A Political History of the House of Lords, 1811-1846: From the Regency to Corn Law Repeal 9781503626843

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A Political History of the House of Lords, 1811–1846

A Political History of the House of Lords, 1811-1846

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f r o m t h e r e g e n c y t o c o r n l aw r e p e a l

Richard W. Davis

s ta n f o r d u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s Stanford, California 2008

Published with the assistance of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2008 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Davis, Richard W. A political history of the House of Lords, 1811–1846 : from the regency to corn law repeal / Richard W. Davis.       p. cm.    Includes bibliographical references and index.    isbn-13: 978-0-8047-5763-8 (cloth : alk. paper)    1.  Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords—History—19th century.  2.  Great Britain—Politics and government—19th century.  I.  Title. jn621.d38 2008 328.41'07109034—dc22       2007008535 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/13 Minion

Acknowledgments

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I owe a great deal to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which provided me with handsome support in the form of an Emeritus Fellowship during my last two years of research and writing. Without that support this book would not have come out so soon or been as good. Earlier research was assisted by a Washington University research fund, for which I am also grateful. Several individuals have given me generous assistance and encouragement in my work on the House of Lords: Dr. Clyve Jones, editor of Parliamentary History; Dr. Michael McCahill, a pioneer in the revival of interest in the past couple of decades in the study of the Upper House; and Professor James Sack of the University of Illinois at Chicago, an accomplished political historian and a leading authority on the history of British conservatism. Sir John Sainty, in allowing me a copy of his list of “Lay members of the House of Lords, 1660–1832,” provided me with an invaluable aid. Benjamin W. Davis, whose editorial skills have been honed in the service of the Texas House of Representatives, has applied them to this history of a very different legislative body, ridding it of all manner of errors and solecisms. I am grateful for the permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to make use of material in the Royal Archives at Windsor. The Archives of the University of Southampton have been especially rich in sources. The richest was the Wellington papers, and I am grateful to the controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office for permission to include Crown Copyright material from those papers. I should also like to thank the Trustees of the Broadlands Archives for permission to quote from material in that collection. The kindnesses of Chris Woolgar and his colleagues at Southampton have been myriad. And I was greatly honored to be invited to give the fourteenth annual Wellington Lecture in 2002,

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Acknowledgments

which also gave me the opportunity to try out some of my notions about the duke. I am pleased to acknowledge permission from the Manuscripts and Special Collections, the University of Nottingham, where the diaries of the fourth duke of Newcastle yielded a new understanding of that highly eccentric but much underestimated political player and observer. The staff of the West Sussex Record Office was equally welcoming, and the correspondence of the fifth duke of Richmond in the Goodwood papers revealed the most able whig whip of the period until his secession from Lord Grey’s government in 1834. I quote from these papers by courtesy of the Trustees of the Goodwood Collections and with acknowledgments to the West Sussex Record Office and the County Archivist. I must also acknowledge the kindness and hospitality of several other libraries with important collections. Not surprisingly, the British Library had the most and some of the best. I am grateful to Mr. A. Littleton and the Staffordshire Record Office for permission to quote from the diaries and correspondence of the first Lord Hatherton, an influential peer who recorded his service in the House in some detail for over a decade. The Durham University Library houses the splendid collection of Grey papers, a large part of which are those of the second earl and prime minister. Durham is also a place of great beauty. So is the setting of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, which possesses the Stowe papers, including those of the several Grenville peers. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has the papers of several important Irish peers, and the Lambeth Palace Library those of some of the lords spiritual. For this study, the House of Lords Record Office was especially useful for its proxy books and what they can reveal to us about the history of the Lords. Finally, I should like to thank the staff of my own Washington University Library; especially Shirley Baker, Dean of Libraries, and Martin Cavanaugh, Reference Librarian, who have been both sensitive and responsive to my needs. For ease of reading, I have modernized the spelling and punctuation of some of the quoted passages in this book.

Contents

 Introduction 1 1. A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty 5 2. The Regency Crisis 20 3. The Catholic Question 34 4. The Ways Begin to Part 51 5. The Parting of the Ways 65 6. Peterloo and Queen Caroline 81 7. Efforts at Emancipation, 1819–1825 98 8. Questionable Theories and Practical Politics in the 1820s 111 9. Lansdowne and Canning 125 10. The Constitutional Revolution Begins, 1828–1829 141 11. Reform 157 12. Resurgence 174 13. Cooperation and Confrontation 187 14. The Municipal Corporations Act 199 15. Irish Questions 215 16. Discontented Conservatives 228

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Contents

17. The Jamaican Constitution and the Education Controversy 240 18. Wellington, Peel, and the Triumph of the Conservatives 252 19. A New Corn Law and Lord Ashley’s Mines Bill 266 20. Religious Conflicts Begin, 1843 278 21. The Dissenters Chapels Act, the Factory Act, and the Welsh Bishops Bill 292 22. The Maynooth Grant, 1845 305 23. Corn Law Repeal, 1845–1846 322 Conclusion 337 Notes 347 Index 371

A Political History of the House of Lords, 1811–1846

Introduction

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Since 1830 there have been a few occasions when public feeling against the House of Lords has risen high. There have been more times when politicians and the press have confidently predicted the imminent demise of the House of Lords as we know it. It has not happened yet. The Lords today, of course, is not what it was in the nineteenth century. Yet it continues to carry out vital functions of review and revision of legislation that will have to be carried out by some body whether it is called the Lords or not. Up until the advent of the New Labour government, these functions apparently were handled quite efficiently and with little complaint by a relatively small group of dedicated peers of wide experience (a situation that has usually existed in the management of the major business of the Lords throughout its history). In the interests of modernity and democracy, the new government decided to reform the Lords. Like those before them, New Labour’s efforts did not get far, and even a substantial hereditary element still remains. The lack of achievement is not unique, and it is grounded in a problem that has foiled every attempt at Lords reform since the later nineteenth century, when such efforts began. To keep the Lords powerful enough to do their vital business of revision and at the same time not so powerful as to create a rival to the House of Commons has proved an insoluble puzzle. The most democratic means of reforming the Lords would be to make them elective. But it is the fact that they, and they alone, are its elected representatives that has always formed the basis of the Commons’ claim to be the true voice of the people. To solve this conundrum is perhaps possible, but it will not be easy. The fact that the House of Lords still exists in the twenty-first century is testimony to the remarkable staying power of a great institution. But until 1911



Introduction

the Lords enjoyed equal legislative power with the House of Commons, in the sense that a bill that passed in the Commons did not become effective until it had passed the Lords (and, of course, vice versa). The Lords possessed a veto. Since 1911 it has been a suspensive veto only, now for one year. The Lords, then, could wield great power through Parliament. One would have thought this would have made them worthy of study, but with a few notable exceptions it has not. In the mid-nineteenth century, historians began to concern themselves with the march of democracy. From the Great Reform bill onward, the Lords were seen as a drag on that process. In fact no one in a position to do anything about it in 1832 ever dreamed that the bill had any connection with democracy. The connection was clear by the time of the second Reform Act in 1867, but as it was a Conservative measure the Lords were for it. Yet the perception remained, and continues with the current notion that the way to understand and write history is from the bottom up. This approach is based on the undoubted fact that for a very long time the bottom was woefully ignored, and that there is still a great deal left to know. But does this mean that the top should be ignored? It sometimes seems to. I was once asked by the editor of a very respectable university press to prepare a prospectus of a history of the House of Lords in the modern period, which I did. Not long after I submitted it, I had a phone call from a highly agitated editor who was much distressed to have been told by a reader that this was “elitist history.” Could I reassure him that was not the case? I thought it unlikely. The kind of approach represented above is not tenable. One cannot choose to study one slice of society and expect to understand the whole. No more can one study only one House of Parliament and believe that one understands how the institution works. Yet this is what most historians have done. “Parliament” meant the House of Commons, and debates and divisions there were treated with little if any mention of what went on in the Lords. The history of the Upper House was portrayed as a series of concessions, extorted by fear: the 1832 Reform Act by fear of the Political Unions; the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act by angry demonstrations organized by Radical agitators; the repeal of the Corn Laws by the threat proposed by the Anti-Corn Law League, and so on. Yet a little reflection reveals the lack of reality in such an approach. The House of Lords was not a great monolith, all of its members moving as one. In the first half of the nineteenth century it was made up of two great parties, loosely organized, but parties nonetheless; and the tory, or Conservative party, had further ideological groupings within it. It is only to state the obvious to observe that two parties mean competition and maneuvering. Beyond that there was cross-party cooperation between the whigs and a group of tories who had



Introduction



come to share the whig belief in civil and religious liberty. The first two great reforms of the period, which granted civil equality to Protestant Dissenters in 1828 and to Roman Catholics in 1829, provide illustrations. Both came during the premiership of the duke of Wellington, and he supported both in the end. But in each case he was deserted by the majority of his tory followers; and the votes that carried the measures were supplied by whigs, who provided the largest number, and liberal, or “Catholic” tories, who had come to share their principles before Wellington himself revealed any sympathy with these causes. Wellington’s own position may have been influenced by timidity of a sort in the case of the Dissenters’ bill, for which public support was evidenced by massive petitioning, and there is no doubt that pacifying Ireland was his main motive for taking up Catholic Emancipation. But again it was not the duke who was responsible for the votes that passed these bills; it was men who held the principles on which they were based. In any political body, more than one motivation will always be at work. And the supposition that the only spur that moved the Lords was fear will not stand scrutiny. As it happened, it was in the time period covered by this volume that the greatest periods of danger to the Lords occurred, but though the danger was sharp, in all but one instance it came in short bursts. One was in the autumn of 1831, after the Lords had thrown out the second of a succession of three Reform bills. The next came in May 1832, when the third and final bill seemed to be in jeopardy from a tory government Wellington was endeavoring to form. The third was in the summer and autumn of 1835, after long delays were imposed on the Municipal Corporations bill by the Lords. The public outcry in 1831–32 certainly caused concern to both tory and whig lords, but not panic. Wellington himself—after the passage of the Reform bill— felt the need for caution until 1834, but it was only with the greatest difficulty that he managed to maintain anything resembling prudence among his followers. In 1835, though there were specific threats from the Radicals, especially Daniel O’Connell, of drastic reduction of the Lords’ powers, there was little sign of worry among the Lords themselves, and public anger soon subsided with the passage of the act and the municipal elections that followed later in the year. The agitation of the Anti-Corn Law League that began in 1838 caused more anger than fear. And if the 1846 Corn Law had actually been a concession to the league, it would have taken a very long time to frighten the Lords. As a matter a fact, there was much more talk about the necessity of mollifying the discontented in the discussions of the 1842 Corn bill than there was in 1846, and Peel’s acknowledgment of Cobden was scoffed at in the Lords. In any case, the Lords’



Introduction

majority for the bill was made up about half of whigs, rightly confident that they were marching to office, and half of Conservatives, who followed Wellington in supporting Peel’s government. Their motivation was more complicated, as will be seen, but it is safe to say that it was not fear. Those who argue that the Lords scampered from concession to concession from 1832 onward seem to forget that beginning in 1833, in the first session of the new Reformed Parliament, the Conservative majority increasingly took control of parliamentary legislation, drastically amending or throwing out the program of the whig government and making the legislation their own. During the years after 1832, the electoral strength of Conservatives continued to grow. There was a sharp increase in the numbers returned in the general election of 1835, a respectable increase in 1837, and the Conservatives won the election of 1841 with a substantial majority. This would suggest that the electorate was not seriously displeased with legislation largely dictated by the Conservative majority in the House of Lords, and definitely not enthusiastic about whig offerings. This book will demonstrate how the House of Lords was able to connect with the rest of society, to make itself acceptable, and sometimes even popular. It was not for the most part progressive, but it made real efforts to be fair. It provided an arena for the airing of grievances of all sorts, not least those of the poor and oppressed, and the levels of information, eloquence, and passion displayed in debates compared very favorably, and sometimes surpassed, those evidenced in the Commons. It was often remarked on at the time, as it has been since, that attendance in the Lords was often tiny and the proceedings dull. Neither was true of debates on the great issues that divided parties and are the main concern of this book. Then from the doors of houses, clubs, gaming houses, and other places where lords diverted themselves, a large number of peers could pour forth to take their places in the House in a relatively short time. But in terms of the influence of the Upper House, far more important by 1811 than the number of Lords who heard a speech there, were the reporters scribbling outside the bar who recorded it and through their newspapers spread its contents around the country, for the edification of anyone who read a newspaper or heard one read. The fact that four of the five prime ministers during this period sat in the House of Lords gave its proceedings added interest.

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A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty

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If one is to understand the course of parliamentary politics after the establishment of the regency in 1811, it is necessary first to grasp the importance of certain key events and personalities a few years before, when George III still ruled. Early in 1807 the king and his prime minister, Lord Grenville, collided with a force that would profoundly shake old political patterns and shape new ones for three decades. The issue was civil and religious liberty, the removal of the legal disabilities of Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. The king was determined it would not happen. Grenville was equally determined that it would. For the moment the king won, rallying a nascent tory party to his aid. Yet if there had ever been any doubt that the whigs would keep the flag of civil and religious liberty flying, there could be none thereafter. Never again would Grenville and his younger colleague, the future Earl Grey, even consider office without a guarantee that they would have a free hand on this issue. Some might question the use of the term whig to describe the party of Grenville and Grey. Grey was a follower of Charles James Fox and certainly a whig. Grenville, however, had spent most of his previous career filling high posts in the administration of his cousin William Pitt. And when Pitt resigned following the king’s refusal to allow Catholic Emancipation (as the removal of Catholic disabilities was called) at the time of the Union with Ireland in 1801, Grenville went with him. But while Pitt was willing to forswear the Catholic cause thereafter, Grenville was not. Like the Foxite opposition, Grenville supported the cause for both principled and pressing pragmatic reasons. An alienated Ireland, 80 percent of whose population was Catholic, always posed a temptation to hostile foreign powers, and the France of the French Revolution and Napoleon was no exception. Thus Emancipation was not only right and just; it was a vital



A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty

question of national security. This issue, of the highest priority to both sides, was largely responsible for bringing the Foxite whigs into alliance with Grenville and his party and the formation of a coalition in 1806. The new government was known as the ministry of “All the Talents,” because of the variety of its composition. Actually it was in part a whig reunion, a number of members of Grenville’s party being those who had joined the duke of Portland after 1793, when he broke with Fox to support Pitt in the face of the looming threat of war, a threat that Fox denied. Besides the reunited whigs and the rest of Grenville’s party, there was a third and more alien element, the party of the former prime minister Addington, now Viscount Sidmouth, who was opposed to Catholic Emancipation and would break with his colleagues over the question. But the firm alliance of Grenville with Fox, until the latter’s death later in 1806, and the even closer relationship with Grey, then Lord Howick, forged in their joint effort against religious disabilities in 1807, created a unified and coherent new party in the House of Lords, though it was unsuccessful in the House of Commons. Sometimes called whig or new whig at the time, it is the most accurate term to use today. Arguing against the radical Samuel Whitbread’s skepticism of the idea in 1809, the duke of Bedford wrote, “I think we ought to remain together as one firm consolidated party,” adding “in every sentiment I have heard uttered in public by Lord Grenville for the last three years, I do not recollect one of which a whig would be ashamed.”1 Largely because of Whitbread, such a situation would never prevail in the Commons. But it would in the Lords for almost another decade, though fraying toward the end. And as far as the great common cause of civil and religious liberty was concerned, Grenville’s role in promoting it was second to none. Even after his final parting from the whigs in 1817 and a stroke in 1823, his bulldog tenacity never weakened.2 A far-from-flattering view of Grenville in 1807 by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright and by this time trimming whig, at least reveals his contemporary reputation for obstinacy. Sheridan said “he had known many men knock their heads against a wall, but he had never heard of any man who collected the bricks and built the very wall with an intention to knock out his own brains against it.”3 Sheridan suggests that the whole quarrel with the king over religious disabilities was unnecessary and entirely of Grenville’s making. Had it been possible to completely ignore Irish Catholics, deeply wounded by the failure to couple the removal of their disabilities with the Act of Union in 1801 and with salt added by the small minority supporting their measure in 1805, it would hardly have been wise. Nor was Grenville, who had resigned over the issue in 1801 and been its prominent supporter in 1805, the man to do it. He knew that he could not propose a full-blown measure to the king, especially in view



A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty



of the fate in Parliament of the 1805 motion. He and most of his colleagues did, however, think they could make a useful beginning. In 1793, the Irish Parliament had opened commissions in the army, though not the higher ranks of general, to Catholics. The intention was to extend this privilege to Britain, but this had never happened, with the result that the service of Irish officers was legally limited to Ireland, somewhat awkward in the middle of wars with Napoleon. The government now proposed to end the limit on rank and to carry out the original intention and extend the rights granted by the Irish Act to Britain. But it did not stop here. Building on the basic principles of the Irish Act and the logic of the situation, it broadened its proposed measure considerably. The navy was also included, which it would not have been earlier, as Ireland had no navy. In order to extend rights to Irish Catholics in Britain, it was necessary to change British law, thus including British Catholics as well. But if rights were conceded to Catholics, could they be withheld from Protestant Dissenters? The whig ministers never doubted that the answer was no. And the Irish legislation would not have mentioned Dissenters, because by 1793 there was no Test Act in Ireland. Thus the ministers reasoned, and thus they acted. Most historians seem to agree that the whig ministers deliberately misled the king as to what they intended to do. It is true that the initial document in which they announced their intentions, in the form of a letter of instruction to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, framed by Grenville himself,4 might have been open to misinterpretation. After reviewing the recent history of the Emancipation question and asserting that they had no intention of raising the broader question now, in the first paragraph they stated that they already had under consideration “the inconvenient and contradictory provisions of the present laws in as far as they affect the king’s Catholic subjects in Ireland with respect to their serving in his majesty’s naval and military forces.” In the rest of the paragraph, they rehearsed the history of the 1793 act—how the king’s original intention had been to open the military professions to his Catholic subjects “universally,” and how this intention had been openly declared by the lord chancellor of Ireland and the chief secretary, a representative of the British government, but how in the end, the act passed by the Irish Parliament applied only to Ireland, and the unfortunate implications of this state affairs. There was, however, a reminder that “in Ireland the king’s subjects of all descriptions [are] capable of holding any military commission whatever,” except that of a general on the staff. The next paragraph began with a rather more straightforward avowal of intent. In addition to the solemn promise of the government in 1793 and the obvious incongruity and inconvenience of the existing arrangement, “his majesty’s



A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty

servants are deeply impressed with a sense of the great advantage of enabling all the king’s subjects to contribute equally in this moment of common danger to the military defence.” The first sentence of the next paragraph was quite open and unambiguous: “On these grounds it is that his majesty’s servants have thought it expedient that in the Mutiny bill to be this year proposed to Parliament a clause should be offered for enabling his majesty . . . to confer any military commission whatever on any of his liege subjects . . . under no other condition than that of undertaking such oath of allegiance and fidelity as shall be provided.” Given that what had preceded was simply explanation and argument, while this was actual legislation to be proposed, one might have expected the king to have examined it closely. He obviously had not, for it was what came before that struck him most forcibly, that “any proposal should have been made to him for the introduction of a clause in the Mutiny Bill which would remove a restriction on the Roman Catholics.” He had missed completely any hint as to the involvement of Protestant Dissenters.5 This might be at least partially explained by the framing of the cabinet’s letter, and the progression of its argument, with its early emphasis on Ireland alone. And the way the letter was framed may very likely have been intended to produce a reaction from the king more or less like the one that occurred. To have been confronted to begin with by bald propositions to remove restrictions on two sets of religious dissidents, to whom he had always shown equal animosity, would have been to court an immediate and explosive rejection by the king—a judgment doubtless confirmed by his reaction to the mere idea of removing only one. What the ministers probably intended was to gently coax the king along from one unpalatable conclusion to another. And that is what they immediately attempted to do. The cabinet minute responding to the king’s incredulity was soothing in its assurances that the clauses to be inserted in the Mutiny bill would only be “fulfilling the engagements which had formerly been entered into under your majesty’s authority, and carrying into effect a principle which has already received the fullest and most formal sanction by the Act passed in the Irish Parliament in the 32nd year of your majesty’s reign.” Grenville, in his letter forwarding the minute, emphasized as well that the measure “far from being in opposition to any known or expressed opinion of your majesty is perfectly conformable in its principle to that concession to which your majesty had long ago been pleased most graciously to consent.” The ministers also strongly pressed the national defense argument.6 Two days later, on 12 February, the king replied. His answer was that “under the circumstances in which it is so earnestly pressed, and adverting particularly to what took place in 1791 [1793?] he would not prevent his ministers from sub-



English Constitutional History as National Identity



mitting for the consideration of his Parliament the propriety of inserting the proposed clause in the Mutiny Bill.”7 It seems strange that the king, deeply hostile to such proposals as that contained in the clause, and having encountered them at least since 1787, when the English Dissenters had launched their most recent campaign for repeal of the Test Acts, should, when his attention was once more drawn directly to the clause, still have failed to comprehend what it meant. In any event it was on the basis of this clause that the king authorized his ministers to proceed, an authorization that was not revoked until some two weeks later, if then, and not made clear until after the bill’s introduction into the House of Commons. A few days before the bill was to be introduced, Grenville and Lord Howick (as Grey was known until his father’s death), sensed some difficulty. The duke of Bedford, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, had been subjected to some quizzing there on the actual extent of eligibility to commissions. Grenville suggested that Howick write an official letter to Bedford enclosing “a copy of the clauses to be proposed to Parliament and observing that these clauses will in conformity to the terms of Lord Spencer’s dispatch of the 12th of February enable H.M. to give any military commission or appointment whatever to any of H.M.’s subjects.” He suggested that a copy of the draft be sent to the king and that the letter not be sent until the next day in case his majesty had a comment. At the same time Grenville informed Howick that he had seen Lord Sidmouth, the former prime minister and an enemy within the cabinet, “so that there can be no difficulty on that head.” This was false optimism. The king returned the draft the next day, without comment, which was taken as a good sign. The following day, 4 March, both Howick, who was to introduce the measure into the Commons, and Grenville had audiences of the king. Howick went in first and understood the king, though not happy with it, to have given his permission to introduce the bill.8 Therefore Grenville did not raise the question, nor did the king. That same evening Howick duly introduced the bill. Exactly one week later, on the eve of the bill’s second reading, which would signify its acceptance in principle by the Commons, the king informed Howick and Grenville in another audience that “he conceived himself as having stated to Lord Howick the preceding Wednesday that he did not consent to the proposal of the measure in Parliament.”9 The whigs had little choice but to drop the bill. The king had told Grenville that he would “make it known” that he was opposed to the measure. This left it with a chance in the Commons, but, Grenville knew, none in the Lords.10 Howick, joined by Earl Spencer, would have preferred to go out on the bill, but they acceded to their colleagues’ decision. Grenville, however, informed the king that in explaining their action in their respective Houses of Parliament they would

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A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty

state clearly “the strong persuasion which each of them individually entertains of the advantage which would result to the empire from a different course of policy towards the Catholics of Ireland.” This was written on 15 March. The king answered with alacrity in a letter dated 17 March. In it he informed his ministers point blank “that upon this subject his sentiments never can change, that he cannot ever agree to any concessions to the Catholics which his confidential servants may in future propose to him.” And he demanded “a positive assurance from them which shall effectually relieve him from all future apprehension.”11 The cabinet minute for the king refusing to make any such pledge, almost certainly written by Grenville, was for the most part elaborately polite, but sometimes indignation came very close to the surface. Speaking for himself and his colleagues he said: @ext:>it would be deeply criminal in them, with the general opinions which they entertain on the subject, to bind themselves to withhold from your majesty under all the various circumstances which may arise, those councils which may appear to them indispensably necessary for the peace and tranquillity of Ireland, and for defeating the enterprises of the enemy against the very existence of your majesty’s empire. @taei:>Howick, writing to the duke of Bedford, was a little more straightforward. Most of their friends, he said, felt that they had gone out on the best grounds, “inasmuch as the assurance we have been required to give was never before required of any ministers and could not be honestly complied with.” Howick’s and Spencer’s only reason for preferring to go out on the bill was that it “would have admitted no mistake or embarrassment.”12 Yet all in all the whigs might seem to have been rather restrained. Indeed even after the king revoked his authorization of the bill (though before he asked for the pledge), they bent over backward to make allowances for him. Lord Holland wrote to the duke of Bedford on 13 March that “the truth is he did honestly misunderstand us, and indeed some of our friends, Grey among the number, were not aware that our original dispatch to you meant to extend the grant beyond the Irish act.” Grenville, writing to Bedford on the same day, was equally understanding. Though remaining entirely confident that the original dispatch contained a “clear avowal of opening to the king’s subjects of all descriptions the naval and military professions,” he allowed that getting the king’s consent to the dispatch had involved “considerable delay and difficulty.” He professed to believe that the king, “when a reluctant consent was extorted from him, conceived himself as consenting to no more than the Irish Act of 1793.”13 There was disingenuousness in these remarks, stemming partly from the fact that the



A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty

11

whigs were not yet ready to part from the king, and there were also some ambiguities and inaccuracies. Grenville was correct that there was a “clear avowal” of the cabinet’s intentions in the dispatch, though perhaps possible to miss in the first instance. But it must have been hard to believe after the king’s negative reaction and the cabinet’s response that the king would have continued to miss the point. It would have been much harder still to credit that, though the king might perhaps have been won over by persuasion, George III had in fact simply been worn down by his ministers, as Grenville suggested. Nor had there been much delay or difficulty. The king first reacted to the dispatch in a letter of 10 February. The cabinet responded with a minute of the same date, which Grenville forwarded the next day. The king wrote back on the 12th, specifically authorizing the inclusion of the clause. It is true that in the next sentence he declared that he could not go “one step further.” But further than what? Grenville wrote to his brother simply that “the king has consented to our proposing to Parliament the two clauses.”14 (The second clause guaranteed freedom of worship in the army and navy.) That is what the letter said, and that was quite far enough for the whigs. Adverting to “what took place in 1793,” if in fact that was the date the king had in mind, hardly clarified matters. The whole whig argument was based on what took place in 1793 and the principles then vindicated. The point here is not to apportion blame between the king and the whigs; there was some on both sides. It is simply to suggest that if the whigs felt aggrieved—and they did, deeply—they had a more-than-plausible case. The events of the early months of 1807 were seared into their memories. They hated long, and they hated hard, and their hatred was to shape their actions and to create reactions that strongly affected the course of British political history for three decades, and more. Their relations with George III and his son were to be of frosty politeness on the surface but simmering animosity underneath. As Grenville remarked to his elder brother, the marquess of Buckingham, during one of several attempts to lure him and Grey into the government in 1812, “I have been betrayed once by the king, and I have no taste for affording to his son the same opportunity, when I have no cause to doubt that he has the same dispositions.”15 And in 1821, an aging Grenville wrote to his nephew, who was negotiating a juncture with the government and about to become the duke of Buckingham for his trouble, warning him against being enticed into a situation where he could not act freely on the issue of Catholic Emancipation: “How can Lord Londonderry [formerly Castlereagh] or any of his colleagues think that any of those who were turned out in 1807 precisely because they would not pledge themselves to any truce or cessation short of its total and final accomplishment, would now pledge themselves to such a measure.”16

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A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty

Catholic Emancipation closely coupled in whig minds with the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and joined in the phrase “Civil and Religious Liberty” were to remain the main preoccupation and uniting element of the whigs until both issues were settled, the repeal of the Test Acts in 1828, and Emancipation in 1829, both thanks to the whigs. Grey gave a powerful speech just before the crucial second reading of the Emancipation bill. He passionately urged the measure, he said, “consistently with the principles on which I have always acted, which I learnt from Mr. Fox and which I have maintained in this House by the side of Lord Grenville.” It was clearly a moving moment. Grenville was old and ill and could support the bill only with his proxy. Their political partnership had long since ended, and they had been on different sides of other great questions, but never on this one.17 Besides the key importance of the conflict over religious liberty that marked the first decades of the nineteenth century, there was another, connected phenomenon that was to have an even more lasting influence. This was a decline in the political standing and influence of the monarchy, which was of great moment for the House of Lords at the time and its historians since. It began in 1811 with the establishment of the regency of George, prince of Wales, and it had a great deal to do with his character and personality. It is usually argued that the Reform Act of 1832 inflicted a profound diminution in the power and influence of the House of Lords. Before, so the argument goes, it had been an independent branch of the legislature; afterward it became subordinate to the House of Commons. In fact, the Lords had never been truly independent, and after 1832 they did not become noticeably subordinate, exercising their veto over legislation, either in fact or by menace, fairly regularly. In the eighteenth century and right up to 1810, when what is generally thought to have been porphyria produced in George III an entirely believable approximation of insanity, the Lords were under the influence and leadership of the Crown. This did not mean total subservience; the relationship was based at least as much on genuine loyalty and a sense of shared interests as it was on a judicious distribution of patronage in the form of office, honors, and pensions. It did not always work, especially when the monarch’s position on men or issues was unclear, but generally it did.18 In 1806, enjoying the king’s confidence, Grenville easily carried the abolition of the slave trade through a formerly strongly opposed House of Lords. In 1807, when it became evident that that confidence had been withdrawn, he knew at once that his effort to remove religious disabilities must halt. George III was a man of strong prejudices. Indeed in religious matters he might be called a bigot, though it must be admitted that his was the majority



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opinion at the time. He was also monumentally stubborn, hanging on to ideas and policies long after their time was past, if they were not wrong from the beginning. But right or wrong, he was a formidable figure. He could be devious in getting his own way, though most of the time he did not need to be. As regards similar force of character, his son and heir had little or none. In 1829, Lady Hertford, the king’s former mistress, told the duke of Newcastle that George IV “was not to be relied on: generally swayed by the last conversation; clever and well informed and very agreeable in society, but wanting on all trying decisions of frankness and common sense.”19 It was a shrewd assessment and one that was applicable throughout George’s public life. Charming and clever in society he undoubtedly was, but in affairs of state he was hopeless. When the prince came of age, he attached himself to the whigs in rebellion against his father, and attracted as well by the raffish charm of Charles James Fox, his father’s least favorite politician. But it was a very loose attachment indeed. In 1827 he made an effort to explain what his chronicler described as “his position on the Catholic question, which had been entirely consistent.” In order to do this, he summoned Bishop Howley of London and the archbishop of Canterbury to St. James’s Palace, where he delivered a four-hour lecture on the subject. Howley took extensive notes, which he edited into a substantial account.20 George began with the formation of the Talents in 1806. This relieved him of the necessity of mentioning that, having associated himself with the Catholic cause as a whig, and promised support to the 1805 effort to gain relief, he had stirred not at all. His excuse was that his Catholic mistress was trying to adopt a child and that a reaction against a Catholic measure might hurt her chances.21 The reason he gave for supporting the new government was “his personal friendship to Mr. Fox and admiration of his character and talents.” He did not mention Fox’s principles, and it was soon evident that he did not support them. He advised Fox on three issues likely to come up. “The first was the slave trade, a matter of minor importance,” on which the king might give way. The second was peace with France, an aim that Fox now agreed with the king was, given Napoleon’s aggressive attitude, unattainable. After some conversation on Catholic Emancipation, Fox remarked that he had “sometimes suspected that his Royal Highness’s private sentiments were the same as his father’s.” Was this correct? The prince answered in the affirmative. In that case, Fox requested that, to preserve the illusion of his support for the government, the prince would keep his opinions to himself. This George agreed to do, all for the love of Fox. But on Fox’s death later in 1806, when Grenville made the same request, it was once again granted, though the prince said he had “no decided friendship with any member of the cabinet and a positive dislike of some of them.” He was

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appalled when the government proposed the clauses to remove religious disabilities. He claimed full responsibility for their removal and to have received “the thanks and compliments of several members of the cabinet for having prevented the ruin of the existing government by his judicious advice.” Alas, all his good efforts were for naught when the whigs refused the pledge. The prince’s view of his contribution to the proceedings was not widely held, if indeed it was held by anyone else at all. George was a weak and indecisive man, and this took its toll on the power of the monarchy. His father retained at least ultimate control of the patronage of the Crown, refusing it to ministers he did not trust and dismissing those he felt had abused his confidence. True, due primarily to the enormous costs of the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon and the need to cut all unnecessary expenses (which included such things as offices and pensions that had no obvious purpose or justification), the sources of patronage were drying up swiftly. For what was left, ministers felt a keen need—to manage Parliament among other things. George, regent or king, never dismissed a ministry until that of Lord Goderich in 1828. The earl of Liverpool was prime minister and leader of the Lords from 1812 to 1827, when he suffered a stroke and had to resign. During that time he handled royal patronage and strongly resisted any effort by the king to exercise it himself. George stormed and hurled insults, but in the end he almost always gave way before Liverpool’s quiet intransigence. In 1827 the king found, in Lord Goderich, a prime minister who, though able in many ways, was an even weaker character than himself. The king dictated cabinet appointments and withheld patronage in the form of peerages that the government needed to have a working majority in the Lords. The result of the king’s meddling was to bring down the government, which was not initially George’s intent but certainly the consequence of his bullying interventions. But Goderich was the first and last of his prime ministers whom he could bully. Goderich’s successor, the duke of Wellington, was made of sterner stuff. George tried everything including hysterics to block the passage of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, but he failed. In the end the duke was forced to speak to his sovereign “in very peremptory language,” and the king did as he was told.22 All this is not to say that the monarchy had lost all its power; it had not. The king’s opinion still carried great weight, especially in the House of Lords. Indeed George III’s opinion on Catholic Emancipation was important until the day he died in 1820, ten years after he lost his mind.23 His son’s opinion would have mattered too in the decade that followed, had anyone been certain what it was. But people watched for signs, as in the behavior of his brothers (who



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were divided on the issue) and the members of his household (who were also divided), and such signs continued to be watched for through the 1830s. The difference was that, while George III could bring governments and their policies to a screeching halt, his sons could not. George IV and William IV could ease their ministers’ paths or make their lives miserable, but if governments were determined, they always got their way in the end. As has been suggested above, 1811 constitutes a real turning point in the history of the House of Lords. Insofar as there had ever been government by patronage, its day was waning fast. And by 1820 leaders in the Lords as well as the Commons were complaining that their followers were becoming extremely difficult to manage. It did not help that George IV was roundly hated. The state to which things had got is illustrated by the fact that in 1830 the duke of Wellington went into opposition with a tory party that in its infancy in 1807 had rallied to save the king from the awful whigs. As prime minister, Wellington, like his predecessors, had managed the election of sixteen Scottish representative peers and twenty-eight Irish representative peers. The former were elected by their peers at every general election, the latter by theirs, for life. The great majority of the sitting representative peers went with the duke. What is more, he brazenly continued to manage the elections! Forty-four members of what had constituted the solid core of the so-called party of the Crown, at the service of the king’s minister, whoever he might be, were now at the service of what was coming to be called the Conservative party, out of office as well as in. In 1807, George III was still possessed of the full apparatus of royal authority. As soon as Howick introduced the clauses in Parliament, George lost no time in marshaling an opposition to the government he would not dismiss for another ten days. On 8 March, the duke of Portland, a conservative whig who had joined William Pitt’s government in 1794 and who would head the government soon to be formed, wrote to Lord Hawkesbury (later earl of Liverpool), who had served in both the Addington and the second Pitt administration that followed: “Considering how much the Catholic question presses upon us, and knowing as I now do the extreme importance of its being rejected, I can but entreat you to come tomorrow as early as possible in order to consult you on the best means of defeating that measure.”24 His action was not constitutional, but it was effective. As the bill was withdrawn, the forces marshaled were not needed to defeat it. But a government drawing on the personnel of the three governments previous to that of the Talents was soon in place. The new men were therefore all of the good Church and King variety and ready to fight the French—all of the things on which the whigs were suspect, or worse. It was on this basis and

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from these elements (though the main body of Addingtonians would not come in until later) that the new tory party would gradually emerge in the next few years. The whigs would show themselves a remarkably effective opposition party in the last years of George III’s rule. This, however, is not readily apparent if one confines oneself to what is usually the most reliable source for such information—votes in parliamentary divisions. On 21 April 1809, the government repulsed a motion by Earl Grey censuring its military policy on the Iberian peninsula as dishonest in what it promised to achieve and bungling in the operations it attempted. The vote was 145 to 92. In response to the report of Lord Liverpool, leader of the Lords, announcing success, the king commented that while the result was satisfactory “at the same time . . . his Majesty cannot but be surprized that upon such a question the numbers of the minority should have been so considerable.”25 The problem was that it was difficult in a loosely organized and disciplined House for leaders to keep track of individual lords, and therefore to keep them on track. They could be politely summoned to attend the annual session, but this did not mean that they would come up to London, or if they did that they would attend regularly. They were all too apt to plead vital business, though it often was pleasure, elsewhere. Because voting by proxy was allowed, it was possible to mobilize the votes of the absent, provided they had taken their oaths of allegiance to the new sovereign on the death of the old and formally taken their seats in each new Parliament, marked by the election of a new House of Commons, which had to take place at least once every seven years. Thus it was necessary to see that lords had proxies in the first place and had sent them back. If the lord himself at any time appeared in person, the proxy was automatically voided and had to be renewed. All this being taken care of, lords had to be found to vote the proxies (the limit was two proxies per lord), and it was necessary to make sure they actually appeared in the House to do so. And proxies could be vitally important. In the April 1809 vote, 62 proxies were cast for the government. Without the proxies it would have been in a minority of nine, and that would have been a disaster. The chances of such a dire situation occurring were, it is true, not great. Governments had paid officials, if not always recognizable by their titles, to look after such matters, not to mention such advantages as the representative peers (though they required management as well) that the king’s support gave them. Yet, if the worst was not very likely, it was likely enough to keep the king nervous and his government at full stretch to avoid it. Such a state of affairs was not the norm in the reign of George III. In explaining what brought about



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this situation, it is difficult to better Lord Grenville himself, whose brevity is exceeded only by his acuity. Writing in June 1809 to Lord Holland, who had gone to Spain to see for himself what was going on in that sector of war, he described the parliamentary situation: “In the House of Lords there exists a powerful, respectable, and well-compacted body, cemented by mutual confidence, and acting together on the most honourable public principles.” What he described, of course, was a political party, members of which believe they possess these characteristics even if they do not. Grenville definitely believed it, and on the whole rightly; in distinct contrast to their colleagues in the House of Commons, where, he said, “no such center of union whatever exists.” For in the Commons two broad groups of whigs existed—one more or less agreeing with the party in the Lords, the other led by Samuel Whitbread and considerably more radical. Therefore the party leaders, both in the Upper House, determined that whig policy must emanate and be projected from the Lords.26 The whigs acted on this basis well into the 1810s. What drove the party in the Lords was their strong conviction of their virtue spurned, indeed punished. To vindicate their principle and right that wrong, they strove mightily and indeed selflessly. The duties of party organization were entirely voluntary and gratis, performed by the party’s two leaders, Grenville and Grey, usually assisted by two or three other peers, the composition shifting as time passed and issues changed during the session. It is significant that of the 92 names appearing in the minority on an April 1807 division on a motion deploring the change of ministries, 63 also appear among the 90 supporting Grey’s motion in April 1809, with three of the missing names appearing on the whig side in a division earlier that year. Whig numbers and whig loyalties remained remarkably enduring, which was unusual for an opposition. And it was even more unusual when in September Grenville and Grey refused to even discuss with his ministers the king’s proposition that they consult together about a junction. There was to be no compromise on the great principle. Besides their willingness to work hard, though not always steadily, at their party duties, Grenville and Grey proved themselves to be leaders of great prowess. Grenville was undoubtedly the most widely and deeply experienced politician of his time. As a member of the House of Commons, he was chief secretary for Ireland, 1782–83; joint paymaster-general, 1784; vice-president of the board of trade, 1786–89; Speaker of the House, 1789; and home secretary, 1790. As a peer after 1790, he not only led the Lords but served as president of the board of control (for India), 1790–93; as well as foreign secretary, 1791–1801, when he resigned. By the time now under consideration, he was also, of course, an exprime minister, and had been elected chancellor of Oxford University in 1809. It

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was a formidable record, and it gave him much prestige. This was fully warranted. There was scarcely anything he could not talk about, with great authority and often from personal experience. He marshaled his facts carefully, arrayed them for argument, and carried that argument to a logical and easily grasped conclusion. His speeches were not flashy, but they carried great weight. Grey was, and is, often considered the greatest parliamentary orator of his time. He was conspicuously learned in history, in literature, and though without any formal training, in law. He drew on all of these with brilliant and often devastating effect. He was the bête noire of the seemingly perennial Lord Chancellor Eldon, of whom it is said that his decrees were seldom appealed and hardly ever reversed. A great judge Eldon may have been, and immensely learned in the law, he certainly was. He was also one of the most respected of the leading tories in the House of Lords. But Grey could reduce him to babbling incoherence and was well known for doing so. Lord Albemarle, writing to Lord Holland in the middle of a debate in January 1812, reported that the former whig lord chancellor, Erskine, intended to speak, “in order to draw out the chancellor for Grey to worry him.”27 Eldon’s weakness was that his speeches frequently turned into lectures, which, as with many legal scholars, tended to turn off into, to him, enticing byways. Grey, with the most elaborate mock respect, never hesitated to observe that the chancellor seemed to have lost himself and certainly had lost everyone else. This brought Eldon up spluttering with rage that did nothing to improve his lucidity and made him even more a figure of fun. Grey was adept at finding chinks in his opponent’s armor, and his sarcasm could be piercing. But unlike another great orator in the Lords, Brougham, Grey used it with restraint. When Brougham got angry, sarcasm followed sarcasm in a ceaseless torrent, but it accomplished little but to make him seem petty. Grey did not make that mistake, and if he lost his temper, it was usually by design. He was equally good in calm, reasoned presentations, in emotional appeals, and in great dramatic performances that rose to a crescendo and ended with a resounding bang. Grenville and Grey were also shrewd in choosing the issues they championed. It is true that Catholic Emancipation was not a political winner as far as the public was concerned. Its value, as has been seen—and it was an important one—was as an issue to frighten governments well aware, as Liverpool wrote to Wellington in April 1811, that “Our weak side is Ireland, and so it will remain for many years.”28 But after 1808, the issue became more complicated for the whigs. In that year the Catholics once more requested Grenville to put their cause to Parliament. The likelihood of achieving their aim (nil in the short run) was highly doubtful without offering some sort of safeguard to those who



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feared it would undermine the Protestantism of Church and State. Bishop Milner, the pope’s representative in Britain and the accredited agent of the Irish Catholics, suggested a royal veto over the appointment of their bishops, and Grenville so proposed. The Irish bishops were furious over this proposal, with angry words for the whig leaders. The brawling among the Catholics went on for several years. In the autumn of 1809, Grenville was once again asked to present the Catholic petition for the next year. He agreed to present it but not to move a motion upon it without the veto. This was unacceptable, and the earl of Donoughmore, an Irish peer and friend of the prince of Wales, but also a firm whig, took up the task. With only token support from the whig leaders, his motions in 1810 and 1811 were soundly defeated. This did not, however, cool his relationship with them.29 In 1812 they would ease their position, assisted by Donoughmore as we shall see.30 The campaign against the Orders in Council, launched by Grenville in February 1809, was much less complicated and, especially as exploited by Henry (later Lord) Brougham in 1812, a great success. “America” was their shorthand term for this issue, and America, or at any rate American trade, was the issue. The decision of France in 1806 to try to cut Britain off from all trade with other nations—followed by Britain’s returning the compliment in 1807, and ultimately in the same year the American decision to trade with neither—wreaked havoc with the British economy. And though it was Grenville’s government that had decided that the Order in Council in 1807 was an appropriate response to Napoleon’s Berlin Decree, the whigs had concluded that the policy, made more stringent since, was a disaster and had to be reversed. They did not succeed in convincing tory governments to do so before it brought on the war of 1812, but that only added to the issue’s value for the whigs. The Orders in Council brought the whigs much public support. The king’s illness late in 1810 would raise a whole new range of issues, without diminishing much, if at all, the importance of the old ones. The regency question challenged the intellect, patriotism, and ingenuity of both government and opposition, not least because neither side could be certain where the prince of Wales stood. The whigs won some impressive, if temporary, victories in the debates. They would have gained more if Grenville had not shown another side of his famous intransigence. At the same time, the Catholic question (and therefore the whole question of civil and religious liberty) entered a new phase, even more vexing than the one before.

