and teaching of elementary
schools entirely in the hands of Churchmen, and was dropped after the
first reading, but the conscience of the nation was roused by it, and it
bore fruit later. Further slight mitigations of the criminal law were
carried as a result of attacks made by Sir James Mackintosh, upon whom
the mantle of Romilly had fallen, and it is worthy of notice that even
Eldon, the stout opponent of such mitigations, condemned the use of
spring-guns, as a safeguard against poaching. The only ministerial
change in this year was the final retirement in May of Lord Mulgrave,
who had held high office in every ministry except that of Grenville
since 1804, and had voluntarily surrendered his post at the head of the
ordnance in 1818 to make room for Wellington.

[Pageheading: _QUEEN CAROLINE._]

The "queen's trial," as it is erroneously called, was the last act but
one in a domestic tragedy which had lasted twenty-five years. The
Princess Caroline of Brunswick was a frivolous and ill-disciplined young
woman when she was selected by George III. as a wife for the
heir-apparent, already united and really attached to Mrs. Fitzherbert.
The princess could not have been married to a man less capable of
drawing out the better side of her character, nor was she one to inspire
his selfish and heartless nature with a sentiment, if not of conjugal
love, yet of conjugal friendship. From the first there was no pretence
of affection between them. A few years after her marriage she was
relegated, not unwillingly, to live independently at Blackheath, where
many eminent men accepted her hospitality. During this period, as we
have seen, a "delicate investigation" into her conduct was instituted in
1806. Though she emerged from it with less stain on her character than
had been expected, she never enjoyed the respect of the royal family or
of the nation, and there was no question of her sharing the home of her
husband. Instead of being a bond of concord between them, the education
of her daughter was the subject of constant discord, requiring the
frequent intervention of the old king until he lost his reason. After
she went abroad in 1814, she travelled widely, but her English
attendants soon retired from her service, and she incurred fresh
suspicion by her flighty and undignified conduct. She had no part in the
rejoicing for the marriage, or in the mourning for the death, of the
Princess Charlotte; and in 1818 a secret commission, afterw