manner'. While he was a special pleader for a generous marriage grant to Princess Charlotte, 9 Apr. 1816, his major speech on agricultural distress the same day was, he thought, mathematical rather than partisan in its analytical approach, proposing a compromise between the landed and manufacturing interests, whereby the latter swallowed the Corn Laws on the understanding that agriculture should be cut back to a pre-war level, but, in return, in so far as they were capitalists, accepted their share of the burden imposed on landholders in tithes, poor rates and taxation. Castlereagh complimented Brougham 'on the abilty and temperance with which he had treated this important subject': the speech was in fact intended for publication. Later that month Brougham was a spokesman for the wool producers whose interests he felt had received less attention than those of the wool manufacturers in the select committee's report on the industry. On 7 May he struck a more bitter note in accusing the government of shelving retrenchment until they were deluged with petitions, particularly in not reducing offices for which there was no peacetime justification and which served to swell the power of the crown through patronage. Next day he brought in his long-cogitated proposal for securing the liberty of the press by amending the Libel Laws so as to allow evidence of truth of the alledged libel to be heard by juries: this would affect not only the press, but also the welter of prosecutions based on ex officio information. Leave was given, but on 14 June he postponed it. On 21 May he moved for a select committee of inquiry into the education of the lower orders of the metropolis, and in presenting its report on 20 June claimed that it called out for a commission to inquire into abuses in educational charities. On 22 May he was a supporter if tithe reform. Next day, by preferring to join Romilly in espoucing the cause of the persecuted Protestants of France, he evaded the Westminster dinner at which he was to have been tested as a potential candidate and so 'dropped as it were, out of notice'. On 18 June he presented petitions for parliamentary reform from Scotland and on 18 and 19 June objected to the Algerian 'Christian slave trade' and supported the registration of slaves in the West Indies as a safeguard of abolition. He had been the Whigs' maid of all work that session.27

Brougham's indiscretions, of which, apart from his being 'long winded' and speaking 'on all subjects too much', less had been heard since March 1816, surfaced again that autumn when he proceeded to Italy, ostensibly as an 'ugly Lothario' in pursuit of Mrs George Lamb, but more precisely to see the 'immaculate Princess' Caroline about her divorce prospects. Horner, of whom Brougham was said to have become so jealous that 'when Horner has any motion announced beforehand to make it is remarked that Brougham and his small knot of adherents do not attend', also proceed to Italy, to die. This event, forseen by Mackintosh, would, he thought,

aid the extraordinary talents of Brougham in seizing the lead of opposition in spite of themselves and from that commanding station he will conquer the House of Commons whose hatred is already softening into fear ... The standing sport of the session will be the war of epigram and sarcasm between him and Canning.

Brougham returned in time for parliamentary duty in January 1817. Lady Holland found him in excellent form socially, as when he made 'a long offensive oration against foxhunters', or

rattled away and told such excellent stories that they laughed in spite of their spleen towards him. He is less enduring of contradiction or even of a difference in opinion than he ever was, he lays down his opinion and will not easily listen to that of another person.

Yet 'in excellent health and spirits', he started the session 'with great prudence and moderation, as well as with considerable ability' and was reported to have 'risen much in the opinion of the House'. Thus on 29 and 31 Jan., while he defended the right to petition Parliament for reform, he spoke out against universal suffrage and annual Parliaments as destructive of 'that glorious fabric of human wisdom, the British constitution'. He was 'loudly and repeatedly cheered' that night when, on the address, he blamed ministers for want of economy in the face of a nation burdened with taxes, and again on 7 Feb. when he called for a reduction of official salaries and of 'useless splendour' in the monarchy, as a means of conciliating the people: he was confident they were 'still sound at heart' whatever the secret committee into sedition might allege to their prejudice. On 14 Feb. he clashed with Lord Cochrane in favour if this thesis that 'severe distress' was 'the real cause of this popular agitation', while on 17 Feb. he denied Cochrane's allegation that he had changed his views in parliamentary reform. He had meanwhile presented his credentials to Lord Lansdowne, the later Horner patron, as an undeniable Whig, but that pillar of Whig moderacy had the same reservations about him that lingered elsewhere. Brougham himself was walking a tightrope: on 24 Feb. he called for a fair hearing for the seditious meetings bill but 'recanted', voted against it and opposed suspension of habeas corpus, presenting a Liverpool petition against it. He continued to defend reform petitions and on 4 Mar. presented one from Shoreditch signed by 2,736 inhabitants. On 10 Mar. he pointed out the anomalies in the Scottish electoral system.28