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The Regency Crisis

The establishment of the regency and the first two years of its existence were to confirm and extend patterns of distrust that began during the ministry of the Talents. After 1807, the whigs ceased to put any trust in the good faith of George III; to them he had become a sinister and almost evil force. His son and heir they saw mainly as a worse-than-useless ally—worse because his weakness and vacillation were such that he might at any time desert to the enemy, as indeed he finally did in 1807, embracing his father and his father’s principles, at least for a while. By the end of 1812, they would see much more to dislike in him. Their contempt for his weakness of character had only grown. What shocked and infuriated them was where his weakness had led him; and that was not merely to a temporary desertion to the enemy, but to actually joining them, putting the resources of the Crown at their disposal, and sometimes even exerting himself in their, to whig eyes, unjust causes. What would particularly disturb the whigs was a critical change in the treatment of the question of religious liberty. George III had refused to be advised on the question. His son would attempt to take the same position in the 1820s, at the end of his own reign. In the meantime, however, it was held to be necessary to resort to what at least appeared to be a compromise. The unsuccessful attempt of Perceval’s government to recruit the whigs in 1809 was the first manifestation of the difficulty of forming or strengthening a government without including friends of Catholic Emancipation, and usually repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The whigs, of course, as the original friends of civil and religious liberty, supported both. There were also friends of Catholic Emancipation among the tories, as William Pitt had been, but so long as George III ruled, they were barred from acting on this principle. With the old king gone, these



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so-called Catholic tories (for their sympathy with the Emancipation cause, but generally at this time not removal of Dissenting disabilities) were able to emerge in their true colors. Perceval, still prime minister when the regency question arose, had suggested to George III in 1809 a solution to the problem of how friends and enemies of the Catholic cause could be brought to work together in a government. That solution in this case was to invite Grenville and Grey into the cabinet without asking them to renounce their principles. Even bringing in a few friends with them, they would not constitute a majority and therefore could not control government policy. Though it had no attraction for either the king or the whigs in 1809, this plan was to be implemented in 1812, without whig participation and with very mixed results. Two years earlier, the illness of George III and the resulting necessity for a regency had brought what seemed a new dawning of opportunity for the whigs. The prince might be fickle, but the bonds of interest that bound the future regent and the party together appeared strong enough to hold even him close. Both, for their own reasons, wished to be rid of the king and his ministers. The whigs were therefore more than willing to champion the prince’s cause, and he was delighted to accept their support and presumably to reward it. Problems, however, were not long in making their appearance. The problems had to do with Lord Grenville and his principles. As Grey put it to Lord Auckland on 19 December 1810, just as the crucial debates were beginning, Grenville and others of their friends were “too strongly implicated in the measures [of 1788–89] to retrace their steps.” Grenville, as one of Pitt’s leading lieutenants, had been involved in the regency debates of 1788, based on the principles, among others, that only Parliament could establish a regency and that certain limitations on the powers of the regent should be established for a fixed period in order to safeguard the interests of the incapacitated monarch should he recover. Grey told Auckland that however much he might regret differences with his friends, “he is ready to face them.”1 Facing them would not be easy. On the very day Grey wrote, immediately following a pronouncement by Earl Spencer that proceeding by a bill would be unconstitutional, Grenville rose to say just the opposite, “that it was by legislative provision only that any steps could be taken for supplying the defect of the royal authority.”2 Spencer, Grey, and most of the rest of the party for their parts also wished to follow the same line of argument they had pursued in 1788—that the regency was the prince’s by hereditary right and that Parliament’s function was simply to request him to assume it. An accompanying resolution of both Houses was, however, to provide a safeguard against “any abusive exercise” of its powers till the situation was regularized by ordinary parliamentary legislation.3 The issue was joined

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on 27 December 1810, when the House went into a Committee of the Whole and Liverpool introduced three resolutions sent up by the House of Commons, which he recommended for the Lords’ concurrence. They were, in fact, the same resolutions moved in 1788. The first simply stated that, with the king’s indisposition, the personal exercise of the royal authority was suspended. The second declared that it was the right and duty of the Lords and Commons to supply the means of righting the resulting defect in royal authority. The third resolution stated that to achieve this “and for maintaining entire the constitutional authority of the king,” it was necessary for Lords and Commons to determine “the means whereby the royal assent may be given in Parliament to such bill as may be passed by the two Houses of Parliament, respecting the exercise of the powers and authorities of the Crown.” In the absence of Grey, still in Northumberland with his pregnant wife, Holland led the whig forces. But their efforts to amend the Commons’ resolutions, which Liverpool moved, to suit their own purposes were in vain. The first resolution was uncontroversial and passed unanimously. It was the second and third resolutions—the former by putting the full responsibility on Parliament for dealing with the question, the latter for specifying that it be done by a bill— that posed the problem for the whigs. In the Committee, Holland attempted to kill the second resolution by moving the previous question and to amend the third by moving that a joint address by the two Houses to the prince should be substituted for a bill. He was unsuccessful in both efforts. The one recorded division list is on Holland’s proposed amendment to the third resolution. The vote was 100 to 74 against the amendment.4 The whig battle against a bill was over. True to his word, Grenville voted with the majority, against the whig position, “upholding the principle of the measures of 1788–89, to which Lord Grenville is so strongly pledged both in past and present opinions,” as he wrote three days after the vote, in a minute drawn up for the prince. Yet, though he did not in this case ultimately execute the tactic, Grenville did in the debates demonstrate his way of attempting to accommodate both his principles and the party. That way was to support the government on the broad principle but to vigorously attack it on its method of approaching or implementing that principle. In this case he interlarded his support of the resolutions with the most bitter attacks on the time it had taken the government to act and what had been happening in the eight-week interval. The resolutions affirmed that the royal authority was suspended, and it was the duty of Parliament to supply the defect: “This they gravely proposed to that House at the very moment they were themselves, by their own act and by means of the grossest usurpation ever attempted in this



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country, invested with the whole of that authority.”5 The language was exaggerated, but it stated a fact. The ministers had been exercising whatever royal authority was necessary to carry on the government. Lord Chancellor Eldon, who answered Grenville, made no effort to deny it. Whatever its opponents may have thought, there was nothing sinister in this. But it did allow the government to dominate the legislation creating the regency to a remarkable degree. Having decided on the method of proceeding toward a regency, it was now time to establish it and set the terms, that is, the restrictions to be placed upon it. Grenville may not have anticipated the intensity of the resistance to proceeding by a bill, as the government had not.6 Nor, it must be said, is there any likelihood he would have altered his actions at all if he had. In any case, when the reports of ministers’ intention to act on the 1788 precedents were confirmed, there was no mention by him of stormy weather ahead on a bill. Grenville’s mind was wholly concentrated on how he should approach the issue of limitations. His brother and closest confidant, Tom, wrote to Lord Spencer on 15 December 1810: “Some differences will probably be found in our ranks upon this subject, but I think they may be easily solved by proposing a shorter duration for them.”7 Just before the debates on limitations began in early January, the earl of Lauderdale, then acting as whig whip, was similarly optimistic that though there would be differences with Grenville over amendments, they would get around them without an evident split. Lauderdale also reckoned that they would beat the government in the Lords, predicting their numbers at something between 100 and 116.8 The debates began auspiciously on 4 January 1811. As in the debates on proceeding by a bill, these began with Liverpool moving in a Committee of the Whole House a set of resolutions sent up from the House of Commons. The first resolution essentially proposed to establish a regency, with the prince of Wales as regent, to exercise all the usual powers of the monarch. But there was a sting in the tail—a final clause stating that what preceded was to be “subject to such limitations and restrictions as shall be provided.” Lansdowne immediately pounced on this issue, deploring any limiting or dividing of the regal power. Holland strongly supported his position. Grenville pointedly rejected it; he believed in some limitations. But he then went on to attack the second resolution, which would do just that—limit the prince’s power by barring him from creating peers for a year. Admittedly Grenville’s stated grounds were that the limitation was not sufficiently comprehensive. It would have allowed the creation of peerages for military services to continue, and this privileging of military creations over all others he denounced as entirely wrong. Grenville was pretty clearly playing his chosen game. He would vote for

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Lansdowne’s amendment, presumably because it was more symbolic than real; for it touched no actual restriction or limitation. These were included in the resolutions that followed. He could state his support for restrictions in discussing the second one, at the same time providing himself with an excuse for not voting for it. Unfortunately, he had just created his own Achilles’ heel. Lord Liverpool had neither the daunting expertise of Grenville nor the soaring eloquence of Grey, but he had led the Lords in several governments since 1800 and had strengths of his own. He had a talent for making the most complicated questions seem simple and straightforward. He also had a remarkable ability to inspire the confidence of others. In this instance he showed his ability to judge men and their motives and to put this knowledge to his own tactical purposes. Hardly had Grenville sat down than Liverpool rose to meet his objection to the second clause by blandly offering to remove the offending exception for military peerages. The voting on the several resolutions followed. Lansdowne’s amendment to the first resolution for dropping the final clause mentioning limitations was carried triumphantly, 105 to 102, with Grenville listed among the majority. Immediately afterward, at the beginning of discussion on the second clause, Liverpool, as promised, moved and carried an amendment to remove the exception for military peerages. Grenville then announced that, as he believed some restriction on the grant of peerages was necessary and his only objection to the resolution had been met, he felt “obliged” to vote for it. He made a point of stipulating that when the time came he would oppose any period of restriction longer than six months. But this cannot have done much to soothe his party’s dismay at the government’s carrying its resolution by 106 to 100, with the votes of Lords Grenville, Auckland, and Ashburton making the crucial difference. There was, however, one more hotly contested resolution still to be dealt with. The fifth resolution to come up from the Commons simply provided that during the continuance of the king’s illness, the queen should be in charge of his care, “together with the sole direction of such portion of his majesty’s household as shall be deemed requisite and suitable for the due attendance on his majesty’s sacred person, and the maintenance of his royal dignity.” Perceval in the Commons had tried to amend the resolution in such a way as to take the whole of the royal Household out of the hands of the regent and leave it, as his father had constituted it, for a limited time unspecified. Not only was this personally insulting to the regent-to-be; it meant depriving him of further patronage and political influence that his official family could give with their votes as members of both Houses of Parliament. Perceval had been unsuccess-



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ful in the Commons. Now Liverpool tried in the Lords. With the whigs reunited (for Grenville had spoken against the amendment from the first time it was mooted), now joined by a small group of the friends of Lord Castlereagh, who was at odds with his former colleagues in the government, Liverpool’s amendment was beaten by a vote of 110 to 97. This was the end of the Committee’s business, and the House resumed to act on the Committee’s report. Though the personnel of the Committee and the House were virtually the same, depending on who came and went during the proceedings, the Report stage gave a time for reconsideration. There was also an important difference in whose votes were allowed. Only those actually present could vote in Committee; the voting of proxies was not allowed. In the House, however, proxies normally could be voted. This was about to become a vital issue. Liverpool began by moving the restoration of the words in the first resolution removed by Lansdowne’s amendment—that is, the reference in general terms to restrictions and limitations—but specifying none. Lansdowne immediately rose and stated that he would not oppose the motion. He did not wish to waste the time of the House, and it was important to get the Report through that evening. In any case, since the Lords in Committee had agreed to his amendment, they had passed “two distinct restrictions and limitations”—the one on the creation of peerages and one that followed on pensions, which Lansdowne had allowed to pass without opposition. Thus the first resolution, as amended, was inconsistent with those that followed. This suggested that some of those who had voted with him in the first instance would probably not do so now. There was, he said, no point in putting the House to the trouble of a vote. Liverpool then announced that if there was trouble passing the amendment to the fifth resolution, on the Household, which he had lost in Committee and would now put to the House, he would call for proxies. This caused a storm of opposition from whig lords. Erskine, Holland, Stanhope, and Lansdowne strenuously denied any right to call for proxies. The earl of Moira moved that debate on the subject be adjourned for further consideration of the issue. The motion for adjournment of debate was carried against the government by a vote of 102 to 99. The ministers then called for proxies. Lord Lauderdale, the whig teller, refused to accept them, going on to describe “the most confused and riotous discussion I almost ever recollect.” Everyone who tried to speak but Lauderdale, his government counterpart the earl of Mulgrave, and the lord chancellor on the Woolsack (that is, presiding, or trying to, rather than stepping down to enter the debate) was shouted down. After an inconclusive report from a small select committee that had been looking into precedents, the ques-

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tion was put whether proxies should be received that evening. Once more the government was beaten by exactly the same vote as on the adjournment. Moira was just on the point of moving a general resolution against calling for proxies when Liverpool stated his intention not to call for them again. His amendment was negatived without a division. The Report stage of the bill was now completed, and the resolutions were ordered to be communicated to the Commons. The House finished its business at five o’clock in the morning of 5 January.9 This whig victory clearly illustrates the key factor in their other victories in the regency debates—their ability over a considerable period to prevent the use of proxies by the government. In the course of the debate on 19 December over whether the Lords should proceed by bill or address, Liverpool announced that doubts had been raised whether in the present state of the House proxies could be accepted. That state was not yet that of a House of Parliament, but merely that of representing one of the two estates. A Parliament would not exist until the missing third branch was restored. Liverpool believed there were precedents in favor of accepting proxies and said he would move the next day for a committee to examine them. This he duly did, and after some whig resistance the motion was carried.10 Nothing more was heard of proxies, or of the committee and its report, until the Report stage of the bill on 4 January, when Liverpool announced that if necessary he would call for proxies, thereby causing riotous disorder in the House. In ordinary circumstances there would have been nothing unusual in calling for proxies at this point. Everyone agreed that proxies could never be used in Committee, but it would have been perfectly in order to use them at the Report stage after the House had resumed. But this was not an ordinary situation. The House had appointed a committee, on Liverpool’s own motion, to inquire whether proxies could be called for in the existing circumstances. The committee’s report had not yet been made, much less discussed. These were the bases of complaint made by most of the whig peers who spoke, and their charges of trickery and bad faith seemed to be justified. Lord Erskine ranged much further. Even admitting “for argument’s sake that the House was assembled in Parliament,” he argued that it had a perfect right to regulate the use of proxies and that in the present circumstances where the weightiest matters were under consideration, only those present should have the right to vote. Lord Eldon, the chancellor, dryly remarked that this would be the beginning of the end of proxies altogether. Moira’s successful motion for an adjournment of debate for further consideration of the issue was soon followed by the select committee’s report, and it became apparent why the government had not chosen to flourish it in the face of its opponents. The only precedent the committee could find



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was in 1788–89. Throughout the period when Parliament was sitting, under whatever auspices, proxies continued to be entered, but never voted. Finally, on 10 March 1789, a “fresh Commission was issued, signed by the king himself, for declaring further causes for opening the Parliament.” Thereafter there was one case of proxies being voted, having to do with an “act for making and maintaining a navigable canal from or from near to Cromford Bridge in the county of Derby, to join and communicate with the Erewash canal at or near Langley Bridge.” If one had to choose, one would probably have to give the palm to the whigs, but they did not leap to claim it. Certainly the committee report did nothing for the government’s position. The whole affair was simply ludicrous. Then came the government defeat on calling for proxies on this occasion, followed by Liverpool’s avoidance of yet another reverse on a general resolution against calling for them at all, by quickly forestalling Moira’s motion with a promise not to call for them again. To make the day complete, Liverpool’s amendment, which had been the occasion for calling down all this woe, was negatived without a vote.11 It was not a good day for the government, and better days, on this issue at least, were not yet at hand. The following day the chancellor announced that he would soon call the House’s attention to the question. Lord Mulgrave welcomed the prospect. It was an important question and needed clarification. He believed that proxies were a right of lords and could not be taken away from them. Moira argued that while debates of profound import were going on there should be no discussion of the issue, and (taking Erskine’s line) decisions should be made only by those attending the discussions. Lansdowne declared himself ready for discussion but denounced the attempt to take the House by surprise the previous evening as quite unjustifiable. Liverpool and Redesdale took Mulgrave’s line.12 The promised discussions did not come for almost two weeks, on 23 January 1811. In the meantime Parliament had been officially opened. The House had met in a Committee on the State of the Nation. Liverpool had moved a resolution for putting the Great Seal to a Commission for opening Parliament, described as similar to one of 21 January 1789, stating “That it is expedient that Letters Patent should issue under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the manner and form following.” The usual form followed, with the addition of “‘By the King himself,’ by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” Under this form Parliament was opened on 15 January 1811. On the same day the chancellor gave notice of a motion on proxies the next day, but it did not occur until the 23rd. In opening discussion, Eldon observed that he had been advised that now the Parliament had been opened and no

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one doubted that lords had a right to vote by proxy, that it was unnecessary to discuss the question. But he feared that what had passed might sometime be used as a precedent, and he was determined to sort the whole question out. It had, he said, “recently become the fashion to call it an absurdity that what had been agreed to by a majority in a Committee should be reversed when the House resumed by a majority created by proxies. But that was the way it always had been unless changed by a regular vote of the House, including proxies, as in the case of judicial proceedings.” He then moved four resolutions to entrench the right of proxies as just described. He was immediately challenged by Lords Moira and Stanhope and the duke of Norfolk, who argued that the right though undoubted could be regulated by the House for its own purposes. Moira accused the government of playing politics because of the dispute over peerage creation (though actually it was the Household resolution that had occasioned the issue’s emergence). To kill the chancellor’s resolutions, he moved an adjournment. The motion was carried 95 to 93. It had been a raucous affair, with, as Eldon said, “neither he himself, nor the subject before the House, nor even their lordships’ House . . . treated very gravely.” He was particularly miffed at being represented as “coming down to the House clad in rusty armour,” trying hard but unsuccessfully to make a joke of it. He had made himself a joke.13 The government had not handled the proxy question well, and Liverpool’s uncharacteristically high-handed behavior over the Household issue had brought not only humiliation but also real damage to his cause. His actions had further galvanized his opponents and could have done nothing to reassure his friends. Eldon’s pedantry could not harm the cause, because it had already been won. But what had possessed him to risk defeat? It was too soon to raise the issue again, and there was no need to. It was pure pedantry to do so. The whigs, in contrast, had played their hand well from the beginning. They had played on the government’s unease in an ambiguous constitutional situation. This had led to the appointment of the unfortunate select committee. From Liverpool’s fateful threat to the very end, they had remained vigilant, united, and effective, taking advantage of every opportunity to strike and wound the enemy. It was what the new whigs had done so well since 1807, and they had never done it better. This, however, was because the government had been deprived of one of its most powerful weapons—what the whole dispute had been about, its proxies. Now that these had been restored, the days of whig victories in the debates were gone. As the regency bill went through its final stages, the whigs remained active and united. In Committee on 25 January, Grenville proposed his promised amendment to limit restrictions on the regent’s powers to six months. Grey



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backed him, restating his own position against any restrictions, but supporting his colleague in “rendering the bill as little mischievous as possible.” But the amendment was defeated without a division. Lansdowne then attacked the Household section of the bill. The government had abandoned its effort to keep the whole Household out of the regent’s control, but it allotted the regent only a relatively small and insignificant portion. Lansdowne moved that there should be no arrangement of the Household until after the regency had been established. Grey supported him with a furious attack on the government’s handling of the question, charging it with bad faith with Parliament and the prince and being concerned only with seeking patronage for itself. The chancellor was evidently shaken and confused by Grey’s onslaught, but both he and Liverpool rested their defense on their desire to keep the Household as much as possible intact in expectation of the king’s speedy recovery. Grenville also spoke for the amendment. There were two divisions. One was on whether the wording of the original clause (before Liverpool’s attempt to amend it) should stand as part of the bill, which was defeated 108 to 96. The other was on Lansdowne’s amendment, which was carried by exactly the same vote. This was indeed a victory of sorts, but not for long. The Report took place on 28 June. Grenville renewed his amendment for the removal of restrictions in six months. The whig vote was 84 present and 38 proxies, 122 in all. The government vote was 88 present and 51 proxies, giving it 139 votes. (Another vote endorsing the original clause went the same way by 139 to 124.) Liverpool then moved to leave out of the Household clause the words inserted by the Committee (Lansdowne’s amendment). Only totals are given, but these were 83 for the government and 68 for the whigs, which Hansard, to the contrary notwithstanding, gave the ministers a majority of 15, not 3.14 For all intents and purposes the contest was over. A few more motions, mostly frivolous, came to nothing, and the House adjourned at four o’clock in the morning. The third reading took place the next evening, and after getting the concurrence of the Commons received the royal assent by Commission on 2 February. What conclusions can be drawn about the significance, if any, of the regency debates for the history of the House of Lords in this period? The most usual one is to see them as just one more reverse, in the long history of reverses for the whig party in the first three decades of the century, and to see Grenville as mainly responsible for this one. Neither conclusion is entirely justified. To start with the central event in such conclusions, the vote on peerage restrictions, the context, and the actions themselves, are not fully understood. The late E. A. Smith in his fine biography of Grey says of Lansdowne’s amendment

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to the initial resolution for establishing a regency, that it was “to omit all reference to restrictions in the resolutions.”15 That it was intended to lead to that was undoubtedly true, but all it actually did was to omit all reference to them in the first resolution. The actual restrictions themselves were in two of the four resolutions that followed. They clearly were not touched by Lansdowne’s amendment. With the carrying of the peerage restriction resolution, Lansdowne took the principle to be accepted and did not challenge the next one on pensions. And on the same basis he did not challenge the restoring of the words omitted in his first amendment. The government defeat on the fifth resolution on the Household was not reversed and was at the center of the struggle over proxies. What Smith calls Grenville’s volte-face on peerage restrictions was not exactly that either, though it might have had something to do with saving face. It is clear that Grenville did not intend to vote for the resolution, and given his endorsement of the principle that he therefore intended to abstain. Thus, though Auckland and Ashburton very likely voted out of loyalty to him, it is highly unlikely that it was at his behest. There is no reason to believe that Grenville intended to wreck his party’s triumph. This is not of course to absolve Grenville of all responsibility. His greatest source of strength could also be a cause of weakness as a party leader. The tenacity with which he adhered to his principles could come dangerously close to rigidity. In principle, there was nothing wrong with his devotion to the precedents set in 1788–89. Pitt was admired at the time, as he has been by historians since, for his insistence on parliamentary control of the process of establishing a regency. In contrast, the whigs have been objects of derision for their distinctly sporadic and self-interested worship of the high hereditary principle. Yet there is something more than a little quixotic in Grenville’s belief that almost alone in his devotion to the 1788 principles among the party’s leadership, at least after the decision to proceed by a bill, he could continue to act on his “personal principles.” It is true that he was inventive in getting around his problems, but they were bound to get him in trouble in time. Publicly committed to limitations on peerage creations, he thought he had an escape hatch in military peerages. Liverpool saw his opportunity and slammed it shut. It was a trap that would have been hard to get out of, but it is unlikely that it even occurred to Grenville to try. His stated scruples met, he was in honor “obliged” to vote for restrictions on peerages. It is hardly surprising that he drove his colleagues to distraction, and it also may be surprising that his rigid attitudes did not cause more damage than they did. But it must be asked, what would have happened if the whigs had been able to amend every resolution to their own specifications? The earl of Thanet, a



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shrewd old Foxite, canvassed that question a few days before coming to town for the Thursday, 27 December 1810, debate, which ended in the decisive vote against the whig plan to proceed by an address. He had already made an accurate prediction on the outcome of that question. He wrote to Holland on 23 November that the prince had been “cajoled” by his whig advisers. “The precedent of ’88,” he said, “has not been quoted for nothing.” The ministers were biding their time, but when they were ready, that was the way they would go. In his next letter to Holland, he promised to be there for the Thursday debate, “not to put an end to an Interregnum as erroneously supposed but to the reign of Perceval.” Referring to the resolutions that were swiftly making their way through the House of Commons, thus preparing the government’s agenda for the House of Lords, Thanet observed that Perceval “boldly deprives you at once of all the arguments you might use upon the score of inconvenience or delay against supplying the deficiency by bill.” He then looked to the future and raised the most basic and pertinent issue of all: “If the two Houses should differ, can you find a remedy?” There were ordinarily two remedies, either a creation of peers or a dissolution of Parliament and a general election. These powers would be exercised by the king’s ministers, in the king’s name. But when there was an incapacitated king and the business at hand was to establish a regency, the situation was as far from ordinary as it could get. Thanet assumed that Perceval might simply exercise whichever power he chose, as he had already used a number of other powers, or possibly “reign upon his own interpretations of necessity and indemnity.”16 This may have been going a bit far. But the constitutional ground was becoming tricky and dangerous. It was not a time to make mistakes. These were the circumstances under which the regency debates took place. Liverpool’s ability to lead the Lords might be precarious to nonexistent, but from beginning to end Perceval had effective control of the Commons. The whigs had castigated the ministers for not acting more speedily in a time of national crisis, while they pondered (or prevaricated) over whether the king’s illness demanded a regency. Now Perceval had seized the initiative, and it would not be difficult to make the whigs appear mere obstructionists. It was perfectly proper for one House to attempt to influence legislation in the other by way of resolutions, and coordinated action in this case was absolutely necessary. But it was also clearly important for the government to have the prime minister drawing up the agenda for the Lords. Grenville was keenly aware of this and anxious that the Lords should begin to deal with the question before any resolutions came up from the Commons. The government made sure that the resolutions arrived just in the nick of time to avoid this happening.17 The Commons pro-

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posed and the Lords reacted, rightly or wrongly putting the onus of cooperation on them. The last thing the whig leaders wanted was a deadlock between the two Houses, for patriotic as well as self-interested reasons. This concern was reflected in Lansdowne’s ready and gracious gestures of compromise during and after the debates on restrictions. The point is perhaps more evidently, and significantly, made in the case of the resolution on which the whigs never compromised, and which they fought to the bitter end—the Household resolution, the only one on which the government never succeeded in getting its way in the Commons. It is true that the whigs were not satisfied with the compromise the government had to make there, but by that time, with the freeing of the government proxies by the opening of Parliament, there was no chance of ultimate victory. Probably there never had been. The whigs acted like the classic Lords opposition party they were, and one of the more successful. They were a tight and cohesive squadron, skilled at harassing and inflicting wounds to the prestige and effectiveness of the government. The aim was to do enough damage to destroy confidence in the government and/or the government’s confidence in itself. The several approaches to the whigs to join or join in forming administrations during this period had not a little to do with the squadron’s activities and showed that it was doing its work well. It had done so before the regency debates, and it never ceased to during them. Whig numbers were high and they held up, a hundred or more on every vote from those on restrictions on 4 January 1811 to that killing the chancellor’s resolutions on proxies on 23 January, when the majority vote was 95, but rising again to 108 on Lansdowne’s motion on the Household in Committee on 25 January. Attendance in the House that day was down mostly into the mid-80s for both government and opposition, but this was the first day that proxies were in use, making personal attendance less important, and it was government superiority in proxies that ended whig dominance. These figures do not indicate a party broken or dispirited by defeat on one amendment, though an important one, by the temporary defection of just three of their number. The defection was certainly resented, among others, by the prince. But Grenville in his 30 December minute had put both the prince and Grey on notice that he might well support some restrictions with a view to upholding the principles of 1788, so it was hardly a complete surprise.18 And it did not seriously disrupt the relationship between the two whig leaders. They continued to jointly advise the prince and make plans for a whig administration. Grenville resolutely rebuffed efforts to drive a wedge between himself and Grey and the party. His eldest brother, the marquess of Buckingham, who had a sizable parliamentary following including at least a dozen peers, was furious that the pro-



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posed cabinet included only two of “your friends” and that it also included the radical Samuel Whitbread, Grey’s brother-in-law, and Buckingham threatened to withdraw his support. Through his brother Tom, Grenville let the marquess know that he would not dream of undertaking office unless he had the “warm and hearty zealous co-operation” of all his family. Buckingham climbed down in a hurry, claiming that all that had really concerned him was that Whitbread was to have the admiralty, which would give him too much patronage.19 The marquess’s notion of his brother’s “friends” and Grenville’s own notion differed widely. Grenville thought in terms of party. Though it would probably have been no sacrifice for him, writing to Grey on 10 January, Grenville even offered that if his personal opinions were getting in the way of his friends’ objectives, he was entirely willing to step aside. No one was anxious to take up the offer.20 Three months later, under Grenville’s direction, the whigs would take on the ministers on an important issue, and defeat them.

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The Catholic Question

Though the prince was annoyed by Grenville’s vote on the restriction on creating peerages, it did not seriously damage relations between them. He continued to treat Grenville and Grey as his major advisers. Indeed, he requested that they advise him on what sort of government he should have after the regency had been established. They replied that the answer really depended on the king’s health and that before he entered on his regency he should get a full and up-todate report. If it appeared that the king was likely to recover soon, the prince would presumably not wish to change his advisers and must therefore accept their measures. If, however, it appeared that the king’s recovery might be some time in coming, then the prince might well feel it necessary to exercise his own judgment on “men and measures.” In that case the two lords had no hesitation in advising “that no hope even of safety remains except by an immediate and total change of public councils,” and should the prince be of the same opinion, they would be entirely at his service in implementing such a change. This minute was dated 21 January 1811 and received no answer. On 2 February, Grenville and Grey sent the prince another minute. With the passage of the regency bill only a few days away, they warned him that the time had come for a decision. As soon as he became regent, he would begin to take actions that would require the advice of responsible ministers. This minute was never delivered to the prince, because by the time it arrived he had already made up his mind. He would keep Perceval and his existing government. “Filial duty and affection” alone motivated him. He desired to do nothing that might impede his father’s recovery. The prince’s decision did not cause as much anger and dismay as might be imagined. Grenville and Grey had never been entirely certain of him. His dithering and dilatory ways, though annoying, were nothing new. And, in any case,



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in this matter he had followed their advice. He had asked for the opinion of the king’s physicians, who told him that the king would recover, though they could not say when.1 Such a conclusion, apparently based on no hard evidence, might have been questioned, but Grey and Grenville were willing to give the prince the benefit of the doubt. The more important decision on his part would come at the end of the restrictions. This situation required the whigs to maintain a delicate balance. They could not launch a fierce onslaught on the government to which the regent had given his confidence. Neither, however, could they let regent, government, or the wider public forget what they stood for and that they had the muscle with which to back their opinions. The first demonstration for these purposes was aimed at embarrassing the government and on an Irish issue though not directly of emancipation, closely connected with it. In 1810 the Convention Act had been passed to deal with an Irish technique for formidable mass petitioning. This involved local collection of signatures for petitions, which were then conveyed by delegates to national assemblies “met for the purpose of discussing any alteration in matters established in church or state.” The act itself was a rather crude and dangerous instrument, and in 1811 Wellesley Pole, the Irish secretary, in a circular letter to Irish magistrates ordered its strict enforcement in terms suggesting that merely to be a delegate, or even a collector of signatures, was to make a person subject to the penalties of the act. Earl Stanhope declared that the act was not—could not be—intended to bar the fundamental right to meet for the purpose of petitioning for redress of grievances. He moved that Pole’s letter be declared a violation of the law. Holland joined in the attack on the letter, and Lord Chancellor Eldon was forced to admit that “it was somewhat slovenly got together.” Grenville continued the battery, drawing the lesson he wanted to draw—that Pole’s letter was part of a growing government contempt and hostility toward Ireland, “a fresh proof of a disposition hostile to every measure and demonstration of conciliation towards that country.”2 The debate over Pole’s letter was not a show of force on either side. There were only six whigs, besides those already mentioned, the dukes of Bedford and Norfolk and Lord Montfort, and twenty-one government supporters. The latter were obviously able to defeat the motion easily. But Grenville at any rate had gained what he wanted, in making his main point and in embarrassing the government. The minister attending, Eldon, who was joined in defending the Irish secretary by the earl of Buckinghamshire, one of the Sidmouth party, were both uneasy and unenthusiastic in their defense of Pole, to the extent they tried to defend him at all. Grenville’s next effort was to be a show of whig strength, aiming to inflict a

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defeat on the government—and succeeding. The issue was a government plan to benefit West Indian sugar by allowing it to compete with British barley in supplying the raw material for British distilleries. This was to occur when the price of barley reached 38s. a quarter (one fourth of a ton of grain)—a price, it was argued, that made it profitable for European barley to enter the market, in any case. Therefore the British farmer would lose nothing, the West Indian planter would gain, and the only loser would be the French farmer. It was meant to be an attractive package, but British farmers and their landlords did not find it so. The plan’s chief opponent was the earl of Hardwicke, soon to become president of the board of agriculture and a whig stalwart. Grenville did not need to be asked twice to join in Hardwicke’s efforts to defeat the second reading of the government bill, and Lauderdale, still the acting chief whig whip, was already busy drawing up lists.3 This active support by Grenville and the whig whips (Lauderdale being joined by the earls of Rosslyn and Albemarle) continued. By 23 April, Lauderdale had a list of 112 lords believed to be favorable, though he thought the number of doubtfuls was considerable. On 26 April, Tom Grenville told Lord Spencer that his brother was “very earnest in his opposition” to the distillery bill and that a list Tom had seen (presumably that of the 23rd) seemed to hold out “good hopes of throwing it out in the House of Lords.” And on 1 May, a few days before the second reading of the bill, Grenville advised Hardwicke that he would be against dividing on any proposal for further inquiry. What he wanted was a vote to reject the bill outright or to postpone the second reading for six months (which, as Parliament would not be sitting then, was the conventional way of accomplishing the same thing more politely). The decision on which alternative was chosen should depend on the preference of government supporters whom they might win over.4 The bill was moved by Earl Bathurst, president of the board of trade, who effectively presented the government’s case. The earl of Rosslyn, one of the acting whig whips, argued that Scottish barley would be completely driven out of the distillery market by sugar. Revenue would also be reduced, thus impoverishing the public in order to enrich the West Indian planters. Lord Darnley, one of two prominent whigs to take the government side, contended that previous experience suggested that the proposed legislation would do British barley no harm. On an earlier occasion when the use of barley in the distilleries had been completely prohibited, its price had risen despite increased imports. Hardwicke argued that the cultivation of barley was an intervening step to the cultivation of wheat, which greatly enhanced its importance. Therefore every encouragement should be given to its production. He then moved a second reading of the



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bill that day six months hence. The earl of Westmorland, lord privy seal, urged that sugar growers in the colonies were entitled to all the help they could get and that the barley growers would not be in the least harmed. Lord Holland, the other leading whig supporter of the bill, employed the argument that sugar would come into the market at the same time that foreign imports normally began and that thus British farmers would not suffer at all. Lord Lauderdale declared that this was entirely wrong. Foreign exports could not begin until the British price was over 50s. a quarter. Therefore there was bound to be a considerable period when barley and sugar were very much in competition. Lord Liverpool denied that there was any conflict of interest between sugar and barley. Grenville, to the contrary, held that the bill would in fact provide a bounty on the use of sugar in the distilleries to the exclusion of British barley. It would lessen the demand for barley and thus diminish the supply of food at a time when it was necessary to increase internal resources. The vote against the government was 56 to 36, representing the votes of those present. Proxies were not called for.5 The above may give some idea of the cut and thrust of debate. It may not reveal the quality of the arguments, but this is probably not important. There were two positions represented. The government was taking an imperial perspective and anxious to help a foundering West Indian economy. The opposition, representing the position of British agriculturists, was determined not to tolerate anything that would threaten British barley. To determine the motivation of those acting for the respective causes is not easy, though simpler on the government side. Four spoke on that side, all cabinet ministers. They were clearly committed to the policy they had adopted, though they might have been sorry that they had done so. Their thirty mute supporters were a pitiful showing. The government had clearly misjudged its own constituency and had paid for it. Of the two whig supporters, and there were only two, Holland was probably motivated by his own West Indian interests, through his wife. There is no obvious explanation for Darnley’s position. On the other side, the largest number, forty, were whigs.6 Ten more had been on the opposite side during the regency debates. These included Sidmouth and his close supporter, Buckinghamshire, who were still acting on their own. Also included were three Scottish peers, who are likely to have had very strong feelings on barley. The remaining six were not active in debates, immediately before or after. One was the duke of Portland, Canning’s brother-in-law, but it is unlikely that this had anything to do with his vote in this case. Four more were Scottish peers. Clearly the whigs formed the solid core of the opposition and were responsible for its organization. The absence of lists of proxy votes makes it difficult

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to gauge the true whig strength. It is significant that the government did not call for proxies. Had it had enough strength in proxies to win, it would certainly have done so. This, and the large discrepancy between the number of whigs present and Lauderdale’s estimate of 112 against the bill, even allowing for his admission of a number of uncertains, suggests that the number of whig proxies must have been large. And Lauderdale lists some forty normally dependable whig voters who do not appear in the division list. This would get the figure fairly close to regular whig voting strength at the time. There is no doubt that a number of whigs voting in the division were genuinely voting, at least in part, on the ostensible issue. Among them would have been, preeminently, Lord Hardwicke, with Lauderdale for the Scots not far behind. Lord Fitzwilliam was another English peer who took an early interest in the question.7 And particularly in Scotland there were others who almost certainly felt the same. It was probably not the case with Lord Grenville. While he had not ignored the issue before, it was Hardwicke’s letter asking for his help that had galvanized him to action; and, though Lauderdale may already have started on his own, it was Grenville who had put the full force of the ad hoc but effective machinery of the whig party behind the effort to stop the bill. Grenville had recognized the government’s error in tampering with what one jubilant supporter at the time claimed was “the landed interest” and rousing its ire. Grenville was delighted to come forward as the champion of the landed interest and to turn the government’s party against itself. He succeeded. Admittedly, it was only briefly, and it did not deal anything close to a fatal blow to the ministers. Still, Grenville’s was not a minor achievement. At just about the time Hardwicke began to reach out for support against the bill, Liverpool wrote to Wellington: “We are proceeding with our business in Parliament very prosperously.” A month later, the leader of the House, having gone down to defeat, with only a miserable little band of supporters at his back and none of the proxies which he was wont to wield with such decisive effect, would probably have found a word other than prosperous to describe his situation. For the purposes of the whigs, it was a pointed reminder that they were still there and still dangerous. In the preceding century, the purpose of such marauding tactics was, if not usually to oust a government, at least to get taken into one and then to accommodate to its policies. The new whigs’ predecessors had, during the latter years of the eighteenth century, showed themselves capable of a remarkable tenacity of principle in opposition and, when toward the end of the American revolution George III had had no choice but to bring them into office, to act on their principles. This, however, did not conclusively break the old pattern.



