“. . . The Whigs, I think, are done. Snip Robinson,* you evidently see, is everything with Prinney. Only think of Petty† buckling to under him, and the venerable Tierney too and old goose-rumped Carlisle.† . . . I am happy to find that both these Raby and Lowther tits talk very freely of Lord Lansdowne’s degradation in having Lord Goodrich [sic] put over him. . . . No tidings of the Beau yet! but he must have his mare again,§ not only because everybody’s language is that the Army is going to the devil under Palmerston,‖ but Mrs. Taylor has told me of a correspondence
* Viscount Goderich, who became Prime Minister on Canning’s death. ‡ The 6th Earl of Carlisle. § A saying current at the time, expressive of a man regaining his old position. ‖ Viscount Palmerston was Secretary-at-War. |
| 124 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. V. |
“It seems for some time after the Duke left the Horse Guards he called perpetually on Sir Herbert Taylor, and gave him his opinion and advice as to what was going on, and Taylor availed himself of one of his interviews with the King to express his great obligations to the Duke for his kind and useful counsel; upon which the King wrote the Beau a letter at the beginning or end of which he called him his ‘good friend’;* thanked him for all his kindness to Taylor, and urged him to retract his resignation. The Beau considered this as the tricky suggestion of Canning; but, be it so or not, Grey represents his answer as perfect—regretting he should have been misunderstood—that his private honor would never permit him to retract, but his wish was always the same, to be of what use he could to the army. Since then, the King said to Lord Maryborough that the Duke of Wellington never comes to see him now, and upon the other saying he was sure it was only the apprehension of intruding that kept his brother away:—‘Oh no,’ said the King, ‘he knows very well I am always delighted to see him.’ Upon this being told the Duke, he made that last visit to Windsor, which made the jaw in the paper. So I can have no doubt, upon all these grounds, that his mare at least is certain, and then I think the noses of the old Click will be poking themselves in one after another, till not a single Whig nose is left in the concern.”