Brougham's motion for an inquiry into the state of the trade and manufactures of the country, 13 Mar. 1817, defeated by 118 votes to 63, was one of his best performances: arguing that the decline in trade and manufactures was exacerbated by commercial policy, heavy taxation and a restrictive foreign policy (which prevented new markets from being opened up, for instance, in South America), he was reckoned 'most powerful and impressive', Rosslyn informed Grey, 'and I think even the enemy express their admiration of the knowledge and talents he displayed'. Mackintosh's prophecy was realized the following evening when Brougham's answer to Canning was 'very galling, inasmuch as he contrived to laugh at his figures and his prepared sentences'. With Ponsonby and Tierney ailing, Brougham by constant attendance, seemed to be becoming 'the practical leader of the party', but there was no cordial acceptance of this: he 'led to empty benches' and possessed 'the confidence neither of the House, nor of the people'. Nor could he delegate his measures: attacking Canning's embassy to Lisbon through John George Lambton and Burdett, he saw them both flounder to depths from which he was unable to save them, 6 May. Except on retrenchment and the suspension of habeas corpus, on which the Whigs did not lack spokesmen, he was left to his own devices, mapping out his own line on parliamentary reform, 20 May, toying with the repeal of the Septennial Act, 26 June, exposing the abuses in charitable education, 7 July, and at the end of the session, 11 July, engaging in a personal duel with Castlereagh during his do-it-yourself motion in the state of the nation, which misfired, Canning joining Castlereagh to put it down.29

This motion was seen as Brougham's bid for the Whig leadership on Ponsonby's death, 'let who will follow him'. In this he was frustrated; lacking the confidence of the Whig grandees who, with the exception of Grey, feared he was an 'ultra reformer', practically wishing him on the radicals. Nor, as his bid to launch a Whig evening paper, the Guardian that year demostarted, would they pay him as piper; his game was predicted to be take 'special care that they shall have no leader at all'. The Marquess of Buckingham commented, 'The opposition don't know what to do with Brougham ... [yet] Brougham will be the practical leader in spite of their teeth'. Brougham made it clear that no leader at all was better than 'an half leader' like Ponsonby who had compromised the party, and that all that was needed was a London host; but his disappointment accompanied him on the northern circuit and he was 'sick to the heart of politics'. He went through the motions of distress on the death of Priness Charlotte, but reported that she had 'gone off' in any case and placed his money on the pledged the public's to the Duke of Kent.30

Brougham was resusciatated by his brother's securing for him the invitation to stand against Lord Lonsdale's son in Westmorland, which he agreed to do on the eve of the session of 1818: it opened up a pleasant prospect of revenge for Lonsdale's contemptuous treatment of him in 1806 and appealed to his crusading instincts. It was 'neck or nothing', as he was surrendering Winchelsea and soon found that the Whig grandees view his campaign with distaste. In Parliament he concurred in the Whig campaign against the suspension of habeas corpus, but was more than usually subdued. Robert Peel commented:

Brougham, probably dissatisfied that he was not elected omnium consensu, keeps quite aloof—sits not in his usual place, and seems studiously to avoid taking an active part in political questions.