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The breaking began with the whig refusal to consider joining the anti-Catholic Perceval government in 1809. Events in the latter part of 1811 and 1812 were to confirm it. The prince regent’s satisfaction with the government he had adopted in February 1811 did not last long. In the first part of May, he told Lord Auckland in an interview at Carlton House that he was convinced that the king would never recover and that the restrictions on the regency ought to be removed as soon as possible. He added that he saw far too little of Lords Grey and Grenville. On 23 May, Lord Moira, who besides being a whig was one of a circle of the prince’s close friends, came to talk to Grey on the same subject. However, he went on to be a little more specific. When the restrictions were lifted, Moira said, though probably the prince would not want a total change of government, he was likely to wish to introduce some of his “friends” (i.e., the whigs) to, as Grey chose to put it, “patch up an administration.” Moira told Grey that, acting on a long-held practice of attaching himself to the prince, he would, if offered a place and providing the ministers promised to act on principles he approved, take it. Would Grey do the same? Grey replied that he would give the same answer he had in 1809—no. Yet a week later Auckland reported that at Lady Stafford’s the evening before Grey had had a “very gracious” conversation with the prince, who urged a motion in both Houses for a reexamination of the king’s physicians. Grey replied “that the expediency of such a motion depended much on the prince’s avowing his approval of it.” Auckland took this seriously. It seems much more likely that Grey was ironically reminding the prince that he was not his official adviser and did not intend to become his cat’s-paw. This was perhaps just as well. By August 1811 the prince had decided to go on with Perceval and his stern policy in Ireland. However, he summoned Moira, himself an Irish peer, apparently to persuade him to become lord lieutenant in Perceval’s government. Though subjected to a long interview, Moira did not become lord lieutenant, and the prince refused to have any communication with him for some time afterward. Whatever the exact details of this affair, Tom Grenville’s comment seems to fit with the prince’s earlier request of Grey: “The king [prince] has certainly an idea that his friends ought to come forward whenever he chooses to call upon them without regard to who is his minister.”8 In the same letter, Tom had observed: “I cannot yet quite bring myself to believe that the prince will break all the engagements he has contracted with the Catholics; but I must confess appearances are very suspicious, and everything at present seems as if it must turn upon that one question, for on every other Perceval will give way.” Yet in October, W. H. Fremantle, one of

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Lord Buckingham’s MPs and also close to the Court, reported that he “knew” the prince was “as strongly pledged as a man can be (even of a very late date) to support the Catholics.”9 By late November, Grey was again under the impression that the prince was meditating a change that would bring in his “old friends,” but thought it equally possible that the same causes that had so long delayed it might ultimately prevent its execution altogether. In any event, or so Grey believed at the time, public interests dictated that a decision could not be postponed beyond the opening of the session. Well might Grenville write Hardwicke on 26 December 1811 that virtually nothing was known about what would happen when Parliament met. So far as he knew, there existed “No decided resolution as to the general plan and outlines of conduct which are in dispute, nor any fixed preference to any individuals as proper to execute the measures which such a crisis demands.” For himself, all he knew was that if any declarations were made favorable to the existing system in both foreign and domestic policy, “which I think utterly ruinous, I shall certainly feel it my duty to express without reserve my continued and increased disapprobation of that system.” But in such an uncertain situation it was difficult to plan an opposition strategy. That would have to wait until he, Grey, and others met in London early in January.10 On 6 January 1812, Grenville wrote to Lord Spencer that the prince had announced that nothing about a change in government would be revealed until the 18th, though Grenville himself doubted that the regent had even made a decision on the subject. He told his brother the marquess that it was only “to put off the evil day a few weeks longer.” And he told Spencer that it was evident that “the thing decides itself for in the meantime he is every day more and more deeply pledged to all the measures that the opponents of his present ministers deem the most objectionable.”11 The prince’s indecision had the opposite effect on the whigs, galvanizing them to action. The time had come for them to nail their colors to the mast, to address one great issue, the greatest of all—Ireland, and all that implied for the question of religious liberty. There would be no more waiting for the prince to make up his mind about his future advisers. As Grenville wrote to Lord Hardwicke: It seemed due to our characters to manifest to the world that our line of conduct on that subject could not be influenced by any such consideration, either one way or the other, but that in whatever situation we find ourselves we are resolved to pursue and insist upon that decided and conciliatory policy toward the Irish which we have long recommended in lieu of the vacillating and irritating measures which have hitherto been followed.



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Grenville added his own conviction that what was at stake was civil war in Ireland, “and I would not therefore reconcile it to myself to omit taking the earliest and most effectual means of resisting this last desperate plunge.” The immediate reference would have been to a motion by Lord Fitzwilliam to go into a Committee of the Whole House on the state of Ireland to be moved in less than a fortnight.12 It is likely that Grenville was also referring to his and Grey’s decision to drop their insistence on including the right of royal veto on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland in any Emancipation measure. A few days earlier, Grey had written Grenville that many of their friends objected to any limiting preamble, wishing instead a simple motion for an inquiry. He noted that Holland was among those desiring such a course, as indeed he had been for some time.13 The two lords’ insistence on the veto had put them at odds with Irish Catholic opinion and made their statements of support for the basic principle of annual Irish relief motions little more than a gesture. Fitzwilliam’s proposed motion fit the desired form and allowed them to resume effective backing of the Irish cause.14 The debate on Fitzwilliam’s motion on 31 January 1812 was spirited. Fitzwilliam led off by declaring that a report just received of jury tampering on the part of the Irish government in the trial of one of the Catholic delegates was an excellent example of the sort of actions that concerned him. Irish problems, he said, “chiefly arose from the denial to the Catholic body of the same rights which were enjoyed by their fellow citizens.” There was, he said, no religious reason to exclude them, and no one really thought there was. The political reasons may have been real enough in the last days of Charles II and the reign of James II and may have continued to apply in the days of the Pretenders. But they did no longer. Indeed in the latter part of the previous century, the Irish Parliament itself began to remove disabilities, for example, in the Franchise Act of 1793. Yet the higher orders of Catholics were still excluded from Parliament and from offices. Fitzwilliam could imagine no ill effect of righting this wrong—quite the contrary. The recent abuses of the Irish government were another reason to consider the condition of the country. Therefore he moved for a Committee of the Whole House to do so.15 The earl of Rosse deplored the charge of jury tampering as based merely on a newspaper report. Neither was there any basis for complaining about interference with petitioning. The problem was that the Irish Catholics wanted to petition by convention. That was dangerous—it was the Catholics who were the aggressors.16 The duke of Bedford, lord lieutenant under the Talents, pointed

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to a fundamental problem. While the majority of people ruled were Roman Catholic, the government was Protestant. This meant that four-fifths of the population were excluded from most important privileges and one-fifth only engrossed every office of honor and emolument in church and state.17 The earl of Aberdeen, soon to identify himself as a “Catholic tory,” on this occasion argued that the recent actions of the Irish showed that they did not deserve relief. Much was said about the rights of mankind and the rights of the Irish Catholics to privilege and immunities. He would have none of it, and if it were accepted there would be no government.18 The marquess of Downshire asserted that the connection of the question to the Act of Union was important. All the Irish had lost by it—the Catholics much more. They had been promised civic equality, and they had not received it. Parliament should put things right. Lord Hardwicke, another former lord lieutenant, argued that earlier concessions had worked well. He also contended that no penal laws should be kept in force when the cause for which they had been enacted no longer existed: “The cause which had produced the enactment of those in question did no longer subsist and that being the case the sooner they were got rid of the better.”19 The marquess Wellesley, still a member of the government from which he would soon be levered out by Perceval, gave a long and largely self-serving speech. He first addressed himself to the demolition of Fitzwilliam’s opening arguments. There had been no jury tampering. It was not petitioning that was the issue, but conventions that were illegal. He, too, strongly believed in Catholic Emancipation, but the time was not right. A government could not give in to threats and violence.20 Lansdowne, who was another of the best whig debaters, took Wellesley on. He twitted “the little marquess,” as he was called, about being a supporter of Emancipation. It was a pity he had not pressed it on the government of which he was a member. Lansdowne then turned to that part of Wellesley’s speech where he had tried to vindicate the conduct of the Irish government. The Catholics had been meeting in the same way for some time. Had that been illegal? Why had it not been suppressed? Past governments had actually dealt with delegations. As for juries, the Crown had used an excessive right of challenge and had ignored the right of Catholics to be tried by juries made up of one-half of their own persuasion.21 Grey, aiming at one of his favorite targets, held that the Convention Act was a declaratory act, for Lord Eldon had said so the previous year. That is, it was merely a declaration of what the law was before. Nothing new was made unlawful. It was an act providing that unlawful assemblies should not meet for the pretense of petitioning. But it was not the pretense that made the assembly un-



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lawful. Grenville, who rose at five the following morning, took a similar line to Grey’s and like him appealed to Eldon. The lord chancellor sat in stony silence. Liverpool did attempt a reply to Grey, but it was a weak one made up largely of unsubstantiated assertions.22 The House divided 162 to 82 (not 79, as in Hansard) against the motion.23 The whigs, uncertain almost to the end what strategy they would pursue, had not solicited a large early attendance of their supporters. There were only fortytwo present, but they had paid attention to proxies, of which they had forty. Unlike the opposition, the government had called for a large early attendance and had eighty-six present, as well as their usual superiority in proxies, seventysix.24 The majority against Fitzwilliam’s motion was therefore eighty. Writing to Lord Grenville, however, his brother the marquess declared himself satisfied with both the debate and the numbers.25 He was probably right. This would have been a good whig showing at any time. It admittedly did not come up to their best numbers during the regency debates, but neither was it the kind of issue likely to pick up floating votes. Indeed in this vote and the next, the last two dealing with the Catholic question before it was declared an open one, there were probably few, if any, floating votes to be had. Thus in these votes we find perhaps the most accurate showing of the reliable core of whiggery. A week after the debates on Fitzwilliam’s motion, the prince decided to make an approach through his brother, the duke of York, to Lord Grey. York was to state to the latter the regent’s desire to form “an extended” government and the “gratification I should feel if some of those persons with whom the early habits of my public life were formed would strengthen my hands and constitute a part of my government.” The prince added that he had no doubt that Grey would make his wishes “known to Lord Grenville.” Unfortunately, this part of his instructions to York got somewhat garbled in the retelling, and Grey understood York to say that the plan was to send to himself first, which was accurate, but, as Grenville recorded it in his memorandum of his conversation with his colleague, if Grey refused to treat without Grenville, “with liberty to include me.”26 What precedes suggests some of the flaws in royal diplomacy on this occasion. With the last debates on the Catholic question just over—in which both the prince’s emissary, York, and Viscount Lake, a favorite believed to speak for him in the Lords, not to mention his government, were bitterly opposed to the Catholic cause—it was not an opportune time to approach the whigs. Admittedly the prince did not now have much choice about timing. In his letter of instructions to York, he noted that the restrictions on the regency were about to run out and that he must now make arrangements. He had not done so earlier because of his “earnest desire that the expected motion on the affairs of

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Ireland might undergo the deliberate discussion of Parliament unmixed with any other consideration.” Claims of disinterestedness and consistency did not get him far with the whigs. He did not mention that his existing government was in the process of falling down around his ears because of a competition between his prime minister and his foreign secretary, which, for his own purposes, he had done not a little to encourage.27 Even if the prince’s brother had made a bad choice of language much worse, the prince’s was bad enough to begin with. If the prince had expected to attract a former prime minister, it would have been only common sense to have approached him directly. Grenville was furious and remembered that the prince’s father had played the same game of trying to divide the opposition leadership in 1782 by sending for Lord Shelburne before Lord Rockingham. Grey was entirely sympathetic to Grenville’s feelings. Lord Hardwicke, uninterested in office and therefore in a position to be more objective, observed that though he had expected “the prince would be prevailed upon by the influence that surrounds him to retain the present ministry, yet I confess I did not imagine he would have done it in a manner so truly offensive.”28 Grey and Grenville rejected the royal advances in language that was not to be misunderstood: his royal highness has himself been pleased to advert to the late deliberations of Parliament on the affairs of Ireland. . . . Far from concurring in the sentiments which his majesty’s ministers have on that occasion so recently expressed, we entertain opinions directly opposite. We are firmly persuaded of the necessity of a total change of the present system of government in that country and of the immediate repeal of those civil disabilities under which so large a portion of his majesty’s subjects still labour on account of their religious opinions. To recommend to Parliament this repeal is the first advice which it would be our duty to offer to his royal highness. Nor could we even for the shortest time make ourselves responsible for any further delay in the proposals of a measure without which we could entertain no hope of rendering our services useful to his royal highness or to our country.29

The prince then turned, or rather returned, to Perceval. Wellesley refused to serve under Perceval. Moira was so appalled by what had happened that he told the prince that there was nothing left for him to do but to retire from public life. Little did he imagine that the royal merry-go-round would swing by and pick him up once more before many months passed.30 In the meantime the whigs had no idea of letting the Catholic question slumber. On 7 and 8 March, Grey informed Grenville that Lord Donoughmore wished to consult on when to bring his motion forward. Grey said that their friends in the House of Commons wanted their motion given precedence, but he could “see no good in postponing the motion in the House of Lords. On the



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contrary I believe our division will be better than theirs, and our debate probably not worse.”31 The debate was set for April 1812. In the interval there was management and coordination to be done. Once more there is a reminder of whig efforts to keep Dissenting and Catholic forces marching together. Grenville was concerned about some printed propaganda aimed at rousing Dissenters against the Catholic cause. He wrote to Grey: “What would be the best would be if some answer to it could be drawn by some of the Dissenters themselves as best understanding the topic to be pressed, and the tone to be taken. W. Smith could perhaps assist in this.” He referred to William Smith, whig MP and chairman of the Dissenting Deputies, a Unitarian and elder statesman of Dissent. In any event Grenville thought it “very useful that an answer should be procured to it in some quarter and circulated as this probably is, by the Post and by all other practicable modes of distribution.”32 This is just the beginning of what would be a continuing concern over the next couple of years. There were mixed experiences in bringing up the lords to vote. The duke of Bedford did not know how Lord Bradford would vote. Bradford could not make up his mind on the question and had therefore declined coming up for Fitzwilliam’s motion. This time Bedford believed he would come up but had no idea how he would vote. The duke had written to ask Lord Maynard for his proxy, only to be told that Maynard was not with them on this question. Not surprisingly, Bedford was a little pessimistic. Grey was not. He reckoned they should be near, if not quite, one hundred.33 The debate on Lord Donoughmore’s motion finally took place on 21 April 1812. It was for a Committee of the Whole on the civil disabilities of the Roman Catholics. He started with a history of concessions granted from the 1770s, which had worked well, on which he complimented his fellow countrymen. He taxed his friend the regent, and not gently, over his change of opinion on the question. And he pointed to the dangers at home and abroad, and the need for unity.34 Lord Redesdale took the exact opposite position from that of Donoughmore. While the latter believed that all restraints on Roman Catholics should be removed, Redesdale thought all restraints and securities embodied in law ought to remain in force. Experience had proved their worth. The Protestant Constitution that grew out of the Glorious Revolution guaranteed liberty. To give Catholics power would threaten that constitution. Lord Selkirk replied that the Scottish example belied the argument that giving power to those who dissent is dangerous to those who give it.35 Lord Wellesley carefully built a case, exuding open-mindedness and conciliation. He did not deny the state’s right to restrict religious denominations.

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What he did say was that no restriction ought to be perpetuated a moment after it became unnecessary. That was the problem in Ireland. The dangers to the Establishment in Ireland came from the restrictions themselves and the hostility they bred.36 Lord Liverpool was entirely against a Committee. In the existing state of the country, it would alarm the Established Church (of England and Ireland) and disappoint the Catholics. On the question of tests, he said that in Ireland there were no Test and Corporation Acts, and therefore “you have no law in force in Ireland which obliges dissenters generally to conform in the way that the Church of England obliges the people of this country to its views and policy.” This was a frank and open statement of what Liverpool thought was, and ought to be, the case. He went on to contrast the situation in Ireland. There tests applied only to Catholics, and only to their doctrines. He said that if the difference between the Established Church and the Catholic Church were “doctrines of a purely religious nature”—transubstantiation, invocation of saints, the adoration of the Virgin Mary—he would not see Catholics as being on a very different footing from any other class of dissenters in the British Empire. But this was not the major difference between the two churches and their adherents. Other tests are applied to Catholic opinions that do not relate to points purely religious and that do relate to points connected to the civil and religious government of the state, and are considered necessary to the security of the country, but which Catholics cannot accept. One is the Oath of Supremacy, which according to Liverpool, did not require a person to say that the king is Head of the Church, but is simply an oath of abjuration. It calls upon an individual to say only that “no foreign prince or foreign potentate” has or ought to have any power or preeminence in the United Kingdom. Liverpool then went on to explain the principle of a Protestant state: that it is independent, that it has full power within itself, and that no entity outside it has any power or authority to interfere in its state policy. Thus, Liverpool argued, it stands to reason that those who claim a right to exercise power in such a state should take an oath to bind them to that state. Some contended that Roman Catholics were ready to disclaim all civil and temporal power in any foreign authority and only wished a spiritual authority in the pope to be recognized. Liverpool did not wish to talk in abstract terms, “but of this I am certain, that it is impossible to separate spiritual and temporal power in any country in which there is a large portion of the population Roman Catholics.” This is because “it applies not only to the most sacred of institutions [the Church] upon which,



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in fact, depends the whole form of civil society”; it also applies to other institutions—marriage, all the charities of life, and numerous questions of property. There were other dangers. The pope would be in complete control of all the patronage of the Roman Catholic Church. The priests would be able to exercise greater control over their congregations. Liverpool ended with a solemn caution: “You have done away with all restrictions on the Catholics short of political, and now it is desired to surrender that.”37 This was Liverpool at his very best, and it was very good indeed. The case for the Protestant Constitution was never better explained or justified. In the years to come, in the mouths of other men, the arguments would become hackneyed and mean. Liverpool’s arguments were not entirely new, and he had used them before, but never with such force and focus. He believed in what he said. He also believed that the system bequeathed by the Glorious Revolution was in real danger. He rose to defend it in cool and measured tones, clearly and logically, with every argument in its place and all fitting neatly together. Mean, Liverpool never was. It is true that the arrogance of the Establishment resounded in what he said. That, in the nature of the case, he could hardly have avoided. It was natural as well that such arrogance was offensive to those whose religious beliefs put them outside the Establishment. Yet at the very same time that Liverpool was arguing against Catholic Emancipation, he was loyally cooperating with the Unitarian MP William Smith to clarify and strengthen the rights of Dissenters to practice their religion as they chose, following an attack the previous year by Lord Sidmouth on freedom to preach.38 Lord Liverpool was a thoroughly decent man. The marquess of Downshire followed, testifying to the wide support enjoyed by the cause of Catholic Emancipation among people of all classes and religious affiliations in Ireland. Then, Lord Byron, with caustic wit and biting sarcasm, as well as a remarkably detailed knowledge of abuse of Catholics in Ireland at the time, declared that Emancipation ought to have happened before, but with the current dangers at home and abroad, it certainly should happen now.39 Lord Moira denied Liverpool’s contention that it was impossible to separate the spiritual from the temporal, and declared that the Irish were fully prepared to do so. He deplored Donoughmore’s doubts about the prince’s continued attachment to the cause. He knew better. And he said that the fears about giving the Irish Catholics political power were baseless. If the upper ranks were given the advantage of office and place, were they likely to give the lead to disaffection?40

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If Liverpool had shone for the opposition to Donoughmore’s motion, Lord Grenville shone for its supporters. In a speech of unusually simple and open passion and commitment, he declared: What I ask for my fellow subjects is religious freedom, the liberty to serve God in the way in which they have been trained up, to worship him according to the dictates of their own conscience, to adhere to that form of Christianity which they profess, without incurring any legal penalty, or being stigmatized by any civil disability. I trust they have no wish to withdraw their allegiance from the State; I am sure they have no interest to weaken its authority. They solemnly disclaim the intention.

To the fear that Emancipation would allow Catholics in high office to participate in the appointment of bishops, Grenville pointed out that Scots Presbyterians already participated, with no apparent ill effects, and that theirs was not a history especially friendly to Anglicanism. He delivered a particularly eloquent lament on the lost opportunity for Emancipation at the time of the Union and ended with a masterly and comprehensive rebuttal of the arguments of those opposing the motion. The debates ended with Eldon charging Grenville with disregarding his own principles by his insistence on the veto. Grenville replied that while he had considered it advisable, he had never considered it indispensable for Emancipation. Lord Holland also commented on Eldon’s contention that the Bill of Rights made further concessions to the Catholics impossible.41 The division was 174 to 102 against Donoughmore’s motion. The government had 103 present and 71 proxies. The whig, or mostly whig, minority had 67 present and 35 proxies. Lord Bradford had appeared and voted for the motion, so Bedford’s efforts had not been entirely in vain. Grey’s prediction had been close to the mark, and the error was in the right direction. Two more whig lords had paired, that is, had entered into an agreement with a government supporter that neither would appear to vote. The bishop of Rochester had sent his proxy, but it had arrived too late to be entered. The total whig contingent therefore was 105. Writing to the then Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford (future bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury), William Howley, the earl of Aberdeen observed from Dublin: “You will perhaps have been surprised about the huge minorities in the House of Lords and Commons on the Roman Catholic question. We hear of nothing else but the Catholic claims.”42 Ordinarily a majority of 72, which the government had, should not have been a cause of great concern. But since the vote on Fitzwilliam’s motion in late January, the government’s majority had actually gone down by eleven. And it must be borne in mind that the government majority that time had been the product of a major effort.



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Figures of those present had gone up by seventeen and the number of proxies down by five. What these figures suggest is that the government had started at full throttle and remained at full throttle, and still it slipped back. It is likely that this hastened a process that seems to have gone on since the first jarring vote in January. In late February, Lord Moira had called at Carlton House by the prince’s order. When he arrived, the prince, suffering from a round of riotous carousing all too well chronicled by others in attendance, was too hung over to see him. But he ordered the page-in-waiting to inform Moira that he had settled the Catholic question, which was not any longer to be a government question.43 That is, it was not to be a question on which members of the cabinet, or their followers, were bound to act together. The government itself would not propose measures or organize resistance. Each individual cabinet member, and the rank and file, could decide for himself what position to take. But though the prince also authorized Sheridan to impart this information to Lord Ponsonby, it did not become official for some time. Perceval’s murder in the lobby of the House of Commons, at the hands of an assassin who held the government responsible for his own financial ruin in a wartime economy, and the efforts to decide on a new government thereafter, caused more delay. It was not until after Liverpool was firmly ensconced as prime minister that the policy was finally announced to a party meeting on 9 June and in the House of Commons the next day. Writing at the time of the prince’s announcement in February, Tom Grenville was not impressed. He could well believe that Perceval, under pressure from the old Pittites and from Castlereagh, who was said to have stipulated for his own Catholic vote if he rejoined Perceval’s government, would be willing to allow those of his cabinet and supporters who were for the Catholics to say so individually. But he also thought it “a permission he may very safely give them, because as long as Perceval continues to be prime minister, the Court and the Church and bishops and tories will all vote with Perceval in the Commons and Liverpool in the Lords without caring about Harrowby and Mulgrave and Castlereagh and so forth.” And he added sarcastically that the proposed solution would be useful to the prince (in his official as well as personal capacity), as he would be able to assure the Irish when they pressed their claims that “the influence of his government shall not be used against the free and unbiased discussion of the question in Parliament.”44 The substitution of Liverpool for Perceval as the key figure does nothing to alter this analysis, for in his fifteen years as prime minister, until he was felled by a stroke in 1827, Liverpool was to prove as effective a champion of the Protestant

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Constitution as Perceval had ever been. Most of the credit for bringing about the new policy goes to the whigs, for it was their adamantine and effective support for the Catholic cause that brought the government to seek this solution. Not that the whigs rejoiced in a victory, because for the reasons suggested by Tom Grenville (and his predictions proved to be generally correct), neither the cause nor the whigs profited by it. The government did. The new policy allowed ministers to recruit more broadly for support and to bring in conscientious supporters of the Catholic cause, at first mainly from their own ranks. And this, in fact, proved to be one of the main problems for the cause. For it was easier to be conscientious on the back benches than at comfortable and collegial cabinet dinners. It also, for a time at any rate, made the government appear more tolerant and liberalminded than it actually was because whatever declaring Catholic Emancipation an “open question” may have meant, and whatever it was intended to achieve, it was not that.

chap ter fou r



The Ways Begin to Part

In the 1820 debates often referred to as the trial of Queen Caroline (but actually proceedings against her by a parliamentary bill of pains and penalties), seventy-seven whigs voted one or more times on the side of the queen. Forty-eight of them had been active in the great 1812 debates over Catholic Emancipation, and four more had taken their seats immediately afterward in 1813. There would appear therefore to have been a fair degree of continuity from the earlier period to the later. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. For if one assumed that in the intervening period the whigs had remained the great and powerful party they had been from 1807 to 1812, one would be very wrong. Whig numbers in divisions in the later period provide a graphic illustration.

1813: 59 1814: none 1815: 18, 17, 21, 30, 54 1816: 71

1817: 18, 35, 50 1818: none 1819: 34, 47, 38

Three additional divisions on the Catholic question are much larger and overwhelmingly whig, but they belong to another part of the story. The figures above are in one sense not as serious as they might look. Once more the importance of proxies is evident. Government numbers of proxies for this period never go below forty-two and go as high as eighty-one. Whig numbers go from zero to forty. The last figure is the best whig division of the period, on the duke of Bedford’s motion for a Committee (of the Whole) on the State of the Nation in 1816. Such motions were a favorite opposition device to canvass what they contended was wrong with the state of the nation. With the glorious

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victories of war over, in 1816 the country was beginning to experience some of its unfortunate economic and social consequences; so the nature of the duke’s motion gave it appeal. But the motion’s impressive showing also reflected good organization, provided as far as one can tell mainly by the duke himself. Having targeted a likely supporter, he did not give up easily.1 The enthusiastic times when ad hoc committees had handled such matters with considerable success were gone, and whig showings in divisions suffered as a result. All this is not to say that whig lords did not remain formidable in their own way. Writing to Canning in the middle of June 1815, Liverpool said of proceedings in Parliament that “since the struggle on the Corn bill we have had no material difficulties to encounter.”2 His reference is to the March debates over the passage of the Corn Law in 1815. The results are recorded in the first three divisions of that year listed above, in which the whigs lost to the government, 144 to 17 on the second reading (proxies 52 to 2), and 128 to 21 on the third. Yet it was true that Grey and Grenville between them had dominated the debates, arguing that there was insufficient information for setting a duty, and that 80s. a quarter, before foreign wheat was let in, was certainly too high. They were right, and there were millions in the country who had strong feelings in the same direction.3 There is another, similar example. In January 1815, whig leaders met at Dropmore, Lord Grenville’s house in Buckinghamshire, to settle their plans for the next session. They decided to make their first order of business a motion for a committee to inquire into Britain’s war with the United States. They based their decision on their belief that public opinion was rising against a war caused and perpetuated by government mismanagement. Liverpool too, however, had already been turning the question over in his own mind. He had written Canning in December wondering whether it was not better to conclude peace as soon as possible, “before the impatience of the country on the subject had been manifested at public meetings, or by motions in Parliament.”4 Public meetings and motions in Parliament were not, of course, unconnected. After all, public awareness of the government’s American policy had been both heightened and shaped by the whig lords ever since they took up the issue of the Orders in Council in 1808. Lansdowne had made the last motion on the subject in February 1812, calling for a select committee to consider the existing state of commerce and industry with reference to the effects of the Orders in Council. In doing so he had told the Lords that had his object been only to contradict the statements of his opponents about the benefits of the Orders in Council, he would have waited for the petitions to flow in from all the manufacturing districts, which would prove in the strongest terms their in-



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jurious consequences. But he had hoped to be able to persuade their lordships to consider the question while deliberate action could still be taken without excitement and pressure. Lord Grenville closed the debate by repeating Lansdowne’s warning, that if anyone had any doubts about the effects of the Orders in Council, the petitions would remove them. The motion was defeated. The meetings and petitioning took place in no very good mood, and on 23 June Liverpool’s government revoked the Orders in Council.5 Henry Brougham was undoubtedly the great figure in this final phase. But whig peers such as Lord Auckland, who had played a major role from the beginning, and Grey were angry over Brougham’s thanks to the government for something they believed their championing of a distressed public had helped to wring from the ministers.6 Yet by midsummer of 1812 there were warning signs in what had been a year of triumphs for the whigs, even if they were still not in office—and even that, the leadership at any rate considered a point of pride. Indeed there was cause for concern with what might have been considered the greatest triumph of all, when in July the Catholic question came within a whisker of a majority in the House of Lords. In truth it was not any longer, strictly speaking, a whig event. It was after the Catholic question had been declared an open one the previous month, and the motion to test the sense of the House and commit to action the following year if it passed, was made by the Marquess Wellesley, not yet a whig. The vote was 126 to 125, two votes short of a majority. Most supporters of the cause rejoiced at this result, but Lord Holland was concerned that the vote had gone up by only twenty-four (actually twentythree) from the last vote on Lord Donoughmore’s motion, before the question had been declared open. To Holland, it appeared that that action had not had much of an impact, and he was right. Indeed the situation was slightly worse than he imagined. There were twenty-seven new supporters. Seven were whigs. Twelve would not vote at all in the next three divisions on the question, in 1815, 1817, and 1819. Five old Pittites—Camden, Harrowby, Mulgrave, Melville, and Castlereagh’s father, Lord Londonderry—loyally voted in all three, and would thereafter. They were joined by the younger earl of Aberdeen. The earl of Dartmouth would vote in two divisions; Lords Harrington, Angelsey, and Clancarty in one. Catholic tories were not as numerous as might have been imagined.7 Then there were the general elections in the autumn. The government was confident enough of the outcome—at least it was not concerned about a threat from the whigs. Lord Mulgrave told Liverpool at the end of September that if he had had any doubt that the prime minister would not avail himself of “this

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most favourable occasion for the dissolution of Parliament,” he would have written to urge it. He was particularly pleased that “the successes in the peninsula have produced their full effect; possibly the dissolution of Parliament may limit the powers of the armed neutrality and render them either more tractable or less formidable.” There was no mention of the whigs. Liverpool did notice the whigs when the election was over, writing to Peel: “Our danger is not from Opposition, but evidently from the third parties [sic] headed by Lord Wellesley and Canning.” The problem with Wellesley and Canning and their followers, the “armed neutrality,” was that they were all derived from the Pittites, and their leaders had recently sat in the same cabinets as members of Liverpool’s existing government. Liverpool feared that they would be able to detach government supporters to fill their own ranks.8 This fear was not realized, as Wellesley soon joined the whigs and Canning dissolved his party. There was no doubt, however, that the whigs in the Commons had been further weakened by election losses and new divisions over peace resolutions, promoted by Whitbread, and over the war in Spain. Holland wrote to Grenville on 11 November that the result was “to divide the House of Lords and House of Commons more than ever. We shall of course be as strong, possibly stronger than ever in the former, in the latter not only not strong but not the strongest party in opposition. This is really a kind of revolution in our party history.” Holland, however, was relatively optimistic about success on Catholic Emancipation. He stressed that they must begin by consulting with all the friends of the Catholic question. He also emphasized, however, that it was “due to us to keep the lead in that question.”9 Lansdowne agreed entirely: “It is plain . . . I think that until there is some change in the state of parties or of public affairs, debate should be as much as possible avoided upon all subjects but one, which is imposed upon us as a duty, the Catholic question.”10 Catholic Emancipation was their question, and a sacred trust. At about the same time, Grey also provided a reminder of why the Lords was so vital to the cause and the party. Holland was concerned about crafting a motion that would properly state the whig position and elicit constructive discussion. Grey replied: “In the House of Lords . . . I think there would be no difficulty, indeed there never has been any, in producing a satisfactory motion and discussion. In the House of Commons there is no such hope.”11 Only from the House of Lords could a coherent whig policy emanate and inform the public. By 1 January 1813, however, Grey was beginning to fear that whig efforts would not ultimately succeed. The reason has a significance beyond the immediate issue: “I am full of fears about the Catholic question. The Russian success-



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es [against Napoleon] whatever other good they may produce, are not favorable to that cause. Fear and not hope is the influence under which it is most likely to triumph.”12 Though the Machiavellianism of this statement is apparent, and made Grey himself a little uncomfortable, what he said was basically true, as reflected by Wellington’s famous statement about saving his country from civil war as he introduced the final successful Catholic Emancipation bill in 1829. But there were wider implications. As Mulgrave saw in military successes the rising fortunes of his party, so Grey saw in them the waning prospects of the whigs. Plans for an Emancipation bill, however, were going on apace. Holland suggested to Grey that Henry Grattan, the great Irish patriot who intended to introduce a measure in the Commons, would indeed be the best person to do it. But Grattan must form his plan in conjunction with Grey, Grenville, and four members of the Commons, including Sir Samuel Romilly and Francis Horner, but not Samuel Whitbread or George Ponsonby, the designated whig leader. This represented a tactful way around a difficult situation. Grey concurred in Holland’s plan, suggesting only that Holland himself must be involved.13 The measure was duly framed and introduced by Grattan in the Commons. Right up to the committee stage things seemed to be going well, and the whig lords became excited. Holland wrote Grey on 11 May that in preparation for the bill’s arrival in the Lords “a committee of Lords, such as St. John, Albemarle, King, Darnley should be appointed to press attendance, arrange proxies and prepare for divisions.” This was done. But on the 19th Albemarle wrote sardonically to Lady Holland: “Some of our friends say that Grattan’s bill will pass safe and sound through the Commons and that Canning and Castlereagh are both honest.” Should it come up, he reckoned 121 votes certain for the bill and 19 doubtful, as opposed to 125 certain and 22 doubtful against, and that both of the doubtful categories would turn out much more in favor of the bill.14 But the bill would never come up to the Lords. The reason was that someone—it is impossible to be certain who—decided that without bothering to mention it, the bill could also be made to relieve Protestant Dissenters. And this was to be done, in the same discreet fashion, by in effect repealing the Test and Corporation Acts. This would be accomplished simply by adding at the end of the conditions for office, the phrase “and without taking the Sacrament of our Lord’s supper, according to the usage of the Church of England.” As this was the test in the Test Acts, not much would be left. This could be achieved in one bill since, though it would not affect Irish Catholics unless they received British offices, English Catholics were excluded by the same laws as the Dissenters were.15

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This was a very whig thing to do, as well as reflecting the whigs’ own deepest convictions. Certainly they had no qualms about what they were doing. Whitbread wrote to Holland that he had seen John Wilks, the head of the Protestant Society, who had told him that if the second reading passed, the Dissenters intended to move forcefully for their own rights. Whitbread strongly advised Wilks not to, telling him “that it was decidedly your opinion as well as mine that prudence demanded forbearance on the part of the Protestant Dissenters and that if the Catholic bill should pass without mention of them, their object was equally attained.”16 But it is hard to understand how they thought they could get away with it. There was the 1807 precedent, but it was one thing for the king’s ministers to think they might cajole him along to a broader point of view. It was quite another to imagine that Canning and Castlereagh could have been taken in by their ruse. It is possible that they believed the two Catholic tories would be sympathetic. It was not easy—indeed it was impossible—for whigs to accept that anyone could genuinely believe in Catholic Emancipation without also believing in relief for Dissenters. As Lord Grenville had said of the Catholic question in January: “That it never can be satisfactorily or justly settled but by the admission of all people of this kingdom to the benefits of its free Constitution is my fixed and unchangeable opinion.” The Catholic tories were a new phenomenon, and there had not until now been an occasion for them to express their views on the Dissenters’ cause.17 Those views were not positive. Castlereagh and Canning did not miss the design to emasculate the Test Acts and declared their strong opposition. It was a major issue that caused a week’s break in the Committee stage, while Castlereagh and Canning undertook revisions in the bill which were to be referred back to the Committee. In the meantime there were frequent conferences between them and whig members of the Commons. Grey was deeply concerned. Without consulting him or Grenville, Grattan had agreed to add to offices from which Catholics were to continue to be barred, the offices of lord chancellor of Ireland and lord lieutenant of Ireland. This would not send a good message to the Irish. Further, to a commission proposed to supervise the appointment of Irish Catholic bishops, three “Protestant” (i.e., opponents of Catholic Emancipation; supporters of the cause were called Catholic, as in “Catholic tories”) members of the cabinet had been added, amounting in Grey’s view to a veto. Grey was imparting this information to Holland: “But there remains a difficulty which I feel, and which you must necessarily feel it to be much greater, Castlereagh insists upon leaving out the clause exempting the Catholics from the Sacramental test.”18 This probably answers the question of whence came the



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suggestion of the covert emancipation of Dissent. But Grenville and Grey must bear equal responsibility with Holland for allowing it to go forward. It was a tactical error of major proportions, but its excision did not save the bill, fortunately. When it was returned to Committee the retrogressive amendments continued. When the Committee struck out the clause giving Catholics the right to sit in Parliament, it was enough and the bill was dropped. The fate of the 1813 bill did not help the whig cause. The whigs were afraid that it would hurt them with the Dissenters, and there was much activity by the whig leadership aimed at avoiding this. But particularly after 1807, their credentials were good with the Dissenters. Holland was well on his way to becoming their beloved champion, and they were closely connected, not only through William Smith, but also with the new evangelical Dissent through John Wilks and others.19 But the Irish were another matter; they were seething over the treatment of the bill and the attitudes it revealed. Partly for this reason, though partly also because of a general preoccupation with the final stages of the war, there would not be another bill until 1815.20 In the meantime the whigs were busy establishing other credentials. At least it is difficult to explain in any other way a series of tiny divisions, too small to be included in the list above. Take, for example, the whig attempt in July 1812 to block an increase in the leather tax, which the duke of Bedford said was “likely to operate in a most injurious and oppressive manner on the poorer portion of the people; it would also tend to operate powerfully on the small farmers, eventually to throw numbers out of employment.” The problem was that the tax would raise the price of English shoes, exposing the shoemakers to foreign competition, thus hurting tanners and those who supplied them with their raw material. Joining the duke in the effort to avoid such consequences were the Earls Stanhope, Spencer, Hardwicke, Rosslyn, Lauderdale, and Jersey; and Lords Holland, Byron, Foley, Dundas, and Erskine. But they were overwhelmed by the thirty-two government supporters present.21 On 17 July, Lord Holland moved the second reading of his bill to do away with Informations ex officio. This was a method by which the attorney general could avoid a formal indictment by a grand jury and on his own authority put a person in danger of a trial. Especially in cases of libel and the press, Holland said, this could lead to intimidation—the threat of a trial if the individual misbehaved. He was opposed by Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough and guardedly supported by the former whig Lord Chancellor Erskine. The duke of Montrose spoke against, and Earl Stanhope for. The bill was defeated by a vote of 16 to 7. As in the previous case, the minority only is identified. Besides Erskine, Stan-

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hope, and Holland himself, it included the king’s cousin, the duke of Gloucester, Earl Grosvenor, the earl of Rosslyn, and Lord Saye and Sele. In both cases the minorities are purely whig. Another of these small divisions took place in July 1813. It was a weightier topic, and it brought in the heavy artillery on both sides. Holland moved the second reading of a bill to abolish the penalty of death for the crime of shoplifting and substituting a more suitable penalty. Lord Sidmouth, now home secretary, opposed. He said that no representations of the inadequacy of the existing law had been made by judges or magistrates. Therefore, no practical evil existed. Grey supported Holland, employing one of the latter’s own arguments—that witnesses, juries, and even judges were tempted to commit pious perjuries as to the value of the items stolen in order to avoid the death penalty. Lord Chancellor Eldon was entirely against the bill. It was only common sense that there would be more stealing with a penalty of transportation, for example, rather than hanging. This moved Lord Grenville to simple, straightforward language and heavy sarcasm. He had come to vote for the bill because he did not think the punishment of death for such a crime was right. If Eldon’s argument meant anything, “it amounted to this, that it would be advisable at once for every offence, however trifling, to enact the law of Draco!” This did not, however, prevent the lord chief justice of England from entering “into a panegyric on the law of England showing its superiority to every other code of laws under the sun.” Perhaps rendered speechless, the marquess of Lansdowne ended the debate expressing support for Holland without much elaboration. The arithmetic in Hansard often leaves much to be desired, but the corrected figures for the division are 25 supporters of the government against 14 whigs.22 It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the whigs’ aim was to identify their party as friends of the people. This is not to suggest that they were not sincere, and there is every reason to believe that they were. But the numbers involved could not have been thought of as winning numbers. What they had in mind was the newspaper reports. The same would doubtless have been true of most of the larger divisions that follow. Yet they clearly could not have sustained a great party on numbers like these alone. The earl of Darnley moved on 14 May 1813 that a select committee—a small committee, at least theoretically chosen by ballot, which met on its own and reported its findings back to the House—be appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the war with the United States, and more particularly into the state, conduct, and management of naval affairs. As the motion itself suggests, it had two main objectives. One, at a time when years of dark whig predictions about the war in Europe were being dispelled by the bright glow of victories,



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was to focus attention on another war, one which was unpopular and not going well. The other object, of course, was to remind the public that this was a war about which the whigs had been right from the beginning, even before it started. They knew about war, and much more about naval war than the government did. Whatever the recent success of the British on land, Darnley began, he felt obliged to call attention to naval disasters. The most recent was in the encounter between the British sloop Peacock and the United States brig Hornet. He would not now discuss whether the “unfortunate war” with the United States might have been avoided by conciliatory measures on Britain’s part (but proceeded to do just that). Certainly the ministers had never had any idea of repealing the Orders in Council, which might have prevented war. So the ministers must have been aware that war must come. Were they prepared for it? Things had gone well on land, but there was little evidence of preparation. The navy had certainly not been prepared. There was only one ship of the line and five frigates at Halifax. He had it on good authority that if there had been five ships of the line and seventeen frigates, with an adequate number of smaller vessels, the whole coast of the United States might have been blockaded. But, as it was, American ships had got out of port. American frigates were superior to British ones. The Constitution, for example, was now sailing between Cowes and Spithead, and even in the Downs. At every step from the declaration of war, the British had been tardy and remiss. The impact on British commerce had been great. Three hundred and eighty-two merchantmen had been captured and only 80 had been recaptured. British shipyards were also inferior and produced inferior ships. And with that Darnley made his motion. Viscount Melville, the first lord of the admiralty, responded that the Orders in Council had been revoked, but the war came anyway. He said that all that was required at Halifax was a force sufficient for the defense of Canada and of British commerce, and he went on to say that resources had to be put elsewhere and that there were none to spare for Canada. He doubted very much that a force such as Darnley suggested could ever have mounted an effective blockade. In any case, the Americans got out of the ports before hostilities began, nor had they ever sought combat with a full-fledged British squadron. Melville had a point that mounting an effective blockade would have been virtually impossible. But little or nothing else he said did anything to disprove Darnley’s contention that Britain was not prepared for a war with the United States. Melville was right that the Orders in Council were revoked, on 23 June 1812—five days after the United States declared war on Britain. And, in any case, communications were slow, as another event in this war showed. By 28 December 1814, Wel-

