"Europe," vol. ii. p. 461.

Some of the more respectable leaders of Opposition, though, they
supported the Queen, had no heart in the cause.

"Lord ----" (we learn from another authority), "whom I always look upon
as a most honest man, said it was rather hard upon him to have to
present her petitions, but he could not refuse, being so intimate with
Brougham. But they were brought to him at a minute's notice, and he
knew nothing about, consequently could not support them. In the present
instance, he thought she was taken in, in pressing for trial within
four-and-twenty hours. She thought we would not take her at her word,
and might bully, as she had done before; that she was a bold, dangerous,
impudent woman, as full of revenge as careless of crime, and that if we
did not take care, might play the part of Catherine the Second, who, by
means of the Guards, murdered her husband and usurped the throne."[39]

[39] Phipps's "Memoirs of Robert Plumer Ward," vol. ii. p. 56.

The nobleman whose opinions have here been preserved was most probably
Lord Dacre, who, in his place in the House of Lords, presented more
than one petition from the Queen. One also was presented by Lord
Auckland. Another of the Queen's partisans in the other House appears
to have entertained similar sentiments:--"Walked with Sir ---- ----. He
said he had no doubt that the Queen was guilty, but would never vote
for the Bill, as unconstitutional; at the same time, ready to admit
that Ministers had proved such a case as perfectly justified them in
bringing it forward."[40]

[40] Phipps's "Memoirs of Robert Plumer Ward," vol. ii. p. 58.

A description of the sort of satellites that followed the Queen's
movements when she went abroad, or surrounded her dwelling while she
remained at home, is preserved in the postscript of a letter from Mr.
Wilberforce to Hannah More, repeating the observations of a friend who
had ventured to approach the Queen's residence. He describes her
retainers as "a most shabby assemblage of quite the lowest of the
people, about fifty in number, who every now and then kept calling out
'Queen, Queen!' and several times, once in about a quarter of an hour,
she came out of one window of a balcony and Alderman Wood at the other,
and she bowed to them; her obeisance, of course, being met by augmented
acclamations. My friend," adds Mr. Wilberforce, "entered into
conversation with a person present who argued for the natural equ