He gave himself credit for it: he meant to be inconspicuous and avoid prominence. He was soon at loggerheads with Castlereagh over the secret committee on sedition, but gave in to Tierney's tactics: 'I have purposely kept in the background. I have in every one thing given away. I have made no speeches'.  His seat was now 'at the back row behind the Speaker's chair', jocularly referred to by his enemies as his 'hiding hole'.31

Brougham's reticence was shortlived. On 3 Mar. 1818 he launched into the army estimates. Next day he clashed with the chancellor of the Exchequer when he attempted to name his own committee to supervise the destruction of the income tax records: ministers prevented this, thus revenging themselves on him for his attempt to block their nomination of the secret committee on sedition on 5 Feb. He was not opposed, however, when he became chairman of the education committee which he revived for the third time on 5 Mar. to investigate the abuse of educational charities. On 9 Mar. he clashed with Castlereagh and two days later with William Lamb in his hostility to the indemnity bill: on the intervening day he had presented petitions from Glasgow victims of the suspension of habeas corpus. His amendment to the indemnity bill was lost by 149 to 39 on 13 Mar. He supported the repeal of the leather tax, 12 Mar., 6 Apr., and the tithe reform, 16 Mar.

Brougham got into a scrape over the royal dukes' marriage grants. He gave a neutral reception to them on 13 Apr. 1818 and moved an amendment referring to the burdened state of the nation which was also defeated by 144 votes to 93. Next day he exposed the 'secret' meetings summoned by Lord Liverpool to muster support for the grants. On 16 Apr. he explained that he could not support the grants to the Dukes of Cambridge and Cumberland, who he conceived did not need them, but would support that to the Duchess of Cumberland, the (reduced) grant to the Duke of Clarence and that to the Duke of Kent: the latter received his blessing when his grant was debated on 15 May. Brougham's partiality was readily given a sinister interpretation.32 He also had his own axe to grind in May when he supported the land tax assessment bill, exposed abuse of the assessments and criticized the sale of crown lands for political motives, as part of his campaign against the Lowthers in Westmorland.

Nevertheless Brougham's credits that session outbalanced his liabilities. On 8 May he exposed in detail the abuses of charitable foundations which hindered the education of the poor, and proposed legislation to institute a parish school system. Whitbread had advocated this, but without the benefit of an inquiry to vindicate it. Brougham pointed to its success in Scotland. He regretted that the universities and 'the four great schools' had been exempted from the inquiry. His proposals were adopted on 20 May. Fresh from this triumph, he tried to amend the aliens bill and threatened to take over the Poor Law reform, 22 May, but he was not of the select committee on it and was sidetracked by the Lords' amendments to his education bill. On 3 June, as a prelude to reintroducing his bill next session, he moved an address to the Regent for an inquiry into the subject throughout England and Wales, but it was defeated by 54 votes to 29 and he had to be satisfied with a commission that was not to his liking. He also threatened a motion for inquiry into the abuse of charities not connected with education. The day before, he had been heard 'with the deepest attention' when he spoke extempore against Burdett's proposals for parliamentary reform. Explaining that he could not support universal suffrage, Brougham claimed that the radical demand for it was based on a false interpretation of constitutional history. He likewise objected to annual Parliaments, though he had no objection to triennial ones and had supported the repeal of the Septennial Act on 20 May. He maintained a Foxite line of 'moderate' reform and eschewed theorists like Jeremy Bentham. With reference to this 'very splendid speech', Edward John Littlteton commented, 'His present object is to place himself at the head of the old Whigs. But his temper will betray him at last—though he may succeed in gaining their confidence for a moment, which he has yet done.33