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lington had convinced Liverpool that, though New Orleans might be captured and kept, it was too unhealthy a place to be a desirable acquisition.23 The battle of New Orleans took place on 8 January 1815. Earl Stanhope launched a well-informed criticism of naval architecture, shipbuilding, and the danger to Britain posed by new innovations, as, for example, Robert Fulton’s submarine. The earl of Galloway, though a tory, tended to agree regarding the superiority of American ships and sailors. Lord Melville conceded the point on ships and said the government was doing its best to acquire some ships like the American frigates. Grey, who had been first lord of the admiralty in 1806, enthusiastically agreed about the inferiority of British naval architecture and shipbuilding. He did not agree, though, with Stanhope about Fulton’s submarine; he had looked into it when in office and found it perfectly useless. He disagreed with Melville about the blockade, arguing that key American ports could have been blockaded, which would have prevented the escape of the predators. He went on to say that ineptitude in British naval operations was by no means confined to America, but also applied to the West Indies, Guiana, the Brazilian waters, and even to the South Seas. As to Melville’s boast that the Americans had not stood up to any regular British force, Grey said that was simply because they were too wise and knew they would do better by other tactics. Earl Bathurst mostly marshaled the arguments already used by Melville, and rather more effectively. Lord Grenville said that there were few men “who regarded the war with America with feelings of deeper regret than he had always done,” because there were few men who had the same opportunity of knowing the difficulty the British had to encounter in the contest, which the ministers were just beginning to feel. Thus he had all along “besought, entreated, conjured them to do justice in those points in which we had done her injustice; not indeed to give up our own rights but to place ourselves in a situation to vindicate those rights more effectively.” He had therefore urged the rescinding of the Orders in Council that it might be seen what the true ground of the quarrel was. And that he said was “not the injustice of those Orders, but a determined hostility in the American government against this country.” Yet, though he thought conciliatory measures ought to have been taken, he did not think this a reason that Britain should not, at the same time, have put itself in a formidable posture of defense. He brushed aside the ministers’ excuses. Worst of all was that the navy had been starved of support to pay for further continental projects. Liverpool defended his colleagues, but with a number of concessions to other points of view. This was not a question on which the government felt secure. Nevertheless, its supporters won comfortably, 125 to 59.24



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There is a hardness and bellicosity in Grenville’s language that makes his speech stand out among his colleagues’. Why does he go out of his way to forgive the Orders in Council as the primary offender and put the blame on the American government instead? It is more than reminiscent of his behavior in the regency debates—coming to the same ultimate conclusion as his colleagues, but by a very different route. And it may have been for the same reason. It was his government that had issued the first Order in Council in response to Napoleon’s effort to strangle Britain economically with his Berlin Decree. In any event, if this debate is not an earlier sign that Grenville sensed another challenge to old principles and the continuity of his thought and action that he prized so much, a correspondence with Grey in the autumn can leave no doubt that he sensed one then. The correspondence started in October, with Grey desiring a negotiated peace with Napoleon and Grenville wishing to fight on until he was thoroughly defeated and deposed. As they discussed their differences, Grenville’s mind naturally reverted to his days as Pitt’s foreign secretary from 1791 to 1801, when as a major player he became the head of the war party in the cabinet and worked hard for a complete defeat of the French enemy. To the Foxite Grey, these were not welcome memories, and he wrote to Grenville with unwonted testiness: “There cannot now be . . . a discussion more useless in itself, or to me more unpleasant, than who was right and who was wrong in 1793.” And he hoped they could avoid it in future. Grenville’s reply began with a different subject, but one that revealed a similar tendency in Grenville’s mind. Grey had not considered the restoration of Dutch independence feasible, but between their letters it had happened. Grenville wrote: “not even your opinion could have satisfied me that I discharged my duty without recalling to the recollection of Parliament and this country . . . the claims which the Dutch have, not on our favour, but on our justice.” Fortunately the recent happy event would make it unnecessary for them to argue the point further. As to 1793: “I ought not to disguise from you that if called upon to speak of the transactions of 1793 I must speak of them as I think.” It is true that Grenville went on to reassure Grey that “surely I need not say that to seek out wantonly any causes or occasions for public differences of opinion and language between my friends and myself is among those things from which my feelings are most averse.” Grey made a warm and friendly response.25 Both made sincere and often effective efforts over the next few years to honor their good intentions, but in the end their growing differences of opinion would break up the party they had formed and led since 1807. But a process of disintegration had already begun going back at least to the general election of 1812, when a number of whig MPs either could not find a

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seat or were not returned. Rightly or wrongly, their plight was blamed on the whig grandees who were expected to provide them with a seat or give monetary support to their elections. One of those who suffered was William Lamb, the heir to Viscount Melbourne and future whig prime minister. Lamb had actually been offered a seat by the duke of Bedford, but told Lord Granville Leveson Gower, the brother of another of the grandees, the marquess of Stafford, that he would not take it even if offered it again. This was based partly on the fact that he suspected the duke was too radically inclined. But he also thought the duke, in common with many of the opposition have too narrow a view of the present state of politics; that they none of them seem to make the least difference for the exigency of the time and state of Europe but all are guided by the regular old rules and tactics from which they would not depart one tittle to save the Empire; and that the leaders are so despotic and yet so neglectful of their followers that it disgusts those who are the best inclined.26

Allowance must be made for sour grapes, and one cannot accept all of Lamb’s criticisms even in a milder version, but he made a case that was certainly not peculiarly his own. It would be difficult to argue that the whigs ever took more than a blinkered view of the great military contests in Europe that had been going on since 1793, and their positive role in that area was therefore, not surprisingly, insignificant at best. This must be accepted as a major flaw. But their view of Britain’s American policy was considerably more enlightened, and—here Lamb himself would not have doubted for a moment—their attitudes toward Ireland and religious liberty deserve that term without qualification. The charge that the leaders were despotic and neglectful might have stemmed in part from the belief that not enough had been done to support whig candidates in the election, but it had much more to do with the third round of negotiations after Perceval’s death, between the whigs and three separate emissaries from the prince—all possible prime ministers, variously empowered, and all rebuffed by the whigs. All hinged on Catholic Emancipation, on which the prince’s position ranged from acquiescence to an agreement to look into the matter. The last negotiator was Moira, and while Grenville and Grey appear to have been satisfied with his account of the prince’s position on the issue, they asked for a usual mark of royal confidence—a clean sweep of the Household to be replaced by the new government’s appointments. This Moira flatly refused. The whigs had made an exception for George III in 1806, but they had no intention of doing so now.27 And that was that. Most political parties would not be happy with leaders who reject opportunities to take office, let alone half a dozen opportunities in as many months.



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And there was the added difficulty that the issue on which Grenville and Grey had done so was not ideal, leaving them open to the charge of being greedy for patronage. Grenville was resigned to such a reaction: “I do not expect that our ground will be popular with our friends, but I think it is solid.”28 Grenville was right. Lord Hardwicke regretted that “the grounds of difference do not appear to have related to any measure of public policy.” Holland’s uncle, the earl of Ossory, was much harsher: “The country will not uphold the pretensions of the two coequals who after all are unpopular.”29 Whether they were justified or not, a combination of the grievances suggested by William Lamb certainly created a migration by some whigs, at least for a while, to another party affiliation. Lamb suggested the attraction of Canning, “saying that many who had once been of the opposition looked up to him.” This did not include Lamb himself, “because strong habits of friendship and party would make it too difficult.” But he certainly distanced himself somewhat from the whigs, and it is usually thought that he later became a Canningite. He vigorously denied it; and the fact was that though Canning appointed him to his first office, as Irish secretary in 1827, he did it to lure Lord Lansdowne into his cabinet. John William Ward, the future Earl Dudley and Ward, however, did move toward Canning almost immediately. But it was not only prospective peers who moved. Leveson Gore himself would later become a whig peer as Earl Granville, but his brother Lord Stafford, previously a pillar of whiggery, would now move to the other side. In October 1814 Canning wrote to Leveson Gore about the latter’s brother and his wife, the countess of Sutherland and a power in her own right, “according to the best of my judgement—and observation—I should say they seem pretty much unwhiggified.”30 But it is difficult to find other examples of peers, at any rate, who moved. Lord Hardwicke definitely distanced himself from whig councils and voted against the whigs on the Corn Laws. But he loyally voted with them in the three divisions on the Catholic question. It might be supposed that he had simply become a Catholic tory, but his six votes for Queen Caroline in 1820 give the lie to that. How many times he voted against the whigs is difficult to say, for most divisions between 1812 and 1820 list only those who voted in the minority. Lord Somers, whose son was married to Hardwicke’s daughter, explained to Hardwicke some of his recent votes in a letter of 20 March 1816: The debate on the late treaties came on last night in the Houses of Parliament. I did not vote. . . . My reason for not voting against the ministers is that having in principle supported them in the measure of war on the late return of Bonaparte to France, I did not perceive

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sufficient ground from the treaties produced to vote against them directly or indirectly. My reason for not voting with ministers against Lord Grenville’s proposed amendment is, that amendment principally consisted in condemning the system understood to be adopted by ministers of keeping up a peace establishment, 150,000 military, and in consequence making less reductions of public expense than . . . I am inclined to think might and ought to have been done.31

Somers, who highly valued his marriage connection with Hardwicke and expressed his great satisfaction in “generally agreeing with you in politics,” may well give an idea of Hardwicke’s positions in his own careful explanations. Though Somers was also faithful in his votes for the three divisions on the Catholic question, and continued to be, he opted for the government in the 1820s. The substantial whig turnout for the 1820 debates on Queen Caroline’s bill—and not every whig did turn out—suggests that most had not established a new allegiance. They may have picked and chosen as Somers did, and some may have chosen simply to stay away. Catholic Emancipation was the great exception to both forms of behavior. The relatively small minority in 1815 was made up of fifty-three whigs (the votes of three more were lost because the peers who held their proxies were not in the House), and seven Catholic tories. In 1817 the figures were sixty-seven and eighteen; and eighty-six and twenty in 1819. There can be no doubt that their proprietorial feeling toward the issue and fierce loyalty to the cause was vital to keeping a whig party together at a time when most of its members did not feel inclined to be very active. It was not easy, and in the end it was impossible, to keep the party together. Ironically, less than a year before their first serious, if passing, disagreement, Grey had refused to hear of Grenville’s retirement from the leadership: “If you cannot continue in the chief direction, I cannot undertake it.” Grey pled idleness, health, and inexperience (only a year in office). Grenville pled a long and exhausting career, and health. In fact, Grey yearned for his wife and growing family in his beloved Northumberland, Grenville for his books and gardening at Dropmore. And both already indulged themselves in those directions rather more than leaders should. At last Grenville gave way. He wrote to his brother the marquess: “The thing must find its own lead, for I cannot do what I used, and am disposed to do less than I could. Nothing restrains me but the resolution that as far as in one lays, there shall be no break up of a party such as the country requires to control such a Court.” The regent had now fully filled his father’s place as royal demon.32

chap ter five

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The Parting of the Ways

The main preoccupation in British politics in 1814 was foreign affairs, in Europe with the initial defeat of Napoleon, and the beginning of efforts to restore order and stability afterward. These efforts were to be achieved in part by enlightened statesmanship, in part simply by dividing up the spoils. Outside Europe the question was one of bringing an embarrassing war with the United States to an end. The European issue that had the greatest attention in Parliament that year was the cession of Norway by Denmark to Sweden. The cession took place in January 1814, two months before the allies had marched into Paris and forced Napoleon’s abdication at the end of March. But the British had already facilitated the cession in advance in a treaty with Sweden the previous year. In that treaty, Britain agreed to pay Sweden 1 million rix dollars in subsidies and not to oppose the union of Norway with Sweden. Sweden, for its part, was to furnish the powers allied against Napoleon with an army of thirty thousand men under the command of the Swedish Crown Prince Bernadotte, formerly one of Napoleon’s marshals. This constituted a major contribution by Britain to the allied war effort, and in a traditional form for the British, whose function in continental wars heretofore was to provide money while others provided men. Late in 1813 Bernadotte, with an army paid for by the British, invaded Holstein, a possession of the Danish king, who was still allied to Napoleon. Having conquered Holstein, Bernadotte was in a position to force the Danish king to accept the treaty of Kiel, which ceded Norway to Sweden. Sweden compensated the Danes by ceding to them the nearby German territories of Pomerania and Rügen. Again this was a traditional way of settling things after a war. And everyone involved seemed relatively happy with the results—except for the Nor-

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wegians, who had not been consulted and rose in revolt. When the Dutch had revolted and thrown out their French rulers the previous year, the allied powers had acquiesced in the result. In Norway’s case a British fleet blockaded Norwegian ports and helped bring that country to heel. Lord Grey saw his opportunity and moved a condemnation of the affair, on the principle that “the sovereign of a state could not transfer the allegiance of the people.” This was a relatively new doctrine, but one of Napoleon’s great contributions was to encourage the growing spirit of nationalism in Europe. Before and since there is nothing that encourages nationalism more than occupation by a foreign power, and it was a gift widely distributed by Napoleon on the European continent. Grey also had more practical arguments as, for example, that Bernadotte was an overly self-interested ally and being paid at a high rate for doing his own business. Liverpool patiently countered Grey’s argument by contending that it was in fact a very good arrangement all around, that though the king of Denmark had lost Norway, he might have lost a good deal more, and in any case had got something in return. Grey’s motion lost by a vote of 115 to 34. But writing to Castlereagh, the foreign secretary, in September to wish him “joy of the termination of our difficulties in Norway,” Liverpool said that though he stood by what he had argued in the Lords, he had to “confess I felt for some time that the question was the most awkward and embarrassing of any in our European politics.”1 Liverpool’s concern about the American war has already been noticed, and his experience in Parliament did much to increase it. As he told Castlereagh on 18 November after Parliament’s return on the 8th for a new session: “From what has passed in Parliament . . . it is quite evident that the continuance of the war . . . would be violently opposed.” And he went on to say that “the Opposition is particularly rancorous, and evidently mean to find us good employment.”2 It was only a little after a month later, on 28 December, that he wrote Canning that he thought it was time “to conclude a peace at the present moment.” The whigs might divide in small numbers, but they had great debating power. And their two leaders were as a score in themselves. Alas the days they would be together on any permanent basis were numbered. On 6 April 1814, Grenville had written to a dying Lord Auckland that he thought both of their wishes were about to be realized: “Yours for an immediate peace; and mine for that which I am convinced could alone render peace of any duration, and therefore of any value—namely, the termination of the whole revolutionary system, and a return to the legitimate sovereignty of the Bourbons.”3 The breach between Grenville and Grey the previous autumn, so carefully repaired, was bound to open again, as soon as such issues came to the



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fore. They did not do so at once, and on the first issue the whigs met in 1815, their leaders were united and their usual formidable selves. The issue was the new Corn Law, and it was Grey who took the lead. Liverpool told Canning that the ministers did not intend to push the protecting price beyond 80s., but “we shall meet with serious opposition in going thus far.” He was right—the opposition, though small in numbers, was high in quality, and with a large and sympathetic audience out of doors. Immediately the bill had come up from the Commons and received its first reading in the Lords; Grey threw doubt upon its recommendations. He claimed that the greatest number of petitions ever known in the history of Parliament had been presented on it and that the petitioners had uniformly stated that the measure would have the effect of preventing a cheap supply of food to the laboring classes. It was the duty of the Lords to examine the subject with the greatest diligence and impartiality. The petitioners might be wrong, but lords must not appear to come to the subject with their minds made up—indeed they should not allow themselves to do so. It was their duty not to. If the people were right, they had a claim on the Lords to protect them from the injury they feared. If they were wrong, it was the Lords’ duty to try to enlighten them and at least show that they had examined the subject. They must not appear to be thrusting something in their own interest down the throats of the people. Grey began his argument with the report of the Lords’ select committee in July 1814. That committee had stated specifically that its report was based on insufficient evidence and that there had to be more investigation before any alteration in the existing laws took place. Since then, a general discontent had spread throughout the country, and petitioners at the bar of the House had stated that in their opinion the “measure proposed would be injurious to the trading and manufacturing interests of the country.” Such a situation clearly demanded further inquiry. There were several points upon which more information was needed. The first was the validity of the price chosen—80s.—when foreign corn would be admitted. As to whether this was the right price, Grey thought the evidence was both widely divergent and often contradictory. He believed that the estimated expenses of the agriculturists were much higher than they ought to be. He observed that the evidence given before the Commons committee had put the price sufficient to ensure a profit to the farmer below 80s. He reckoned the lowest price, 72s., sufficient. There was no real evidence at all for Ireland, though it was generally thought that the cost of production there was much less. Grey argued that the effect of an 80s. price would be either to keep prices and therefore rents high, at the expense of the consumer, or to allow the Irish farmer to

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undersell the British, thus making further protection necessary for the latter. These matters needed to be looked into before legislation was undertaken. Furthermore, the Lords had no idea how much foreign corn would be available for importation. All the evidence had been about the Baltic region, but now British markets might draw from Holland, the Netherlands, and France. Yet they had no information on these regions at all. Grey then moved that “a further inquiry relative to the state of the growth, commerce and consumption of grain, and the state of laws relating thereto” be undertaken.4 The earl of Derby supported Grey, observing that the petitions of fellow subjects were always entitled to the most serious consideration, especially on this occasion “when the table was crowded with them.” It was better to have discussion now than at a later and angrier time when people were clamoring for repeal. The earl of Hardwicke defended the committee’s investigation, without denying its deficiencies. Lord St. John said he would have agreed to Grey’s proposition had it come earlier. Viscount Bulkeley supported the motion. The earl of Limerick mistook Grey’s remarks as excluding Ireland. Earl Spencer said “the question was whether they would legislate with their eyes open or their eyes shut?” He was for the former.5 All the peers above were whigs except for Limerick. Viscount Mountjoy (the earl of Blesington) was also a whig, but an Irishman first. He said Irish interests were deeply involved in the measure. Irish farmers were much in need of protection and as quickly as possible. In a later, further explanation of his earlier remarks (the only excuse the rules of the House allowed for more than one opportunity to speak), he added that the best way to improve the Irish economy was to encourage agriculture. Viscount Sidmouth, the home secretary, suggested that it was nonsense that there was a lack of information on the subject. Political economists had been discussing it for years. Lord King was another whig, as were the three speakers who followed him. King denied Sidmouth’s contention. The information before them was altogether insufficient. The earl of Lauderdale, who was always the whig man out on economic questions, viewed the measure only as a protection for the British farmer and thus did not much care about the precise importation price that might be fixed. Better a higher price for bread and work for the agricultural laborer than a lower price and none. And if there was no work for the agricultural laborer, it was worse for everybody. The earl of Darnley supported the motion.6 The last whig to speak, in a key role, being responsible for making the final impression on the House before the vote, was Lord Grenville. In a more editorializing style than the reporters of debates usually employ, Hansard describes



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how his lordship, “in a luminous and elaborate speech, contended that the only safe line of conduct for the House to adopt was to abstain from all legislative interference on the subject.” The committee had concluded that the House would not do its duty unless it resumed the inquiry before there was any alteration in laws. Grenville agreed. The first object of the inquiry ought to be into the capability of the country to supply the full quantity of grain required for its subsistence. The number of acres might be expanded, but did the capital exist to do it? And what would be the price of the corn grown? As to fixing the price at 80s., the evidence was conflicting. Yet the House was about to decide on it when the currency was much depressed, and the chancellor of the exchequer saw the prospect of its rising to its former level the very next year. He could not imagine that the effect could be other than to raise the price of corn. What about the wages of the laborer? If the price of bread increased and the price of labor did not, what would the condition of the laborer then become? The manufacturing and agricultural interests could not be separated, and if there was ever any one interest that could be harmed by the present measure, it was that of the landholders. Grenville proposed an inquiry into why corn had been at high prices for so long. If because of the difficulty of importing corn from abroad, what reason was there not to suppose the high price would continue when prohibited? “Importation ought on the other hand, to be entirely free from Ireland; if not, where was the justice of the Union? Nothing could be more just or important than knitting together the interests of Great Britain and Ireland.” Grenville then proceeded to put a number of questions, not answering most. But as to what had been the cause of the exceedingly high price of grain for many years, he answered: “the difficulty of getting corn from abroad, which he was sure [there] would be, [and] that should deter the House from proceeding farther.” He pointed out as well that not a word had been said about distilleries. How would the revenue be affected by raising the price of the raw material? And he ended with the warning that the intended measure would be a most impolitic one.7 In a brief speech Liverpool praised both Grenville and Grey for their candor and fairness. He simply affirmed that there was ample information available, and he declared that the time had come for action. In the division that followed, the whigs were defeated, 124 to 18. The government supporters were made up of 81 present and 43 proxies. There were no whig proxies. The whig contingent was made up, among others, of two royal dukes, Sussex and Gloucester, both confirmed party men. They were joined by two other dukes and two marquesses, one of them Wellesley, seven earls, two viscounts, and three lords. In addition,

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Earl Spencer had become ill and had to leave before the vote. The duke of Somerset had paired with another whig, Lord Cassilis, who was on the other side of the question.8 After one has read the several sets of debates on the several Corn Laws from this one to 1846, all of them seem to approximate all too closely games of blindman’s buff. No one commands our full conviction, for the very good reason that we know what would happen. Certainly those who came closest in this debate were Grey and Grenville. Theirs were two great and powerful speeches, statesmanlike but compassionate. They did not pretend to have all the answers, but they raised a number of vital questions that ought to have been answered. No one on the government side even attempted it. Why? The answer is that, though the whigs were clearly lacking in voting power, the government was lacking in debating power. In this respect, what is notable in this debate and the two that follow is that almost the entire burden on the government side is borne by Liverpool himself. Only two other tories spoke in this one. One was another minister, Sidmouth. Sidmouth was no fool, but what he contributed to this discussion was fatuous. The questions posed by the two lords were necessarily very much based on a particular time and place, on an economy in transition from war to peace, on who might be helped and who might suffer, and where justice lay. The theories of the political economists were all very well, but practical legislation cannot be based on theory alone. The other tory was a backbencher who was confused about Grey’s remarks and needed clarification. In this debate it was the whig Lord Lauderdale who gave Liverpool the most useful support. It might be thought that Liverpool did not bother to respond because he did not need to: he had the votes and the whigs did not. This, however, would be to overlook a vital point, one which Liverpool certainly would not have missed. As has been suggested before, the whig leaders were not primarily addressing themselves to the lords in the House, but to people who read newspapers or had newspapers read to them—to the wider public. This was why Liverpool continued to pay so much attention to the small whig opposition and even to fear it. On this particular issue no one could have been unaware of the wider public. They made themselves very evident. As the debates got under way, there were formidable disturbances and riots all over the country. In London itself angry crowds threatened to storm the Houses of Parliament, and when they were dispersed by a strong force of police who had been summoned, they vented their rage on the houses of the ministers and other members of the Lords and Commons supporting the bill.9



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In his speech introducing the second reading of the bill, Liverpool, while not doing a great deal to answer the two whig lords, did give a clear account of his view, as far as it went. The United Kingdom, he said, was both a great commercial and a great agricultural power. On these twin bases it stood, and both had to be cherished and encouraged. Woolens, cottons, silks, potteries, and a number of other industries had been encouraged by high protective tariffs and had prospered. Now it was the turn of agriculture. Liverpool admitted that his ideas were not in accord with the Smithian principles in which he had been educated, but they were necessary in an imperfect world. Small republics such as Venice and Holland had relied on the importation of grain. But this was not appropriate for a great power, and a great agricultural power, like the United Kingdom. It had to be made as independent of foreign supply as possible. Liverpool claimed that the great object here was the interest of the consumer and that the result intended was to render grain cheaper rather than dearer. The important point was to attain a steady and moderate price. He saw Ireland as being key here. He said that it had been evident since the establishment of free intercourse in grain between the two countries in 1806, from the amounts exported from Ireland, that “it was only necessary to permit capital to flow there and . . . there was no limit to the quantity [of grain] that might be furnished from Ireland.” He admitted that grain might be raised cheaper there, but this was irrelevant to the measure. With an obvious reference to Grey’s observation that Irish grain might become a serious competitor with British, Liverpool declared that he did not think in such narrow terms, but rather of the interests of the United Kingdom and the Empire. The prime minister ended with a defense of the 80s. price before which no foreign grain could enter. In the evidence given to Parliament, the range in price suggested had been from 72s. to 96s. and, making allowances for some diminution of taxation, the ministers had arrived at 80s. This would not be the minimum price but more usually the maximum. The price of a quartern loaf ought to be about one shilling.10 The whig earl of Carlisle took Liverpool to task for contending that a high price of corn producing a high price of labor would have no bad effects. Carlisle said that on the lowest rank of the laboring classes, those who worked by task, the high price of corn would bring only misery with no alleviation. What Liverpool had actually said was that it had been argued that one effect of the measure would be “by raising the price of provisions, to raise the price of labor, and thus to compell our manufacturers to emigrate by enabling foreigners to undersell them.” Liverpool denied that the price of labor was a factor in the manufacturer’s success, arguing rather that it depended on capital, credit, and

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fuel. Given his general line of argument that protection would not bring high prices, the new line might seem a little jarring, but doubtless he was covering himself for all eventualities. Carlisle’s point about the potential difficulties of those who had to hawk their labor was a good one, though not really connected with what Liverpool had said.11 The next speaker was another whig peer, Earl Fortescue, who said that despite his own best interest, he would not support the bill. He had been swayed by the general sentiment of the petitions from all parts of the country.12 He was followed by Lord Grenville, whose hackles were up. What was the principal object of the bill? “It was to produce a regular, an adequate and a permanent supply of food.” How was this to be accomplished? By making food, in the first instance dearer than what it would be without the operation of the bill, in order, at some future and undefined time, to make it cheaper. When that period would arrive in which the effect of the bill was to make corn cheap, he knew not; but he was quite sure that the immediate operation of the bill would be such as he had described, and not only its immediate but its future operation. It could not by possibility have any other.

Grenville mercilessly attacked Liverpool’s interpretation of the 80s. standard. “It enacted that foreign corn should not be imported into the country till the home corn had arrived at a certain price. By what ingenuity of argument it could be shown that its effect would not be to enhance the price, he was utterly at a loss to comprehend.” And Grenville had other questions. In order for a protective system to work, it would be necessary to be able to predict demand. How were they to estimate the growth of population? How would encouragement of farmers work? By preventing importation, the idea was that the farmers would be induced to grow enough corn to meet the needs of the country. But in order to do so in an average of seasons, they must grow too much in a plentiful season, and how were they to dispose of the surplus? They could not because it was made too dear by law. Grenville ended by deriding the whole idea of the need to be independent of other countries. They were dependent on Britain, needing its market.13 It is difficult to avoid the impression that Grenville’s criticisms of the bill were valid. There was an air of unreality about it, too many guesses and too many sleights of hand. The reliance on Ireland is an example. It seemed that it was necessary only to open a spigot and the capital would gush in. The spigot was never opened, and the limitless quantities of corn never flowed, though there was some increase in the next decade or two. Nor can one escape the fact



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that it was hardly likely that a bill conceived, perhaps reluctantly, to serve the interests of the landed classes and their dependents could ever have had the promise for the consumer Liverpool claimed. Once more one can only marvel that Liverpool again stood alone, with no colleague to help bear the burden of debate. The outcome was unaffected, of course. The second reading passed by a vote of 144 to 17. The third reading was not especially eventful. The hard work was done; it was all over but the cheering. Yet even then only three of the nine peers with seats in the cabinet appeared to perform even that function. The debate was notable for a fighting speech with which Grenville’s nephew, the second marquess of Buckingham, led off for the whigs. He characterized the bill as a bribe to the landed classes to induce them to acquiesce in war establishments in a time of peace, and called it most unjust to other classes of the community that landholders should have secured to them in peacetime the high prices obtained during a period of war. It was an able speech by a man whose incredible vanity and complete lack of introspection were to make him a contributor to the deterioration of the whig party of Grenville and Grey.14 On 25 May 1815, finally, and in the House of Lords, Grey and Grenville openly split on the question of whether or not Britain should join its allies in going to war with a Napoleon who had just discarded the throne of Elba, granted to him in the Peace of Paris of 1814, to claim once more the throne of France from the Bourbons, who had been restored to it by the same instrument. The government took the position that Britain was committed by treaties with its allies to go to war and wanted a resolution of Parliament to back that position. Grey set his face against it. In a somewhat tortured argument, but ingenious in its intricacies, he argued that there were no grounds for war with Napoleon. Had he violated any treaty? Actually, Grey said, there were two treaties, Fontainebleu and Paris. The allies had broken the former. Napoleon had not been provided with the income promised to him. The family’s property had been sequestrated. And his wife, Marie Louise, now an archduchess, and her son had been deprived of the Italian duchies promised to them. These breaches gave Napoleon a perfect right to hold his abdication absolved. Now Grey turned to the Treaty of Paris. The right of a nation to choose its own government is a sacred right unless it violates a principle of the treaty. Does the Treaty of Paris exclude Napoleon from the throne of France? No, that was Fontainebleu. Grey then directed his arguments to the question of expediency. Should the ministers be allowed to commit the country by the commencement of hostilities against a man who had the population and resources of a mighty nation at

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his command? It was a terrible risk. It had been said that three-quarters of the French nation was against Napoleon. Was that likely? Had the Bourbons been loved? And Napoleon had certainly come back very easily and with considerable popularity.15 Lord Grenville would have none of this. He “considered the present ruler of France as the common enemy of Europe, and had no doubt that if he had been placed in the situation the prince regent’s ministers had been placed in, that he should have given the same advice as to the present state of war.” Let them “show him one country in Europe which had sought security in a peace with Bonaparte, and that had not found its evils aggravated when that treaty came to be put in force. When the very existence of his own country was depending, he could only trust to certainties; for the return of Bonaparte showed more strongly his inordinate and unconquerable ambition than any former act of his life.”16 This very public disagreement between Grenville and Grey did not at once bring an end to the party, despite the fact that the new Lord Buckingham almost immediately began intriguing. On 2 June he wrote to one of the ministers, the earl of Buckinghamshire, wishing to discuss giving the government his support in return for the Paris embassy for himself, in succession to the duke of Wellington. Lord Grenville needless to say did not approve of these negotiations with the government. On 16 July the marquess wrote a hurt letter to his uncle: “I regret to say that I cannot but consider the difference of opinion between Lord Grey and ourselves upon the subject of the war with France as including a vital distinction upon public principles, and consequently a disunion of political party.” But he “had been taught to consider the political objects of my family as my own.” So, because he differed from his friends, he would withdraw from active politics. As he had inherited his father’s very considerable political interest, which the latter had used to support the party, that was not likely; but it made continued support for the party uncertain to say the least.17 However, if Buckingham wanted to pull the party apart, others did not. Early in 1816, the duke of Bedford, planning his coming State of the Nation motion, which aimed to raise issues that the party could rally around, wrote to urge Grey that “The most essential service that you might render would be to reconcile differences (if they can be reconciled) which exist between Lord Grenville and us, as to the future course to be pursued in Parliament. Past differences cannot be renewed, but through you perhaps they might be softened, as to prevent him becoming a stumbling block to our future co-operation as a party.”18 Grey knew Grenville very well. As he wrote to Lord Holland, Grenville was



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now as he was last year betrayed into consistency of argument by a wish to maintain the appearance of consistency between his present and his former conduct. The large [military] establishments with all their inherent dangers to the Constitution, which he now deprecates, are the necessary and inevitable consequences of the success of the system which he recommended, and which he still continues to defend. To bring him to listen to arguments which impeach in the slightest degree the original policy of the wars which have sprung from the French Revolution, I know to be impossible.

Grey went on to comment, “it is the only point on which during my connection with him I have been inclined to think him a little unfair.” (He might have mentioned the regency debates.) He gave Grenville full credit for “a sincere wish to avoid any further difference with myself and those whose views are not the same as his.” This being the case, he thought they must avoid as long as they in good conscience could discussing questions on which they disagreed, and concentrate on those where they could agree. “In this disposition I am convinced you will be met half way by Lord Grenville.” He thought concentrating on “economy and retrenchment,” which ought to be the great cause of the coming session, the ideal issue to pursue. And he looked forward to that “future agreement, of which when our present temporary differences shall have ceased, I still retain a most anxious hope.”19 Lansdowne, who had been conducting his own conversations and correspondence with Grenville, wrote that the latter’s approach to the coming session entirely coincided with his and Grey’s.20 The prospects for cooperation looked good, and so it turned out. The State of the Nation debates concentrated on economy and retrenchment issues and on Ireland. The marquess of Buckingham spoke ably on the latter issue.21 So there was no cause for discord. As the 1817 session approached, Grey knew just how he intended to proceed. He told Holland on 23 November that his notion of a general plan was “that it should be conformable to the Address which I moved in 1810, when Grenville was ill. It then had his complete approbation, though it involved a moderate reform of Parliament.” He also intended to include a call for a change in foreign policy, “withdrawing ourselves from all the mischief of meddling with the affairs of the continent, on the ground of economy alone, if there is no other.” On 8 December, he sent a finished “political creed” to Holland: (1) Reduction of establishments. (2) Change of foreign policy. (3) Catholic Emancipation. These three were to be sine qua non. (4) A moderate and gradual reform of Parliament, the fourth not a sine qua non, but to be supported.22 But this creed would not be put forward in cooperation with Lord Grenville. Parliament was to meet on 28 January, but disturbances, sometimes accompa-

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nied with calls for parliamentary reform, had been going on since the preceding autumn. The most frightening occurred at a gathering in Spa Fields, London, to hear a speaker on parliamentary reform. But the meeting was hijacked by more extreme radicals, and some of their number raided gun shops for arms and ammunition. Then when the prince regent was returning from opening Parliament on 28 January, the windows of his carriage were broken by stones thrown by a crowd; it was thought at the time the damage was done by bullets fired from an air gun, which would have made it very similar to an attack on George III in 1795. The two Houses of Parliament appointed secret committees to investigate the state of the country, Grenville being one of the two whig lords on their committee. The committees reported in alarmist terms. Lord Sidmouth, the home secretary, proposed the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and a bill was quickly drawn up. The second reading in the Lords was on 24 February. Grey strongly opposed the bill, calling it “the most unnecessary and uncalled for attack upon their liberties which any minister of the Crown, in any period of our history, had ever attempted.” He also ridiculed the justification, saying of the so-called Spa Fields conspiracy: “Those formidable rioters fled at the very mention of a dragoon; they did not wait to see their horses’ heads at the top of the street, so admirable were the military arrangements of that able commander, General Lord Viscount Sidmouth.”23 But Lord Grenville’s mind was once more ranging back across the years: “He was old enough to remember the riots of 1780, when the metropolis was for four days in the hands of an infuriated mob, which at first consisted of as few persons as those collected at Spa Fields, but which was soon increased by immense numbers.” Grenville expressed the greatest reluctance to support the suspension of Habeas Corpus. But, he said, he had good reasons. He did not believe that until this time “was the hope entertained in this country of detaching the minds of the great mass of the people, not from this or that religion, but from all religion whatever.” This was the most effective method employed in France in 1788 and 1789 “to detach the people from the government and to destroy the whole frame of society under which they had enjoyed security and peace; and in England it might lead to the same dreadful consequences.” Without judging the merits of the cause itself, he went on: the name of parliamentary reform was now employed to cover projects of the most visionary nature, and which, if successful, must inevitably terminate in the destruction of the Constitution of this country. These projects of universal suffrage and annual Parliaments were not submitted to individuals capable of judging of their propriety, but on the contrary were directed to the poorest and most wretched classes.



