Dubbed ‘that marplot Littleton’ by Thomas Creevey*, but considered ‘a man of good understanding and considerable acquirement, with a large share of vanity accompanied with pride and pomp’ by his Staffordshire neighbour William Dyott, Littleton continued to sit on the former interest of his great-uncle Sir Edward Littleton, whom he had succeeded in the representation.
generally voted with the government, opposing it however occasionally on some questions ... of economy, but especially on questions relating to the improvement of criminal law. The great battle of succeeding years was the Catholic question, on which I for several years witnessed with admiration Canning’s unrivalled oratorical powers, and in favour of which I always gave a zealous vote, and something more than a formal support both in Parliament and in my county, where I had on that account much prejudice to encounter.
Hatherton diary, intro., 21 Nov. 1821, 27 June 1831.
The Staffordshire industrialist Sir Robert Peel† abhorred his ‘Catholic politics’, but thought him ‘an excellent commercial Member’.
At the 1820 general election Littleton pledged to continue his support for the ‘extensive manufacturing districts of our county’ in a declaration sent from Vienna, where he was detained on account of his wife’s illness, and deputed his uncle John Walhouse to campaign on his behalf. The controversial decision of the other sitting Member Lord Gower to relinquish his family’s traditional seat rather than face an expensive contest allowed Littleton to come in unopposed.
He ignored the government’s ‘expresses’ urging his attendance at a meeting on the Queen Caroline affair, 21 Aug. 1820; but Huskisson informed Canning, 30 Jan. 1821, that ‘many of our friends (Littleton for one) who had come down to vote for Lord Archibald [Hamilton] turned against him’, and he divided in defence of ministers’ conduct, 6 Feb.
Littleton divided with government against more extensive tax reductions, 11, 21 Feb., but with opposition for naval reductions, explaining that ‘the altered situation of the country warranted an alteration of his vote’, 1 Mar., and abolition of one of the joint-postmasterships, 13 Mar. 1822. He condemned the salt tax as ‘grievous and impolitic’, 28 Feb., but opposed immediate repeal as ‘inconsistent’ with recent measures ‘to support public credit with a sinking fund’. He welcomed the vagrancy laws amendment bill, 29 Mar. 1822, and testified to the success of its operation, 4, 10 Feb. 1824. He spoke in favour of a clause proposed to be added to the licensing bill ‘encouraging the sale of beer of a diminished strength’, 24 May 1822. He divided for criminal law reform, 4 June, and presented two petitions against the truck system, 17 June 1822. He voted with government on the sinking fund, 5 Mar., and against tax reductions, 10 Mar., and warned that ‘too sudden a repeal’ of the coal duties would ‘very materially’ injure investors, 27 Mar. 1823. He divided against repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 16 Apr., and inquiry into the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr. He condemned the French invasion of Spain, 30 Apr., but discountenanced war as ‘our commerce and manufactures were now in a flourishing state’ and should not be risked in ‘a quarrel which was not ... our own’. He criticized the combination bill’s ‘minute and vexatious regulations’, which ‘no man connected with the manufacturing districts could possibly approve of’, 27 May. He voted with government on the currency, 12 June 1823. He divided against reform of Edinburgh’s representation, 26 Feb., and the usury laws repeal bill, 26 Feb., 8 Apr., which he described as ‘impolitic’, 9 Apr. 1824. He condemned proposals to encourage importation of foreign silks as a ‘menace’ to which his constituents were ‘unanimously opposed’, 5 Mar., but three days later announced that ‘his opinion on the question had been altered’ by the ministerial explanation. On 18 Mar. he endorsed the government’s ‘wise and prudent’ policy of ‘keeping out of war’ with France, and ‘at the request’ of Canning, the foreign secretary, moved a successful amendment to the opposition censure motion. George Agar Ellis* thought it ‘a very good speech’ to which ‘the House did not pay all the attention that it deserved’.
He divided for suppression of the Catholic Association, 26 Feb., and for Catholic relief, 1 Mar., 21 Apr., 10 May 1825. On 28 Mar. he gave notice of ‘a measure for the regulation of the franchise in Ireland’, which he hoped would provide ‘an indispensable accompaniment to Catholic concession’. Next day, however, Canning wrote to complain of his fixing the first reading for 14 Apr., ‘the day on which the House meets after the recess’, and entreated him ‘to reconsider’ and ‘not to moot that question, till the Catholic bill had passed a second reading’. Wilmot Horton protested in similar terms that Burdett had postponed the relief bill ‘specially on account of the inconvenience accruing to Members from attendance on that day’, but Spring Rice advised him to ‘adhere to your present resolutions’ as ‘I am sure we should do well on that day’. Littleton postponed until the 22nd when, as Canning had promised, he experienced ‘no difficulty’ in obtaining leave to bring in the bill.