Brougham's defeat in the ensuring election for Westmorland embittered him against the orthodox Whigs, whose cause he had championed against the radicals: he believed he would have fared better on a more radical platform. Lord Darlington had agreed to let him fall back on Winchelsea, but this was a secret and Brougham saw himself as rejected by the Whig grandees. It showed him 'the futility of all party connexion' and provoked him to a sour definition of party which served as a corrective to Burke's: 'a dupery of sixty or seventy people who don't reflect, for the benefit of two or three sly characters who go about earwigging the powerful ones for their own purposes'34 This disillusionment inspired his essay in the Edinburgh Review on the state of the parties, but by the time that was published he had redeemed himself in Whig eyes by the cordial support he had given to the proposal to make Tierney leader of the parliamentary oppostion. His concurrence in this was thoguht vital and he took credit, with tongue in cheek, for being one of the promoters of the scheme. He also behaved discreetly in withdrawing from the competition for the Westminster seat made vacant by Romilly's death in November 1818, though he succeeded in annoying the radicals b his manifest hostility to their candidate John Cam Hobhouse, whom he bluntly informed that they were of different parties, or rather that he (Brougham) believed in party. This abdication followed the publication of his Letters to Romilly which exposed to the public at large the abuses in charitable foundations revealed by inquiry and which went through six editions in three weeks.35

Brougham started the session of 1819 'below concert pitch' after a bitter attack on him in the Quarterly Review, but on 8 Feb. he had the gratification of hearing his merits publicly canvassed in the debate on Calcraft's motion for adding him to the committee on the Bank of England. This motion, cordially supported by Tierney, was lost by 175 votes to 133. Next day he was invited to join the Poor Laws committee, but did not do so. He was of the committee on and opposed the Windsor establishment, 25 Feb. He was an advocate of Scottish electoral reform, 16, 23 Mar., attacked the conduct of Governor Macquaire in New South Wales, 23 Mar., and was prominent in the debates on Windham Quin*. On 21 May he seconded Castlereagh's motion for the commission of inquiry into charity school abuses, though he was sure that a bill under governemnt superintendence would not go far enough. On 7 June he called for tax relief, giving instances of possible retrenchments neglected by government, and he was a leading critic of the 'half reimposition' of the malt duty. He opposed the foreign enlistment bill, 10 June. On 14 and 15 June he deprecated severity against the editor of The Times for breach of privilege, being of opinion that some indulgence must be granted the press in reporting debates. When the charitable foundations bill sponsored by government was debated on 14 and 23 June, he admittied that it went some way towards meeting his objectives: he could not carry his amendment to include institutions exempted from investigation because they had visitors. He was in fact on the defensive because Peel, attempting to outdo Brougham in his own debating style, launched a 'diatribe' against him on 23 June: in the skirmish that followed Brougham seems to have got the upper hand but had to acknowledge that he had an able challenger. The same was true, to 'a handsome and rather dashing widow with three children, a good jointure, and a house in Hill Street'.36

In the autumn of 1819, the Princess of Wales was anxious to obtain Brougham's advice on the momentous decision of whether she should seek a divorce or return to England on the death of the King, but Brougham, who had thought her mind made up to a separation, had a more promising game to play: in the wake of the Manchester disaster, he was prominent in promoting country meetings of protest in Cumberland and Westmorland. When Earl Fitzwilliam was dismissed his lord lieutenancy for playing the same role, Brougham, anticipating a counter-revolution and disliking radical initiatives, was anxious to promote a 'constitutional declaration', a new landmark in the history of liberty.37 Yet in the debate on the address, 24 Nov., his attack on the Manchester proceedings was, according to Grey, 'rather flat', and although he went on to protest against the coersive legislation introduced by government in the ensuing month at every stage, he did not succeed in weaning the House from its alarmism (shared by his patron), though at least one of his speeches (against the seizure of arms bill, 14 Dec.) was loudly cheered. It was the death of the King that reactivated Brougham: before Parliament was dissolved he was deflating the new reign and preparing to take up the brief he had rejected the autumn before, that of the new Queen. Whig gossip had it that Brougham would have foresworn this for a patent of precedence, but he did not obtain the offer and he saw to it that Caroline did not know of the offer government made to her to remain abroad until he chose that she should, and by then she had resolved to return to England, willy nilly. It was as the Queen's attorney-general that Brougham next dazzled the nation.38

