The supposed warnings of the French Revolution, which had been dinned into the ears of the country by every Tory orator from Peel to Sibthorpe, at last had produced their effect on the royal imagination.

Earl Grey resigned, and the Duke of Wellington, with a loyalty which certainly did not stand in need of such an unlucky proof, came forward to meet the storm.

But its violence was too much even for his courage and constancy.

He could not get colleagues to assist him in the Cabinet, or supporters to vote with him in Parliament, or soldiers to fight for him in the streets; and it was evident that in a few days his position would be such as could only be kept by fighting.
The revolution had in truth commenced.

At a meeting of the political unions on the slope of Newhall Hill at Birmingham a hundred thousand voices had sung the words: God is our guide.