Rumours of an impending dissolution that September prompted Littleton to ask Sir Robert Peel to second his nomination, as a representative of ‘the manufacturing body’. William Peel* told his brother the home secretary that the letter ‘is (as I think the writer also) a perfect piece of humbug’, but added that their father intended to ‘second the nomination, stating that he does not approve of Littleton’s Catholic politics’. Littleton welcomed the subsequent postponement of a dissolution, informing the home secretary that it ‘cannot fail to be regarded by those who have compromised their interests with their constituents on the Catholic question as a gracious act on the part of the government’; and Canning observed that ‘your constituents will not have an opportunity of throwing your disfranchisement bill in your face, on the hustings, this year’.
The mass of the people are seldom unjust, and I cannot think that after 14 years’ zealous devotion to the county representation and parliamentary business, during which period my vote on the Catholic question has always been the same ... they would now be influenced to turn around upon me, and tell me I am unworthy of their confidence.
Ibid. 27/52, ff. 36-37.
He spoke in similar terms at the 1826 general election, when he also contended that Canning’s foreign policy afforded the ‘best hopes for an enduring peace’ and that distress had ‘arisen mainly from natural causes’, but advocated a ‘gradual’ alleviation of the tax burden. Rumours of an anti-Catholic candidate came to nothing and he was returned unopposed.
Writing to Canning to support his claims to the premiership, 22 Feb. 1827, Littleton described ‘a meeting of the opposition’ at which Lord John Russell, James Abercromby ‘and several others’ had agreed that ‘your accession to the principal post in the administration’ would be ‘a great advantage to the principles they support in common with yourself’ and ‘a great gain to their own views as a party’.
Littleton, who considered the inclusion of Lords Londonderry and Aberdeen to be ‘the only discreditable part of the new cabinet arrangements’, was appointed to the finance committee, 15 Feb. 1828, ‘on a distinct understanding that I shall vote on each question as I think proper’, but he was not made its chairman, as had been widely rumoured.
Littleton, who had observed in his diary, 7 Feb., that the ‘Speaker told me seriously that he had heard me mentioned as likely to succeed him in the chair’, dismissed a fresh rumour that he ‘was likely to be elected speaker’ in a letter to Robert Percy Smith*, 10 Sept. 1828:
How it originated I cannot conceive ... That I would take the office, all conscious as I am of my unfitness for it, and would fearlessly face that family of disease (piles, fistulae, stone, gravel, strangury, and constipation) for the sake of such an honour, I will not conceal from you. But depend on it, it is an honour not reserved for me ... I have disregarded my connection with the duke’s family, and have followed the remnants of the Canning party to ‘honest corner’; while I lost no opportunity last session of giving Peel such kicks as a country gentleman could give, on the East Retford question. He was more than angry with me: and no doubt dislikes me for it ... It cannot be that I stand well at Downing Street.
Hatherton diary; Hatherton mss 27/5, f. 44.
Lord Bathurst informed Wellington, 29 Sept. 1828, that ‘there is a silent canvass going on in the favour of Mr. Littleton being Speaker, on the supposition that there will be a vacancy’, and that ‘he will be supported by the Whigs and the Canningites, and have some friends among the country gentlemen and will therefore be a formidable rival to Sir John Beckett if, as it is imagined, Sir John should be proposed’.
On 8 Sept. 1828 Littleton informed Huskisson that he was convinced that Wellington meant ‘to propose some arrangement on the Catholic question’, noting ‘some strange changes of sentiment among many of the [Protestant] party’ which would make him ‘indifferent about risking a difference with Peel’. Writing from Ireland, 29 Oct. 1828, where his visit to ‘nine or ten counties’ had ‘rather altered’ his hostile ‘feeling about the Brunswickers of the north’, he predicted that the duke himself ‘would propose nothing, but that if a bill were sent up by a large majority next session he would make what he could of it’.
