Maria's Diary 19

Chapter 19

Chase  and change are ever busy

Man decays and ages move;

But His mercy waineth never

God is wisdom, God is love.

June 25, 1837

We have just read that King William IV has died. It was not the sort of announcement that we had with the previous King, that  our friend WIlliam Holt told us of, step by step.  And we shall soon have a Queen again.  His niece, Victoria who is only 18, inherits. It will be fun to watch the way she handles the role. I hope the more prominent figures in her life don’t take control away from her.  

Reading in the paper, there were lots of good things to come out of King William's reign. 

  The poor law  was updated, child labour was  restricted, slavery was abolished in nearly all of the British Empire, and the British electoral system refashioned by the Reform Act. 

Both the King and Queen were fond of their niece, Victoria. Their attempts to forge a close relationship with the girl were frustrated by the conflict between the King and the Princess's widowed mother. The King, angered at what he took to be disrespect from the Duchess to his wife, took the opportunity at what proved to be his final birthday banquet in August 1836 to settle the score. Speaking to those assembled at the banquet, who included the Duchess and Princess, William expressed his hope that he would survive until the Princess was 18 so that the Duchess would never be regent. He said, "I trust to God that my life may be spared for nine months longer .I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the exercise of the Royal authority to the personal authority of that young lady, heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed."

The speech was so shocking that Victoria burst into tears, while her mother sat in silence and was only with difficulty persuaded not to leave immediately after dinner (the two left the next day). William survived, though mortally ill, to the month after Victoria's coming of age. "Poor old man!", Victoria wrote as he was dying, "I feel sorry for him; he was always personally kind to me." Queen Adelaide attended the dying William devotedly, not going to bed herself for more than ten days.  William died in the early hours of the morning of 20 June 1837 at Windsor Castle, where he was buried.

During his rest from parliamentary routine Papa prepared an elaborate edition, in several volumes, of the works of Jeremy Bentham,  and for sale at the same time was a little book he wrote called Minor Morals for Young People.  Some people think he used me as his inspiration for the girl in the story, although he gave her the name of my sister, Edith. There were three volumes of the book, and they sold well. 

Papa based some of the stories on experiences he had had, such as his time in prison in France. I have come across the writing that Papa did to Mr. Bentham when that was happening, so I will write about it later.  The Father character in the story says to his children, “avoid being angry with another person because his opinion is not your opinion. “ But now Papa has been  involved in a bitter challenge from Mr. Bentham’s nephew over the possession of Mr. Bentham’s manuscripts.  Papa won the court case. 

Papa  was helped in the writing of the books  by a lady called Mary Hennell, one of his Unitarian friends,  and it was her brother Charles who gave my brother John Charles some of his first commercial experience in Italy.  

The works of Jeremy Bentham, sold well. You could buy the books  as a group of eight volumes, or singly. Again, Papa was criticised for leaving out the bits of Mr. Bentham’s writing that he personally didn’t care for, and interpreting some of the things Mr. Bentham said, in a way they felt was not entirely true to him.

Then  Papa was appointed head of a Government Commission to enquire into the state of commerce between England and France, afterwards engaging in similar investigations in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. 

Papa took John Charles with him on his Italian tour. They were courteously received by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, whom they accompanied in a visit to the Southern Provinces, and  saw much of the country and the people, enjoyed the society of the philologist Cardinal Mezzofanti, and was presented to Pope Gregory XVI, who conversed with them on Dante’s works and Italian literature generally. The Pope apparently mistook Papa for an Irish Catholic. 

Papa caught a marsh fever during this tour, and returned home, but he left John Charles in Naples, in the employ of a British  commercial firm under Charles Hennell.