ort of the charges against her. The
whole country was deluged with the squalid details of this evidence, the
ministers were insulted, and the sympathy of the populace with her cause
was obtrusively displayed in every part of the kingdom. On October 3,
after an adjournment of the lords, Brougham opened the defence in the
most celebrated of his speeches. On November 2 the lord chancellor,
Eldon, moved the second reading of the bill, and on the 8th it was
carried by a majority of twenty-eight. Four days later, on the third
reading, the majority had dwindled to nine only. Knowing the temper of
the house of commons, Liverpool treated such a victory as almost
equivalent to a defeat, and announced that the government would not
proceed further with the measure.

Had the queen possessed the virtue of self-respect or dignity, she would
have been satisfied with this legislative, though not morally decisive,
acquittal. But she was intoxicated with popular applause, largely due to
her royal consort's vices, and, after London had been illuminated for
three nights in her honour, she declined overtures from the government,
and appealed for a maintenance to the house of commons, which granted
her an annuity of L50,000 in the next session. But she never lived to
enjoy it After going in procession to St. Paul's, to return thanks for
her deliverance, on the 29th, and vainly attempting, once more, to
procure the mention of her name in the prayer-book, she concentrated her
efforts on a claim of right to be crowned with the king. No government
could have conceded this claim, and, when it had been refused by the
privy council, her solemn protests were inevitably vain. Even her least
prudent counsellors would assuredly have dissuaded her from the attempt
which she made to force an entrance into Westminster Abbey on the
coronation day, July 19, 1821. It was a painful scene when she, who had
so lately been the idol of the fickle populace, was turned away from the
doors amidst conflicting exclamations of derision and pity. A fortnight
later, on August 2, she was officially reported to be seriously ill; on
the 7th she was no more. In accordance with her own direction her body
was buried at Brunswick. Her ill-founded popularity was shown for the
last time, when a riotous multitude succeeded in diverting her funeral
procession, and forcing it to pass through the city on its way to
Harwich. But it did not survive her long; the people were becoming tire