It is to me, for who for 17 years have fought in the ranks of the friends of religious liberty, nuts and sugar to see the men who from selfish and unchristian like motives have been struggling to keep the Catholics down politically, at length left to do their own dirty work alone, without one name of respectability to help themselves with ... They are all now in shame and confusion ... Peel has done himself great honour, and should be stoutly supported.
Hatherton mss, Littleton to wife, 5, 10 Feb.; diary, 6 Feb. 1829.
He duly assisted Peel in his contest against Sir Robert Inglis*, ‘the prince of bigots’, at Oxford University, although he felt that Peel had been ‘wrong to resign’ and ‘having resigned ... wrong to offer himself again, and put his friends to a test under awkward circumstances’.
have given myself great pains by inquiring among the best informed Irish to ascertain how many Roman Catholics might ... get into Parliament from Ireland under the present modification of the electors’ franchises: I am assured universally not ten. I know that there are not more who could get returned from England. Here endeth my first epistle to the Romans.
Ibid. f. 121.
He argued against the issue of the East Retford writ and voted for the transfer of its seats to Birmingham, 5 May 1829, 11 Feb. 1830. He contended that the restriction of small notes had ‘considerably increased’ the ‘evil’ of the truck system, 11 May 1829. He presented and endorsed petitions against renewal of the East India Company’s charter, 12, 14 May, having advised his agent that he was ready ‘to join with the public in its efforts to completely destroy that monopoly’.
Littleton spoke in favour of the lunatic licenses bill, 9 Feb. 1830, when he was appointed to the select committee on the East India Company. Informing his wife of the government’s difficulties and their small minority on the address, 10 Feb., he observed, ‘there is no certainty for them on any point, party being dissolved, they do not know their opponents. Neither do they know their friends ... Questions will continually arise incidentally in debates, on they will find themselves basketted’.
At the 1830 general election Littleton offered again, stressing his support for ‘transferring the franchise from convicted boroughs to the large towns’, hostility to slavery and the East India Company’s monopoly and campaign to end truck. Observing that ‘violent party distinctions were more nearly obliterated than they had been, for a long series of years’ and that ‘every honest man’ now ought to exercise ‘private judgement’, he promised to ‘join any party, in whatever quarter of the House it might sit, for the purpose of obtaining some remission of the public burdens’. He was again returned unopposed. ‘He is such a favourite with his constituents’, remarked his wife, ‘that there is no danger of his being turned out, like so many county Members have been this time’.
regretted so much that they should not have come to a more close understanding, both as to men and measures, and was so convinced that on the latter point the duke could at that moment make great concessions, without inconsistency, that I was determined to talk to [Charles] Arbuthnot* on the subject. Accordingly I called on him ... [31 Oct.] and found that he and the duke were under an idea that Palmerston’s friends would insist on the introduction of [Henry] Brougham*. I disabled his mind on this point, and told him that Graham and Stanley were, in my belief, the only Whigs in the ... Commons Palmerston would care for, and perhaps Lord Grey in the House of Lords, that it appeared to me these parties might honourably join the government on the following terms: the duke of Kent to be regent, a reduced civil list, a bill to abolish pluralities in civil offices, abolition of the China monopoly, two Members to be given to three or four large towns, with a positive engagement that every future case of convicted borough should be a case of transfer.
Hatherton mss 27/6, f. 80.
According to Mrs. Arbuthnot, Littleton hoped that ‘Pal[mersto]n and Co.’ might drop all their demands except parliamentary reform, of which ‘the most moderate would satisfy them, that is to say, representatives for four great towns to be obtained by taking one from eight rotten boroughs and some alterations in county voting’.
What makes the duke’s conduct more silly, is that men’s minds were attuned to moderation on the subject of reform. They were united in temperate views, and would have thought representation given to a few great towns, as many rotten boroughs extinguished, and a reform of the Scotch franchise a great thing. Now we must fight for it.
Hatherton mss 27/53, f. 40.
On 9 Nov. Littleton accused O’Connell of deliberately misrepresenting his remark that he ‘did not care about Ireland’ in terms of his truck bill, which had appeared out of context in the Dublin Evening Post of 23 Oct., and repudiated the charge. James Hope Vere recalled that he ‘never saw in the House such a storm or heard such cheering’.
had no sooner received a letter from Lord Grey informing him he had just left the king ... than he came to me to tell me what had passed between Grey and himself, and concluded by asking me what objects I had for myself. I of course stammered out ‘none’, and then slipped in a ... suggestion others had frequently made to me, re[garding] the anticipated vacancy of the speaker’s chair. I told him I would not ask for a peerage but through the chair, I should value the attainment of that distinction. He commended my ambition and promised his support.
