But when the Queen came to England the case was greatly altered.  The question now forced on the consideration of the cabinet was, not the mode of avoiding an intolerable scandal, but the choice between two scandals, both of the gravest character.  The scandal to be dreaded from the revelations of the conduct of both King and Queen, that could not fail to result from the investigation which, in justice, must precede any attempt to legislate on the subject, was, indeed, as great as ever; but it had now to be compared with the alternative scandal of allowing a woman lying under such grievous imputations to preside over the British court, as, if resident in England, and in undisturbed possession of her royal rank, she of necessity must preside.  The consequence would evidently have been that the court would have been deserted by all who could give lustre and dignity to it by their position and character; and, in the slights thus offered to her, royalty and the monarchy themselves would seem to be brought into contempt.  The latter scandal, too, would be the more permanent.  Grievous and shameful as might be the disclosures which must be anticipated from an investigation in which the person accused must be permitted the employment of every means of defence, including recrimination, the scandal was yet one which would, to a certain extent, pass away with the close of the inquiry.  But, if she were left undisturbed in the enjoyment of her royal rank, and of privileges which could not be separated from it, that scandal would last as long as her life—­longer, in all probability, than the reign.  It is hardly too much to say that the monarchy itself might have been endangered by the spectacle of such a King and such a Queen; and the ministers might fairly contend that, of two great dangers and evils, they had, on the whole, chosen the least.

Lastly, if the Queen’s conduct was to be investigated, though the mode adopted was denounced as unconstitutional by the Opposition (for, not greatly to their credit, the leading Whigs made her guilt or innocence a party question), it does not seem to deserve the epithet, though it may be confessed to have been unsupported by any direct precedent.  Isabella, the faithless wife of Edward II., had, indeed, been condemned by “the Lords” to the forfeiture of many of the estates which she had illegally appropriated; but it does not appear that her violation of her marriage vows, or even her probable share or acquiescence in her husband’s murder, formed any portion of the grounds of her deprivation.  And the Parliament which attainted Catherine Howard proceeded solely on her confession of ante-nuptial licentiousness, without giving her any opportunity of answering or disproving the other charges which were brought against her.  Unprecedented, therefore, the course now adopted may be admitted to have been.  But it was the only practicable one.  The different minutes of the cabinet, which the Prime-minister laid before the