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How it was that this awful situation had been allowed to come about, Grenville said, he did not know. But it was enough for him “to be convinced that the evil had advanced to a magnitude which required the present measure.” At no period in the country’s history did Grenville believe “the danger to have been greater. Never would the revolution in France have been accomplished, had the morals and religion of the country not been subverted.”24 What Grenville said may sound alarmist—and it was. But those who had been active politicians at the time of the French Revolution tended to be profoundly affected by it and to react to crises reminiscent of it according to their attitudes and experiences at that time. In the autumn of 1830, with revolutions on the continent and manifestations of popular radicalism at home, Grey saw the solution in parliamentary reform, while Wellington put his faith in reaction. In 1817, Grey told the duke of Bedford that he had been told by a very levelheaded person whom he trusted that there was strong evidence of a formidable conspiracy and plan of insurrection.25 Clearly Grey and Bedford did not allow this information to affect their actions; they had seen radicals before and not been scared by them. Grenville’s experience was different. His cousin Pitt was a nonideological pragmatist in his attitude toward the French Revolution, not being anxious to get in its way unless it got in his—which it did. Grenville’s view was obviously much closer to Burke’s—that the revolution was an evil and dangerous thing. It did not help that the radicalism of the period could put on a face most repulsive to those of Grenville’s way of thinking, as Iain McCalman has shown in his book, illuminating even in its title, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (1993). Unfortunately, the Spa Fields Insurrection, as it is usually called, followed as it was by what was generally seen as an attempt to assassinate the prince regent, had a profound impact on contemporary views. It included in itself what appeared to many a sinister amalgam. What was in fact a perfectly respectable reform meeting was taken over by disciples of the late Thomas Spence. They were extreme radicals and prophets of the nationalization of landholding, which went a long way to qualify them as revolutionaries—the guns completed the process. And the violence of their attacks on organized religion sometimes bordered on the pornographic, or could be seen to. Thus early things became confused. Reformers who were not were suspected of being dangerous radicals and blasphemers. This confusion would dog the politics of the next few years. The ten-year partnership of Grenville and Grey was over. At the end of the session in July, Grey wrote to Grenville of his “grateful remembrance of the

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kindness I have experienced from you during the whole time that I have had the benefit of your co-operation and direction.” He also assured him “that no political difference can ever alter the sincere affection and esteem” that he would always feel for Grenville. The touching tribute he paid to the older man during the Catholic Emancipation debates in 1829 showed that Grey meant what he said. There can be little doubt that Grenville reciprocated these feelings, and the extreme emotion of his speech in the Habeas Corpus debate may have reflected an inner turmoil of feeling.26 Grenville had long yearned for a retired life, and if he had ever thought of continuing to give a lead to the Grenville party that remained, he would have thought no longer the following January, 1818. The marquess of Buckingham wrote that he had received an emissary from Liverpool sent to inform him about the regent’s Speech from the Throne, in which the government would outline its policy for the session. This led to a conversation on Catholic Emancipation, and being careful, he said, not to commit Grenville in any way, the marquess had discussed just how their party would like to see the government behave on Catholic Emancipation.27 Though the marquess appeared to have no notion at all, Grenville of course knew precisely what was going on. By taking Buckingham into the government’s confidence, Liverpool was inviting him to give his confidence to them. Buckingham appeared to have taken the bait and be swimming with it. Grenville was furious: “I do not mean to go often to the House of Lords this year if I can avoid it—the less the better. But I could not go there at all with any comfort if I thought that an expectation had fairly been created, and not counteracted by me, of my standing towards the ministers there in a relation in which I certainly do not mean to stand towards them.”28 Grenville would not declare allegiance to any government until 1827, supporting those of Canning and Goderich and their whig allies against the fury of the high tories. The cause to which he gave his greatest and most dedicated support was that of civil and religious liberty, supporting every measure of that nature and active in the direction of the 1821 and 1825 campaigns for Catholic Emancipation. The direction of the Grenville party he left to his nephew, whose it was by right but not by talent. The impact of the breach on whig numbers in the House of Lords was not great. Of the twenty-six lords listed by James Sack as brought into the original alliance by Grenville or his brother Lord Buckingham—twenty-three peers and three bishops29—two of the bishops were dead by 1815, and the other had not given a vote in support of the Catholics since before the regency debates. The best way to test persisting allegiances in this period is to go forward a



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couple of years to the Queen Caroline affair. It was a solemn and serious matter; opinion was sharply divided and the stakes, and not only for the queen, could be high. Once they had made their choice, men tended to stay with those with whom they had made it. The queen’s friends were likely to be whigs, her enemies the tories. Of the peers in the above group (or in three cases their sons), ten voted for Queen Caroline.30 In some cases it was only one vote among nine spread over a period starting on 27 June and ending on 10 December 1820. But among them there was only one that might be called neutral, on a motion by Lord Harrowby, supported by the duke of Wellington and Grenville among others, as well the queen’s friends, and aimed at assuring her fair play. All the others were directed at either immediately stopping the procedures or impeding them. The now King George IV was dead set on ridding himself of his wife, and the government was deeply committed on the question. Any lord not prepared to be identified with the queen’s cause and the opposition would have been ill advised to have given even one vote against it. Some who might not have wished to be identified with the opposition did give such votes. One was the marquess of Stafford, who had left the whigs in 1814 and would not rejoin them until 1830. He therefore cannot yet be classed among the whigs. Those on Sack’s list who could be classed as followers of Lord Grenville were four who voted as he did, against the queen: his nephew Buckingham, now the leader, Lord Carrington, Lord Hereford, and Lord Somers. Carrington was in the odd situation of voting twice against the proceedings and then for the second and third readings of the bill. He would obviously have preferred that there had been no bill at all, but, as there was, he voted against the queen. Hereford probably did not stay with the Grenville group long, and by 1827 would be identified as a whig who might be interested in a Household appointment.31 Three others were a cousin and two brothers-in-law of Grenville—Lords Glastonbury, Carysfort, and Braybrooke. None of them voted at all in the Queen Caroline proceedings. Only Lord Carysfort, who spoke and voted against an amendment proposed by Grey to the Address in November 181932 seems to have remained at all active in politics, with the one great exception. Like the three above, none had ever missed a chance to vote for Catholic Emancipation, or would. Lord Bristol too did not take part in the Queen Caroline proceedings, but had almost as good a record in supporting the Catholic cause. From the original group of Grenville lords, then, nine are identified as active in whig politics in 1820. There is at least one more, Lord Spencer’s brotherin-law, the earl of Lucan, who did not part from the whigs until 1831. Lord

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Cawdor’s case is perhaps more problematic, but not much. He died in June 1821 and may well have been too ill to participate in the debates of the previous year. His son was a staunch whig, close to Lord Lansdowne. And it might be added here that Lord Braybrooke’s son, who succeeded in 1825, and Lord Carysfort’s in 1828, were good whigs. The numbers so far, then, are for the whigs eleven; and for Grenville, nine including himself. There are two lords left. Lord Carlisle had not been very active since the Corn Law debates in 1815 and would not be again. He died in 1825. But the family was definitely whig, and his son, who took his seat in 1826, though a friend of Canning and sometimes described as a Canningite, was a whig. The young marquess of Bute is more difficult to place. He took his seat in 1819, five years after his grandfather had died. He began as something of a radical and gave a pro-Caroline vote in 1820. Several years later he would support a whig motion on Ireland, but by the middle of the decade he had settled into his position as a (Catholic) tory magnate, and it is unlikely he would have thought of himself as a whig, for long, if ever. The above is an analysis of a small but significant group. It suggests how what had started as the Grenville part of the party split, its members tipping toward the party of Grey. What was left did not constitute much of a force in the Lords. Grenville himself was a force, but he was not a Grenvillite, following a course of his own. His four elderly relatives were not active—none survived the decade and their heirs were all whigs, save for Glastonbury, who had no heir. The peers who were not family members did not retain a political connection either, save inside the wider tory party and as Catholic tories. None would attempt to follow the erratic course of Lord Buckingham. As Sack has rightly said, Grenville’s “semiretirement ended the Grenvillite party in the House of Lords.”33 In the next chapter we shall see how the whig party fared as whigs long inactive returned to it and the political fray.

chap ter si x



Peterloo and Queen Caroline

When Parliament met early on 23 November 1819, the prince regent’s speech was full of foreboding. He was sorry to call them together again at this time, but continuing seditious practices in some of the manufacturing districts made it necessary. These activities were utterly hostile to the constitution, aiming to change political institutions and subvert property. Earl Manvers, who moved the Address reflecting the government’s plans for the session, stressed that it was a time of “extreme danger.” Much was said about the rights of the people, “but their lordships must be cautious, lest, while they were protecting the liberty of the subject, they should compromise the security of the state.”1 Grey, who had been playing the role of friend and protector of the people for most of his life, gave a long and powerful speech. The country was in a great crisis, no doubt, but it was not the time for extraordinary measures of a draconian nature. He had heard no recommendation to avert the danger “by relieving the people from some part of the heavy burdens which oppressed them.” Nor had he heard a recommendation of conciliation to reduce the enormous public expenditure by a system of “timely reform and economy.” Grey had no desire to dispute the difficulties of the situation or to “palliate any improper proceedings to which those proceedings had given birth; though he was not prepared to admit the extent to which it was alleged those proceedings had been carried.” The existing laws were adequate to deal with the situation, and they had to be careful not to pass new laws that might make things worse. He strongly believed that “The safety of the state could only be found in the protection of the liberties of the people.” Grey also believed that “there never was an extensive discontent without great misgovernment.” It was well known that in Glasgow, Manchester, and the West Riding the greatest distress prevailed. Could this be a mere “partial de-

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pression,” as the government called it? Certainly not; those districts were filled with starving populations. In such distress, could anyone be surprised that an opportunity was afforded for some to propagate opinions that were less dangerous to the government than to those who received them? He strongly repudiated radical reform—such as universal suffrage and annual Parliaments— though he thought more strongly than ever that some reform was necessary. Four months before had occurred what is now generally known as Peterloo. A meeting to discuss parliamentary reform had been called at Manchester. Grey was astonished that in the Speech from the Throne the advertised meeting had been considered illegal. That “meeting, ending as it did, was he must say by far the most important event that had occurred in the course of his political life.” What happened there on 16 August, he said, called for “a separate, a full, and a solemn inquiry.” To exonerate the Manchester magistrates, it would be necessary to prove not only that the meeting was illegal—which he thought impossible—but that the methods used to disperse it were legal, which he was convinced they were not. But if these things could not be proved, Parliament should take every means “to wipe so foul a stain from the character of the country.” Having further excoriated the government for other less notorious actions, Grey moved a long amendment to the Address reflective of the opinions expressed above.2 The former lord chancellor, Erskine, declared “that the object of the meeting was legal, it being to petition Parliament, and no overt acts had been committed, nor any conspiracy discovered, to prove it to have been a cover for rebellion or sedition.” Far from it, those attending brought wives and children. Why had the magistrates not read the Riot Act in various parts of the immense crowd? And there was nothing to justify the crowd being charged and sabered down. No violence had been committed.3 Erskine, one of the finest trial lawyers of his time, who had got acquittals from charges of treason for prominent radicals such as Thomas Hardy in the reactionary 1790s, knew how to put a case. This would make him very valuable to the whigs in the trials, of more than one sort, that lay ahead in the next couple of years. Lord Sidmouth, the home secretary, was the first to respond for the government. He spoke of an immense assemblage of people marching in military array, coming in large bodies from a distance, and “declaring their object to be neither more nor less than the total subversion of the Constitution ‘or to perish.’” Sidmouth’s claims about the people’s actions up to their supposed declaration was more or less true, except that the military array included large numbers of women and children and had been adopted to ensure an orderly progress. It seems unlikely, however, that it would have been possible to ascer-



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tain in any very precise fashion their common objective or that they would all have been prepared to die in the attempt. Nor would it be any more likely, as Sidmouth went on to suggest, that all or most were wearing caps of liberty or carrying pikes having the appearance of being dipped in blood.4 Liverpool, except in his ultimate conclusion, was considerably more restrained. He said that a parliamentary investigation such as Grey proposed could not be instituted because it would involve suspending the functions of the courts where legal proceedings were already under way. He rightly claimed his own constitutional responsibility for a letter from the prince regent to the Manchester magistrates commending them for their actions. He said that a crowd of at least twenty thousand men in military style “came to one spot with banners and streamers, upon which might be read the motto of ‘Equal Representation or Death,’ and he would venture to declare that this was not only illegal, but under all the circumstances, a treasonable meeting.” The earl of Carnarvon inquired whether the government thought the women and children had been brought “for the purpose of being mangled or slain?”5 The facts of the matter seem to show that both sides suspected that the other side’s thoughts and actions were more sinister than was actually the case. The Manchester magistrates had given permission for a meeting in St. Peter’s Fields, a large open area, to hear Henry Hunt, a leader of the movement, discuss parliamentary reform. It was only on the day of the meeting when, panicked by the swelling size of the audience, they began to have second thoughts. And by the time one of their number mounted the hustings to read the Riot Act, ordering the crowd to disperse, it is unlikely, lacking any sort of public address system, that he could have been heard more than a few feet from the platform. There was no regular police force, and the only force immediately at hand was a detachment of the Manchester yeomanry, cavalry roughly equivalent in function to the U.S. National Guard. In this case, they were made up mostly of Manchester clerks, who (and whose horses) were certainly not trained in crowd control. They were ordered to disperse the crowd, but they were never ordered to draw their sabers. That seems to have happened when one of their number was hit by a brick thrown by someone in the crowd. Mayhem followed, with the yeomanry, on rearing steeds, laying about them with their sabers in all directions and in the process becoming detached from their comrades. By the time the regular cavalry arrived to save the yeomanry from the crowd, and the crowd from the yeomanry, a dozen people were dead and hundreds injured. Most had been trampled on, by the horses or each other.6 The House of Lords, however, had no difficulty in choosing between the two sides. Grey’s amendment was defeated by a vote of 159 to 34.7

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A motion by the marquess of Lansdowne on the State of the Country followed a week later, on 30 November. Lansdowne was particularly desirous of considering “the distress of the manufacturing districts and the execution of the laws.” As Grey had, he pointed out that radicalism had taken the deepest root in areas where distress was also the deepest, in manufacturing areas. This was especially true of seats of the cotton industry—Manchester, Glasgow, and Paisley—all areas where wages had fallen by more than half. How might the situation be improved? Lansdowne had specific suggestions. One was to reduce the tax on tea, with the aim of reducing the cost of living. Another was to encourage once more the importation of Norwegian (as opposed to Canadian) timber, which would provide another market for British goods. And the South American market ought to be expanded. Finally, serious thought should be given to further reducing the burden of taxation. Lansdowne went on to argue that, as the government had done nothing to improve the economic situation, only recently had the ministers given much thought to enforcing the law. Seditious publications had been allowed to flourish for several years. Furthermore, in a number of areas public meetings had been left unmolested, despite the fact that “those who attended them marched to the spot with banners and music in martial array and under regular leaders; whereas these circumstances in one case had been declared the symbols of rebellion and were pleaded as a justification of a forcible dispersion.” Having delivered this sharp sting in the tail of his argument, Lansdowne made his motion.8 The marquess of Wellesley, who since 1812 had been a loyal supporter of the whigs, now began to turn back. The question was whether they had not before them “that case of violence which must be coerced, and of sedition which must be encountered and extinguished by law?” Wellesley thought so.9 Lord Erskine said that there were meetings “so absurdly numerous as to render disorder probable and dangerous, and I admit that the meeting at Manchester was one of them.” But did the evidence before them warrant the belief that a treasonable conspiracy was then afoot? It most assuredly did not. Erskine also pointed out that there had been other very large meetings, especially one at Birmingham, of which the Manchester magistrates had been fully informed, and one for which they had expressed their admiration, the meeting having broken up “before 7 o’clock without any breach of the peace.” And Erskine delivered a timely reminder: “It is to overt acts, and not to opinions we must look when criminal charges are to be made.”10 Undoubtedly the strongest and most compelling speech for the government’s position was made by a peer who refused to have any association with it.



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If there was any lord who could be considered an expert on political economy it was Lord Grenville, though the other whigs marveled at Lansdowne’s expertise in that area. At any rate, Grenville devoted considerable time to the demolition of the latter’s economic proposals, which, decisive or not, probably carried the day by reputation. The rest of his speech Grenville devoted to the domestic situation, finding it “in near conformity to all that [had formerly] led to the subversion and misery of France.” There was “a close and striking resemblance, a servile yet ostentatious imitation, which it is of the utmost importance that we should forcibly impress upon our minds.” Grenville then drew the parallels. First came the inundation of inflammatory publications preaching sedition and blasphemy. The next step was also the same as in France—the formation of local societies and clubs, “organized for the diffusion of . . . impious and destructive doctrines by frequent and familiar intercourse, and for the establishment of an extensive concert and co-operation in the prosecution of the only practical results to which such principles can lead.” A considerable portion of the multitude were seduced. Then, in the third stage, they were encouraged to “collect together in large and tumultuous bodies,” to feel their own strength, and finally to “manifest in the light of day their inveterate hostility to all the institutions of their country, and their open defiance of all its authorities.” It was evident that Britain was at the end of this third stage, and on the brink of the final stage. Would Parliament act in time? That was the question Grenville posed. It was the question the government wanted posed, and with an immediacy they applauded. Liverpool said that Grenville “had that night delivered one of the ablest and most eloquent speeches that had ever been heard in that House.” From the prime minister’s point of view, this was doubtless correct. As he also said, he knew “what had fallen from such high authority must have an excellent effect throughout the country.”11 There were two more speeches of note, two intricately detailed discussions of Peterloo by Grey and Liverpool. The broad positions of both have already been described. But one or two remarks on Liverpool’s may be worthwhile. One of the things he said was that he had never seen “a mob in his life without women and children.” He had been present at the capture of the Bastille, and he saw “many women busily employed on that occasion.” In Britain at the time, which Grey for one knew perfectly well, women were considered particularly dangerous in industrial disputes in the coal industry. Historians today, however, make a useful distinction between mobs and crowds, the former being mostly irrational in their thinking and ruled by their passions, the latter more

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rational and reasonable. There is reason to believe that those at Peterloo were a crowd. They were going to listen to discussion of an issue they were interested in, doubtless thinking there might be some fun to be had on the side. They were certainly not going as lambs to the slaughter. And Liverpool was equally wrong on another point. He could see no explanation for military arrays, “except for the purpose of carrying their designs by terror.” Yet, as both Lansdowne and Erskine had suggested, there were many perfectly peaceable groups who employed them as a means of moving large bodies of people, with the intention not of creating disorder and confusion, but of avoiding it. The classic example would be the Birmingham Political Union during the Reform period.12 The fact is that as far as Peterloo is concerned the government, urged on by an elder statesman whom, however vigorously they would have denied it a couple of years before, they deeply respected, panicked. It was the first indication of a phenomenon that would appear in both parties in years to come. There was nothing more terrifying than peaceful crowds kept that way by someone else. Daniel O’Connell was the first one to exploit this fear, followed by the Political Unions. Lansdowne’s motion failed by 178 to 47.13 Both Grey and Lansdowne had argued in making their motions that the government had been responsible for existing problems, among other reasons, for not having enforced the law. What they wanted to avoid was the passage of new and harsher laws. They were not successful. On 17 December 1819, Lord Sidmouth moved the second reading of a new Seditious Meetings bill. Sidmouth argued that “those who had inquired into the state of the existing laws on the subject were satisfied that there were many dangerous features in the meetings referred to, for which no remedy could at present be found.” The existing law did not prescribe the way in which magistrates gave notice of their actions or exercised their superintendence. It did not prohibit going to meetings in military array. It did not prevent assembling with flags and banners. It did not, in the event that seditious or treasonable language was used at a meeting, offer the magistrate any recourse but to order the offending person into custody, but he could not declare the meeting illegal. It did not prevent what Sidmouth described as a “great abuse,” that when the inhabitants of a particular town or district were called to a meeting, so many strangers attended as to put the inhabitants into a minority. “Neither,” Sidmouth said, “did it provide against the most pernicious practice of itinerant orators attending public meetings, and collecting great multitudes to hear their harangues.” All these “great evils,” Sidmouth promised, were dealt with in the bill. Yet, beyond all these other merits, the bill, besides preserving all the subjects’ rights, better secured them. It established by law what Sidmouth said was hitherto only a



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matter of practice, “the free assembling of the people to petition the throne or either House of Parliament, and discuss any public grievance of which they might have to complain.”14 A principle of the constitution that had been cherished for centuries was actually to be enshrined in law! But that right, so badly abused recently, was to be protected by all the safeguards proposed by the home secretary. What this meant, in effect, was that meetings were to be confined to traditional town and county meetings, localized and saved from infection by outsiders. Whig lords thundered against the bill. The earl of Carnarvon gave a long speech in which he discussed a list of problems, practical as well as theoretical, to which the bill would give rise. He was joined by Lord King, the earl of Donoughmore, Earl Grosvenor, and the earl of Lauderdale. The latter had moved the discussion back to present discontents and their causes, prompting Liverpool to reveal a great deal about what his government had not done, as well as what it had done. The root cause of the distress, he said, was the long war. State intervention in the economy would only make things worse. When he had proposed the new Corn Law of 1815, he had said that in an imperfect world it was necessary to put aside the Smithian principles in which he had been educated. He had clearly taken them up again.15 If all the government could do was to wait for the economy to right itself, it also had in the meantime to keep the lid on discontent as best it could. Liverpool made another interesting comment. He fully admitted the power of public opinion, as exercised in petitioning. He instanced Sidmouth’s bill of 1811—also aimed in part at itinerants, in that case itinerant Dissenting preachers—which was stopped by a flood of petitions, before which his own government had quailed. He said the same had been true of the anti-slave-trade campaign, which had helped Lord Grenville get its abolition through Parliament, and especially through the Lords, in 1807. Liverpool’s claim that none of the petitions, in either case, had come from a meeting in the open air is dubious. In any event, it was an indication of his recognition that public opinion would be hard to keep down, and a strong indication that he himself, at any rate, had no real desire to do so.16 On 29 January 1820, George III died at Windsor, and his son was transformed from regent to George IV. The new king’s greatest desire was to get rid of his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, who was also his cousin, daughter of one of his father’s sisters. He had not seen Caroline before their marriage in 1795, and he saw as little as possible of her afterward. She herself related that he spent their wedding night “under the grate”; that is, lying on the hearth, where he had dropped in a drunken stupor, and where she had left him. Apparently, however, he had spent a little time in bed, for on 7 January 1796 their daughter, Char-

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lotte, was born. It was probably not Caroline’s physical appearance that put her husband off—it certainly did not put a lot of other men off. There were plenty of other differences. While he was fastidious, she was not, among other things, rarely taking a bath. When sober, he was a man of exquisite manners. No one could call her tactful, and many called her crude. She did not claim to be what she was not but begged her husband to teach her. He could hardly look at her. It was not long before she was, for all intents and purposes, out of his house. And by 1812 she was barred from it, and her daughter taken out of her care. By that time Caroline was finding the love she had sought from her husband elsewhere—from George Canning, for one, but there were others. Yet her husband’s affairs were notorious. He had secretly married the Catholic Maria Fitzherbert in 1785, which he could not publicly acknowledge because, though sacred to them both, it was illegal under the royal marriage acts. Yet he put Maria aside in order to marry Caroline because his father had stipulated a proper royal marriage as a condition for financial assistance. But the next year he made a will leaving everything to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and in 1800 she finally came back to him, though in the interim he had had an affair with Lady Jersey. From then on until 1808, he and Mrs. Fitzherbert had a relationship, latterly, however, mainly consisting in her answering summons to Brighton as a chaperone to preserve the reputation of the prince’s new mistress, the countess of Hertford. By this time Caroline had become a popular favorite, cheered, as her husband was not, when she went out in public. He described her as “the vilest wretch this world was ever cursed with, who I cannot feel more disgust for than I do for her entire want of principle.”17 Early in 1813 the prince regent asked the privy council to consider a letter to him from Caroline, complaining about the treatment she and her daughter were receiving and recently published in a newspaper, as well as the papers gathered by the so-called Delicate Investigation during the Talents ministry, which had looked extensively into Caroline’s activities. He wanted the privy council to advise whether, in view of the circumstances described there, it would be “fit and proper that the intercourse between the princess of Wales and her daughter the Princess Charlotte should continue to be subject to regulations and restrictions.” Shortly afterward the privy council replied that it would be.18 Not long after that, Charles Manners-Sutton, the archbishop of Canterbury and a member of the privy council, wrote to Lord Liverpool that they were right as far as they had gone. But he thought they should not go one step further. From the conversation that took place at Windsor, I am led to believe that nothing less is expected than that we should lay before the Princess Charlotte a broad representation of all the misconduct and indiscretion of her mother from the first moment of her ar-



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rival in this country to the present hour. Indeed our instructions extended beyond this limit. It is further probable that if the Regent send for us that we shall be furnished with a still longer catalogue of indiscretions and offences and even imputed crimes. I am prepared to justify the advice of the council if it be thought necessary upon the grounds already given to the public; but I cannot consent to take upon myself such a history of her mother’s conduct as has been or may be presented to us.19

It is significant that this early the archbishop had no very warm feelings for the future king and was deeply distrustful of his intentions regarding his wife. In 1814, Caroline, worn out by her fruitless efforts to gain any change for the good in a bad position, gave up and departed to the continent to enjoy herself. She did, traveling restlessly about, followed by the prince’s spies gathering damaging information about the abandoned life she was living, information that was supplemented by the diplomatic corps of Britain and Hanover. The prince regent was building a case to get rid of his wife one way or another, but the cabinet declared itself “decidedly averse” to such an undertaking in 1816. Then in 1817 George’s daughter and heir, Princess Charlotte, died in childbirth. So long as she was alive, George had hesitated to disgrace her mother. He made no effort to inform Caroline of their daughter’s death, who learned of it from a messenger on his way to give the news to the pope. Free of all inhibitions, the prince regent insisted on launching another frantic effort to gain material to be used against Caroline, but it broke down early in 1818. And there matters rested until the old king died. This naturally set the new queen to thinking how best to claim her rightful place. The new king for his part was determined that she would never gain it. Furious with his ministers for trying to restrain him, George threatened to dismiss them. Much to their later regret, they gave in and promised to find a way to achieve what he wanted. The first thing he wanted was to leave the queen’s name out of the liturgy, or more precisely, the part of the church service where prayers are offered for the monarch and the royal family. It was a mistake, shocking many, including such solid and respectable figures as William Wilberforce and Lord Grenville, and, by disgracing the queen before anything was proved against her, making it virtually impossible to draw back. But worst of all, this deliberate insult determined Caroline to leave her retreat in Italy and return to fight her battles in person.20 Despite the politicians’ decision to accede to the king’s wishes, the archbishop of Canterbury appears to have been most reluctant. Liverpool had been desperately hunting for precedents. He thought he had found one in the case of the unhappy Princess Sophia, wife of George I, but she had been legally separated from him by the Constitutional Court of Hanover, and therefore her

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case provided no precedent. Liverpool wrote rather testily to inform the archbishop on 5 February: “I would however observe, on the other hand, that as to the consideration that the name of no queen since the Reformation has been omitted, it does not appear that since the period of Henry 8th there has been any queen of England whose character and conduct have been [such a] matter of reproach, or who in any way lived separately from her husband.”21 To the last point, of course, there was unfortunately an obvious answer. Liverpool, however, had clearly committed himself to the cause. The archbishop, it seems, had not; and though he would act the prime minister’s loyal colleague, and be roundly denounced in the Lords as a consequence, his reluctance may well have given bishops the leeway they required to oppose their earthly maker. Whether the archbishop was serving his heavenly one in this case is perhaps open to question. Grey was baffled as to what was going on. Rightly thinking that the decision on the liturgy had been taken, he was amazed that having set themselves on this course, the king and his government were still quarreling. He was not at all uncertain about what to do if the whigs were asked to take office. He wrote to Lord Holland: My first answer must be that it must depend upon the nature of the case. . . . It is difficult to suppose that these [the proofs] can be clear or satisfactory when the present ministers refuse to act upon them. . . . What I should be inclined to say therefore . . . would be this: that I feel the king has been brought into a situation which requires further justification of what has already been done. That justification can only be found in the proof that the queen has by her conduct forfeited all title to the respect and honour which belong to her situation; that if there is a sufficient case therefore, I should feel myself bound in duty, both to the king and to the country, to bring it forward, but if there is not, I can only lament the distress and difficulty to which the misconduct of the ministers has betrayed him.22

There the situation rested for another couple of months, during which time the obligatory general election following the death of a monarch took place. Proceedings against the queen, who had meanwhile arrived to wild and continuing displays of public support, did not get under way until June. There were difficulties in deciding how to proceed, some of which had been canvassed earlier. The king was advised that the route through the ecclesiastical courts might take three years and, if it could be proved that he had committed adultery, would be a bar to divorce proceedings against his wife. For a bigamist this would not be the best choice. Then there was the problem of trying a queen of England, on evidence at least three years old, of the activities of a princess of Wales on the continent. Trying her for high treason was ruled out, among other reasons, because the death penalty might be a little too stiff. And so on. It was



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finally decided that the best way to proceed was by way of a bill of pains and penalties. The advantage was that the rules could be made up for the occasion and that there were no precedents. The difficulty was that in the past these bills had, for obvious reasons, usually been used by governments to get rid of people they could not get rid of in any other way. And, as for there being no precedents, this did not prevent the lord chancellor from drawing any analogies he chose. The purpose of the bill was to dethrone Caroline as queen and to end her marriage. It had been decided that the existing evidence would first be presented to a secret committee that would have the function of a grand jury and recommend proceeding further or not. But the government kept postponing the meeting of the committee, and on 27 June, Grey rose to move the abandonment of the procedure that had been agreed on, especially the secret committee. He told the Lords that there had been a material alteration in the situation since their original decision. The committee’s examination was supposed to take place without affording the queen any means of explanation on the charges against her, any opportunity of examining witnesses, anything in her own defense. Upon such a partial examination, they were to make a report with a view to some proceeding in the House. It was not right, and he moved that the secret committee be discharged. The motion was defeated, 102 to 47.23 The secret committee reported on 4 July that the evidence warranted a “solemn inquiry,” and began proceedings that were not to end until 10 November. On 14 July Lord Erskine moved that a list of witnesses in support of the bill of pains and penalties be given to the queen. That was rejected 78 to 28. On 17 August, Liverpool moved the order of the day for the second reading of the bill. The duke of Leinster, announcing that he wished to take the speediest course to end “this unfortunate proceeding,” moved that the order of the day be rescinded. That lost 206 to 41. On 19 August, Lord King told the Lords that the counsel on both sides having closed their arguments the previous day, it seemed to him that this would be the only opportunity to halt the deplorable course they were now pursuing. His motion was defeated 179 to 64. At this point it struck some tories, among them Lord Harrowby and the duke of Wellington, themselves members of the government, that the steamroller was running rather too fast and pulverizing too much. Liverpool himself, on 28 August seemed to reflect such feelings, moving that the House should adjourn until the next day to give more time to think about what rules they would adopt for what was in effect the trial phase of the proceedings. But he also took the occasion to say that he felt “it essential to state that unlimited pecuniary means were being placed at the disposal of the queen’s professional agents for

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the purposes of her majesty’s defence.” He also said that undoubtedly the same means that were used to compel witnesses to attend to give evidence for the bill would also be used to compel witnesses in behalf of the queen. Harrowby, however, had an even fairer proposition in mind. He moved on 29 August that “under the especial circumstances of the case, the House would consent to the counsel for her majesty proceeding in the manner they proposed; namely that they should be enabled to cross-examine to the extent they might prefer, with the liberty of calling back the witness for future examination.” Liverpool said he was willing to concede this, and the motion passed by 121 to 106. Liverpool himself voted for it, as did Wellington, but they, with the mover, were the only three members of the government to do so. Lord Grenville from the cross benches also voted for it. It was the first time in the proceedings that any consideration had been shown for the rights of the defendant. Lord Erskine thought even more consideration ought to be shown. He recommended that the House even now should pause in the course it was pursuing. And the only means of getting on to the right course was to postpone any further proceedings until the queen had completed the preparation of her defense, and in the meantime to provide her with a list of witnesses and a specification of times and places. The justification for these proposals was that while the other side had had years to build its case, she had hardly started, and that as her travels had covered most of Western Europe, as well as a trip to the Holy Land, she needed to know more about who and what she had to prepare against. Erskine’s motion, however, did not find the favor with the House that Harrowby’s had. It was defeated 164 to 61. But it was the best division so far for the queen’s cause. It was also, with the exception of Lords Bolton and Carrick, all whig. The party was beginning to rally as it had not rallied for years.24 The last procedural motion was made on 8 September 1820. The situation was as follows. The counsel for the bill had already completed their case and summed up. Their case had been made, the evidence presented, and it was now before the public. The queen’s counsel did not want to leave things in such a situation for two months while they collected evidence and witnesses. They wanted the opportunity to state their case and thus get it out to the public before an adjournment. After some discussion, Liverpool proposed a resolution saying that though they could state their case any time they pleased, once started they must carry it through to the end, “such being the usual course of proceeding.” So much for there being no precedents.25 The resolution passed 165 to 60. In this division, another small group of three makes its appearance—the earl of Romney, and Lords Kenyon and Bolton. All were ultras—High Church,



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extreme in their support of the pretensions of the Church and their opposition to Catholic Emancipation. All three also belonged to one or more societies devoted to both the spiritual and temporal welfare of the people. Usually evangelicals, outside as well as inside the Church, are given the credit for such societies. But a good many ultras belonged to them, as did a good many whigs. Both shared the compassion of the evangelicals for their fellow human beings, but it is unlikely in the case of most whigs, and almost certain in the case of most ultras, that they shared the conversion experience and the emotional religious enthusiasm that followed, which characterized evangelicals. Two of the three ultras had already voted individually for the queen, but now the votes began to clump, and the clump would get larger.26 Not until 2 November were all the witnesses heard and the lawyers’ arguments over. There was very little edifying about the testimony of the former. The witnesses on both sides were in the nature of things mainly servants, those who made the beds and rendered other equally menial services. What is more, and equally natural, almost all were servants who had been discharged, mostly for cause. Very little of the evidence given was decisive, and any that was broke down under cross-examination. Introducing the second reading of the bill, the lord chancellor delivered to their lordships what was in effect the charge to the jury. They would follow a procedure for somewhat similar bills—divorce bills. They would first hear the proof of the allegations in the bill and then hear the other side. The lord chancellor, in his role of Speaker of the House—not in his judicial capacity—would then rise from his seat on the Woolsack and move away, which he had to do if he wished to give an opinion on the case, but his opinion would weigh no more than that of any of his fellows. If any other lord was of another opinion, there would be a debate and a division. If there was no difference of opinion, the bill would be read a second time as a matter of course. The chancellor denied that bills of pains and penalties had been confined to “cases of extreme necessity.” He had looked as far back as the Revolution to establish this. He gave no examples, and he would have known very well that had he looked back eight years further, he would have found one of the most horrible, Lord Stafford’s—beheaded on the testimony of Titus Oates. The chancellor concluded, he told their lordships, that there had been adulterous intercourse. He based this on what he believed had happened inside a tent on the deck of the little ship that had taken the queen and her party from Italy to the Holy Land. In the party was someone who had started as a courier and risen quickly to become a baron and chief officer of the queen’s Household. If, Eldon asked, it was accepted that Pergami and the princess of Wales had slept

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together under the “tent” or “awning,” was that proof that adultery took place? It should be said that the distinction between tent and awning is not unimportant, for it was generally accepted that the two regularly slept fully clothed and on two separate couches entirely open to the cooling breezes and the gaze of anyone who might pass by. But there was a way to curtain the tent, and this sometimes happened. Yet even then there was an open companionway that connected the interior of the tent to the deck below. The chancellor, however, was clear that the answer to his question was yes. He then went on to explain that in questions of alleged adultery, “the question was not whether the parties have been detected in the actual commission of the act, but whether circumstances have been proved, from which a reasonable and plain man in the due exercise of his understanding cannot avoid drawing the conclusion that the act of adultery could have taken place.”27 Earl Grosvenor, the next day, observed that the lords had heard the “able and elaborate speech of the chancellor,” and he proceeded to disagree with it, declaring that “the fact of adultery was nowhere proved,” and going into the circumstances and placement of the so-called tent to throw doubt on it. And in a final salvo, speaking about who was responsible for the change in the liturgy, he declared that had he been the archbishop of Canterbury and “the king had demanded it, he would have thrown the book in the king’s face.”28 Lord Grey could hardly believe that after the wide-ranging yet specific charges of the attorney general in beginning the process, that in the end the whole case would have come to rest on the simple fact of the polacre, the little ship with the tent or awning. And he, too, in a long speech tore into the evidence against the queen. Grey then turned to the amendment it was said the government was going to propose in Committee, that the divorce clause be dropped. That, he said, looked very much like a situation of, having not made the case for the indictment, making the indictment fit the case. How could the government give up the main point? There could “in my opinion be no greater legislative absurdity than to agree to a bill degrading the queen for scandalous and licentious conduct, and yet to leave her the wife of the king.”29 For whatever reason, Liverpool denied that there was such an understanding.30 That may have been, but the fact that the government intended to drop the divorce clause was true. Liverpool’s statement evoked a response that he cannot have wished for. The ultra Lord Arden declared that it was his duty to oppose the second reading of the bill: “The rejection would relieve his majesty of a certain degree of odium, and ministers from a heavy weight of responsibility.” He was followed by another ultra, Viscount Falmouth. Falmouth wished he could think that the only question to be decided by the second reading was the guilt or innocence of the



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accused. But there were other considerations that pressed on his mind. He had a “most decided objection to the divorce clause.” He might be told that that could be attended to in Committee. He “was anxious not to be misunderstood, if the clause remaining, he was in the end forced to vote against the bill.” What was at issue for him were “the rights of the lowest married woman. Few indeed were those rights comparatively; but he could not persuade himself, under any circumstances to treat them lightly.” He had considered the case from this point of view, and “he could not hesitate to declare that he did not think this a proper case for divorce.” Harrowby, the lord president of the council, was on his feet next to declare himself to be in exactly the same situation.31 The vote on the second reading of the bill came on 6 November. It passed by a vote of 123 to 95, a majority of only 28.32 The House went into Committee on 7 November. The divorce clause was the first question considered. The archbishop of Canterbury stated he had no objection of any sort, let alone religious, to the bill passing in its present form. And he quoted Matthew 1, chapter 5, verse 32, as justification: “Our Saviour had said that ‘he who putteth his wife away for any other cause than adultery, causeth her to commit adultery.’” The first clause may have spoken to the point he wanted to make. The explosive potential of the second clause had clearly escaped him. But it did not escape one of the queen’s old friends, the Evangelical whig, the earl of Darnley. Correcting the archbishop, Darnley said “he recollected a text which said “he that putteth away his wife, saving for fornication causeth her to commit adultery.” And Darnley asked, “in that case, had not the husband put away his wife? If he had, and it was not caused by fornication, had he or had he not caused her to commit adultery?”33 Quite inadvertently, but no less disastrously, the archbishop had allowed Darnley to put his finger on the Achilles’ heel of the government’s case, and the strongest card in the queen’s hand. No one doubted that it was her husband who had driven her away from his house and, indirectly, by his treatment of her, from the country. And if anyone had forgotten about his moral lapses, they would have been reminded by his recent and very public romps around Brighton with his latest mistress, Lady Conyngham. The government put its foot down when he was prepared to publish the news to the world by removing the husband of his late mistress, Lady Hertford, as lord chamberlain, and replacing him with Lord Conyngham.34 To have exceeded the king’s wanton behavior would have been difficult. That was why public opinion was so strongly and evidently on Caroline’s side—if for no other reason than that those who felt downtrodden sympathized with a fellow victim. The politicians had begun to take notice, and were worried. As Lord Ellenborough had admitted in an earlier debate, he would be “unwilling

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to vote for a measure against which there existed a very strong and universal opinion.”35 There was one more development. Lord Grey announced that he had decided for retaining the divorce clause, believing it would place the House in such a situation they must reject the bill altogether.”36 With whig votes, the clause was easily retained, 129 to 62.37 The Report stage of the bill took place on 9 November, the third reading, the next day. At the beginning of the Report stage, Ellenborough called upon those who had voted for the second reading, on the understanding that the divorce clause would be excised in Committee, to vote against the bill. Lord Lauderdale responded by calling attention to Grey’s sudden announcement the previous day and asked “if those lords who really approved the clause could with propriety aid this trick and manoeuvre by voting against the third reading?” Grey responded that he had been perfectly frank about what he was doing and why, and asked what was to be thought of those who, in order to get votes for the second reading, held out the expectation that the clause would be dropped in Committee?38 The third reading was carried by a vote of 108 to 99. On 6 November Charles Arbuthnot, secretary to the treasury and a confidant of Liverpool, had reported the majority of only twenty-eight on the second reading to a correspondent, but went on to say that “the king and his administration have been fully justified.” Then he added: “Between ourselves I now expect the bill will not come to the Commons.” He went on to report that the duke of Dorset had gone away without voting. The duke of Richmond voted against the bill. So did Lord Bath and Lord Egremont. Lord Hutchinson was another who left without voting, as did Lord Hampden. In short, the king’s friends were deserting him. There were even two lords of the bedchamber, members of his own Household, who voted against the bill. The rot had set in, and with a majority of only nine on the third reading, the only thing to do was to drop the bill. For Arbuthnot, it was with a sigh of relief.39 There were a variety of reasons for the discontent of those who went away, as well as for those who stayed and voted. In the case of the great lords above there is no obvious reason. But for sincere Christians there was. Besides Darnley, the lord president was appalled by the archbishop’s quoting of scripture. Harrowby “did not think the clause could be justified by the law of God; by the law and practice of the House he was perfectly satisfied that it would not be justified.”40 The ultra Lord Kenyon was more forthright, much more: “Could he have been brought to consent to the present bill which he found most odious, unjust and unchristian, still he could never consent to the divorce clause.” He quoted the verses from Matthew, the right way, and dismissed those who saw them as em-



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powering divorce. He said that “if your lordships agree to the bill in its present shape, you will in effect decide that the principles of Christian morality are to be interpreted differently for the monarch and his subject. But it must not, cannot be.”41 These were responses of laymen. The bishops also responded. The archbishop of Tuam said that his mind had always been made up against the divorce clause from the very verse chosen by Canterbury. And he showed from the second chapter of Malachi that “the God of Israel hath said, ‘he hated all putting away.’”42 The archbishop of York said he had voted against the second reading of the bill because of the divorce clause. The bishops of Worcester, Peterborough, Gloucester, and Chester spoke out against the clause, and two others were so agonized over the issue that it was not quite clear what they were going to do. In the end, the archbishop of Canterbury and eight bishops voted for the bill. The archbishops of Tuam and York and the bishop of Gloucester voted against it. A possible eighteen other bishops stayed away (at least one was excused on account of age). Of the lay votes against the bill, whigs account for about seventy-seven; ultras for about seventeen; and Catholic tories for about seven. The latter included the former and future whig marquess of Stafford. Two other votes were from his brother, Viscount Granville, and Viscount Morley, both followers of Canning. Lord Harrowby did not vote. The bench of bishops, with only two exceptions (Norwich and Rochester), usually voted reliably for the government. That only nine did so in this case was a stinging rebuke to the ministers. The ultras, whose position on Catholic Emancipation was shared by most of the bishops, were normally reliable supporters as well. Such lords, bishops as well as peers, are usually looked upon as bigots, and bigots they may have been. But they had their principles, and the queen owed much to them. She also owed much to the resurgent whigs, especially to Grey. He was a lion in debate and also showed himself to be a superb tactician. Having done much to raise the anger against the divorce clause, he fanned the flames of division in the government’s ranks. However, in the end he announced his decision to support it, bringing his party with him and ensuring that it would be retained, thus dooming the bill. Grey had maneuvered brilliantly and to good effect.

chap ter seven

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Efforts at Emancipation, 1819-1825

Eighteen eighteen was a relatively quiet year, with no major debates in the Lords. There was a general election, which evidenced some reaction to the threat to civil liberties posed by issues such as the temporary suspension of Habeas Corpus the previous year. This helps to explain the marked increase in the number of whig MPs, though unfortunately it did little for their cohesiveness. The Lords were not directly affected by elections, save in one case—the election of the sixteen Scottish representative peers. Governments already exercised considerable control over their return, but in this election the whigs picked up at least two, the earl of Rosebery and Lord Belhaven, who would soon begin to play useful roles in the party.1 Eighteen nineteen would be a very different year. It began with debates on Catholic Emancipation, with the largest number of lords voting yet, 253, though this exceeded by only two the last division in 1812. It showed, however, that after seven years when attention had been diverted from the issue by wars and their several consequences, it was back again and once more in the spotlight. Most revealing perhaps of the basic issues involved was an exchange between Grey and Liverpool early in the discussions. The subject was a modest reform, which had taken place two years earlier in 1817. It was not only as modest as the proposed whig reform in 1807; it was at least ostensibly the same one. It was a government measure, and Grey twitted Liverpool on that fact. Liverpool responded: The noble lord’s bill proposed to repeal the test laws entirely, and to open the navy and army by a new oath to Catholics and dissenters of every description as a matter of right. The measure of 1817, on the contrary, maintained the test and corporation laws, making



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this essential distinction—that Catholics or other dissenters were not admitted to serve as a matter of right . . . . What he and those he acted with contended for in 1807 was that great inconveniences would arise if a principle were adopted which placed all religions on a footing of equality. If the noble lord’s bill had passed, the members of every religion might claim to serve of right, as well as the members of the Church of England, instead of enjoying that privilege by way of sufferance as they now did.