'Brougham has hated always the broad turnpikes of life and arrived at his goals by crossing the country over hedge and ditch.' This was Sydney Smith's verdict on him and it applied to Brougham's espousal of the Queen's cause. No mode of action could have been worse chosen by a self-appointed preceptor of the Whig grandees, and none less calcualted to meet the danger, which few saw so clearly as Brougham, that the significant role that England must play in the world after 1815 might be crippled by want of liberal ideas and institutions. The Queen's death averted catastrophe and, though Brougham's 'strange tricks' continued, he proved an evangelist of liberalism.39 He died 7 May 1868.

 

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

To Brougham, Life and Times (3 vols. 1871), his doctored version of his life and correspondence, the Brougham mss at Univ. College London have been preferred. Brougham and his Early Friends ed. Buddle Atkinson and Jackson (3 vols. 1908) covers his early career, and the most recent biographies are by Chester New, Brougham to 1830 (1961) and Frances Hawes, Henry Brougham (1957). A. Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (1927) remains an authoritative source on his political career.

  • 1. Lambton mss, Brougham to Lambton [21 June 1818]; Ward, Letters to ‘Ivy’, 54; Creevey Pprs. ed. Maxwell, ii. 137, 138, 140, 231, 236; Jnl. of Mrs Arbuthnot, ii. 382; Broughton, Recollections, v. 18; Greville Mems. Strachey and Fulford, i. 194; ii. 33; PRO 30/9/16, Rickman to Colchester, 10 Mar. 1819.
  • 2. Life of Wilberforce (1838), iii. 194; Creevey Pprs. i. 30; Brougham and his Early Friends, ii. 52, 95, 157, 175; PRO 30/8/116, f.210; Wilberforce Corresp. i. 267, 328; ii. 44; Heron, Notes (1851), 190.
  • 3. Harewood mss, Canning to his wife, 30 May 1806; HMC Lonsdale, 182: Lonsdale mss, Lowther's memo, 21 May 1806; Horner mss 3, f. 58; Add. 47575, f. 224.
  • 4. Jnl. of Lady Holland, ii. 167; HMC Fortescue, viii. 315; Grey mss, Howick to Holland, 6 Oct. 1806; Add. 51544; Aspinall, Politics and the Press 1780-1850, pp. 284-93.
  • 5. London Univ. Lib. A.L170/1, Brougham to Sharp [28 May 1807]; D. M. Stuart, Dearest Bess, 159; Grey mss, Grey to Holland, Fri. [?Mar.]; Fortescue mss, Holland to Grenville, n.d.; Add. 51549, Lady Holland to Grey [14, 28 Apr. 1808]; 52178, Brougham to Allan [10 June 1807], [22 Jan. 1808]; 52180, Whishaw to same, 4 Dec. ; Grey mss, Grey to Holland, 18 Apr. 1808; Brougham mss 10510, 16458; Brougham and his Early Friends, ii. 343.
  • 6. Sydney Smith Letters ed. N. C. Smith, i. 146, 149, 151, 152, 179; Add. 51561, Brougham to Holland, 3, 11, Jan. 1810; 51661, Bedford to same, 18 Dec.; 51847, G. Lamb to Lady Holland, 6 Aug.; 52178, Brougham to Allen [?3 Nov.], 26 Dec. ; Grey mss, Bedford to Grey, 3 Dec., to Holland, 24 Dec., Grey to Holland, 22 Dec. 1809; Brougham mss 10168, 14948; Creevey Pprs. i. 108.