Hatherton mss 27/6, f. 66B.
On 26 Nov., however, he observed that ‘the Speaker will I fear hold on’, not wanting to ‘ask to be removed’, adding, ‘I must devise means of making him or others think of it in the course of this session. At all events I should think a coronation would carry him off’. He duly asked Grey for the government’s support whenever Manners Sutton retired, 6 Dec. 1830, claiming that ‘many of the Members who now occupy minor departments’ had ‘voluntarily expressed’ their preference for him, that he had the backing of Palmerston and Graham and some leading backbenchers, and that ‘pecuniary compensation either now or hereafter is no object to me’. Grey, however, declined ‘to enter into any engagement’ in advance of a vacancy.
On 14 Dec. 1830 Littleton resumed his campaign against the truck system and secured leave to reintroduce his bill by 167-27. He moved its second reading, 11 Feb., but its commitment was repeatedly deferred until 22 Mar. 1831, when the provisions prohibiting truck and the repeal of earlier Acts were divided into two separate bills. The repeal bill passed its third reading, 20 Apr., but both measures were overtaken by the dissolution that month. Reintroduced in the Lords by Wharncliffe, 28 June, they passed their third reading, 5 Aug., and after being steered through the Commons by Littleton, they were read a third time, 5 Oct., the repeal bill without opposition, and the prohibition bill with amendments which passed 61-4, with Littleton as teller. That day he noted in his diary:
Passed my truck bills after 20 months incessant attention, and correspondence of more than 1,000 letters, constant interviews, daily attendance in the House to watch opportunities of bringing on the different stages. My mind is quite relieved.
The bills received royal assent (as 1 and 2 Gul. IV, cc. 36, 37), 15 Oct. 1831, and Littleton later claimed that ‘in the Potteries the practice has ceased’ and in Gloucestershire was ‘waging an unequal war with the law, which I am told will put it down’.
Littleton had opposed Lord Chandos’s motion to disfranchise Evesham, 16 Dec. 1830, insisting that his support for a full measure of reform was not the ‘result of any new-born zeal’. By now, as he informed Wellesley, 20 Dec. 1830, he was convinced that
nothing short of an extensive and almost republican basis of franchise will satisfy the country. We can still have a milder measure of reform than we could if reform were resisted six months longer, but already it is a problem how the monarchy and the peerage can coexist with the independent House of Commons we are about to construct ... Retford and the duke’s speech occurring about the same time with the French revolution have brought us to this crisis.
Ibid. 27/6, f. 80.
Citing the numerous reform petitions from Staffordshire which he had been asked to present, 28 Feb. 1831, he noted that they were ‘signed by Whig and Tory, poor and rich, and by persons of all classes and conditions’ and that he had never seen ‘so much unanimity on any public question before’. Littleton, who had privately expressed to Hume ‘very grave doubts of the possibility of carrying reform with this present House’, 29 Dec. 1830, commended the ministerial reform bill’s ‘comprehensiveness and its perfect safety’ to his agent, 4 Mar. 1831, hoping that the country might ‘be roused from one end to the other, if the bill be rejected, for its only chance will be to get a dissolution’.
Littleton presented the Turnpike Acts continuance bill, 27 June 1831, and was reappointed to the East India committee the following day. He demanded more time to consider the register of deeds bill, 30 June. He opposed withholding the Liverpool writ since ‘under the present system there is not a borough in England and Wales in which we can expect an election to take place without some kind of corruption’, 8 July. He voted for the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July, at least twice against an adjournment, 12 July, and steadily supported its details, although he objected to ‘taking the amount of assessed taxes as the tests of the prosperity of the manufacturing districts’ on the ground that ‘their capital is employed in trade’, 5 Aug., and was a leading campaigner for giving representatives to the Potteries. In an undated memorandum, he claimed to have submitted plans for the enfranchisement of Stoke in December 1830 to Althorp, who ‘told me he had read it to Grey’s cabinet’, and that when he ‘subsequently found that Gateshead was to have Members’ he had ‘insisted on the equal claim of Walsall’. On 3 July he complained to Althorp that despite his firm belief that the Potteries should be allocated two Members rather than one
at the earnest and very just remonstrance of the government and the friends of the reform bill, I had consented not to move the transfer of Stoke from schedule D to schedule C ... I receive greater unpopularity by it than by any act of my parliamentary life. Judge of my surprise when I heard ... Gisborne give notice that he should move to bring Stockport from schedule D to C, and when he further informed me that Lord John Russell had consented to the measure. My constituents will hardly think when they see this motion that I am acting fairly by them ... I hope I may be released from my engagement ... The cases of Stockport and Stoke are so precisely the same, that the 60,000 of my constituents in the latter place will condemn my conduct.