Liverpool explained the intricacies of his earlier act. In the army, the oaths and tests required by law had been tendered after granting a commission. This was according to the provisions of the Test Act. In fact, neither Catholics nor Dissenters would actually take the tests, but the procedure would allow the protection of an Indemnity Act, passed annually since early in the eighteenth century. In the navy, however, the tests had been tendered before granting the commission. Catholics and Dissenters were therefore in violation of the Test Act, thus leaving them with no protection whatever and effectively barred from the navy. Liverpool’s 1817 act made army procedures uniform in both services, thus leaving nonconforming officers subject to the penalties of the Test Act but saved by the annual Indemnity Act. This preserved Liverpool’s vital distinction. To Grey that distinction was repugnant: “Their lordships were aware that both the measures proposed to open the army and navy to Catholics and Dissenters. The only distinction was this—that which he [Grey] did in 1807, he did openly. He professed to open the army and navy to every description of dissenters, without the necessity of the annual indemnity bill.”2 Grey may have stretched the truth a little in saying that he did everything openly in 1807. Liverpool for his part did not repeat his insulting claim that the Test and Corporation Acts shaped and molded Dissenters to the will of the Establishment, but he would have done as well to avoid phrases that proclaimed inequality and privileges enjoyed only on sufferance. Still, the act was in accordance with Liverpool’s way of softening the irritation of large grievances by making smaller concessions, and it was not entirely ineffective. It was Lord Donoughmore’s way to move toward his goal of Catholic Emancipation cautiously. He preferred a Committee of the Whole, which if granted, could go on to propose certain reforms. What he proposed in 1819 was to remove a couple of oaths that were insulting and degrading to Catholics.3 The debates had several interesting points. The earl of Rosebery was anxious “to embrace the first opportunity that had ever presented itself to him to declare publicly in Parliament his cordial acquiescence in the principles and object of the noble earl.”4 Lord Chancellor Eldon gave a learned legal and histori-

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cal disquisition that centered around the Protestant Constitution and the many freedoms and benefits it had brought. Grey, having teased and taunted Eldon as usual, challenged him on historical interpretation. Surely the Protestant Constitution was the product of the Glorious Revolution, while the Test Acts were the fruits of the bad old days of Charles II?5 Finally the duke of Wellington, in his first major debate since becoming a full-time member of the House of Lords, said that the whole question turned on what security could be given to the Protestant religion in Ireland. Protestantism, he reminded the Lords, had been established in Ireland “at the point of the sword,” which had been “kept fresh in the minds of the masses by the priesthood.”6 He was not optimistic, but the fact that he had opened with the question of finding the right security suggested that he was not averse to finding a solution. The marquess of Buckingham thought so, and that impression was strengthened by conversations with Wellington, just before and right after the debate.7 The marquess could be right on occasion, and this was one of them. The House divided 147 to 106 against the motion. It would be significant that 23 bishops made up more than half the majority of 41 against. The situation in 1821 had changed in important ways. One change resulted from the death of the old king. Lord Grenville advised Lord Donoughmore that “the removal of that personal obstacle which . . . had a decisive weight in the opinions of many” provided an opportunity second only to the one provided by the Union and willfully rejected.8 Another important change was that this was the first Catholic Emancipation bill to be started in the Commons and sent up to the Lords. It would have happened in 1813 if the bill of that year had ever got out of the Commons, but it did not. It gave Emancipation bills a new status and gravitas. A bill rejected in one House was a bill rejected. A bill passed in one House and rejected by the other could become a constitutional crisis, especially if it happened more than once. This brought a new solemnity to the proceedings. After Lord Donoughmore had moved the first reading on 3 April, Lord Liverpool rose to say that the bill was one of great importance and coming recommended by the House of Commons was entitled to their lordships’ “most serious consideration.” He went on to say, mindful of the “open question” status of the issue, that when it came to the second reading he would have to object “as an individual.” Lord Harrowby, speaking later during the second reading, again raised the issue in a more pointed fashion. The bill had been sent up by the House of Commons. It would be sent up again. Were their lordships ready to enter into a conflict, and for how long?9



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The course of the bill did not run smoothly. Besides proposing to open Parliament and all civil and military offices to Catholics, the bill proposed securities, a royal veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops, and a commission including British Protestant members to supervise correspondence with Rome. As soon as its nature became known in Ireland, and before the bill was even read a first time, a swelling outcry arose there. With the ground cut out from under him before he even opened his mouth, Donoughmore felt it necessary to step aside and suggested that an approach be made to Lord Grenville. That was made and accepted by Grenville on 31 March. In fact, in what was mainly a long recital of past wrongs to Ireland and her cause, ending with a motion, Donoughmore completed the formalities himself and departed. The arguments were left to Grenville, strongly supported by Lansdowne and the whig bishop of Norwich. Grenville chose to take the high ground. Reminding their lordships once again of the importance of the Commons’ recommendation, he tried sweet reason. The question before the House was this: “There was in this United Kingdom a difference in religious tenets.” All their energies therefore “ought to be applied to the consideration of the means of rendering the differences which did unfortunately exist . . . less susceptible of evil to the inhabitants of both parts of the United Kingdom.” Turning to history, he argued that the opponents of the Catholic cause justified their position by declaring its origins to be in the Glorious Revolution, the constitution, and the reign of William III. Grenville denied this, arguing that in fact the system, the last part of which they were now considering dismantling, was not that of King William but of those who came after, reaching its height in the reign of George II. The offending party who took the historical view he was attacking was Lord Eldon, and the above was part of a long historical discussion in which Grenville replied to a long one of Eldon’s. Both are impressive, but too long to recount.10 Bishop Bathurst of Norwich was one of only two prelates supporting the Catholic cause and the only one present. He was unusual in being a whig, and refreshing in his tartness: “If any thought their church could not be maintained without disabilities and penalties on millions of men they had reason to fear, either that their church was bad, or that they were in error as to their means of supporting it.”11 The marquess of Lansdowne was more combative. Both the chancellor and Liverpool had raised the specter of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts if this bill were to pass. In the chancellor’s words, “If you agree to this bill, those who bring it before you for adoption well know—cannot but know—that you

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must repeal—that you cannot refuse to repeal the Corporation and Test Acts of England. They know this—it behooves the House not to forget it, for the sake of the established church.”12 Lord Lansdowne desired that It might be distinctly understood that how gratifying soever it might be to give his vote for the admission of any description of his majesty’s subjects to those constitutional privileges and blessings which they had a right to enjoy, the ground on which he rested his support to the present bill was, not the advantage of the Roman Catholics, or of any description of men whatever; but the advantage of the state and the church, the strength and stability of which must depend on the unanimity of all the subjects of the realm.

Liverpool had couched his concerns slightly differently from Eldon. He too believed that conceding to the Catholics would mean conceding to the Dissenters, “for such seemed the inevitable result of acquiescing in what was now required. This would bring the country to an equality of political privileges; and Quakers, nay Jews, and every description of non-conformists would be on the same footing as members of the establishment.”13 Lansdowne’s response was that The noble earl had stated that this measure of favour, even if extended, as proposed, to the Roman Catholics of Ireland might prove a boon which after all would not be acceptable. What might be the result of some of the provisions of this bill he was not prepared distinctly to say; but this he would confidently state, that the main part of it would be received with gratitude by the great body of Catholics.

Lansdowne, of course, wished to see the extension of rights to Dissenters, and Quakers and Jews, as he had made clear in his previous remarks. And the mocking tone of his comments above would do nothing to dispel that impression. Yet he wanted no one to be duped by the tories’ red herrings. The principles of civil and religious liberty made good practical sense. They were applied to Ireland in this bill to pacify that troubled country, whose discontent had for centuries made Britain vulnerable to foreign intrigue and even invasion, and to tie it securely with bonds of affection to the rest of the United Kingdom. Lansdowne combined these elements with a nice balance of idealism and statesmanship.14 On 5 March, about a month before the debates began, Lord Grenville had written to his nephew, Lord Buckingham, what he thought would govern the bill’s success: “In the House of Lords, the chancellor and the bishops will certainly persevere in their resistance; but if there really is that change of course on this subject in higher quarters . . . I should not at all fear their opposition.” On 30 March, W. H. Fremantle, Buckingham’s henchman, was told by the duke



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of Wellington that the government thought the bill would be carried, and the ministers “hear” that the king is for it. In fact, no one ever heard from the king what he thought. On 29 March, Liverpool sent to advise him not to commit himself but to leave his hands free. The Catholic question was gaining steadily, and if defeat did not come now, it was certain to come soon. In that case, the government would have to resign. The whigs were the only alternative, and everyone knew what that would mean. The king must not back himself into a corner.15 The king was silent on this advice. But on the final day of debate came something almost as good. The king’s younger brother and heir presumptive, the duke of York, rose and declared himself. His “opposition to the bill arose from principles which he had embraced since he had been able to judge for himself, and which he should cherish to the last day of his life.” Lord Eldon observed: “The duke of York has done more to quiet this matter than everything else put together.”16 The House divided 159 to 120 against the bill.17 A question that had been much discussed early in its course through the Lords was what would be the role of the bishops in its fate? John William Ward, soon to succeed his father as Viscount Dudley and Ward, wrote to the bishop of Llandaff that though it seemed the bill would be thrown out, “Some reckon upon a small majority of lay peers in its favour, so that the bishops would have all the glory.” The duke of Bedford and Lord Holland, pessimistic of final success, also had the bishops on their minds. Bedford wrote to Holland on 14 April that he hoped they would have at least a good division, “for I agree with you that it will be a slight advantage to throw the whole odium of the rejection of a measure of concession, kindness, conciliation, and Christian charity on the bench of bishops.”18 This preoccupation with the bishops arose from the fact that, thirty in number, they constituted a large and remarkably united voting bloc in the Lords. The main group was made up of two English archbishops and twenty-four bishops. In the 1820s only two were whigs. There were four Irish bishops who rotated and usually voted with the English majority. It was evident that the bishops had a vested interest in the (Anglican) Irish Church that the Act of Union had united with the Church of England. Many therefore doubted the bishops’ impartiality on the question of Emancipation, and rejection carried by their votes would have been hard to justify. In 1819, 23 bishops voted against the Catholic demands. In 1821, 25 did so, and the size of the majority went down by two, from 141 to 139. The number of peers (as opposed to bishops) in the majority of 39 was 14. There had been no peers created between 1819 and 1821. There were after that.

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Eighteen twenty-one also saw the first signs of organized cooperation between whigs and Catholic tories. Both were concerned about the discomfiture of Lord Donoughmore. William Plunket, soon to be Liverpool’s Irish attorney general but closely connected to Lord Grenville since the Talents, wrote to the latter that if, as Grenville seemed to think, they would be defeated on the second reading, he would “strongly recommend relinquishing the bill altogether for the present, and leaving it to the Roman Catholic clergy to adjust with the laity the scruples which must continue to shut them out from their natural places in society.”19 But steps were already being taken to that end. Lansdowne had called a meeting at his house in Berkeley Square, attended by what Donoughmore described as the “principal friends to concession in the House of Peers.” These were, besides Lansdowne and himself, Lords Grey, Grenville, Holland, Wellesley, Buckingham, Lauderdale, and finally two ministers, Harrowby and Melville. The meeting recommended that letters be sent to Catholic bishops in Ireland, naming all those who had attended the meeting and stating their unanimous belief that securities would be a necessity for success. Donoughmore, grateful to be relieved from personal responsibility, was to write the letter, now as a disinterested party simply stating the facts.20 In 1822, Canning attempted to advance the question by putting forward a limited measure of reform. What he proposed was the reinstatement of Catholic peers to their rightful places in the House of Lords. The idea was that success for this small, moderate, and nonthreatening group of Irishmen might help the cause of their millions of coreligionists. The hope was that more lords than had voted before for Catholic measures would vote for this one and that a first vote for concession would lead to others. The bill passed in the House of Commons, and Canning’s brother-in-law the duke of Portland introduced it in the Lords, where it was thrown out. The vote held firm but increased by only nine votes over the bill of the previous year. The next bill in 1825 came after a year of violence in which Daniel O’Connell’s new Catholic Association clashed with the Orange Society and a variety of other Protestant groups. An Association Act early in 1825 banned all such societies, whether Catholic or Protestant, and a pause in the clashes followed. Tempers were up again, however, in Parliament as well as outside it. On 17 May 1825, Lord Donoughmore simply moved the second reading of the bill without comment, promising to speak later, which he never did. Lord Colchester, a former Speaker of the House of Commons, opened for the opponents of the bill. It was, he said, moved under new conditions, the first and most prominent being “the systematic intimidation with which the Roman Catholic demands were proposed in Ireland before the commencement of the



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present session by the Roman Catholic Association in Dublin; but that manufactory of sedition and possible insurrection has been put down by the wisdom and firmness of Parliament.” Another circumstance, Colchester continued, was the extraordinary tranquility at present prevailing in the whole of Ireland. But this tranquility itself was no less alarming than the disturbances if it should appear that both had been produced and maintained alike by an authority which the state does not acknowledge and over which it has no control. Finally, there was the inquiry in which both Houses had been engaged respecting the general state of Ireland and its grievances. But that ongoing inquiry had by no means removed the fundamental objections to the present measure, and the flood of petitions that had poured in upon them plainly proved that such a measure was adverse to the general feelings of the nation. Colchester complained: What Catholics asked for now was to open for them a broad and direct path to political power, for admission to the two Houses of Parliament; secondly to all the high judicial offices, saving the highest [i.e., lord chancellor] alone excepted; and thirdly to the privy council of the sovereign, which in other terms designates [as the cabinet] all the ruling power of the state at home and abroad; the whole domestic government, the lord lieutenancy of Ireland alone excepted; and all the governments whatever throughout all the foreign possessions of the empire.

“And to all these high offices and privileges they demand of us at once by this bill, without any of the pretended securities contained in their former bills, an entire, complete, and unconditional admission.” In fact there were securities that he would later mention, though he dismissed them as useless. The danger of conceding to the Catholics, Colchester warned, was as great as ever, and he would confine himself to contemporary evidence. The boldest and most prominent of their churchmen was James Doyle, the titular bishop of Kildare. In a publication the previous year, addressed to the lord lieutenant and adopted by the late Catholic Association as a statement of their principles, Doyle denied the justice of those laws by which the Established Church of Ireland held its property. Colchester went on to give another instance involving the same author and also adopted by the Catholic Association, in which he said that the ministers of the existing Establishment were and would be “detested by those who differ from them in religion.” These strictures require comment. The offending phrases were themselves innocuous, if perhaps not tactful. What Wellington had called a Church founded at the point of a sword might be considered unjust, and Doyle did not call the Church’s title to the property illegal, much 1ess suggest any action to dis-

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place it. Doyle’s remark about the ministers was but a statement of fact. It is true that Lord Liverpool also considered Doyle dangerous.21 Not so those who had managed the 1821 Emancipation bill. Bishop Doyle—by way of the mover of the bill in the Commons, Sir Henry Parnell—had passed on suggestions for Lord Grenville’s benefit, and they could not have been milder or more conciliatory. His reaction to news of the defeat of the 1821 bill may serve as an example: “Catholics and Protestants seem equally disappointed. I fear the violent parties will now resume their former acrimony which during the discussions in Parliament seemed to have subsided, and which had the bill been carried we would never again witness.”22 Those who met at Lansdowne House looked to the bishops to restrain the radicals. Doyle seems to have done his best. Unfortunately, in order to influence radicals, of either extreme, it is sometimes necessary to sound a little radical. This would have been understood by the duke of Wellington, who himself would practice it on his ultra followers, but not by many tory politicians at this time. To resume Colchester’s opening speech for the opposition, he next discussed the question of allegiance. When a Protestant swears that he will disclose all traitorous conspiracies, he discloses all that come to his knowledge. A Catholic priest, however, excepts from his disclosure all that knowledge, probably the most important to the state, which comes to him by confession. The Catholic bishop takes an express oath that he will not disclose the counsels of his foreign sovereign (the pope) to any man, showing the plain truth of foreign jurisdiction in the spirituals producing temporal effects. A collateral measure—that is, another bill connected with the main bill— dealt with securities. This one proposed the domestic nomination of Catholic bishops by the dean and chapter of the cathedral in the diocese. The point was to confine the process to Ireland and thus avoid papal intervention. To this Colchester objected that the pope could always appoint directly and that the king would not be able to exert any control of appointments, a right accorded to most Protestant monarchs on the continent—including the king himself as king of Hanover. Colchester dismissed a proposed commission to supervise correspondence with Rome. As it was to include British officials, the Irish would never accept it. Colchester repeated the now obligatory warning that concession to the Catholics necessarily would “proceed also to repeal the corporation and test acts, and lay open the highest offices of the state to nonconformists of every description; and such a termination of the British constitution, few of us, I believe, would desire to behold.” With that, he moved a conventional motion that the bill be read a second time that day six months.23



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The first to attempt an answer to Colchester was Lord Darnley, but Darnley was not up to his usual high standard and seemed to have difficulty finding purchase in Colchester’s array of arguments. He argued that the tranquility in Ireland was actually genuine, and therefore a positive sign. He also spent time trying to explain away the mass of hostile petitions; putting much of the blame on the efforts of English clergymen, which was a fair point, and pointing out that relatively few came from Ireland, which was a good one.24 The bishop of Llandoff ’s speech was pithy. “The real and only ground of the [Catholics’] exclusion is this: that they are papists.” And the thirty-seventh article of the Church of England declares that “the bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in the realm of England: no jurisdiction my lords of any kind.”25 The bishop of Norwich, as usual, but this time with less asperity, invoked charity, tolerance, and the golden rule.26 Lord Carbery launched a spirited but rather incoherent attack on Bishop Doyle.27 The bishop of Chester, obviously furious at the attacks on bishops for what was believed to be their self-interested opposition to relief, made a wide-ranging attack on Catholic Emancipation for every conceivable reason. He was at least equally violent in excoriating nonresident Irish landlords, whom he thought at the bottom of much of the trouble there.28 This brought up the earl of Limerick in none too good a mood. While deploring absentee landlords, why had the bishop not noted that not all the clergy were resident? The bishop had used in the course of his speech language that could not fail to irritate all classes of people in Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, landlord and peasant. He seemed to say to Catholics—do or say what you will, we will not believe you. The bishop was full of intolerance. He would do well to model himself on the bishop of Norwich.29 At this point, Lord Harrowby tried unsuccessfully to move an adjournment. Lansdowne, however, clearly decided that it would be worthwhile capitalizing on the obvious hostility aroused by this latest spokesman of opposition to Emancipation. This he did in a vigorous and detailed critique. But perhaps because he had spent time on that, he had less time for a wider discussion of the arguments for and against Emancipation, and they were less clear.30 Liverpool contended that both the necessity for the Association Act and the ongoing inquiries into the state of Ireland argued against Catholic Emancipation at the time. Instead the promoters of the question rushed in this bill and two wings, as the bill providing the substitute for the veto already discussed, and another for paying the Catholic clergy, were called. These wings were supposed to make the main bill more palatable and seemed to have had this effect as it passed the Commons. But what were the Lords to do? How could they pass

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the main bill without knowing the fate of the two others? For Liverpool himself there was no problem; “for he detested, from the very bottom of his heart, the bill already in the House. A great part of it he took to be nonsense; some of it was still worse.” The argument that Catholics could never be good citizens because of their divided loyalties followed. The prime minister denounced the power imparted by confession and excommunication. The power of the landlord was nothing compared to this.31 Lord Harrowby made a good riposte. Much of what Liverpool criticized in Catholicism was long past. It was not surprising that it had not been rescinded; that was not the way with institutions that deemed themselves divine. What was important was that they were no longer practiced, or in some cases, they were not actually dangerous. Take confession, for example. People were not going to confess crimes they had not yet committed! And if there was a danger from divided allegiances, why on earth were Catholics admitted to the highest ranks of the army and navy?32 There were other circumstances of the debate that need attention. Two of the great voices for the Emancipation cause in past debates were not heard in these. A stroke in 1823 had rendered Grenville unable to attend the Lords; though William Plunket, the mover of the bill in the Commons, was said to go every morning to Camelford House to consult him.33 Grey was actually in the House, but too ill to speak. Their absence from the debate drained their side of precious strength. But much more crucial for the day itself was Donoughmore’s inability to speak. He would die in August and was probably ill on this occasion. But to have him appear and then be unable to make a speech must have been a trying experience for those who would be expected to take his place. He was in charge of the bill in the Lords and expected to present the main argument for it. It was not the kind of thing that could be got up in an hour or two. This may well explain the uneven performance by Darnley and Lansdowne. The only other likely candidate present was Holland. He was a good speaker, but full of self-doubt about his abilities in this respect. The bill was defeated by a vote of 178 to 130, a majority of 48. The majority was a surprise to everyone, not least to Liverpool and Peel, who had been preparing for resignation. There is perhaps a partial explanation in a speech that took place on the presenting of petitions, not during the second reading. This was the duke of York’s contribution. It was a rather foolish little speech, justifying his undying opposition in terms of the Coronation Oath, and declaring he would oppose “whatever might be his situation in life, so help him God.” There was only one thing that might change his situation in life and give him cause to be concerned about the Coronation Oath, and that was if his elder brother,



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the king, died. Many therefore considered his remarks in bad taste, and others, because there was only one year between the two brothers, that they were overly optimistic. But York left no doubt at all about the solidity of his position, and he was by this time the most notable leader of the ultras and much looked up to. As Fremantle said, as far as opposition to the Catholic question was concerned, he was quite sure that York’s pronouncement would “strengthen those who began to flag and depress those who were sanguine.”34 There may, however, be a better explanation. Between 1821 and the 1825 bill, fifteen opponents of Catholic Emancipation were given peerages. During the same period, four supporters of Emancipation received peerages. All voted their respective preferences in 1825, with one exception, Wellington’s brother, Lord Maryborough. Given the figures of fifteen Protestants to four Catholics, it would be hard to escape the conclusion that during these years there was a deliberate policy of strengthening the Protestant vote in the House of Lords at the expense of the Catholic. In fact, because three of the four had already been voting as representative peers before 1821, the net gain for the Catholics had been just one. By a similar reckoning, the net gain for the Protestants was 13. The figures more than account for the nine vote increase over the 1821 majority. The increased majority allowed Liverpool and Peel to retain their offices with honor, but there was not as much significance in it as there appeared to be. Two more bishops voted in 1825, twenty-seven as opposed to twenty-five in 1821. The other notable feature in the 1825 effort to achieve Catholic Emancipation was that it showed an increasing cooperation between whigs and Catholic tories. Indeed Plunket, who moved the bill in the Commons, might be best described as a whig, who became a Catholic tory, who became a whig. It was not an uncommon career path. Essentially, however, he was a follower of Lord Grenville, and there was no love lost between him and those who followed Grenville’s nephew, now the duke of Buckingham, precisely because he followed Grenville’s lead and not theirs. Though Grenville and Buckingham had parted from the whigs at the same time, Grenville always remained more whig leaning, especially toward whigs of the Lansdowne variety. Indeed Buckingham’s friends thought that the prominent role played by Plunket, in conjunction with Grenville, in 1825 was something got up by the whigs.35 As for the duke, though his group joined the government in 1822, his inclinations are indicated by the fact that in 1823 he was, as he said, becoming “more and more determined upon putting myself at the head of the ultras.” The likelihood of this happening, and his own lack of grasp on reality, are shown by the fact that he thought this could be accomplished while he retained his own allegiance to the Catholic cause.36

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He was no doubt an able spokesman for the sanctity of the existing Corn Law, the preservation of which was the other major interest of the ultras at the time, but even that could never have won him forgiveness for his support of Emancipation. Yet the duke would contribute himself and his house to the cause of crossparty cooperation in that effort. Before that, however, there were other manifestations of cooperation. The two wings to the main bill were the work of two other Catholic tories, the bill to devise an alternative to the veto, of Lord Francis Leveson-Gower, the future tory earl of Ellesmere, but member of a one-time and soon-to-be whig family headed by the marquess of Stafford. The bill to provide for payment of the Catholic clergy in Ireland was crafted by Edward Littleton, the future whig Lord Hatherton, but at this time a Canningite. The meeting of the two groups this year was held on 27 May, after the defeat of the bill, and was a demonstration for the future, but it was held in Buckingham’s large house in Pall Mall and forty-eight peers attended. Whigs such as Devonshire, Lansdowne, and Fitzwilliam were there. Londonderry and Carysfort as well as Buckingham were present. Donoughmore and Limerick represented the Irish peers. Neither Harrowby nor Melville, who had been at the last meeting, attended. But Harrowby had demonstrated his support in debate, and Melville had voted for the bill. Those present passed a resolution calling for “the civil equality of all classes of the people.”37 It had an unmistakably whiggish sound to it, and George Canning would not have been able to subscribe. But many Catholic tories were widening their horizons. The growing cooperation would be important for the future.

chap ter eig h t

Questionable Theories and Practical Politics in the 1820s



On 17 May 1825, the day on which the Catholic Emancipation bill was thrown out by the Lords, Canning immediately summoned a cabinet. The account of its proceedings comes from Henry Hobhouse, permanent undersecretary at the home office from 1817 to 1827, his source probably being his chief, Peel.1 It was understood that Canning’s intention was to insist on the necessity of making the question a cabinet question. Before the cabinet met, the duke of Wellington saw him and persuaded him to limit his proposition to an understanding that the question, instead of being as now absolutely excluded from mention in the cabinet, should be admitted to consideration. Upon this proposition, nothing was decided, but its further consideration was adjourned to yesterday (23 May). Mr. Peel then said that laying aside the awkwardness in which he was placed as secretary for the home department, and considering it merely as a member of the cabinet, he claimed a right of acting upon his private opinion on the question, and he declared that opinion to be the same on which he had always hitherto acted, and that he would enter into no compromise and was always ready to resign when it should become necessary to do so. Lord Liverpool made a similar avowal. The duke of Wellington said he believed the administration to be a popular one, that it would be prejudicial to the country to break it up. . . . Mr. Robinson observed that the Catholic question presented very embarrassing considerations, and they might be such as to oblige the cabinet to come to a decision upon them, but he did not see that the necessity had yet arrived, and he therefore thought it better to adjourn the question sine die. Lord Melville concurred in this statement. Mr. Wynn and Mr. Huskisson declared themselves upon the subject and so the matter dropped.

What is described was an order of proceeding similar to what would have been expected under the “open question” as established in 1812. A Catholic member of the cabinet proposed that the issue be reestablished as a cabinet question, and Protestant members thereupon threatened to break up the cabi-

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net, thereby preserving the matter as an “open question.” Or the Catholic member might resign, which also might break up the cabinet, but there was a stronger presumption that someone in office was likely to be very reluctant to give it up. The memorandum, however, also included something about which nothing had been heard in 1812. That was Wellington’s statement that the question had been up till then “absolutely excluded from mention in the cabinet.” It will be seen presently that there is strong evidence that it was never excluded. Precisely what happened to Wellington’s proposition that the question should be admitted to discussion is unclear. It is stated that no resolution was reached on the first day. The recorded discussion on the 23rd could have been either on the question of whether to discuss or on the substantive question itself. It is quite clear that Canning’s desire to make the issue a cabinet question was denied. Hereafter, however, Wellington took the issue as open to cabinet discussion like any other. Such a position would have posed a danger the king dreaded. A safeguard for the Protestants would have been to maintain a Protestant majority in the cabinet, which was done up till 1827. But there were those at the time, and have been since, who argue that there were other safeguards that rendered this one unnecessary. These questions would bedevil the subsequent history of efforts to secure Catholic Emancipation right up to the successful end, and they require careful consideration. In 1812, when the adoption of the “open question” was under consideration, the prince regent had asked the lord chancellor for his opinion of the constitutional implications of such a step. Eldon had replied: “As to the proposal that the Roman Catholic claims should be taken into consideration by cabinet, I conceive it to be the duty of government to consider in cabinet the claims of any body of his majesty’s subjects, and to decide on them bona fide whenever the attention of government is called to that consideration by any member of cabinet acting upon his sense of public duty.”2 What Eldon is saying is that legislation regarding the Catholic question should be treated just like any other piece of legislation. It might be asked, then, how was the Catholic question to be kept open? It is not too much to suppose that Eldon would have had in mind the approach of his old chief, the assassinated prime minister, Spencer Perceval, especially since Perceval had fallen to the assassin’s bullet less than three weeks before Liverpool announced the new policy on 9 June 1812, and therefore would have supervised the planning. In 1809, with both Eldon and Liverpool members of his cabinet, Perceval had wished to strengthen his government by bringing in Grenville and Grey. The



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king, however, insisted that that could only happen if they did what he had demanded in vain in 1807—swear never to raise the question of Catholic Emancipation. Perceval advised the king that the same security “would substantially be obtained if a portion of the present ministers should become an efficient part of any new administration comprehending Lords Grey and Grenville and their friends.”3 Perceval had proposed the first scheme of an “open question,” in which Protestants in the cabinet would outweigh the Catholics. This would be the situation from 1812 until 1827. The “open question,” after its adoption in 1812, did not become an issue again until 1821, when the marquess of Buckingham’s inclination to join his group to the other supporters of Liverpool’s ministry was met by the ardent desire of ministers to strengthen their position. After the ministers’ failure to dethrone the queen and get him a divorce, George’s relations with his government fell to rock bottom. George made a show of his negotiations with the whig leaders, and his mistress and her husband were keen supporters of Catholic Emancipation. The ministers desperately needed an accession of strength. The Grenvilles were the only largish floating group left. What is more, as long as they floated they would remain a focus of intrigue and a worry to the government. The Grenville group was anxious to oblige. But it would not join on any terms. All of the Grenvilles (but one, the marquess’s son, soon to be marquess of Chandos) were sincerely attached to the principle of Catholic Emancipation. Members of the group would not join the government without a clear understanding on that question. The leading Catholic member of the government, Castlereagh, now after his father’s death marquess of Londonderry, conducted the initial stage of the negotiations, but it was soon evident that he was more interested in peace and quiet for the government than he was full of ardor for Emancipation. He emphasized that under the present arrangement “the gist” of the Catholic question was in Parliament, not the cabinet. This was true in that it was not possible to get anything through the cabinet and that the only hope was to get a bill through Parliament. There, of course, competition, especially in the Lords, was not exactly free and open. But the conclusion Londonderry drew was that because the campaign was not to be fought in the cabinet, numbers there made no difference. He cited numbers, though they were wrong. He said, for example, that before Canning resigned in January 1821 the numbers had been equal, seven to seven. The correct figure was nine to four, in favor of the Protestants. And though there had been several additions and subtractions in between—the Catholics had gone as high as five, and the Protestants fallen as low as eight—nine to four was exactly where the numbers stood in June 1812.

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At first Londonderry did not seem to feel a great sense of urgency about recruiting the Grenvilles, or whether they were recruited at all. But after talking to Wellington and Sidmouth, he soon changed his tune, and at the end was urging Liverpool that “you must allow them to come in their own way, and in order to satisfy their principles of consistency, they will make the reserves which past opinion require.”4 The procedure agreed on was that Charles Wynn, Lord Buckingham’s cousin, was to go to Bath, where Liverpool was taking the waters, and make the final arrangements with him. But in the end it was decided that it would be better to do it by letter. Wynn, who was scheduled to have the Grenvilles’ seat in the cabinet, wrote to Liverpool: I must premise distinctly and in terms which cannot be misunderstood that it would be impossible for me to form a part of any government without reserving to myself in the most ample manner the full liberty not only of advocating and supporting but of originating either in Parliament or in Council [i.e., cabinet] any proposition which may appear to me desirable to promote the amelioration of the general state of Ireland and it is scarcely necessary for me to add that in my judgment concession to Catholics is a primary step towards the accomplishment of this inestimable object.

Wynn had given a clear and unequivocal statement of his terms. Liverpool replied: I had been prepared to have it distinctly understood that you would be at full liberty to support, to advocate, and even to originate if you should deem it necessary any measure of which the removal of the disabilities of the Roman Catholics might form a part, or the whole, and you can certainly not be precluded from adopting hereafter any line of conduct which in the discharge of your public duty, a consideration of what is due to this question, combined of course with what is due to other great national interests, may appear to you to require.5

Liverpool had answered clearly and unequivocally in the affirmative. There was no talk here of issues absolutely banned from discussion in cabinet, no limitation on what action could be taken. All that Liverpool asked was that it should be carefully considered and responsible. Nor is it at all clear that anything more had ever been asked. Liverpool’s language—not surprisingly perhaps, but usually taken to prove the contrary— clearly reflects the language of the formula employed in his government, which was that each member of the cabinet is at perfect liberty to exercise his own judgment, in supporting that question if brought forward by others, or in propounding it either in the cabinet or to Parliament. But if any member of the cabinet should deem it an indispensable duty to bring forward individually the Catholic question in Parliament, he is distinctly to state that he does so in his individual capacity.6



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Any member of the cabinet was free to argue for Catholic Emancipation there, but if he failed to convince his colleagues and decided to act alone, he must make that clear. The agreement between Wynn and Liverpool was put to the test in the spring of 1823. Then the lord lieutenant of Ireland, the marquess of Wellesley, recommended the banning of all secret societies, Protestant as well as Catholic. The majority of the cabinet, unwilling to offend the Protestants, was for banning the Catholic Association alone. Wynn was violently opposed to such a policy and threatened, if it was decided to implement it, to vote for a whig motion to ban the Orange Society. There was a nasty exchange in Parliament with Peel. It turned out that neither Peel nor Wellington had ever seen Liverpool’s letter, and much of their anger was turned on him. The prime minister was certain that if Wynn felt it necessary to read the letter in Parliament—though he never questioned Wynn’s right to do so—it would break up the government. But the duke of Wellington, who had become Liverpool’s reliable fixer, with politicians as well as with the king, smoothed feathers all around and managed to avert a crisis. Wynn, however, stuck to his guns on the legislation, and the Association Act of 1825 was as he wished it.7 It seems very strange that Wellington, having seen the 1821 correspondence between Wynn and Liverpool, could have made such a fuss over Canning’s proposal to review the status of the open question and have invented a vow of silence that appears to have had no foundation except in his own mind. But the duke could be very obtuse if he chose. The majority of Canning’s colleagues seem to have felt that Canning, having failed in the purpose for which he had summoned the cabinet, ought to have resigned. Instead he proclaimed ten days later that he done the right thing to argue the question in the cabinet and that he would do it again any time he chose. Canning’s colleagues were joined in their judgment that he ought to have resigned by Arthur Aspinall in 1947, and historians since have tended to follow his lead. The prime minister emphatically disagreed, and in advance. He wrote to Earl Bathurst: “I cannot agree with you that it would be right for me to let Canning resign, if the majority of the cabinet should still be for keeping the question in abeyance.” He went on: “The truth is that neither the Catholic question nor any other question can be kept in abeyance, except by general consent. As soon as any members of the government deem it to be their duty to bring it forward as matter of deliberation, it must be discussed and be decided like any other question.”8 In 1825, Liverpool still defined the “open question” as Eldon had defined it in 1812. But there was more to come. An exasperated Lord

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Grenville complained in December 1821 that the status of the most important issue of all “is now wrapped up in metaphysical ambiguity.”9 Explanations were indeed based on very subtle and difficult reasoning. The preceding discussion was intended to dispel some of the accumulated ambiguity. But the king and the duke of Wellington would soon add new and wonderful theories of their own. The Queen Caroline affair did not result in a great boost to whig political fortunes. It might have done had the king been persuaded by Lady Conyngham’s diligent studies to prove that his Coronation Oath did not bar Catholic Emancipation. But they did not persuade the king.10 That being the case, there was nothing to do but go on as they had been—defenders of the people’s rights, champions of the poor and weak, but never, as they saw it, pandering to the violent and irrational tendencies in the masses. They never thought of putting themselves at the head of a radical movement to achieve their aims, and when it happened in 1831–32, they were by no means comfortable in that situation. But fighting together in the queen’s cause did strengthen and unite the party for a time. It was noted, wrongly, by one of the duke of Buckingham’s correspondents at the time of the Catholic peers bill in 1822 that three whig peers would cast their first Catholic vote for that bill. In fact they and seven like them had cast their first vote in 1821. Four of the ten were converts. The Catholic cause remained the main cause for the whigs, and for the next couple of years their efforts were largely taken up by bills connected with it. None of them passed. In 1823, however, the whigs staged two demonstrations, much like those in the ’teens, with the aim not so much to win as to advertise their views. And the turnout would be about the same though, with forty-eight and fifty-nine respectively, nearer the upper end of the earlier ones. It may be asked what had happened to the resurgent whigs of 1820, strengthened and united by the experience. Like many whigs in the ’teens, they were not drawn to the issues offered by their leaders, or increasingly because their leaders were not raising many issues. As in the ’teens there was one great exception, Catholic Emancipation. That was an issue that always brought large numbers out. And it was the great issue for their most active leader during this decade. As Holland wrote to Grey in September 1825, “as Irishman as well as politician he considers [the Catholic question] yet more paramount to other considerations than most of our friends.”11 Holland referred to the marquess of Lansdowne. And, because it seemed so tantalizingly close to achievement throughout the decade, more than any time before save for that month or two in the summer of 1812, it was



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an even more consuming interest. But the Catholic question was one of the few redolent of earlier times. As Holland in the autumn of 1826 looked forward to a session that was to be devoted to the rights and wrongs of opening the ports to foreign corn, he lamented that “we live in times when the technicalities of a free constitution raise little or no interest at all.”12 Foreign affairs had always been a lively topic, but alas it was soon evident that in Canning the whigs had a foreign secretary of whom they could very much approve. It was a time when organized whiggery was either in retirement or appearing incognito. Yet, as in 1820, whig forces would rally remarkably quickly in 1830, almost as if nothing had intervened. The first demonstration was on a motion by Lord Ellenborough, the son of the great judge and the future Conservative peer, who spent the first nine years of his political life as a whig. On 24 April 1823, he moved a resolution condemning the Spanish policy of the government as both weak and badly executed. The Spanish policy was a good issue for the whigs. In 1820, the reactionary Spanish king Ferdinand VII, who had reneged on his promise to maintain the liberal constitution of 1812, had been overwhelmed by spreading revolts, and the constitution had been reinstated. At a congress of the great powers at Verona in 1822, all but Britain, which would have no part of it, decided that the situation in Spain constituted a threat to the peace and stability of Europe and authorized the French to suppress the revolutionary regime. The British argued that it was an internal matter for the Spanish themselves to decide and that foreign powers had no business to intervene. Canning did his best to prevent intervention, but in the spring of 1823 a French army marched across the Pyrenees and did the congress’s business. This provided the whigs with much material. A popular liberal regime had been suppressed by the reactionary European powers. A French army of occupation was encamped in Spain. There had been no attempt yet to interfere with Spain’s overseas possessions, several of which were themselves in revolt. But the threat to British interests in South America was very real. Ellenborough declared that the object of the European powers was “to strike down liberty wherever it is to be found.” They had already done it in Naples and Piedmont. If they were allowed to do it in Spain, where next? They had to contemplate, he said, France in “possession of the ports of Spain, undermining the sources of our maritime power, menacing Ireland and injuring all the best interests of this country. They had moreover to view her on the frontiers of Portugal, threatening our ancient ally.” Ellenborough’s rhetoric can hardly fail to bring to mind Canning’s in his great speech of December 1826, when, with a British force on its way to Por-

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tugal, he proclaimed: “We go to plant the standard of England on the wellknown heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted foreign domination shall not come.” And then, the thundering conclusion: “Contemplating Spain, as her ancestors had known her, I resolved that, if France had Spain, it should not be Spain ‘with the Indies.’ I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.” France, of course, never got Spain. And as for the new South American Republics, former Spanish colonies, that Canning helped to usher into the family of nations, it was an honor he had to share with John Quincy Adams. But his combination of a skillful and successful foreign policy with a soaring rhetoric that made its hard realism seem idealistic would endear Canning to many, including most whigs. But this was still in the future. On this occasion Canning never even threatened to use force, offering mediation instead. When, Ellenborough argued, the French cordon sanitaire on the Spanish border became an “Army of Observation,” the British government ought to have acted decisively. And however much Wellington, the British representative at Verona, “might have been deceived,” Canning must have known war was imminent. Canning had chosen that time to announce British neutrality, and any stiffer instructions he may have sent were passed on by Wellington in terms that were tepid at best.13 Lord Harrowby made a good case for peace and nonintervention, remarking that it was not Britain’s business per se to defend the Spanish constitution.14 Lord King castigated the government “for cold apathy and indifference to the cause of Spain and the cause of liberty.”15 Lord Grey said that the French should have been told that their principle was unjust and that their success would be injurious to British interests. For both reasons Britain might have to resist that principle with war. He thought if this line had been taken there would have been no war, for Spain or France or Britain. But Grey would advocate no more than a maritime war. He did not think that such a war, which swept the commerce of France from the oceans and destroyed her colonies, would be unpopular in the country. Such a policy had often been advocated before, but it had always been found that it was also necessary to make a commitment of men, and even more of money, to a continental war as well. This required a continental ally, and just who that might be was, under the circumstances, unclear. Grey did not take these factors into account.16 Liverpool declared that neutrality, tout simple, was the government’s policy. The French could not possibly conquer Spain and would exhaust themselves



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in trying to. The British should not be the friends of what were called “liberal principles in different states.” Too often they were extreme principles.17 Lord Lansdowne reminded Liverpool that this was a question “between the dependence and the independence of nations—that it was a question between the rule and dominance of force and the general rights of mankind.” Lansdowne was not wrong, but the question was what to do about it. Grey’s was the only plan offered, and that could not really be taken seriously.18 Ellenborough’s resolution was defeated 142 to 48. The whig part of the vote was actually 47, as the tory marquess of Bute also voted on their side. Twenty-eight were present, and there were nineteen proxies. The duke of Devonshire explained his motion for a Committee on the State of Ireland on 19 June 1823 as arising out of his determination never to let a session go by without a discussion of the subject. He also expected that a coercion bill would be proposed. There was obviously something wrong with the government of Ireland. One great problem was the laws that degraded the Catholic population. They must be emancipated from their degradation. Another problem lay in where the power now rested in Ireland, and that was in “a small number of men known by the name of Orangemen.” It was wrong to put one party in power over the other. The duke’s resolution stated that the House was concerned about the violence in Ireland and that members would be willing to pass legislation to put it down. But that would not be enough. Reform and conciliation would also be necessary.19 Viscount Clifden said that one of the great grievances of Ireland was the number of absentee landlords and that the number had been increased by the Union. But the evils that a long system of government had imposed were as numerous “as the stars of heaven.” He strongly condemned the tithe system, which he said had been the cause of all the burning and bloodshed. Irish Catholics naturally resented being taxed in this way for the support of an alien church, and the Irish Established Church was a church without a flock. Another way must be found to support it.20 Lord Darnley too excoriated the government. The cabinet, he said, was “decorated with all the hues of the rainbow except that the orange color predominated.” The earl of Gosford claimed: “Hitherto the whole system pursued in Ireland had been one of maladministration.” The earl of Caledon complained that so far the great hopes for the marquess of Wellesley’s lord lieutenancy had not been realized.21 Earl Bathurst, secretary of war and colonies, had made a list of a number of improvements in Ireland since the Union. These included the favored position