  • 7. Brougham mss 10784, 18989; Ward, 91, 95; Creevey Pprs. i. 128, 153; Add. 52178, Brougham to Allen [?14 Mar. 1810]; Holland, Further Mems. Whig Party, 46.
  • 8. Fortescue mss, Brougham to Grenville, 18 Apr., Thurs. [May], reply 1 May; Add. 52172, Allen to Lady Holland, 27 July; 52178; Brougham to Allen [?1 May 1810]; SRO GD51/1/166/2; Ward 106.
  • 9. Ward, 108, 111; Add. 51549, Lady Holland to Grey, 3 Oct. [1810]; Horner mss 5, ff. 15, 17.
  • 10. Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, Sunday; Add. 51561, Brougham to Holland, 6 Aug.; 52178, Brougham to Allen, 21 June, [19 July], [14 Aug.], 16 Sept.; 52181, Jeffrey to Allen 12 Jan.; Grey mss, Lady Holland to Grey [Aug. 1811].
  • 11. Horner mss 5, ff. 116, 170; Add. 51516, Brougham to Holland, 8 Oct.; 52178, Brougham to Allen [19 July]; Grey mss, Brougham to Grey [13, 14, Oct., 9, 16 Nov., 23 Dec.], Grey to Holland, 25 Oct. 1811.
  • 12. Prince of Wales Corresp. viii. 3344; Creevey mss 3344; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey [22 Jan.1812].
  • 13. Creevey Pprs. i. 154; Ward, 167; Brougham mss 10380.
  • 14. Liverpool Pub. Lib. Roscoe mss 489, 498; Castlereagh Corresp. i. 119; Brougham mss 892, 10952, 32315; Grey mss, Rosslyn to Grey, 17 Aug., Fitzwilliam to same, 28 Aug. [1812]; Life and Times, ii. 23, 39, 41, 60; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, Fri. [mid Sept.], 21 Oct., Creevey to his wife, 17 Oct.; NLS mss 11808, Murray to Minto, 13 Oct. 1812; Add. 38108, f. 59; 52178, Brougham to Allen [5 Nov. 1812]; Leveson Gower, ii 464.
  • 15. Fitzwilliam mss X/1606, Brougham to Milton [31 Oct.]; Add. 38108, f. 61; 52178, Brougham to Allen [28 Oct.]; Whitbread mss W1/1954; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, Wed., Western to same, 23 Oct. 1812; Creevey Pprs. i. 174; Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 10 Oct., Rosslyn to same, 26 Oct., Goodwin to same, 1 Nov.; Brougham mss 12043, 16548, Brougham to Grey [18 Sept. 1812]; Life and Times, ii. 49, 72; Horner mss 5, f. 246; Ward, 172.
  • 16. Creevey Pprs. i. 178-83, 197; Letters of Princess Charlotte, 29, 31, 36, 39, 185; Creevey mss, 458; Ward, 187; Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 11 Feb. 1813.
  • 17. Ward, 249; Add. 27840, ff. 220, 227, 253, 280; 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 16 May [1813]; 52172, Lady Holland to Allen [18 June, 1 July]; Creevey mss, Brougham to Creevey, 7 Feb., 11 June 1814; Brougham mss 10451.
  • 18. Sydney Smith Letters, i. 176, 199, 225; Add. 40183, f. 178; 51561, Brougham to Holland, 19 Jan., Fri. [Jan.]; Carlisle mss, Lady Holland to Morpeth, Mon. [1814]; Whitbread mss W1/414; Grey mss, Rosslyn to Grey, 27 Feb. 1814; Brougham mss 10350; Letters of Princess Charlotte, 134.
  • 19. Add. 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 12 Oct. 1814; 52181, Jeffrey to Allen 23 June 1813; Ward 271.
  • 20. Grey mss, Graham to Grey, 31 Jan., Darlington to same, 14 July [1815]; Ward, 292; Creevey mss, Bennet to Creevey, 31 May 1815; PRO 30/9/16, Ryder to Abbot, 19 Jan. 1816; Brougham mss 32107.
