seven years, but also that at his death he
might leave a child, or his widow in a state which warranted the
expectation of one, the latter case being the more difficult to decide
upon, since no previous Regency Bill furnished any precedent for the
ministers' guidance.

The first point, however, to be settled was, who was the most proper
person to administer the affairs of the kingdom as Regent, in the event
of the heiress to the crown being still a minor at the King's death. It
was a question on which it was evidently most desirable that no
difference of opinion should be expressed. And, in fact, no difference
existed. The leaders of both parties--the Duke and his colleagues, who
had framed the bill, and Lord Grey, with his colleagues, who adopted
it--agreed that the mother of the young sovereign would be the fittest
person to exercise the royal authority during the minority; and,
farther, that she should neither be fettered by any limitations to that
authority, nor by any councillors appointed by Parliament nominally to
advise and assist, but practically to control her. It was felt that a
Regent acting for a youthful daughter would need all the power which
could be given her; while, as she could never herself succeed to the
throne, she could be under no temptation, from views of personal
ambition, to misuse the power intrusted to her.

At first sight it seemed a more difficult and delicate question what
course should be pursued with reference to the possible event of the
King dying while the Queen, his widow, was expecting to become a mother.
As has been said above, no precedent was to be found in any former bill;
yet it seemed to be determined by the old constitutional maxim, that the
King never dies. Not even for a moment could the throne be treated as
vacant, and, therefore, it was proposed and determined that in such a
case the Princess Victoria must instantly be proclaimed Queen, and the
Duchess of Kent must instantly assume the authority of Regent; but that,
on the birth of a posthumous child to the Queen Dowager, the Princess
and the Duchess, as a matter of course, should resume their previous
rank, and Queen Adelaide become Regent, and govern in the name of her
new-born infant and sovereign. The strict constitutional correctness of
the principle elaborately and eloquently expounded to the peers by Lord
Lyndhurst was unanimously admitted, and the precedent now set was
followed, with the needful modification, w