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enjoyed by Ireland in the British market since 1806. He instanced some modest improvements in the system of government and lastly the police bill. Advancing money for public works and extending and improving fisheries were others. Bathurst said that the earl of Clare had complained that nothing was being done toward providing for the poor. He denied this, saying that a great improvement had been made. The Irish Parliament had spent only £300. Now the government was spending £30,000. With admirable restraint, the earl of Clare said that what he had argued was that not enough had been done.22 Later in the debate, Lord Maryborough, soon to resign as master of the Mint, who as Wellesley Pole in 1810 had had his own problems as Irish secretary, rose to add to Bathurst’s list and to defend his brother the lord lieutenant. The first boon he added to the list was education. Existing institutions had been reviewed and if necessary reformed. A nonsectarian board to supervise them, including Catholics, had been established. And £9,000 had been voted in this session to support Irish schools. Once more the sums were somewhat underwhelming. He also pointed to the Maynooth grant. And he announced his own conversion to the cause of Catholic Emancipation, though he did not consider the time ripe. He declared that a censure on the governments of England and Ireland would be ungrateful and unjust.23 Lord Holland commented that what had been done for the Irish was not really the point. The question was—was Ireland not in a bad state now and should it not be looked into?24 Lansdowne added that support of education in Ireland was by no means impartial. No support was given to schools kept by Catholic priests.25 Liverpool protested that Devonshire’s aim was not only an inquiry but a censure of the government. He was ready to admit that some of the troubles of Ireland, such as absenteeism, had been exacerbated by the Union. But he was satisfied that on the whole Ireland had benefited greatly. “The great object, in which all parties ought to unite, should be to infuse into Ireland English notions and English feelings, to approximate a better feeling between the higher and lower orders.” The “evil arose from a disunion between the rich and the poor, and not from a disunion between the governor and the governed.” He said that the whole debate had degenerated into a discussion of the question of the few remaining restrictions on the Roman Catholics of Ireland. This was not true, nor was his whole thesis true.26 The problem might be between the rich and the poor, but the rich tended to be Protestant and the poor Catholic, and on the great issue of the day—tithes—it was foolish to say that religion made no difference. English Dissenters tended to treat tithes (as opposed to Church rates)



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as property. Perhaps had they been able to change the Irish Catholic peasantry into English Protestant Dissenters, things would have gone more smoothly. The debate was closed by the earl of Carnarvon, who said that the state of Ireland “seemed to be too appalling for the contemplation of the ministers. They shrank from the inquiry, and wished to let all the horrors that were connected with the subject remain, if possible, undisclosed.” He urged the House to pass the motion, which would do more good than all the measures that had been promised by the government.27 The motion was defeated, 105 to 59. The whigs numbered forty-one present, plus sixteen proxies. Two more peers supported them—the earl of Clare, a Catholic tory, and Lord Bolton, an ultra. This would be the last recorded, recognizably whig, division until the Reform debates. Portents of change were apparent a little over a year earlier. On 23 August 1822, when the king and his ministers were jockeying over who would succeed as leader of the Commons, and it seemed as if Canning would go to India as governor general, Holland wrote to Lansdowne that he thought the king would wait until Canning was afloat and then, “after some demonstrations, especially overtures to ourselves or others . . . end in Peel and an anti-Catholic ministry.” This, he said, if fatal to Ireland and injurious to England, will yet have the advantage of placing parties and public men in an intelligible shape and revive the old system of parliamentary warfare of two parties, one in and one out, divided by some broad and distinct line of difference upon the principle of one or more great public questions and thereby enabling the Crown if one system fails to resort to the other by a change of men and measures.28

Holland said both Lansdowne and Grey ought to give some thought to whom they might ally themselves if asked to form a government, but it takes no imagination at all to know what group he had in mind. A few weeks later, Wellington said that a large number of government supporters, “some even in office,” found they could no longer support if an attempt was not made to keep Mr. Canning in the country and return him to the cabinet. “These individuals were principally those who support the Catholic cause, and what I should call the ‘liberales’ among the supporters of government.”29 The prospective Grenville recruits to the government were among those anxious about Canning’s future. It was largely Wellington’s influence with the king that averted a crisis and a split among the government rank and file. Such a split would obviously have been to the whigs’ advantage. The growing cooperation between whigs and Catholic tories has already been noticed. The duke of Buckingham’s prominent role in that enterprise in

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1825 was noticed and not approved of by the government. Charles Wynn wrote to him on 31 May: “you really can have no idea how much sensation the language of your brother has made, coupled as it necessarily is with the meeting at your house.” The duke had authorized his brother, Lord Nugent, a radical whig, to say that he was no party to, and would condemn, any compromise on the Catholic question that might have arisen out of the Cabinet discussions prompted by Canning’s proposal to make it a Cabinet question.30 This, together with the large meeting at his house and the strong whiggish resolution passed there, suggested that the duke was moving toward the enemy. That was certainly not the case; but the duke was loyal to his family, which sometimes caused complications, as his son had become an ultra tory. The duke was, however, genuinely loyal to Catholic Emancipation, and he may very well have been piqued by whig taunts of having sold out the cause when he joined the government. But some around him were well inclined toward the whigs. Charles Wynn was one of them. In the autumn of 1821 he, like his as well as Buckingham’s uncle, Lord Grenville, would have much preferred a coalition with Lord Lansdowne to joining the government.31 And in 1830–31 Wynn would briefly make the transition, becoming Grey’s secretary at war but leaving when he could not stomach the Reform bill. In the autumn of 1825, Holland wrote to Grey saying that in view of “the almost imperceptible distinctions in point of opinions between one half [of the] opposition and the House of Commons part of the ministry, it is impossible to deny that some endeavours at . . . junctions either in or out of office is by no means improbable.” Holland thought Lansdowne, who besides his impeccable position on Catholic Emancipation was also well up on what Holland called “the only questions now at issue”—trade, the likely impact of opportunities opened in the new South American states, and Corn Laws—would be the ideal person to take advantage of a junction. This was especially so as his positions were very close to those of William Huskisson, the Catholic tory president of the board of trade.32 Grey replied that if an attempt was made to form “either a Catholic or a liberal administration,” he would not stand in the way and would support it if formed. He added that he was not a “good believer in the infallibility of political economists.”33 Grey’s last word on the subject came in February 1826, at the beginning of the next session: “I have told Lansdowne that I wish him decidedly to understand that I stand out of the way and look to him as the person the best prepared to take the chief direction of the party, if a party can now be said to exist.”34 The 1826 session of Parliament was, however, to be a lively one in the Lords, not so much because of the opposition but because of a rebellion among one of



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the hitherto most reliable sections of the government’s support, the great landowners. The years 1824 and 1825 had been ones of boom and bust respectively. The boom had been caused by a frenzy of speculation sparked by exaggerated hopes of new South American markets, and then about everything else financial. When the bubble burst, it brought in its wake a considerable disruption of the manufacturing industry, massive unemployment, and as a consequence considerable rioting and breaking of machines. Fearful that there might be a food shortage, the government decided that it must suspend the existing Corn Law to allow bringing in more supplies. Revision of the Corn Law had already been under discussion and caused anxiety among the landed interest. Therefore, the discussion of the emergency measures became much more than that. There were dire predictions previous to the debate. Creevey commented just before it took place that though the bill had been passed by the Commons, “The Lords it is said are not going to be as easily beat as the booby squires. There is to be a grand fight—the ministers and bishops against the Rutlands, Beauforts, Hertfords, etc. Liverpool gives out that, if he is beat, he will give up the government, which may be safely said, as there is no one else to take it.”35 The bill was sent up from the Commons in the second week of May. It met with strong and determined opposition. The earl of Malmesbury was against the suspension of the existing law until there had been a “full inquiry into the probable effect of such action on the grower and consumer of British corn.” Lord Rosebery would have preferred an immediate revision of the law. Lord Limerick was entirely against the existing proposal because it would be “fearfully and especially injurious to Ireland.” But in the end the opposition crumbled, and it did so because of Liverpool’s firmness. Creevey was right in a sense that there was no one to take his place, certainly not as Leader of the Lords—not yet. There, at least with his usually large majority, his word had become law. They would do for him what they would do for no one else. The proof would be what happened at the beginning of the next session, when his successors were desperate to get their new Corn Law through while they could still claim his authority, before it became known that the prime minister was paralyzed and mute. The opposition to the 1826 bill was stopped by a vote of 96 to 49.36 The spring session of 1826 was followed by a general election. It had been a subject of lively discussion since the defeat of the 1825 Catholic Emancipation bill. And on its opponents’ side the aim was first to take advantage of the very considerable anti-Catholic feeling shown in the petitions of that year by having an election as soon as possible after it. That did not happen. But Wellington (though he had become convinced of the necessity of Emancipation, he did not want it at the hands of zealots), pressed Liverpool hard to use government

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influence against new Catholic candidates, though not old friends. And Eldon was complaining that everything the government had done was a setoff, with no favor shown to anti-Catholics.37 There is no indication that Liverpool gave in, but tempers were running high, and competition was keen. One result was a carefully coordinated effort in Staffordshire, but with national implications, to make sure of the return of two friends of Catholic Emancipation. On 27 May, Viscount Dudley, a Canningite, wrote to Edward Littleton, the sitting Canningite member for the county, that he had heard from Sir John Wrottesley, the sitting whig member, that Littleton had seen one of the Ansons and that everything had been satisfactorily arranged for cooperation in the return of the two sitting members. Viscount Anson was a whig. On 5 June, the president of the board of trade wrote to Littleton. Huskisson said he had agreed to come and nominate Wrottesley, the whig candidate. He also said that Lord Grosvenor, a whig, had agreed to bring in another of their Canningite friends for Shaftesbury. After the election was over, Littleton received a note from the marquess of Stafford congratulating him and his colleague on their successful return and thanking Littleton for his kind and liberal sentiments on the Catholic claims.38 In February 1845, Littleton, now Lord Hatherton, wrote of the death of Canning’s old and loyal friend Sturges Bourne that “like all of the men of that party it was difficult to say of him whether he was more of a liberal tory or a moderate whig.”39 This was already beginning to occur in 1826.

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Lansdowne and Canning

On 12 April 1827, King George IV received the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London at St. James’s Palace to give them an “account of his position on the Catholic question, which had been entirely consistent,” throughout his life.1 The date of this four-hour account, noted earlier, was two days after the king had charged George Canning with forming a government, and he was obviously concerned to justify to Archbishop Manners-Sutton and Bishop Howley, as leading churchmen, his decision to entrust the government to a well-known advocate of Catholic Emancipation. The king complained that Canning had been forced upon him by the actions of the majority of the late cabinet. He had wished to keep the personnel of the cabinet as nearly as possible the same as Liverpool’s and suggested that the cabinet itself should choose its leader. He was prepared to take Peel or the duke of Wellington, but they declined, and neither they nor the chancellor were prepared to recommend any other person. Canning, however, was, the king said, willing to accede to any situation that would give him the leadership of the House of Commons and enough patronage to manage it. As the others had declined, he therefore took Canning. The latter, he claimed, was prepared to give every security to the Protestant interest—an exclusively Protestant government for Ireland, lord lieutenant, secretary, and chancellor. Canning had also sought hard to retain his Protestant colleagues in his cabinet, in vain. But he had promised to keep the Catholic question on the same footing as in Liverpool’s cabinet. At this point, the bishops had some difficulty following the king. They “understood his Majesty to say”: That whatever might be the personal principles of any number of ministers of the cabinet that the system above was to be adhered to; that his Majesty’s own principles were

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precisely the same as his father’s, and equally firm and invariable, that he understood the obligation of the Coronation oath in the same sense [namely, that after having taken it he could never consent to the admission of Catholics to political power].

In conclusion, he asked the bishops to stand by him in difficulties he thought greater than any his father had ever had to face, “and not allow him to be driven to the wall as he seemed likely to be by the desertion of his old friends.”2 It is quite clear what the king himself thought about Catholic Emancipation. Though it was not clear to the bishops, it is also evident what he meant to convey by “whatever might be the personal principles of any number of ministers of the cabinet.” And what he meant was that the “system above” could not be altered by any majority vote of the cabinet. By this time, it would have been evident that because of the departure of the Protestant ministers, there could be no Protestant majority in Canning’s cabinet—and as it turned out, the numbers were nine to three against them. Numbers may not have counted with Londonderry (Castlereagh) in 1821. Numbers did count with George IV in 1827, and they bothered him exceedingly. What the king thought, or hoped, or pretended he had done to safeguard himself against them is far from clear. The “system above” would appear to have only two elements—first, a Protestant government for Ireland. He may have had a pledge of this from Canning, but it was never honored. Everyone agreed that the second element—the Catholic question itself—remained on the same footing as in Liverpool’s government, but that arrangement was never meant to guard against a cabinet majority, nor indeed against the normal functioning of the cabinet in any respect. George IV was the first after 1812 to deny the validity of a cabinet vote. Indeed he was right to say that his position was the same as his father’s. George III had refused to be advised on the question. George IV wished to enforce the same demand, and he would try again with the Goderich cabinet in August. He was not successful in either case. Canning had refused point blank to give any pledge on the question. In his interview with the king before his appointment he had said That most happy should he be, if by any fair management or reasonable compromise, he could contrive to spare his Majesty’s feelings, or to use a word which his Majesty had employed, to protect him from the vexation which he had experienced in the annual agitation of this painful question; but that in order to do this, Mr. Canning must be free as air with respect to the question; that he could give his Majesty no pledges of any kind respecting it; for . . . if upon being questioned in the House of Commons, as Mr. Canning would assuredly be, whether he had given any such pledges, he could not answer in the negative as frankly and unqualifiedly as he had done on former occasions, all his power with respect to the management of that measure would be gone.3



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Canning had been able to take this high line because the king had very little choice. He had not hesitated to bring this forcefully, if tactfully, to the king’s attention during their interview. George had taken his high Protestant line, preening himself on his unblemished consistency and declaring that he would compromise himself if he selected a Catholic premier. Without hesitation Canning advised that the king must therefore form a wholly Protestant government. A flabbergasted George reminded Canning that Liverpool had advised the previous autumn that such a thing would be impossible. Canning said that he had not agreed with Liverpool. The king very soon discovered that he could not bear to part with Mr. Canning.4 If the king could not do without Canning, Canning could not do without the whigs. Repulsed as he was by his Protestant colleagues, they were Canning’s only way to a majority in the House of Commons. As a consequence, several days before Canning’s interview with the king, Lansdowne reported to Brougham that “great anxiety was expressed yesterday to ascertain my sentiments and probable line of conduct under certain contingencies.” On 13 April, Lansdowne declared that he was not interested in office but would “support any liberal government however constituted against the old tory faction.” By 21 April he was clearly fully immersed in negotiations and under fire from his own side for trying to drive too hard a bargain on the Irish government.5 On 19 April 1827, a meeting at Lansdowne House passed three resolutions to be shown to the king stating the minimum whig requirements for entering into detailed negotiations with Canning. The first resolution accepted the fact that the defeat of the Catholic question in the House of Commons by a small margin early in the session rendered it “inexpedient at this time to bring that measure forward as a cabinet measure: but reserve a right under any change of circumstances, to be judged by the discretion of the individual, to bring it forward as a cabinet measure.” The second resolution stated: “The government of Ireland is to be composed of individuals not opposed to the removal of the Catholic disabilities.” The third resolution stated that “A unanimous opinion was expressed on the part of Lord Lansdowne’s friends that in the event of his acceding to the administration now forming by Mr. Canning, no other individual should take precedence of Lord Lansdowne in the debates of the House of Lords.” That is, Lansdowne should lead the Lords.6 There seems to have been no direct reply to the above resolutions. But a letter from Canning to his close friend the whig Lord Carlisle of the same date appears to give at least a partial answer to the first resolution. Canning comments that “of course I understand that my opinions and views about the Catholic question, as explained to Lord Lansdowne this morning, are the rule of the

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government on that subject—individual opinion and action being left wholly free.” Canning ends his letter by saying that it is rather short and peremptory, and that perhaps Carlisle had better state its substance rather than showing it. “But the substance is essential to my honour and to my power, and I believe to the peace of the country, and to the final carrying of the object that we all have in view.”7 Henceforward when a definition was required, the Liverpool formulation of the cabinet’s rights as regarded the Catholic question is simply stated in full. It is likely that Canning was only stating the prerogative of a prime minister in matters of strategy and timing of measures, and that this was accepted. In the autumn, the king claimed that his understanding with Canning had been that if the cabinet overrode Canning and carried an Emancipation proposal, the government would be at an end. The cabinet replied that if a motion had been carried against Canning’s will, the government would undoubtedly have been at an end. But if it had been carried with his concurrence, the cabinet would have advised the king accordingly. The only other reference to the resolution was in a letter from Holland to Lansdowne, saying that it was essential that the king should have seen the stipulation that every member of the cabinet should be free to propose making concessions to the Catholics a cabinet question, but that perhaps it would have been better if the proposal of a Catholic government for Ireland had been negotiated with Canning. It would appear therefore that the king had seen the first stipulation and raised no problems about it, for there would certainly have been much discussion if he had. The right did of course already exist under the Liverpool formulation, which the king claimed to approve. The king did reject the proposal of a Catholic government for Ireland. As a matter of fact, however, a Catholic government is exactly what Ireland had for the duration of the Canning and Goderich governments. On 27 April, Canning wrote to the Catholic lord lieutenant, Lord Wellesley: “I think you will not disapprove of William Lamb as successor to Mr. Goulburn,” as Irish secretary. William Lamb, the future Lord Melbourne, was a whig and a friend of Lansdowne, while Goulburn was a high tory. Lamb was supposed to be only a temporary appointment, but somehow the time to replace him never came. Wellesley was to be replaced as well, but when he asked to have his term extended to the end of the year, Canning was delighted to oblige. Wellesley’s designated Protestant successor, the marquess of Anglesey, had voted against Emancipation in 1825, but he had voted for it three times before that. It did not take him long to revert to type, and a more Catholic lord lieutenant would be hard to imagine. Holland was right—it was better to deal with Canning. It may have been Canning’s



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preference as well; but he also knew that a Catholic government for Ireland was a project close to Lansdowne’s heart and one for which he had suffered much abuse from those in his own party more interested in the prospect of office than in Ireland. The speedy appointment of William Lamb and what followed was not by chance.8 There were, however, still great challenges to Lansdowne’s forbearance and Canning’s diplomacy to be met before the two could come together in the same government. Because the home office had responsibility for the government of Ireland, Lansdowne insisted on being home secretary. The king was equally insistent on having a Protestant government for Ireland and pressing for the offer of the lord lieutenancy to the duke of Rutland. It was at this point that Canning slipped in William Lamb as Irish secretary, but he did not wish to precipitate a row with the king at this critical time in the birth of his administration. Lansdowne, for his part, wanted to have nothing to do with any offer to the duke of Rutland. He therefore thought that the best thing to do was to delay joining the government until the question was settled. Delay was also advisable for other reasons. Besides an understanding on the status of the Catholic question in the government, there were several others on which Canning wished to have agreement. He sent a list dated 23 April for Lansdowne’s consideration. This was probably meant to be his formal response, following the informal one conveyed through Carlisle, to Lansdowne’s of the 19th. The first item was a full statement of the Liverpool formulation. The Catholic question was still at least theoretically an open one. Lord Bexley was probably the only one of three putative Protestants in the cabinet who took the matter seriously; the others were Anglesey and Lord Lyndhurst, the new lord chancellor and no ideologue. At any rate, Canning wished to have no other open questions. On the issue of parliamentary reform, he proposed to say that “the existing members of the cabinet are united in opposing the question of parliamentary reform and could not acquiesce to its being brought forward or supported by any member of the cabinet.” Lord John Russell had proposed to move the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in May. Canning wished to state that the present members of the cabinet were opposed to the motion and that “they see great inexpediency in now stirring a question which has slept for 30 years, and that they could not consent to a divided vote by the members of the cabinet upon it.” Lansdowne could not, and would not, have voted against the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, but the problem was removed by his decision not to join the cabinet until after the question was settled. For different reasons he did not feel that the stipulation against supporting parliamentary reform touched

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him. He had never stated a position on the question. But he warned that as regarded George Tierney, another whig designated for the cabinet and leader of the party in the Commons from 1817 to 1820, he must not be asked to oppose.9 With these conditions, Lansdowne, Tierney, and Carlisle agreed to join the cabinet. Lansdowne gave in to pleas to demonstrate support by joining without portfolio in May, becoming home secretary in the middle of July. Because of Lansdowne postponing his accession, Robinson, now Lord Goderich, became leader of the Lords. When Goderich became premier in August, Lansdowne waived his rights once more. Lansdowne has been subjected to much criticism, then and since, for not being more forceful in gaining concessions. He was certainly not forceful in putting himself forward and went out of his way to accommodate others. But on vital issues he was very firm. Ireland owed its Catholic government over the next two years primarily to him. He wanted it. Canning wanted him. And Canning was adept at handling the king, who wanted just the opposite. Canning was adept, but not quite adept enough, as the next couple of months were to show. In June 1821, Lord Liverpool had identified the king’s qualities of personal pique and resentment “as the source of all our past errors and calamities.”10 In the wake of the Queen Caroline affair, this conclusion was neither surprising nor unfair. Liverpool had allowed himself to be pressed too far by the king. But this had not been the case before, nor was it afterward. Liverpool was no courtier, and he did not try to be. He was never rude, but often cold, laying down the facts of a case again and again until the king finally gave in. It would be untrue to say that in dealing with his ministers in 1827 George IV was motivated primarily by pique and resentment. His failings were more basic, as illustrated in a December 1827 letter to his sometime doctor, now his secretary and favorite, Sir William Knighton. The subject was bringing the foreign secretary, Lord Dudley, down to Windsor to discuss a draft dispatch on policy toward an emergent Greece. The king suggested: “Perhaps it may be well that this should happen during your absence from this place, as the members of the government will see that I have fixed principles and that I can and that I do when it is necessary act entirely from myself.” This was followed by elaborate suggestions about how Knighton should go to London, call on Dudley, indicate that he knew the latter had been summoned to Windsor and propose himself as a traveling companion the next day. After Dudley’s interview with the king, Knighton might return with him to London. “This would enable you to see me, judge how very correct I am in all my views, and which after, on your road to London you will be quite capable of canvassing and discussing over with him.”11 Clearly, Knighton was to be present at the interview. What was required



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was that he should not have been at Windsor the night before, presumably teaching the king his lines. As he always had been, George was weak and indecisive, attempting to hide his weakness with bluff, bluster, and if possible, bullying. It is true that the situation was made worse by the effects of long-standing drug and alcohol addictions, which made him sometimes entirely inaccessible to his ministers. The sum result was that he was quite incapable of acting on any fixed course or of squarely facing any problem. The results of the king’s indecisiveness were played out on a public stage, in the proceedings of the House of Lords. In the Commons, thanks to the whigs, the government had a comfortable majority, but in the House of Lords government and the opposition appeared to be very close. The test came early in June, on the centerpiece of the government’s legislation for the session—the long-expected proposal of a new Corn Law. The Corn Law of 1815 had been a great disappointment. It had tended to produce very high prices, as Lord Grenville had predicted. But it had also produced sudden gluts because of the great quantities of grain imported, warehoused, and then dumped on the market when the price reached the 80s. required before foreign corn was allowed in. The result was that the price dropped, often before English farmers were able to get their grain to market. The 1827 bill aimed to smooth out the process by providing a sliding scale, in which duties were reduced as prices went up, the reduction accelerating when the price reached 60s. and the duty ceasing entirely when it reached 70s. Similarly, the duty began to rise when the price began to fall, and the rise accelerated when the price fell below 60s. What was intended was gentle rises and falls with no attempt at prohibition. The farmer, it was hoped, would be assured of a fair profit, the consumer of a regular and more predictable supply. The House of Lords that took the bill under consideration on 10 May was a very differently arranged body than it had been a month before. The government benches were now filled with an array of whig lords, at sixty-four the largest group. The ministers also had the support of thirteen bishops, twenty-eight Catholic tories, and fifteen more tories, moderate as well as ultra Protestant. The opposition was made up mainly from the same tory elements as the last group, but in much larger numbers. They had followed the lead of the Protestant majority in the late cabinet. To these tories were joined seventeen whigs led by Lord Grey. The basis of division in the whigs was the same one as had earlier divided the tories: it was each lord’s opinion, or at any rate of the more influential among them, of George Canning. For some of his former colleagues, what counted

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against him was his support for Catholic Emancipation. But for others like Wellington the problem was that they did not believe that Canning had the character or ability to command the confidence of the country and successfully lead it. Grey’s opinion of Canning was even simpler and more straightforward: he did not trust Canning in the least. He did not believe that Canning would fulfill his promise to carry Catholic Emancipation or, as others believed, that he would then go on to repeal the Test Acts. Lansdowne believed it, and most other whigs agreed with him. Even the Dissenters believed it.12 Grey, however, did not, and he had his reasons which went back at least to the aborted Emancipation bill of 1813. Right or wrong, however, there can be no doubt that Grey’s convictions made for strange bedfellows in 1827. He allied himself with those tories with whose position on vital religious questions he was most at odds. These new divisions meant that the proposed Corn Law would not be treated entirely on its own merits. The debate on 10 March began during the presentation of petitions that preceded the main business of the day. The tone was none too pleasant. In presenting a petition against the bill, the ultra duke of Newcastle said that he would not have accepted such a bill even from Liverpool’s government. Much less would he accept it with Liverpool gone and the best part of his government, according to Newcastle, driven away. Indeed he would do everything he could to replace “the most profligate minister that had ever been placed in power” and “to overthrow the coalition which he believed to be the most unprincipled that had ever entered into the head of a statesman to project.”13 The whig magnate, the earl of Darlington, was generally satisfied with the bill. He deplored the sudden and violent opposition to the government. He thought it arose from the desire of some lords, now out of their offices, to return to them; or “from a desire to dictate to the sovereign the appointment of a minister.” Darlington considered such motives “objectionable.” A lord on the other side had observed that there had been an approximation between the late government and the late opposition. Darlington was quite ready to admit that when he had sat on the other side of the House, “he had in most cases approved of the measures which that government passed,” and he saw no reason why he should not continue on the same course. He believed that Canning stood for principles that he himself had supported for thirty-five years. Canning was a friend of civil and religious liberty, and on the basis of Canning’s conduct of foreign policy, Darlington found him a “consummate statesman.”14 Grey wanted a “yes” or “no” answer from the lords opposite as to whether or not there had been an agreement not to bring forward the Catholic question as a government measure. The answer, of course, was that there had been



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such an agreement, but for the current session only when there would not have been time to bring the question forward in any case. But the king’s sensitivity on the issue made any explanation impossible. Grey then went on to pose a question and answer it himself. Was Canning a friend of religious liberty? As a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, yes. But “the right honourable gentleman has proclaimed his opposition to the repeal of the Test Act.”15 Canning never made himself entirely clear on the issue. He certainly would not have supported it before Emancipation, but he probably would have afterward. The first serious debates on the Corn Law itself came on 25 May on whether to send the bill to Committee after its second reading. Lord Goderich, the new leader of the House, gave what was certainly the best and clearest speech of any introducing a corn law in the period from 1815 to 1846. He explained what was wrong with the 1815 Corn Law and why, and what the proposed law was intended to do about it in terms that any of his audience ought to have been able to understand.16 The earl of Malmesbury, the spokesman for the protectionists, talked about the threat to English agriculture within the empire, already posed by Ireland, which might soon be joined by Canada, suggesting that English agriculturists needed no added competition from outside the empire. The warehousing system he called “abominable.” He ended by moving that the bill be committed that day six months.17 Other criticisms ran along the same lines. British farmers were quite capable of feeding the country and ought to be allowed to. But the division on going into Committee was strongly in the government’s favor, 120 to 63.18 The Committee on 1 June was a very different matter. The whig earl of Rosslyn, one of Grey’s followers, moved an amendment that duties on imported grain should be collected at such time as it entered the domestic market. Goderich pointed out that the result would be to annihilate the warehousing system, and thus end London as the great entrepôt of the European grain trade, because there would no longer be any advantage in warehousing in London on the chance of selling advantageously there. Rather the warehousing would be at the nearest European ports—Ostend, Flushing, or Antwerp—whence consignments could quickly be sent to London, most likely leading to an enormous glut.19 The duke of Wellington objected to Rosslyn’s proposal. The duke did not wish to see “the warehousing system—a system in which property to a considerable amount was embarked—on any other than a firm foundation.” He did, however, believe that the existing system lent itself to frauds and the manipulation of markets, and something must be done about this. He therefore

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proposed that foreign corn in bond should not be taken out of bond until the average price of corn had reached 66s.20 Wellington had said he had reason to believe that Goderich would be well disposed to such an amendment. If he had ever actually believed it, he was quickly put right. Goderich said he thought if the amendment were to be accepted, “it must lead to the rejection of the bill altogether.” Goderich went on to explain that the amendment was “at direct variance with the principles of the bill and would tend at once to encourage that prohibition which the bill was calculated to remove.” In an exchange between Wellington and Goderich, the latter asked whether he properly understood the duke that no foreign wheat in bond, warehouse, or shipboard was to be let in until the average price of corn reached 66s. That was exactly what the duke meant. Rosslyn withdrew his amendment. A division on Wellington’s amendment followed, and it passed 78 to 74.21 The Report stage of the bill would provide the first opportunity to reverse the defeat in Committee. The government did its best to rally its forces. Canning complained to the king about the lax support given by the bishops. The king obliged with a letter authorizing Canning to do whatever he pleased to show them that he was “sincere and in earnest.” What Canning did was to show the letter to leading bishops. He was highly pleased with the results, exulting to the duke of Portland that only one bishop had voted against the government. Actually two had, and only thirteen had voted for the government. The duke of Buckingham had noted just before the 1 June vote that the king was resisting making Canning’s batch of peers. And though some noble members of the Household had resigned after voting against the government, there was no sign that any royal pressure was put on them to do so.22 The Report stage of the bill came on 12 June, and it did not last long. After some remarks by Lord Colchester, attention was turned to the amendments, with Wellington’s the first. Goderich spoke strongly against it, as did Lansdowne, but to no effect. The vote was taken, and the amendment won by a majority of eleven, 133 to 122. With such a close vote, the king could have secured victory for his government had he exerted himself. But if he lifted a finger, he did no more. What of Wellington? From beginning to end he had claimed to be a supporter of the bill, that he had no intention of doing it any harm, and that his amendment would not do it any harm. This simply cannot be credited. The whole point of the sliding scale was to replace a system in which importation was prohibited up to a certain price. The ultra judge Lord Redesdale, who spoke last in the debate, was very clear on what was happening. He “supported the



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amendment not because it was sufficient protection for the landed interest, but because it was the only protection they could hope to obtain, instead of the prohibition to which they were entitled.”23 Wellington was reintroducing protection of the 1815 variety. In his correspondence with Goderich, the duke resolutely ignored this aspect. He was concerned with fraud and with how the buying and selling of bonded corn could affect the averages drawn from prices in selected corn markets in London and elsewhere, on the basis of which the government regulated the corn trade. In a draft response to one of these letters, Goderich said that the cabinet could not see how the duke’s clause or any other clause dealing with bonded corn could effect Wellington’s object of preventing frauds in the averages (the reason being that the transactions in bonded corn did not take place in corn markets and therefore could not affect the averages). He then went on to state that “it seems clear that the ultimate adoption of the clause as it stands, or any other amendment which should restrict the payment of duties enacted by the bill, would be fatal to the bill in the House of Commons.” He suggested that perhaps the duke could propose something which could be incorporated into the separate Average bill. The cabinet would be happy “to consider how far we could acquiesce in such a proposition without infringing upon the essential points of the bill now in the House of Lords.”24 Wellington’s response began by saying that he could do nothing with the Average bill. He went on to say that the government was wrong to include the Mark Lane market in calculating averages and then plunged back into a long and complicated discussion of frauds, warehouses, and averages, all posited on the assumption that the three were intimately connected. He managed to avoid completely the main point that the House of Commons had passed a bill, based on a clear principle, and that the House of Lords could not simply flout that basic principle without almost certainly dooming the bill. The duke was no fool. He was dissembling. Several motivations and influences were probably at work. First, it seems very likely that the Corn bill of 1827 was one of the great casualties of Liverpool’s stroke. Wellington’s loyalty to the former prime minister had never wavered. They sometimes quarreled, but Wellington never used his influence against his chief, and he had used a lot of it in the latter’s behalf. Canning would never have returned to the cabinet in 1822 had Wellington not brought the king around. Nor would the duke have borne Canning as long as he did without Liverpool’s restraining influence. Wellington’s personal principles were always ultra. What made him different, and great, was that he never let those principles get in his way when deep senses of patriotism and responsibility indicated to

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him that his duty lay the other way. Liverpool’s stroke and what followed freed him for a while from those inhibitions. Thus it is very likely that Wellington shared a strong concern among the lords about fraud in the system. He and they were certainly confused about the matter. They may have believed that Wellington’s amendment would deal with the problem. Some clearly believed that the amendment would put them in a situation where they could not lose; either they would get added protection or they would get rid of a bill they did not like. For Wellington, there was an added bonus. Years later the duke told Lord Stanley that upon Liverpool’s stroke, “I at once succeeded to the exercise of the influence and power that he had for many years exercised in the House of Lords.” That happened on the first of June when he stepped forward and made his amendment.25 On 12 June, the duke of Buckingham heard from the tory whip that the government was sure of being beaten on the third reading. The duke remarked in his diary that “Nothing can save Canning then but a batch of peers and upon that the king’s line is taken.” The next day he received word that the government had withdrawn the bill, commenting: “I do not see how Canning is to carry on the government.”26 On 3 July Buckingham noted the opinion of his longtime informant and MP for Buckingham, now Sir William Fremantle and treasurer of the household, that “the weakness of government is apparent and will be until it is seen that the patronage of the Crown is really in the hands of the Minister.”27 On 13 July, Buckingham went to Windsor for an interview with the king: “The king . . . went into the whole argument against the new opposition. The House of Commons was safe, the Lords not so. But . . . they [the king and Canning] had the summer before them to try conciliation. [The king said] Canning has been desperately ill. I have told him to get well and give me no additional offence, and we must take the chance of the next session.”28 This showed George, if far from his worst, displaying some of his worst characteristics. He resented the new opposition, but saw the way to success in conciliating them with appointments. Admittedly he had the Lords in mind, but given the fact that the Commons was only safe because of the whigs, this was an odd way of proceeding. It is quite possible that he was oblivious to the fact, but that is hardly an excuse. The boastful bully is very much to the fore. Even before this interview took place, an alternative was being pressed. Early in July, Lansdowne wrote to Canning, who was proposing to make permanent three members of the cabinet who been placed there temporarily at the end of April until the three whigs took their appointed places. The original agreement was that the whigs were to have three of twelve seats. Now they were to have



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three of fifteen seats. Lansdowne said his only concern about this change would be the possibility of its presenting an “obstacle to strengthening the government hereafter in the House of Lords, which upon the most deliberate reflection I am convinced you will find expedient if not necessary in the next session.”29 This was putting it mildly. Not long after this, James Abercromby, a whig MP close to Lansdowne and a future member of Grey’s government and Speaker of the House of Commons, wrote to Lord Carlisle at Lansdowne’s request. He said Lansdowne felt that Carlisle “enforcing the admission of Lord Holland to office will be most important.” As Lansdowne himself had said, he had no objections per se to Canning’s enlargement of the cabinet. But Abercromby added that “the impression of adherents and the public is not indifferent”—that is, that they might see the enlargement differently. And he went on to say that by adding numbers Canning’s friends might become a source of weakness “by affording a reason for excluding Holland, whose usefulness in the Lords would be so great.” One of the main reasons for his usefulness was that “Lord Grey was a cause of great difficulty, and I can see no other remedy for the evil but that of taking Lord Holland.”30 There was reason to believe that if Holland were brought into the cabinet, Grey would come over. Grey himself had told Holland on 13 March that if Canning were “allowed to form a new administration with a fair allowance of carrying the Catholic question, I should be . . . disposed to give him a fair support.”31 It was the air of secretiveness and conspiracy that surrounded the formation of Canning’s ministry—the inability of Lansdowne and the other whigs who joined Canning to give plain explanations—that hardened Grey’s attitude. But Holland, perhaps his oldest colleague and Fox’s nephew, would have been a powerful inducement. And indeed there is contemporary evidence that Grey would have been swayed. He wrote to Brougham on 18 August about what he called the filling of vacancies on Canning’s death: “In proportion as our friends might have obtained a greater share of power and influence, my disposition towards the administration would naturally have become more favourable; but at present all reasonable grounds for confidence on which I could give my assurance of general support appear to me as much wanting as ever.”32 The importance of securing Grey’s support has probably never been properly appreciated. The only whig names usually associated with his in this period are the so-called squadron: the duke of Bedford, the earls of Rosslyn, Jersey, and Albemarle, and Lord Ellenborough. These are perhaps the best known, and Ellenborough and Rosslyn the most vocal. But there were eleven others: Anson, Dacre, Fitzwilliam, Gage, Tankerville, Breadalbane, Belhaven, Gwydyr, Hawke,

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Queensbery, and Sherborne. If these seventeen had crossed the floor, they would have been worth thirty-four votes, and, bearing in mind that it had last been beaten by eleven votes, would have nicely taken care of the government’s deficiency in the House of Lords. It is easy to see why Lansdowne had and would press hard for bringing Holland into the government. Canning, however, was beyond helping him. He died on 8 August. On the same day, Goderich and Sturges Bourne, Canning’s old friend and a member of the cabinet, were summoned to Windsor. The king wished Goderich to become prime minister and Sturges Bourne to become chancellor of the exchequer. The rest of the cabinet were to retain their seats. The king also “expressed a general disinclination to any addition to the whig members of the cabinet.” He promised a written communication to the cabinet, which arrived the next day. In it he repeated that he wished to retain the present cabinet, “provided they could agree in those principles of governing the country upon which the king has acted from the time the king undertook the Regency up to the period of the king’s coming to the Crown, and from that hour to the present.” The king said that at the time of the establishment of Canning’s government, he had had no idea of forming an exclusive tory government, but he and Canning did have clear understandings on certain points. He began with parliamentary reform, both he and Canning being strongly against it. Then he turned to Catholic Emancipation. He could not require Canning to change his long-held opinions on that question, “but there was a distinct understanding that the king’s conscientious feelings should not be disturbed upon that painful question upon which the king’s opinions are unalterably fixed, and moreover, if at any time this question was to be forced upon Mr. Canning, from that moment the government was to be considered dissolved.”33 The cabinet responded by reminding the king that Canning’s minute at the time of the founding of the government stated quite explicitly that it was founded on the same principle as Lord Liverpool’s government, and they quoted the entire statement. They also said that none of them would feel called upon “at any time to propound that question in the cabinet, without the conviction of the most urgent necessity.” This both stated their right to propound the question and sounded respectful. But, as all of them had been arguing for years the urgent necessity of Emancipation, that part of the undertaking meant little or nothing. As to the king’s final claim, they said: If whilst Mr. Canning was at the head of your majesty’s councils, any other member of the government had felt himself compelled to propound that question to his colleagues, and if it had been carried by a majority of the cabinet against the declared objection



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of Mr. Canning, who was your Majesty’s first minister, such a decision contrary to Mr. Canning’s opinion would obviously have forced the question upon him in such a manner as to have led to the dissolution of the government of which he was at the head. But your Majesty’s confidential servants beg leave humbly to state to your Majesty that they did not understand that such a decision supposing Mr. Canning to be a party to it would from that moment have dissolved the government, although it would have been of your Majesty’s prerogative to determine under such circumstances, whether the government’s so deciding should continue to possess your Majesty’s confidence.