  • 21. Brougham mss 72; Life and Times, ii. 297, 309; Add. 38180, f. 147; 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 25 Nov. 1815; Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 1 Feb. 1816.
  • 22. Grey mss, Rosslyn to Grey, 2 Feb., Tierney to same, 2 Feb., Grey to Lauderdale, 9 Feb., to Lady Holland, 18 Feb.; Creevey mss, Bennet to Creevey, 2 Feb. 1816.
  • 23. Romilly, Mems. iii. 141; Add. 27850, f. 288.
  • 24. Creevey mss; Mackintosh Mems. ii. 338; Pope of Holland House ed. Lady Seymour, 142; Letters to Countess Granville, 85; Creevey Pprs. i. 249; Carlisle mss, Holland to Morpeth [15 Feb. 1816].
  • 25. NLW mss 4814, Williams Wynn to Southey, 4 Apr. 1816; Heron 68; Add. 38108, f. 161; Brougham mss 77.
  • 26. Add 27809, ff. 13-14, 26; 37949, ff. 37-38; Pope of Holland House, 149; Creevey Pprs. ii. 184; Romilly, iii. 267-7.
  • 27. Farington, viii. 62; Add. 27809, ff. 28-31; 27840, f. 277; Creevey Pprs. i. 257.
  • 28. Dorset RO, Bond mss D367, Jekyll to Bond, 22 Oct., 23 Nov. 1816; Glenbervie Diaries, ii. 165; Horner mss 7, ff. 129, 131; Add. 35153, f. 1; 51644, Lady Holland to Horner, 25 Jan. 1817 (bis); NLS mss 2257, f. 146; Pope of Holland House, 165; Lansdowne mss, Brougham to Lansdowne, 8 Feb. 1817; Colchester, ii. 605.
  • 29. Grey mss, Rosslyn to Grey, 15 Mar. 1817; Pope of Holland House, 174; Bagot mss, Wellesley Pole to Bagot, 27 Mar. 1817; Heron, 82, 83; Add. 51658, Whishaw to Lady Holland, 24 July 1817.
  • 30. Carlisle mss, Mrs G. Lamb to Lady Morpeth, 10 July; Fitzwilliam mss X/1606, Lady Spencer to Milton, 16 July 1817; Ward, Letters to Bishop of Llandaff, 171; NLW, Coedymaen mss 8, f. 545; Aspinall, 299-305, 455; Fremantle mss, Buckingham to Fremantle, 30 July; Add. 51686, Lansdowne to Holland, 11 Aug. 1817; Staffs. RO, Hatherton diary, 5 Mar. 1818; Brougham mss 108, 129; Creevey Pprs. i. 271.
  • 31. Brougham mss 62, Brougham to Lambton [24 Jan.] [2 Feb.], [Feb.], Sat. [Feb. 1818]; Pope of Holland House, 314; Add. 40294, f. 163; Buckingham, Regency, ii. 218, 229.
  • 32. Heron, 91; Fitzwilliam mss, box 92, Althorp to Milton, 17 May 1818.
  • 33. Hatherton diary, 2 June 1818.
  • 34. Add. 51561, Brougham to Holland, Thurs. [28, 29 June]; Creevey mss, Sefton to Creevey, 26 June 1818.
  • 35. Add. 47235, f. 5; 51565, Brougham to Lady Holland [8 Aug.]; 56540, ff. 25, 27, 29; Grey mss, Duncannon to Grey, 13 July; Berks. RO, D/EPb 028 172, Duncannon to Folkestone [13 July]; Bagot mss, Lyttelton to Bagot, 6 Oct. 1818.
  • 36. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 5 Feb., Rosslyn to same, 10 Feb. 1819; Add. 40342, f. 29; Pope of Holland House, 205.
  • 37. Creevey Pprs. ii. 23; Fitzwilliam mss X515/17, Brougham to Milton, Sunday [Oct.]; Add. 51561, Brougham to Holland, fri.; 52178, Brougham to Allen [25 Oct. 1819].
  • 38. Grey mss, Grey to Lady Grey, 25 Nov. 1819, Tierney to Grey [Mar. 1820].
  • 39. Sydney Smith Letters, i. 334; Heron, 190.