Hatherton mss 27/7, ff. 38, 40.
He presented and strongly endorsed a Stoke petition for ‘two representatives’, 12 July, and after being informed by Russell that the government would not relent, gave notice of a motion to that effect, 29 July. After attending a meeting at Althorp’s where it was ‘agreed to waive all minute differences of opinion’, 3 Aug., he told his agent that he did not intend ‘without further instructions from my constituents’ to press it; but the following day he voted in committee for giving Stoke two Members, having
made, to my great pain (for I feared embarrassing the government, but was compelled by an engagement made to my constituents) a motion for bringing the Potteries out of schedule D (one Member) and inserting it in schedule C. After a short debate it was negatived, though I think my statement was a strong one.
Hatherton diary, 29 July, 4 Aug.; Hatherton mss 27/53, f. 116.
The agent handling Stoke’s campaign, however, was far from mollified and in a series of letters to the local press condemned Littleton’s handling of the business, especially his failure to inform the government that ‘Peel and his friends would support the motion’, of which Littleton insisted he had ‘had no knowledge’ until ‘the last minute’, 19 Aug. ‘Had our case been circulated at the time you presented our petition’, the agent remonstrated, 12 Sept., ‘and had you then moved the transfer of Stoke into schedule C, as it was expected you would have done, the Potteries would have had two representatives, or had it been allowed to circulate and the motion made but ten days earlier than it was, the result would have been the same’.
We march slowly in the reform bill. All sorts of unfair tricks are practised to clog and defeat it. Sir Robert Peel affects to dislike it, but never tells his friends privately not to delay it, this is always his way, and gets him the character of a Jesuit. He wishes to upset the bill and defeat the government ... I have had the best constituents for twenty years that ever man had, and hope to repay them by taking a share, by unfailing presence in the House of Commons, in the accomplishment of a measure which shall shut the door of the temple forever to mere dandies, young lifeguardsmen, jobbing lawyers, and money changers.
He later boasted that he had ‘been present in every division except two, and on those I paired. It is sharpish work, and many Members are ill’. ‘Reform, Reform’, he complained in another diary entry, 27 Aug., ‘the dullness of the committee is dreadful’.
Littleton, who had been asked by Russell to assist with the boundary commission, 21 July, defended the arrangements proposed for Wolverhampton and Walsall during a ‘little skirmish with Croker’, 4, 6 Aug. 1831, and again, 8, 28 Feb., 5, 7 Mar. 1832. He privately urged Althorp to appoint a select committee to ‘suggest satisfactory divisions of most of the counties’, 25 July, and spoke at length in defence of the proposed division, 11 Aug. 1831, commenting in his diary that ‘this was a question of infinite delicacy and difficulty’ whose ‘tendency and object was aristocratic and designed to please the Tories and the Lords’. He was ‘employed daily in keeping the government to their colours’ on it and after a ‘capital division’ that day, which he attributed to ‘Ebrington and myself solely’, he remarked, ‘I was so happy, I could not sleep’. ‘The division of Worcestershire is the only blot in the whole scheme’, he later informed his agent, ‘all other counties divide easily and advantageously’.
proposed with 30 others as a commissioner [unpaid] for dividing counties and giving limits to boroughs, and selecting the chief towns for the courts to be held. Some of the opposition objected to Mr. D. Gilbert* and myself as being Members, but no division.
Hatherton diary, 1 Sept. 1831.
On 28 Oct. he ‘set to work on the borough reports’ under the supervision of Lieutenant Thomas Drummond of the Royal Engineers. ‘I am hard at work here at the limits for boroughs’, he reported to his agent, 10 Nov., ‘and not a holiday now have I had a chance of over this year’.
rejoiced to find the Potteries was one place, and, though there was some doubt about it, Dudley was agreed upon as another. The Potteries have not behaved well to me, they owe to me entirely, to my early and continued insistence with the government, their construction as a borough, and they now owe to me another Member. They are no borough in fact, and the government would never have thought of making them one.
