A long negotiation ensued.  It was inevitable that some application should be made to Parliament in connection with her affairs, since the annuity which had been settled upon her by Parliament in 1814, on the occasion of her departure from England, had expired with the life of the late King.  And the ministers proposed that that annuity should now be raised from L35,000 to L50,000, on condition of her remaining abroad, having, by their positive refusal to concur in any proceedings against her while she remained abroad, extorted the King’s acquiescence in this proposal, though he called it a “great and painful sacrifice of his personal feelings.”  They sought to conciliate her acceptance of it by mentioning her in it by her title of “Queen,” and by coupling with it a sanction to her appointment of her law-officers, an Attorney and Solicitor General, an act which could only be exercised by a Queen.  And, though a part of the condition of her residence abroad required that she should do so under some other title, that seemed only a conforming to an ordinary practice of royal princes on their travels.  At the same time, the ministers stated frankly to Mr. Brougham, a lawyer of the highest reputation as an advocate, whom she had appointed her Attorney-general, that, if she should reject the offer, and come to England, as she had already announced her intention of doing, such a course would leave them no alternative, but would compel them to institute proceedings against her.

Eventually she preferred the advice of others to that of Mr. Brougham, or, as it may, perhaps, be more consistent with the real fact to say, she yielded to her own feelings of hatred of her husband, which, it must be confessed, were far from unnatural.  She believed, or professed to believe, that he had more to dread from an exposure of his conduct than she had from any revelations of her actions; and, under this impression, in the spring she crossed the Channel and took up her residence in London.  It was a step which seemed to Lord Liverpool to leave him no alternative, and, in consequence, he at once took the course which he had from the beginning conceived her arrival would render indispensable.  He brought down to Parliament a royal message from the King, announcing that her return to England had made it necessary to communicate to the Houses documents relating to her conduct since her departure from the kingdom, which he recommended to their immediate and serious attention.  He proposed the appointment by ballot of a committee of the House of Lords to examine those documents; and when the committee had reported that the documents containing “allegations deeply affecting the honor of the Queen, etc., ... appeared to the committee calculated to affect not only the honor of the Queen, but also the dignity of the crown and the moral feelings and honor of the country, so that in their opinion, they should become the subject of a solemn inquiry, which might be best effected in the course of a legislative proceeding,” he introduced a “Bill of Pains and Penalties” to deprive her of her title of Queen, and to annul her marriage.