1822) to a coalition with the Grenville party, whereby catholic emancipation entered the sphere of practical politics. Eldon's chagrin at this arrangement—he had a hatred of coalitions—was mitigated by the exclusion of Canning from office. He was further consoled by the defeat of Canning's adroit attempt to initiate the process of emancipation with the catholic peer (21 June 1822). His failure to defeat the retrospective clauses of the Clandestine Marriage Act of this year (3 Geo. IV, c. 75), by which marriages contracted by minors without consent of their parents or guardians were validated, further evinced the decline of his influence; and when Canning succeeded Lord Londonderry at the foreign office, his consternation was extreme. He adhered, however, tenaciously to the woolsack, and for the additional mortification caused by Huskisson's accession to the cabinet found some compensation in the defeat of the Unitarian Marriage Bill of 1824 and of the Catholic Relief Bills of that and the following year. When Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool, Eldon deserted with the rest of the tories (12 April 1827), and was succeeded in the following month by Lord Lyndhurst.
Mortification at his exclusion from the Duke of Wellington's administration intensified the obstinacy with which in the debates on the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828), and in the final struggle on catholic emancipation (1829), Eldon maintained what he knew to be a hopeless struggle. His resistance to the latter measure he carried to the point of seriously urging the king to withhold his assent in two prolonged private audiences, one on 28 March, and the other in the following month. On the accession of William IV he supported Lord Grey's amendment to the answer to the royal message (30 June 1830) with the view of postponing the dissolution. Unmanned for a time by the death of Lady Eldon (28 June 1831), he mastered himself sufficiently to lead the irreconcilable section of the opposition in the struggle on the parliamentary Reform Bill. After fiercely contesting the measure at every stage, he denounced (21 May 1832) the proposed creation of new peers as unconstitutional, and only withdrew his opposition when its futility was made apparent. Tithe commutation, the several reforms founded on the reports of the real property and common law commissioners and the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, also found in him a sturdy opponent (1831–1834). His great age and staunchness made him the idol of his party. Churchmen showed their gratitude by founding in 1829 the Eldon law scholarship, for which only churchmen and Oxford graduates were to be eligible; and Oxford honoured her high steward hardly less than her chancellor, though the latter was the hero of Waterloo, at the commemoration of 1834.
He survived to take the oaths to Queen Victoria (21 June 1837), and died of old age at Hamilton Place on 13 Jan. 1838, leaving personalty sworn under 700,000l. His remains were interred by those of his wife in the graveyard of Kingston Chapel, near Encombe in the Isle of Purbeck, where in 1807 he had purchased a seat. The chapel, which he had rebuilt, contains his monument with an effigy by Chantrey.
Eldon had issue two sons—viz. (1) John (b. 8 March 1774), who died thirty-two years before his father, on 24 Dec. 1805, leaving issue by his wife (m. 22 Aug. 1804), Henrietta Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Matthew White Ridley, bart., an only son, John (b. 10 Dec. 1805; d. 13 Sept. 1854), who from 1821 bore the title Viscount Encombe, and on his grandfather's death succeeded to the earldom and estates; (2) William Henry (b. 25 Feb. 1795, d. 6 July 1832)—and two daughters, viz. (1) Elizabeth (m. 27 Nov. 1817, George Manley Repton, youngest son of Humphry Repton [q. v.], d. 16 April 1862), and (2) Frances Jane (m. 6 April 1820 Rev. Edward Bankes, rector of Corfe Castle).
Of middle height, well knit and active, with regular features, keen, sparkling eyes, and luxuriant hair, Eldon in the prime of life was almost the ideal of manly beauty. To please Lady Eldon he wore his hair rather long; and at her instance, on his appointment to the lord chief-justiceship, asked leave of George III to dispense with his wig out of court, but was met with the curt response, ‘No, no! I will have no innovations in my time.’ The liberty denied to the chief justice was, however, conceded to or usurped by the chancellor. As he advanced in years thought and care added refinement and dignity to his physiognomy without impairing the geniality of his smile or the urbanity of his manners. His constitution was as robust as his political principles; yet he wept with facility, even in public, sometimes, as on Romilly's death, from genuine feeling, sometimes, apparently, for effect. His political courage was undoubted; but he had little physical prowess. A single fall induced him to forswear riding in early manhood; and though he was never happier than when among the birds at Encombe, he was so bad a shot that Lord Stowell rallied him with killing nothing but