Ibid. 7-8 Dec. 1831.
He continued to work on the boundary arrangements ‘from 11 till 7’ for much of December and January, observing that ‘nothing can be more dull and flat than the House of Commons’, 8 Dec., and complaining that Russell had produced ‘a fresh set of instructions respecting the boundaries to be given to boroughs containing less than 300 qualifying tenants’, which amounted to ‘a complete bouleversement of all our proceedings’ and meant that ‘many of their reports must be torn, and reconstructed, and many of them must revisit their boroughs in the frost and snow’, 19 Dec. 1831.
On 29 July 1831 he had voted for O’Connell’s motion to swear in the original Dublin election committee. He presented and endorsed a petition for repeal of the stamp duty on fire insurances, 18 Aug., commended the Irish public works bill as ‘a material improvement upon the old system’, 16 Sept., and was appointed to the select committee on Irish tithes, 15 Dec. He retained his ambitions for the Speakership, promising his wife to ‘do all in my power to create claims on Stanley and all the rest for the chair’, and writing a ‘long letter’ to Palmerston about his claim, 15 Oct. 1831, on account of James Abercromby* being ‘likely to come into Parliament again’ and ‘the Whigs preferring him, as it is natural they should’.
the boundary bill went through a committee, not occupying altogether more than 10 hours. It had been universally supposed early in the session that a month at least would have been occupied at this stage, every line being debatable matter. But by much previous labour in satisfying objections, and by having observed throughout most scrupulously the fairest and most impartial conduct much opposition was got over before we entered the House.
Ibid. 7-8 June 1832.
He was a majority teller at least three times for the bill, 22 June, when it passed ‘after only three nights’ discussion’ and ‘no very important alterations’. ‘Thank God the boundary bill is now out of my hands’, he wrote to his agent the following day.
He voted with government on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12, 20 July, and relations with Portugal, 9 Feb. 1832. On 8 Feb. he argued for a select committee on the register of deeds bill, to which he was appointed, 22 Feb. He supported a bill to regulate the election of coroners, 16 Feb., and voted to make their inquests public, 20 June. He proposed measures to expedite the processing of ‘the immense quantity of private business’, 2 Mar. He was appointed to the select committees on petitions, 9 Mar., and slavery, 30 May. He favoured postponing discussion of the corn laws, 1 June, and presented and endorsed a petition for hearing the complaints of country banks, 4 June. He expressed ‘great satisfaction at the reductions which have been made by the government’, 25 July, noting that their repeal of the borax duties would prevent ‘great loss of life’ in the Potteries. He called for a ‘complete statement of the imports and exports of the country’, 30 July. That day he complimented the work of the Speaker, who was expected to retire. On 2 Nov. he advised Fazakerley that he had made up his mind ‘to accept the support of my friends as Manners Sutton’s successor’, adding that Grey ‘earnestly desired to see my election’ and ‘Althorp’s feelings were the same, so were Dartmouth’s and Palmerston’s’.
No schoolboy was ever more vain of a school prize than my friend ... It was certainly driving at a post of high distinction, but the vain ostentation exhibited, betrayed rather a want of the proper feeling of a great mind ... He wants temper; he is deficient in acquirement; he is haughty and peevish in manner, with a want of suavity in general deportment.
Dyott’s Diary, ii. 145-6.
Fearing a rift in the party, the government opted to re-elect Manners Sutton.
At the 1832 general election Littleton was returned unopposed for the new division of Staffordshire South, where he was re-elected in ‘a short but inexpensive contest’ with the local Tories following his appointment as Irish secretary in May 1833. His unauthorized proffering of alterations to the Irish coercion bill during negotiations with O’Connell, which he later admitted to have been ‘a gross indiscretion’, initiated the political crisis which led to Grey’s retirement in July 1834. He was derided by many, including Greville, as ‘the instrument of breaking up this government’; as Dyott put it, his ‘conduct was highly censured and deservedly, his motive was vanity and an effort to appear of supreme consequence’. After the 1835 general election, when he was returned unopposed, he was passed over by Russell as the Liberal candidate for the Speakership, and on the formation of the second Melbourne ministry was elevated to the Lords, where he spoke ‘rarely’.