1820 he accepted the invitation brought him by a deputation from Nottingham, and after a twelve days' poll he and Mr. Birch were returned by a majority of only thirty-three in a poll of eighteen hundred and sixty. Upon this he resigned his deputy-recordership and held his last sessions 14 April 1820. The cost of the contest tried him severely. In spite of large subscriptions from various whig noblemen and friends his share of the expenses was some 1,500l., and his savings were only 300l. or 400l.
At the end of 1819, Brougham, his close friend, had told him he would have a general retainer for the Princess of Wales, and on the accession of George IV the queen appointed him her solicitor-general. Denman was enthusiastic in her cause, believing her (as Brougham did not), to use his own simile, pure as unsunned snow; but when the queen arrived neither of them allowed his wife to call upon her. Both now made application to the chancellor for the customary precedence given to the queen's law officers, but this was refused; but upon the motion of Sir William Grant they were called to the bench by Lincoln's Inn. On 6 June the queen arrived in London, and negotiations began with the king. On 22 June, Wilberforce introduced a motion in the commons that the queen, ‘by forbearing to press further points in the then negotiations, would not be understood to be shirking inquiry, but to be deferring to the wishes of the house.’ Denman on this made a powerful speech, in the course of which he declared that, though her name was excluded from the liturgy, she still came under the petition for ‘those who are desolate and oppressed.’ This attempt at mediation failed. On 26 June he was heard at the bar of the lords to urge the select committee to delay their report until the witnesses called by the Milan commission could be brought to England. This was refused. On 4 July the committee reported that the charges justified an inquiry, and on 5 July Lord Liverpool introduced a bill of pains and penalties. Counsel were heard on the 17th. Brougham, Denman, Williams, Tindal, Lushington, and Wilde, all subsequently judges, were for the queen. On the 18th, Denman made a speech against the principle of the bill; evidence was taken from 21 Aug. to 7 Sept., and the house adjourned. Denman, overworked and ill of jaundice, went to Cheltenham; the crowd took out his horses, dragged his carriage into the town, and threatened the life of a German whom they took for Bergami. The house met again on 3 Oct., and on 24th and 25th, in a speech lasting ten hours, Denman summed up the queen's case. Unfortunately he worked up his peroration to the story of the woman taken in adultery, and on this was founded the epigram:
Most gracious queen, we thee implore
To go away and sin no more;
Or, if that effort be too great,
To go away at any rate.
Addressing himself to the rumours put about by the Duke of Clarence, although he was present in the house, he apostrophised him in the words ‘Come forth, thou slanderer!’ and his supposed comparison of George IV to Nero procured for Carlton Palace the name of Nerot's Hotel (Moore, Memoirs, 6 Nov. 1820). His splendid acting caused this speech at the time to be thought finer than Brougham's, though as printed it appears inferior. Denman continued to act for and advise the queen after the withdrawal of the bill; it was against his advice that she made her notification to the ministry, before any offer was made to her, that she would accept no money, and against his advice that she attempted to appear at the coronation 19 July 1821. He saw to the preparation of her will, but was not an executor or in attendance at her death or funeral.
The popularity of Brougham and Denman after the trial was immense. A vote of thanks and the freedom of the city was voted them 7 Dec. 1820, and presented 7 June 1821, and in 1822 Denman was invited to stand for the vacancy in the common serjeantship caused by Knowlys's promotion to be recorder, against Mr. Bolland [q. v.], and elected by 131 votes to 119. The salary, increased with fees to some 1,300l. or 1,400l. a year, was of importance to him, as his London practice was not of the first class, for want of promotion to the rank of king's counsel. This was of course known to be refused owing to the part he took in defence of the queen, and in 1827, at a banquet of the Fishmongers' Company, he declared that he would not explain away anything he had then said. But on 27 May 1828 he formally applied for silk through the chancellor, Lyndhurst, who sounded the king and found him inflexible. Denman pressed his application, and Lyndhurst was compelled to inform Denman that his predecessor, Lord Eldon, as well as himself, had been ordered never to name him to the king. In preparing his speech for the queen in 1820 Denman had applied to Dr. Parr for classical illustrations, and from among those supplied him had made use of the story of Octavia, the wife of Nero. Though Parr probably intended them for the king, Denman, aiming only at the discredited witnesses Majocchi and Sacchi, employed the
