All attempts to deal with the tithe question
failed for the time, four more years elapsing before it was finally
settled. But, curtailed as it was, the bill of 1833 still deserves to be
remembered as a landmark in constitutional legislation, since it
afforded the first instance of Parliament affirming a right to deal with
ecclesiastical dignities and endowments, thus setting a precedent which,
in the next reign, was followed with regard to the Church of England.
Lord Melbourne succeeded Lord Grey at the Treasury; but every one saw
that the ministry was greatly weakened. The King, too, had become
greatly dissatisfied both with their general policy, especially in
regard to the Irish Church--which he took an opportunity of assuring the
Irish bishops he was unalterably resolved to uphold--and also with the
language and conduct of one or two individual ministers, to which it is
not necessary to refer more particularly; and when, on the death of Lord
Spencer, father of Lord Althorp, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which
took place in November, 1834, it became necessary for Lord Melbourne to
propose to him a re-arrangement of some of the cabinet offices, he at
once dismissed the whole body of the ministers. It was a somewhat
singular step to take, for they had not been defeated in Parliament, and
he did not himself allege any special dissatisfaction with anything
which they had yet done, though he did apprehend that some of them would
press upon him measures disadvantageous to "the clergy of the Church of
England in Ireland," to which he had an insuperable objection; and,
moreover, that the subject would cause fresh divisions in the ministry,
and the resignation of one or two more of its most important members.
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