Recollections of a Long Life

John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton (1786–1869), politician and prolific memoirist, is today best remembered for his close friendship with Lord Byron, and as the inventor of the phrase 'His Majesty's Opposition'. He travelled extensively in Europe with Byron, and acted both as his best man and as his executor after Byron's early death in 1824. He began his political career as a radical, but gradually moved to a much more conservative viewpoint. This six-volume work is a revision of his 1865 privately printed memoir, Some Account of a Long Life, expanded by his daughter from his diaries and letters, and published between 1909 and 1911. Volume 4 covers the period 1829–34, during which the death of George IV and the passing of the 1832 Reform Bill were among the most significant events. Hobhouse also recalls meeting William IV, and being impressed by the young Princess Victoria.