reign she would establish at Court a purer life. Her death accordingly caused a general gloom. When George IV. came to the throne attention was publicly called to his degrading vices. To his wife, who had been leading an indiscreet and probably a discreditable life on the Continent, he refused to allow the position or even the title of a queen. In 1820, when she returned to meet any charges that might be brought against her, she received a most enthusiastic greeting from the populace, the general feeling being that, even if her conduct had been as bad as her husband said, his own had been so base that he had no right to call her in question. The ministers, indeed, introduced into the House of Lords a Bill to dissolve her marriage and to deprive her of the title of queen, but the majority in its favour was so small that they had to abandon it. The queen's popularity, however, deserted her when she accepted a grant of money from the ministers who had attacked her, and in 1821 she died.

12. The Southern Revolutions. 1820-1823.-In Spain Ferdinand VII., and in Naples Ferdinand I., had been ruling despotically and harshly. In 1820 the armies in both countries rose against the kings and established the same democratic constitution in both. Metternich, the Austrian minister, called on the great Powers of Europe to put down what he held to be a pernicious example to all other countries. Russia and Prussia supported him, and, meeting in congress at Troppau, called on England and France to join them against the Neapolitans. Louis XVIII., on the part of France, attempted to mediate, and though Castlereagh, the English Foreign Secretary, warmly disapproved of revolutions, he protested against Metternich's view that the great Powers had a right to interfere to suppress changes of government in smaller states. 1821 the congress removed to Laibach, and an Austrian army marched upon Naples. The Neapolitan army ran away, and the Austrians restored Ferdinand I. A military revolution which took place in the kingdom of Sardinia was crushed at the same time. In 1823 a French army entered Spain and restored Ferdinand VII. Both at Naples and in Spain the restored kings were vindictively cruel to those who had driven them from power.

In

13. Castlereagh and Canning. 1822-1826.-Castlereagh did not live to work out the policy which he had announced in the protest laid by him before the congress of Troppau. In 1822, in a moment of insanity, he committed suicide. His successor was George Canning. There was no great difference in the substance of the policy of the two men. Both had supported the doctrine of

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national independence against Napoleon, and both were ready to support it against the allied Powers whose union was popularly, though incorrectly, known as the Holy Alliance. Castlereagh, however, was anxious to conciliate the great Powers as much as possible, and confined his protests to written despatches, which were kept secret; whereas Canning took pleasure in defying Metternich and openly turned him into ridicule in the eyes of the

world. Castlereagh was accordingly detested in England as the supporter of the Holy Alliance, whereas Canning soon became popular as its opponent. He allowed, indeed, the French army to enter Spain in 1823, and had no thought of dragging England into a war; but in 1824 he acknowledged the independence of the Spanish colonies in America, after it had practically been accomplished by the exertions of the colonists. "I have called," he said

boastfully, "a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old." Such claptrap revealed the lower side of his character; but in 1826 he showed that he could act promptly as well as speak foolishly. A constitutional government having been established in Portugal, Spain, backed by France, threatened to invade Portugal. Canning at once sent British troops to secure Portugal, and the danger was averted.

14. National Uprising in Greece. 1821-1826. The object of the revolutionists in Spain and Italy had been constitutional change. An almost simultaneous rising in Greece aimed at national independence. The Turkish government was a cruel despotism, and in 1821 there was a rising in the Peloponnesus or Morea. Turks and Greeks were merciless to one another. The Turks massacred Greeks, and the Greeks gave no quarter to Turks. The Greeks had the advantage of a well-equipped shipping, and could hold their own at sea. In 1822 two great Turkish armies were sent to conquer the insurgents in the land, but one was driven back by the defenders of Missolonghi in Ætolia, the other was starved out and perished in the mountains of Argolis. The Sultan Mahmoud appealed for help to Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who had practically made himself almost independent of the Sultan, and Mehemet Ali sent to his help an Egyptian army under his own adopted son Ibrahim Pasha. In 1824 Ibrahim conquered Crete, and in 1825 landed in Peloponnesus, where he did his best absolutely to exterminate the population by slaughtering the men and sending off the women to be sold into slavery. In 1826, whilst Ibrahim was wasting Peloponnesus, the Turks captured Missolonghi, and in 1827 they reduced the Acropolis of Athens. Canning had all along sympathised with the Greeks, but Metternich opposed him in all directions. Canning accordingly turned to Russia, where Nicholas had succeeded his brother Alexander I. in 1825, and in 1826 he and the new Tzar came to an agreement that Greece should be freed from the direct government of the sultan, but should be required to pay him a tribute.

15. Peel as Home Secretary. 1821-1827.—Whilst Canning won credit for the ministry by a popular direction of foreign affairs, Peel-who had succeeded Sidmouth as Home Secretary in 1821-won credit for it by his mode of dealing with domestic difficulties. When he came into office a deep feeling of distrust existed between the rich and the poor. The rich were in a state of panic, fearing every political movement amongst the mass of

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their fellow-countrymen as likely to produce a renewal in England of the horrors of the French Revolution. The poor, on the other hand, attributed the misery resulting from economical causes, or even from the badness of the weather, to the deliberate machinations of the rich. What was wanted at that time was, not to bring classes into more violent collision by attempting to reform Parliament in a democratic direction, but to soften down the irritation between them by a series of administrative and economic reforms, which should present Parliament as a helper rather than as a contriver of fresh methods of repression. Peel was, of all men, the best fitted to take the lead in such a work. He had no sympathy with hasty and sweeping change, but he had an open mind for all practical improvements. Sooner or later the force of reasoning made an impression on him, and he was never above avowing what with some people is the most terrible of confessions—that he had changed his mind.

16. Criminal Law Reform. 1823. -The reform of the criminal law had long been advocated in vain by two large-minded members of the House of Commons, Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh. As the law stood at the beginning of the century no less than two hundred crimes were punishable by death. Anyone, for instance, who stole fish out of a pond, who hunted in the king's forests, or who injured Westminster Bridge, was to be hanged. Sometimes these harsh laws were put in force, but more often juries refused to convict even the guilty, preferring rather to perjure themselves by delivering a verdict which they knew to be untrue than send to death a person who had merely committed a trivial offence. Again and again the House of Commons had voted for an alteration of the law, but the House of Lords had obstinately refused to pass the Bills sent up to them with this object. In 1823 Peel brought in Bills for the abolition of the death penalty for about a hundred crimes, and the House of Lords at last gave way, now that the abolition was recommended by a minister.

17. Huskisson and the Combination Laws. 1824 1825.Reforms were the more easily made because the distress which had prevailed earlier was now at an end. In 1821 a revival of commerce began, and in 1824 and 1825 there was great prosperity. In the struggle which had long continued between mastermanufacturers and their workmen, the workmen had frequently combined together in trades-unions to impose terms upon the masters, and had attempted to enforce their demands by striking work. Combinations between workmen were, however, illegal till

in 1824, at the instance of Joseph Hume, a rising economical reformer, and with the warm support of Huskisson, the President of the Board of Trade, the laws against combinations were repealed, though in 1825, in consequence of acts of violence done by the workmen against unpopular masters, a further act was passed making legal all combinations both of

masters and men, if entered on for the purpose of fixing wages, but illegal if entered on for any other purpose.

18. Robinson's Budgets. 1823-1825.-This attempt to give freedom to labour was accompanied by steps in the direction of freedom of trade. Robinson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Huskisson, employed the surplus given him by the