The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 614 pages of information about The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860.

The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 614 pages of information about The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860.

Nor can it be said to have been successful in accomplishing his Majesty’s object.  It is notorious that two of his sons, and very generally believed that one of his daughters, married subjects; the Prince of Wales having chosen a wife who was not only inferior in rank and social position to Lady Waldegrave or Mrs. Horton, but was moreover a Roman Catholic; and that another of his sons petitioned more than once for permission to marry an English heiress of ancient family.  And our present sovereign may be thought to have pronounced her opinion that the act goes too far, when she gave one of her younger daughters in marriage to a nobleman who, however high in rank, has no royal blood in his veins.  The political inconvenience which might arise from the circumstance of the reigning sovereign being connected by near and intimate relationship with a family of his British subjects will, probably, always be thought to render it desirable that some restriction should be placed on the marriage of the heir-apparent; but where the sovereign is blessed with a numerous offspring, there seems no sufficient reason for sending the younger branches of the royal house to seek wives or husbands in foreign countries.  And as the precedent set in the case of the Princess Louise has been generally approved, it is probable that in similar circumstances it may be followed, and that such occasional relaxation of the act of 1772 will be regarded as justified by and consistent with the requirements of public policy as well as by the laws of nature.[29] Generally speaking, the two Houses agreed in their support of the ministerial policy both at home and abroad; but, in spite of this political harmony, a certain degree of bad feeling existed between them, which on one occasion led to a somewhat singular scene in the House of Commons.  The Commons imputed its origin to the discourtesy of the Lords, who, when members of the Commons were ordered by their House to carry its bills up to the peers, sometimes kept them “waiting three hours in the lobby among their lordships’ footmen before they admitted them.”  Burke affirmed that this had happened to himself, and that he “spoke of it, not out of any personal pride, nor as an indignity to himself, but as a flagrant disgrace to the House of Commons, which, he apprehended, was not inferior in rank to any other branch of the Legislature, but co-ordinate with them.”  And the irritation which such treatment excited led the Commons, perhaps not very unnaturally, to seek some opportunity to vindicate their dignity.  They found it in an amendment which the Lords made on a corn bill.  In the middle of April, 1772, resolutions had been passed by the Commons, in a committee of the whole House, imposing certain duties on the importation of wheat[30] and other grain when they were at a certain price, which was fixed at 48s., and granting bounties on exportation when the price fell below 44s.  The Lords made several amendments on the bill, and,

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The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.