The king accepted the note “without further comment.”34 Never has the constitutional situation of the Catholic question in the governments of Liverpool, Canning, and Goderich been better and more fully described than it was here. And it will be noted that it accords with Lord Chancellor Eldon’s description in 1812 and Lord Liverpool’s in 1825. Even Wellington accepted it after 1825. The metaphysical mists, or myths, are blown away. It would have been better had the cabinet, or rather the prime minister, continued to take a strong line. But the negotiations that follow show that this was not the case. On 11 August, Lansdowne and Tierney came to press Goderich for Holland’s inclusion in the cabinet. He managed to fend them off for the time being but took the occasion to inform them that, at the king’s command, he had offered Canning’s brother-in-law, the duke of Portland, the lord presidency of the council. It was becoming clear that the king intended a very hands-on approach to this government. On the 12th, the king sent a memorandum for the arrangement of the government. It suggested a candidate for the board of trade; and for chancellor of the exchequer, which Sturges Bourne had declined, the king put forward J. C. Herries, an ultra and a financier of questionable reputation, but with a close connection to the king and his favorite, Knighton. On the 13th, the king expressed his determination not to admit Holland to the cabinet for the present. Lansdowne received the news about Holland and Herries at the same time and was not happy. But when Herries declined the job, the marquess agreed not to press for Holland at this time. The king, however, would not take Herries’s no for an answer. In what Goderich described as “the strongest terms,” he ordered the prime minister to send Herries down to Windsor so that the king could talk to him. After talking to the three whig members of the cabinet, Goderich concluded that “if the appointment were to take place at that time, the most serious embarrassments would ensue; and after various interviews,” the king finally agreed that the matter should be suspended for a time.35 The above is what happened from 8 to 17 August. Things soon went from

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bad to worse again. The king agreed to accept a compromise if Sturges Bourne would agree to become chancellor of the exchequer. He did agree, and then immediately changed his mind. Huskisson, who was to be leader of the House of Commons, was then asked and declined. The king felt vindicated. Proclaiming that he must be his own premier, George absolutely insisted on having Herries. Lansdowne proffered his resignation. This served to clear minds. Huskisson wrote to Goderich that he must “send off to Windsor a most urgent entreaty to improve by everything that suavity and kindness can effect on a mind in the present state of Lord Lansdowne’s” to improve the chance that he might be won back to the cabinet. How could they carry on the government without the whigs? “Having lost Mr. Canning in the House of Commons, we are to carry on without any aid from without that government which he present thought and was convinced he could not carry on without such aid?”36 The results from Lansdowne’s point of view were gratifying. As he reported to Holland, the king, who could be both suave and kind if he chose, stressed that as far as Herries was concerned, he had agreed to two compromises—both of which failed, and no other suggestion was made. The king begged Lansdowne to reconsider. He also had agreed to some substantial enticements. Herries was to have no leadership role in the Commons, save in the affairs of his own department. Charles Grant, a Canningite, was to be brought into the cabinet; and two whigs, Edward Stanley, the future prime minister, and Sir James Mackintosh, were to have important offices. Two whig lords were immediately to be advanced in the peerage. And, Lansdowne said, “I add that I have secured a promise of that to which you know I attach greater importance than any thing, a Catholic secretary when William Lamb is removed.”37 There was another promise Lansdowne had extorted from the king that he did not mention—that Holland should have the next cabinet vacancy.38 What that was to amount to was that no vacancy occurred, though the king did try to slip another candidate in. In December, Lansdowne was finally promised a date—the next Easter, about halfway through the next session. But this government would never meet a Parliament.

chap ter ten

The Constitutional Revolution Begins, 1828-1829



The 1832 Reform Act is usually seen as the greatest political event of the period. In some senses it was, but two events that occurred in the three years before its introduction did a great deal to make it happen. The constitution, to which almost everyone paid reverence right up to 1828, was that established in the Revolution Settlement following 1688. This is what the Revolution generation had bequeathed, and it guaranteed the country’s liberties. It is true that not everyone agreed about what liberties were included, or at least ought to be. Some, for example, pointed out that the legal exclusion of Dissenters from political offices dated not from the reign of the “good” King William III but rather from that of the “bad” King Charles II, and that William had wished to end it. Most, however, would have agreed with Lord Eldon’s description of the constitution: “His opinion was that the Church of England, combined with the State, formed together the Constitution of Great Britain, and that the Test and Corporation Acts were necessary to the preservation of that Constitution.” That vital bulwark fell in the spring of 1828. Lord John Russell, whose motion had brought this about, exulted that it was “really a gratifying thing to force the enemy to give up his first line that none but churchmen are worthy to serve the State; and I trust we shall soon make him give up the second, that none but Protestants are.” That happened the following spring.1 The first event shocked many; the second horrified and infuriated the majority. The great beacon that had guided the nation was no more. Religious convictions and hierarchy, in society as well as political life, were questioned, and much more. There was bound to be a powerful reaction, and there was. Ironically it divided the traditionalist tory party and sent its more liberal element into alliance with the whigs, which opened the opportunity for parliamentary reform.

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It is ironic, too, that the prime minister during the first two stages of the revolution was by conviction an ultra tory, and when unbound by conscience, that was the rhetoric that most easily came to the duke of Wellington’s lips. He acted as if Liverpool’s mantle had drifted magically onto his shoulders. But in fact he had deliberately wrapped it around himself when he killed, at least for that session, Liverpool’s Corn bill in 1827. In office he was to carry one very much like it. But in 1827 he chose to champion the protectionist position on that issue, thus making himself the leader of the majority of his party in the Lords. Wellington thereupon acted rather strangely. He accepted from the Goderich government the position he had long coveted of commander-in-chief of the army. He then announced, as he would often do later, that this precluded any partisanship in politics. But those tories who fretted over who was to lead them in the next session had nothing to fear, because even before Goderich’s government, riddled by intrigue and its leader’s weakness, fell in January 1828, the commander-in-chief was busy rallying his parliamentary troops for an attack on the government’s foreign policy.2 After Goderich had been dismissed by the king and Wellington himself asked to form a government, he went about it in a rather odd way for someone who had become a party leader in the way he had. He deliberately excluded the most hard-line tories, such as Lord Eldon. At the same time he tried to woo back the liberal tories, especially those now known as the Huskissonites, after their leader, who had succeeded Canning. The duke’s wooing was successful. There were some who feared what this portended. The ultra duke of Newcastle, and others, predicted that the Lords would be unmanageable in a House where the old party system had been broken up and the new government was only confirming its destruction. It was all the result of “the milk and water system and pretending to liberalism and the extinction of party.”3 The management of the House of Lords did not prove as difficult as Newcastle predicted, but that was in large part because of the continued existence of an opposition party still very much alive, united at least on its cherished issue of civil and religious liberty and ready to support a government that pursued “liberal” policies on such questions. These policies were to be more liberal than Newcastle or even Wellington’s own colleagues ever dreamed. From the time the duke began regular attendance in the House of Lords in 1819, he had been, as his conversations with the future duke of Buckingham showed, interested in finding some kind of viable scheme for Catholic Emancipation. In 1825, before the debates on the Catholic question, he expressed his views in a long memorandum. He declared that it “does not appear that it



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would be very easy to revive a public feeling in this country upon the Roman Catholic question, which would enable those inclined to oppose themselves to the Roman Catholic claims to resist them effectually.” He believed that support for those claims in the Commons would continue to grow. A majority in the Lords against them might last for a little while, but not for long with steady pressure from the Commons and an apathetic public. Nor did Wellington have any desire to unnecessarily prolong a hostile majority in the Lords. The duke wanted the government itself to put the question to rest. This would ensure that it was settled on the right terms, with proper regard for the safety of the great institutions of the country. Civil disabilities had been tried for long enough and found wanting. The only solution, he thought, was to bring the Catholic Church in Ireland under government control. To achieve this, the Lords’ majority was crucial, allowing the government to keep the question in its own hands and settle it as it wished.4 Yet, though Liverpool fully shared Wellington’s belief in the inevitable triumph of Emancipation, he could never bring himself to champion a cause he had fought as a matter of principle all his life. For Wellington, the question was much simpler. Emancipation was something that had to be done, a matter of necessity, and he would do it. He was hardly in office when, with the assistance of Henry Phillpotts, later bishop of Exeter, he began to pursue the basis for a settlement.5 The pace, however, almost immediately began to quicken, and it was not Wellington who set it. The year before, with the general approval of Dissenters and fellow whigs, Lord John Russell had withdrawn his notice of a measure for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in order not to embarrass Canning’s government, from which whigs and Dissenters hoped to gain so much. Now there was nothing to hold Russell back, and on 25 February he introduced a motion in the Commons and carried it with a majority of forty-three votes. A substantial number of government supporters either abstained or actually voted for the motion. The government, which had decided to oppose, quickly gave way and offered to facilitate the measure. There is no reason to doubt Wellington’s explanation of the reversal—the decisive majority in the Commons and the strong display of public opinion behind it. The petitions to the Commons exceeded twelve hundred, those to the Lords numbered almost a thousand. It was a formidable showing. In the Lords the bill passed its second reading without a division. The only division list is on the third reading, when a hostile amendment to the bill was defeated by a vote of 150 to 52, a majority of 98. An analysis of the votes indicates that 76 came from whigs, and another 34 from Catholic tories. In the Commons the Catholic tory vote had been divided by Huskisson’s insisting on

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Canning’s line that Dissenters must not be relieved before Catholics because, Huskisson suggested, Dissenters could not be trusted to support the Catholic cause. In the Lords, however, the votes of Canning’s son-in-law Clanricarde, his brother-in-law Portland, and his old friend Binning (Melros) joined those of Melville, Harrowby, and Camden in supporting the bill. Another accession of strength came from what before would have seemed the most unlikely of sources—thirteen bishops voted for the bill with only eight voting against it, and nine did not vote at all. The virtually solid phalanx of bishops had been broken at last. One explanation was a strong feeling among the bishops that, for purely religious reasons, the scandal of using the sacrament as a test for office could be borne no longer, a point they put forward very forcefully in the debates. According to Wellington, the bishops had also been persuaded by his reason that “As public men they felt for the consequences of a difference of opinion between the two Houses on a question on which the House of Commons would have been supported by public opinion.”6 But there was also another reason stemming from a political decision of the prime minister. Lord Grenville wrote gleefully during the debates: “Eldon, abandoned by his bishops, seems, as was to be expected, to make a very poor hand of it; and whatever else of good or evil may be going, the dissolution of that league is a great public benefit.”7 It had been common wisdom for some time that with the passing of Liverpool and Eldon the chances of removing religious tests would improve immensely. Liverpool was gone. Eldon was still there, but without his office a much diminished figure, and the result was as had been predicted. Yet too much cannot be read into this new situation, as Wellington, unfortunately for himself, did. On Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the old pattern returned. Only ten bishops (two of them whigs) voted for it and twenty against. This had nothing to do with Eldon; they did not need to be led on this occasion. At the same time it is unclear how much their votes the previous year had to do with Wellington. Aside from their religious scruples, there could have been, and in a couple of cases certainly was, another good reason for voting as they did. This is demonstrated in the behavior of eleven ultra peers who also voted for repeal of the Test Acts and went on to vote against Emancipation. It is unlikely that this was from any special fondness for Dissenters, but rather because they hoped for what Huskisson predicted—that freed of their own disabilities the Dissenters would join in a common front against the Catholics. In fact, when the nature of the vote for and against the bill is closely examined, Wellington’s position does not look strong. Besides the ambiguity of the bishops, there were other areas of weakness. The seventy-six whig votes obviously owed nothing to the duke’s influence. The thirty-four Catholic tories



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were divided into two groups: those with connections to Canning, and those without. The latter group, numbering seventeen, included several who went back to the adoption of the “open question” in 1812, among them Lords Aberdeen, Harrowby, and Melville. All three were members of Wellington’s cabinet. So was a more recent addition, the former whig Lord Ellenborough. Lord Belmore, governor of Jamaica, was another. All in this group took advantage of their right to cast a conscience vote on the Catholic question but were otherwise reliable supporters of the government. The Canningites were another matter. Also seventeen in number, they had given their support to the governments of Canning and Goderich. By the time the issue of the Test Acts got to the Lords, the government was already supporting their repeal. This would be an obvious explanation of the unanimity of all the Catholic peers on the question. The complication was that in the Commons, a number of Canning’s friends had anticipated the government’s decision and thus helped to necessitate its change of position. Huskisson himself made it clear that his heart was not in his argument, and nine of the twenty-seven that Lord Palmerston listed as “Liberals” in the spring of 1828 actually voted for Russell’s motion.8 This was the beginning of Wellington’s distrust of his “Liberal” supporters, which would lead to their withdrawal from the government’s ranks in May. Their departure did not mean that their votes for Catholic Emancipation were in danger. Their peers voted for it to a man, but they voted con amore, not as part of a powerful government effort. The government had been significantly weakened. Besides the other group of seventeen Catholic tory peers, Wellington’s only reliable source of support was what might be called traditional tories, strong churchmen all, and ordinarily with little fondness for those who were not. This religious orientation was perhaps not the sole reason for their loyalty. Among these fifteen peers was a fifth cabinet member, Lord Bathurst; the lord lieutenant of Ireland, the duke of Northumberland; two ambassadors; the new commander-in-chief of the army; a high official of the Household; and the duke himself. The official bias of this group, shared by their Catholic tory colleagues, is evident, and together they numbered only thirty-two, not a strong basis of support for a prime minister. Had Wellington been planning an imminent campaign for Catholic Emancipation, such weaknesses would necessarily have been a cause for serious concern. But there was a final sign, the most threatening of all, and bound to be a danger to Wellington’s government, whatever his immediate plans. Fifty-two tory peers had voted against the bill. The rest had not voted at all. The general had been deserted by the bulk of his army. The amount of support he could

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command outside his little band of Catholic and traditional tories must be uncertain, but it was not great. One other incident in the passing of the bill is significant for the future. A declaration not to use power derived from office to harm the Church was to replace taking the sacrament as a condition for office. Lord Eldon announced his intention on the third reading of the bill to add to the declaration the statement “I am a Protestant.” In this attempt, opposed by the government, he had the enthusiastic backing of the king. George had made no secret of his opposition to the bill. In March he had summoned the archbishop of Canterbury to reprove the bishops for their support of it. Furthermore, despite Wellington’s protests, members of the Household had been allowed to oppose it. On 25 April, the king wrote to Wellington regarding Eldon’s proposed amendment. He reminded the duke of his recent reproof of the bishops for supporting repeal of the Test Acts: “I strongly expressed my own sentiments which for years have never varied; unless the word Protestant is introduced in the Act, I feel individually as a Protestant and as the Head and Protector of the Religion of this country that we virtually have no sort of permanent security left us to look to for the preservation of the Established Church.” The king instructed the duke to show the letter to the lord chancellor as soon as possible, and certainly before he took his seat on the Woolsack for the debate.9 The chancellor duly ceased his opposition in the final debate and said nothing. Just before the division took place, however, Wellington rose. He was not, he said, ready for Catholic Emancipation; but “no man, on the other hand, was more determined than I am to give my vote against any proposition which, like the present, appears to have for its object a fresh enactment against Roman Catholics.” What followed was the decisive vote that carried the bill without the amendment.10 The king swallowed the rebuff without comment. In any case, Wellington had no thought of leaping immediately into a campaign for Emancipation. He was biding his time. Thus, when Lansdowne moved a whig motion the next month, the government opposed. The vote was 181 to 137, a majority of 44 made up of 26 bishops and 18 peers.11 This was on 10 June. In the course of the debate Wellington had said, in response to some suggestions by his brother Lord Wellesley, that he “would be glad to see the disabilities of the Roman Catholics removed.” But just before that, he had said that “the securities we now enjoy . . . are indispensable to the safety of the Church and the State.” He did go on to at least hint at his own favored solution of seeking to control the Roman Catholic Church, but this was hidden in a diatribe which concluded that that Church was the root of all the evil that had occurred in Ireland in the past twenty-five years.12 This was



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the first of a long series of Delphic pronouncements that could be interpreted in more than one way, and were. Once more, however, the issue was about to be taken out of Wellington’s hands. In a July by-election, Daniel O’Connell defeated a Catholic tory landlord in County Clare. Whether or not a Roman Catholic could sit in Parliament now became a very immediate question. It is often contended that the king’s prior permission was required before the cabinet could undertake the consideration of any “specific arrangement for Catholic relief.”13 Such was not, in fact, the case. In 1825, Lord Liverpool stated his preference that any person raising the Catholic question in cabinet have “some specified measure to propose.”14 Wellington himself indicated the same thing in 1826 in a statement to be presented to the king: “Every individual member of the cabinet is at liberty to propose for the consideration of the cabinet such measures upon the subject as he may think proper.” Lord Bathurst persuaded him not to submit it, reminding him that it was just this right that Canning had affirmed in Parliament after the cabinet had rejected his 1825 proposal that the issue be made a cabinet question—that is, Canning affirmed his right to propose, as Bathurst said, a “bill of concessions” any time he chose. Bathurst did not question the right; he simply did not want to trigger any action.15 This evidence shows that Liverpool, and Wellington by 1826, did not believe there was any bar to the cabinet considering specific measures for Catholic relief. This is not to say that it was thought necessary to make a recommendation in this way, and Liverpool’s remarks seem to make it clear that this was not the way Canning would have chosen in 1825. What was important was not the mode of delivery of the recommendation but rather the formal advice of the cabinet it conveyed to the king—that the issue be made a cabinet question, thus making whatever measures were taken government measures. It was the right to give such advice that Canning’s government claimed in 1827. As Palmerston put it, Canning had “distinctly reserved to himself and every other member of the cabinet the full right of proposing it whenever he chose, the king being at liberty then to deal with his cabinet so advising him, as he might think fit.”16 This was not seeking “prior permission.” It involved a formal recommendation of the cabinet, for which it recognized it might be dismissed—or it might resign. Such eventualities George IV was desperate to avoid, which is why he tried to force on at least two cabinets an acknowledgment that they had no right to advise him. As Palmerston’s underlining indicates, it was to that issue that the statement was being addressed. The king’s anxiety to avoid a formal recommendation is evident in his remarks to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London in April 1827,

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and in the undertaking he also attempted to impose on the Goderich government at its inception in August. He claimed that numbers in the cabinet made no difference. Canning had promised him that he would not be disturbed on the issue, and the only thing a majority vote in the cabinet would accomplish was the government’s automatic dissolution. His position was exactly the same as his father’s, and so forth. These were outright lies, because though he had demanded an acknowledgment of his position from both governments, they had refused to make one. One can only wonder what he had pressed on Wellington and what the duke had agreed to. All Wellington revealed was that Emancipation was not to be a cabinet question. Just what that meant in this case was not made clear. Did it mean the necessity of a prior agreement? Wellington said that he had a specific source for such an understanding. He told Lord Anglesey in September that “the late Mr. Canning embodied in a memorandum which I have seen and which was communicated to members of his government that which before was understood. From this statement you will see that the first step of all is to reconcile the king’s mind to an arrangement.”17 The only memorandum still extant that this might refer to is Canning’s statement of the status of the Catholic question in his government and Liverpool’s, which said no such thing. It said simply that if a member of the cabinet decided to independently propose a measure in Parliament for which he could not gain his colleagues’ support, he should make that clear. The duke had indeed seen the memorandum. Besides having a copy in his own possession, it had been much discussed in January in the negotiations with the Huskissonites, who were greatly concerned that the policy should continue to be that of Wellington’s government. They were assured that it would be, and it was the first item, with its full text, that appeared in their memorandum of agreement with Wellington.18 The likelihood of there having been another memorandum directly at odds with any position ever taken by Canning’s government on this issue is nil. It is true that the duke had once before shown signs of being muddled on matters “before understood”—for example, his belief in 1825, despite the contretemps with Charles Wynn in 1823, that the king’s prior permission was necessary before the question could even be discussed in cabinet. It seems more likely, however, that in this case Wellington was playing a little fast and loose with the truth, and telling all sides what they wanted to hear, under the firm conviction that it would all turn out right in the end. He knew what he intended to do, which is what the Huskissonites wanted. He did not yet need to explain himself to his tory friends. And, as for the king, as Mrs. Arbuthnot said, Wellington thought he understood “handling the king better than anybody else.”19



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It is also possible that the duke had been influenced by the king’s version of the state of the Catholic question in the Canning and Goderich governments. Wellington, of course, had not been privy to the proceedings of either, nor had anyone close to him. Thus in the nature of things the first to have had his ear would have been the king. The king’s communication to the Goderich government reveals how he represented his relations with the Canning government and his claim that the cabinet had no right to advise him. It is possible that the duke had been taken in by the king. It is also possible that he simply decided that the best way to handle the king was with the most elaborate and flattering deference. The first clear sign that Wellington was moving toward a solution of the Catholic question was a private discussion he had with Lord Ellenborough on the occasion of a privy council meeting on 31 July.20 Ellenborough told the duke that “if the government did anything for the Catholics,” it would have Grey’s support, and if it did not, Grey would be in opposition. Ellenborough then “understood the duke to say he had already begun to take measures—that is to feel his way—about the Catholics.”21 This does not sound like a man about to broach the question to the cabinet the next day. Nor can I find any evidence that Wellington did. There are two accounts of this cabinet meeting—one in Ellenborough’s Diary, the other in a letter from Lord Aberdeen to Lord Bathurst, dated 5 August and reporting: “With respect to cabinets, we have had but two. At the first, there was a good deal of discussion about the renewal of the India and Bank Charters.” There was also some talk of West Indian matters. The Ellenborough and Aberdeen accounts agree as to the agenda, and in neither is there any mention of Catholic Emancipation.22 If Wellington’s remarks to Ellenborough the day before do not sound like those of a man about to open the question to the cabinet, they do fit very well the duke’s letter to the king on 1 August. He enclosed a memorandum on the terrible state of Ireland. It was a long and able argument for the absolute necessity of reaching a settlement there quickly. But Wellington assured the king that “I have not shown it to any of my colleagues.” Its object was “to obtain your Majesty’s permission to take into consideration the whole case of Ireland, with a view to the adoption of some measure to be proposed to Parliament for the pacification of that country.” The duke asked permission to consult with Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst and Peel. He would report the results of their deliberations to the king and then consult with any others the king thought proper, “before I should finally submit any proposition to my colleagues in the cabinet” (emphasis mine). By proceed-

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ing in this fashion, the duke said, “your Majesty will have the control over this subject in your hands till the last moment.” This was to prove all too true. Even assuming that Wellington believed that prior permission was necessary, he took a great risk in approaching the king without even a word to the cabinet, for it could leave him dangerously isolated from the basis of his power—and it did for five and a half months, helpless in the king’s hands. There is good reason to believe that none of Wellington’s predecessors believed in the necessity of prior agreement, including the one who had introduced the “open question.” Why should we take Liverpool at less than his word when he said in 1825 that the Catholic question “must be discussed and decided like any other question”? Or when he added that it would be best done “with some specified measure to propose”? Wellington had sat in Liverpool’s cabinet. This would suggest that he deliberately decided to ignore such precedents and strike out on his own. In that case he made a dreadful mistake. It is clear that in the three previous administrations the approach contemplated was a formal recommendation of the cabinet to the king that Emancipation become a cabinet question. A formal recommendation required a formal response from the king in a reasonably timely fashion. The response Wellington received from the king three days later was of a rather different nature. He gave permission for the duke to consult Peel and Lyndhurst, neither of whom he would have had any reason to believe favored Catholic Emancipation. But “we have this settled understanding, that I pledge myself to nothing, with respect to the cabinet, or any future proceeding, until I am in possession of your plan.”23 It would be a long time after that. By mid-October the duke had a plan and saw the king at Windsor. Mrs. Arbuthnot, who served as his secretary, described Wellington’s letter. He once again pressed the vital necessity for quick action. “If once the duke can get the king to allow him to lay his plan before him, he will go seriously to work.”24 For most of September through mid-November the king was purported to be seriously ill; he was certainly mostly incommunicado at Windsor. But then Wellington was finally allowed to present his plan. He wrote the king that there were three main issues involved. Could the cabinet consider the question? Could any effective measures be devised without considering the Catholic question? And was it not necessary that the concession to Catholics of seats in Parliament be one of those measures? There was a final request. “Before your Majesty shall decide that you will not take these questions into consideration, and that you will not adopt the plan, I entreat you to allow me to lay it before the heads of the Church.” He named the archbishop of Canterbury and six other bishops.



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The duke had not only misjudged his ability to handle the king; he had now made a second serious mistake. The king answered the next day, 17 November. He had no objection to the Wellington’s request, but it must be done on Wellington’s own authority. The king’s name was not to be used. “On the point in question I need not tell you what my feelings are.”25 The bishops’ response did not come until 27 December, and it was negative.26 The duke had misread the bishops’ cooperation on the repeal of the Test Acts in the spring. The late Richard Pares took the same position I do, that the king’s permission had been unnecessary since 1812, but that seeking it had been prudent in two cases where royal feelings were known to be strongly negative. The first of these cases was Wellington’s.27 I disagree. Prudence is a matter of judgment alone, which has nothing to do with the constitution. And in this case Wellington showed very bad political judgment. No other politician knew the king as well as he did. He knew the coward that lay beneath the bullying bluster, and over the Test Acts he had defied him. He clearly thought he could bring the king around easily, that he could handle the king as no one else could. But that does not excuse his putting himself completely in the king’s hands, as he did. For five months and more of mounting political crisis, the king played the duke of Wellington like a trout on a line. The results were not good. Hobbled as he was by the king, the duke could hardly give a lead to the country. But sometimes he had to say something. Very often what he said did more harm than good. A letter to Lord Anglesey is a good example. On 24 September, Anglesey had written to ask about the duke’s position on Catholic Emancipation, “for, as you have never named the subject to me I have a delicacy in introducing it.” He said he had certain information on the subject and believed that suitable terms could be arranged.28 This was a perfectly legitimate question from the lord lieutenant of Ireland, who should have been informed of the government’s policy if anyone should. Wellington replied: “I have not written to you upon the subject because I had nothing to tell you.” He then launched on a discussion of the history of the “open question,” which he apparently believed began in 1810. He ended by invoking Canning’s memorandum (he may have forgotten that he was addressing a member of Canning’s cabinet), which was supposed to have shown that the first step in altering the status of the question was to reconcile the king’s mind. “Till that should be done I should deceive myself or the person to whom I was addressing myself by talking about it at all.” He went on to say that he should give just ground for suspicion to “his Majesty and his servants and to the Protestants of the Empire in general . . . if I was to discuss with the clergy or the demagogues of the Catholic Association a plan to be submitted by the govern-

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ment for the adjustment of this question.” He ended by saying that “Some are of opinion that the difficulties of Ireland will be got the better of by the adjustment of this question. I doubt it.”29 The point of this letter was to convey to Anglesey that efforts were being made to conciliate the king’s mind on Catholic Emancipation and that this was intended to be a part of a government plan to deal with Ireland. But it was not clear whether the efforts were under way, or even feasible. It was even less clear that Emancipation was to be part of a government plan. It is evident that Anglesey could make nothing of the letter. It was not until two months later that he acknowledged having been informed what the duke’s position was.30 It was not the kind of letter a prime minister ought to have written to a lord lieutenant of Ireland. Winks and nods were not enough. Obviously the duke felt seriously inhibited by the king’s commands, but that is the point. Because Wellington had been embarrassed by what he saw as Anglesey’s excessive sympathy for the Irish Catholics over the summer, their relations were none too good by September. By November they were fast approaching the breaking point. The duke had been anxious to dismiss Anglesey long before that, but he feared that dismissing the popular lord lieutenant would send the wrong message to Ireland, and he did not put Anglesey on notice until 28 December. With no policy to state, other issues of government also had to be shelved. All through the summer Brunswick Societies had been sprouting up on both sides of the Irish Sea, prompted by ultra fears spawned by the repeal of the Test Acts and the duke’s Delphic statement about Emancipation in June. In England they brought large public meetings championing the Protestant cause. In Ireland they fed the mounting violence. The mildness of the government’s response is suggested by Peel’s reply on 25 November to a request from the lord lieutenant of Staffordshire about what to do with a call for a requisition for one of the public meetings. Peel responded that if he were the lord lieutenant he would not answer it, volunteering that he did not believe in societies to coerce the government.31 It was all very discreet. It was the same reason that Wellington gave Peel for not replacing the ultra attorney general, Sir Charles Wetherell, with the former whig, Sir James Scarlett: “We must look a little to the politics of the day, and particularly at the Roman Catholic question. Our Protestant friends would be terribly alarmed.”32 It was also for the same reason, in reverse, that it was impossible to replace Anglesey. So long as the duke was muzzled by the king’s commands, there was little the government could do but keep the lid on. The consequence was general confusion as to its intentions. The whigs, though still suffering from the breach between Grey and Lansdowne over the latter’s joining Canning’s government, were united on the



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question of supporting Wellington if he took up Emancipation. But they were puzzled. Brougham wrote to Grey right after a great anti-Catholic meeting at Penenden Heath in Kent: “The duke of Wellington has only himself to blame if it spreads—nothing can be more clear than that a large proportion of those who are active in such fooleries . . . do not believe the government to be averse to them, and who can say they are averse if they give no intimation of their dislike?” In the meantime Brougham went on, “the people about the duke talk about a Committee of the Whole House in both Houses being the right way to settle the question.” He gave Sir George Murray as an example. “But if the country is allowed to be inflamed for two or three months by No Popery, the Committee will come too late.”33 The Catholic tories, for their parts, were mostly pessimistic about the duke’s intentions.34 Toward the end of December things began to unravel. The Times printed a letter from Wellington to the Irish Catholic Archbishop Curtis, whom he had known since the days when their respective professions had put both of them in Spain at the same time, and with whom he had been corresponding about his favorite plan for Emancipation by way of a concordat at least since 1825. Lord Grey thought that, like the duke’s speech at the end of the last session, it showed his good will but also unfortunately his inability to do anything about it. Goderich agreed. Both, however, also hoped that the issue would be forced by the House of Commons as had happened over the repeal of the Test Acts, and this idea was generally canvassed.35 Within a few days of the publication of the duke’s letter to Curtis, Anglesey published one of his own to the same correspondent. This brought Anglesey’s immediate dismissal and an immediate problem somewhat different from what Wellington had imagined. The ultras took it as a sign that the duke was about to take action to put down the Irish Catholics and their cause. About the same time Wellington received the bishops’ rejection of his plan.36 With these calamities raining down on the duke’s head, Peel finally decided to do what Wellington had been begging him to do since August—stand forward with his true opinions and continue as leader of the House of Commons to see legislation through. This was not easy for Peel, who was coming to be recognized, with the fading of Eldon’s power, as the main pillar of the Protestant party. But he put his own feelings and interests aside. On 12 January, he wrote to the duke that if his reluctance would pose an “insuperable obstacle” to the adoption of the course in which they both believed, “in that case you shall command every service that I can render in any capacity.”37 As well as assuring the duke of an accomplished leader in the Commons— because of Peel’s standing in the Protestant party and the fact that the king

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clearly considered him his ally in the negotiations with Wellington, always wanting him to be consulted—Peel’s decision was bound to shake the king. It did. The Protestant members of the cabinet were commanded to dine with him at Windsor on the 15th. As a consequence of their discussion, the king agreed that the Catholic question should be considered a government question. On the 18th, the cabinet began its deliberations, which ended on 31 January, with the completion of the king’s Speech. By that time they had also finished their planning for legislation. On 2 February, the cabinet went to a privy council meeting at Windsor, where the Speech was read and the king gave his acquiescence. The day after there was a cabinet meeting to discuss strategy in Parliament. On the 4th, the duke held his usual presession dinner, where fifty-odd lords met to hear the Speech, which laid out the government’s agenda for the session before the opening of Parliament the next day.38 It was an admirable achievement to have packed into the couple of weeks they had had since the king agreed to make the open question a government question. But there was a price to pay, for important things had been left undone. Lord Salisbury had agreed to move the Address following the king’s Speech, but there had been no time to inform him of its contents before he heard it read at the duke’s. He was astounded. Some had to wait even longer. Lord Camden warned Wellington on the 6th: “I have heard from good authority that some of the old and powerful friends of government felt much hurt that they were not informed of the line the government meant to take until they entered the House of Lords—Lord Lonsdale and the duke of Rutland were mentioned to me.” Camden urged the duke to talk personally to as many lords as possible.39 The government stumbled into what promised to be the greatest parliamentary battle of their lives. On 7 February, Lord Grenville wrote to his nephew: “What is really quite inexplicable is that with a purpose, taken as he now says so long ago as last autumn, he should have kept Ireland for six months on the verge of civil war, giving continually fresh scope and fresh fuel to the mutual irritation on both sides of the water.”40 It was a harsh judgment, but there was much in it. As it turned out, the government found itself secure in the Lords, but that had little to do with its own efforts. The nature of the voting on the crucial second reading of the Emancipation bill will make this evident. Those who made up the government contingent, were of two sorts: 53 Catholic tories, and 50 who followed Wellington’s line in voting for Emancipation for the first time. The total of the two groups, with the addition of 8 bishops, was 111. The ultra peers numbered 93, but when the 19 ultra bishops were added, they had a total of 112. If that had been the end of the story, Catholic Emancipation would have gone



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down to defeat by one vote. In fact, the votes of 104 whigs and 2 bishops (added to the 111 tories) gave the bill a handsome majority of 105. The basic criterion for determining affiliation was, of course, quite straightforward. Those who had a record of voting for Catholic Emancipation, and were not whigs, were Catholic tories. Those who voted against Catholic Emancipation before 1829, but like Wellington in that year voted for it, are in the third category. Some exceptions have to made. For example, it is frequently difficult to distinguish between whigs and Catholic tories, many of whom were traveling in the same direction and often arrived at the same place, gathering under Lord Grey’s banner in the autumn of 1830. Again, a few whigs, such as Lord Hawke and Lord Holland’s son-in-law, Lord Lilford, were beyond doubt whigs, though their voting record on this particular issue left something to be desired. In the great majority of cases, however, the meaning of votes for Catholic Emancipation cannot be misunderstood. Those who had voted for it before 1829 had clearly not taken their opinions from the duke, and he could take no credit for them. Those who had taken their cue from him were in a small minority, and where the strength of support for the government bill lay is quite evident, to some extent in the Catholic tories, but much more in the whigs. Theirs were the big battalions. It may be that my figures will be revised, but it seems unlikely that it can be demonstrated that the duke of Wellington was responsible for the bill being carried or that it could ever have been carried at all without the whigs. As for the whigs, on 26 January, Lord Minto wrote to Lansdowne from Berlin hoping that the news of whig “reunion” was true. It was. It was not a reunion that any of them would have willingly missed.41 The legislation proposed was not dissimilar to that proposed by Wellington to the king in November—save in one important respect. It included three bills. One suppressing the Catholic Association was to be moved before the Emancipation bill, meant to reassure the opponents of the latter. Another, with a similar intention, raised the existing 40s. franchise in Ireland to £10. The important difference was that a proposal to license Catholic priests in Ireland and provide stipends to those who were licensed (what was left of Wellington’s original idea in 1825) was gone. This would have alienated, in one way or another, most of the government’s potential supporters. The whigs managed to swallow the two accompanying bills for the greater good, but the licensing of clergymen of any denomination would have been another matter. They would not have had a problem about paying priests. As the ensuing two decades would reveal, however, any form of material support could be seen as implying the establishment of Catholicism or any other religion. And for their own reasons, Anglicans and

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Dissenters would be severely agitated by such questions. To have started this hare might very well have killed the bill. Peel saw the danger, and this portion of Wellington’s earlier proposal was dropped in the cabinet. Exclusions from office, which had been Wellington’s idea, were also trimmed by a few, and in the end Roman Catholics were eligible for every office, including seats in Parliament, but excepting the lord chancellor of England and the lord lieutenant of Ireland.42 The king’s behavior after the bill was launched in Parliament was no better than before, but now Wellington kept things under control by direct language and, where necessary, threats of resignation.43 The duke had taken a strong line with the king over Test Act repeal the previous spring. He took a strong line in the spring of 1829. It is a pity he had not taken one in between. Instead, sure of his own ability to manage the king and ignoring his own cabinet, he managed to make himself the king’s prisoner. It is safe to say that none of his three predecessors would have proceeded in the same fashion—and they would have been right not to do so.

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 The two most revealing questions about the House of Lords between the passage of the Catholic Relief bill in the spring of 1829 and the accession of Grey’s government in November 1830 are the state of the whig party and the failure of Wellington to strengthen his government. The two are connected because it was the willingness of most whigs during this period to give qualified support, or at least to maintain neutrality toward the duke’s government, that allowed it to go on for so long. And it was the duke’s hostility to the whigs that prevented him from strengthening his government. On the day after whig votes carried the Emancipation bill, 11 April, Ellenborough recorded in his diary: “The duke was obliged to say something civil to the whigs, but he did it sparingly and contre coeur.”1 The duke had never liked the whigs and, if that were possible, detested them even more than the king did. In 1828 he had refused to offer Lansdowne, whom the king liked, a seat in his cabinet because it might offend the ultra tories, and he thought if Lansdowne turned it down, it would serve to strengthen whig unity.2 Thus, though generally expected to do so, the duke did not hurry to make whig appointments in the spring of 1829. When Wellington did, Sir James Scarlett hardly counted. He was actually a candidate of the king, who liked the way he handled duchy of Cornwall business. Wellington would have made Scarlett attorney general in the autumn if he had dared; now it took him until 28 May to do it. But Scarlett’s stock with the whigs had not been high for some time. The earl of Rosslyn, a whig from the time he took his seat in 1805, was a different matter. The duke of Newcastle noted in his diary on 7 June that “Lord Rosslyn was taken in as his substitute which does as well for Lord Grey.”3 Unlike Scarlett, Rosslyn joined as lord privy

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seal and was therefore a member of the cabinet and generally considered as preparing the way for Grey. But Rosslyn was also a distinguished general and had been one of a special mission to Lisbon in 1806 that prepared the way for Sir Arthur Wellesley’s dispatch to the Peninsula. Once joined together, the two old comrades never parted, and Grey remained where he was. Newcastle was wrong in assuming that Grey and his following were in effect pledged, but he was right that “Lord Lansdowne and his men . . . do not join.” The reunion of the whigs did not outlast the victory of Emancipation. How many followed each man is difficult to say. The only issue on which they differed in a formal vote was on the duke of Richmond’s motion in the spring of 1830 for a select committee on the state of the laboring classes, which Richmond considered very bad. Lansdowne and twenty other whigs voted for it; Grey and his son-in-law and chief lieutenant, Lord Durham, did not vote. Another twenty whigs voted against the motion. They were an assorted lot, but they included several whig magnates, including the duke of Bedford and the marquess of Cleveland, whose violation of Grey’s favored policy of neutrality was not appreciated.4 The largest single group supporting Richmond’s motion were twenty-eight ultra tories. There was also a small but highly significant group of eight Canningites (but not necessarily Huskissonites), among them Canning’s son-in-law Clanricarde, Goderich, Melbourne, Anglesey, Granville, and Haddington. With the addition of two bishops and an unclassifiable maverick, these and the Lansdowne whigs made up the minority of 61 supporting Richmond. Wellington, who had been highly apprehensive about the outcome, had worked hard to bring out his supporters and was supported by 141, a majority of 80.5 What was significant was not the size of the minority, but its nature. Three separate “parties” were represented. Two of them had by recent showing large untapped reservoirs of support. Furthermore, the opposition was beginning to organize. This was not so much the case with the whig part of it, though Lansdowne’s party held presession meetings at his house. Much more sinister were the ultras, some of whom began to organize for the first time, with the king’s encouragement, a party of “King’s Friends” shortly after their defeat over Emancipation. Its main leaders were the king’s brother, the duke of Cumberland, the earl of Mansfield; Lord Eldon; and the duke of Richmond. Cumberland’s personal life was too unsavory to allow him to lead. And his position of grand master of Irish Orangemen, and the purposes for which he used it, may have made him too dangerous. Eldon was too old, and Mansfield refused the lead. Richmond proved to be a talented leader until his sudden acceptance of a seat in Grey’s cabinet finished the party in the Lords. In the meantime, however, it caused Wellington considerable con-



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cern, especially in the post-Emancipation days when he showed himself excessively anxious not to ruffle ultra feathers.6 By January 1830, it was quite evident that no call to Grey was coming from the duke of Wellington. Lord Cleveland undertook to find out why from Rosslyn. The answer was that Grey’s accession “had been under consideration two months ago and had been abandoned in consequence of a certainty that the pressing of it with the king would have infallibly brought on a dissolution of the ministry.” Grey thought this was nothing but a weak excuse on the duke’s part, which seems likely.7 Yet Grey continued his neutrality, through Richmond’s motion and beyond. Grey did not throw down the gauntlet until after the king’s death on 26 June 1830. On 29 June, after a message from the new king, William, asking for a postponement of impending business to allow a quick dissolution, to which Wellington recommended the House accede, Grey rose to enter a strong dissent. Business, and important business, was much in arrears. And why was it in arrears? Because of the inefficiency and ineptitude of the government. It must be attended to, and there must be a regency bill. The earl of Radnor and others severely reproved the government for looking for an excuse to escape from a burden of legislation it had been unable to carry. Grey again stressed crucial business that had to be dealt with—besides a regency bill, a bill for a “supply of the year.” The government must be funded. Ellenborough in final remarks before the division rather defensively explained the government had no intention of advising the king to dissolve “so speedily as would render it likely the public would be deprived of the relief which the measures now before Parliament promised.” Grey’s motion was only to continue discussion the next day, but it was defeated by a vote of 100 to 55.8 Grey’s announcement of opposition was considered of great importance, then and since, but once more it cannot have been because of the size of the whig division, which was only thirty-four with Lansdowne present and supporting. Grey was also supported by thirteen ultras, including their three respectable leaders, and seven of those who were now calling themselves liberals, once more including Goderich, Melbourne, and Granville. The point of the exercise was to warn the government, and to alert friends, who, as so often with the whigs, were not inclined to move till they were sure there was something afoot. After the June experience, pressure on the duke to strengthen his government greatly increased. The situation in the Lords was not as dire as that in the Commons, where Peel had virtually to carry the whole burden of business on his shoulders. But it was hard enough to get business done in the Lords.

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Before the beginning of the 1830 session, the duke could persuade the duke of Buccleuch to move the Address only by assuring him that of the measures to be proposed “there is no measure among them upon which there can be any strong difference of opinions in the country.” He had to try three times before he finally found a seconder. These were, though indicative of a lack of enthusiasm, relatively speaking, minor matters.9 But at least one important measure of the 1830 session—the question of the disfranchisement of East Retford and what to do with its seats, which was the issue that had driven the Huskissonites from the government in 1828—managed to get to the Lords and bog down there.10 In any case, it was the general opinion that the government desperately needed good speakers and administrators and had to get them where it might. In his own mind, the duke ruled out whigs, though George IV was no more. He also ruled out anything approaching a serious overhaul of the government. The first approach was at the end of June, immediately after the debates. It was made to Lord Melbourne, though in a rather roundabout fashion. Melbourne’s brother Frederick Lamb, a diplomat who had broken a bone in his leg, was staying with Melbourne. Wellington’s niece, Lady Burghersh, wife of a diplomat, visited the invalid, and it was she who shuttled between the duke and Melbourne with verbal messages. The closest they got to a face-to-face discussion was when the duke suggested he might pay a visit to the invalid himself. The duke was very surprised that Melbourne would not consider coming in alone. Wellington said he had no objection to Palmerston but would have to think hard about Huskisson. Melbourne replied that “in the present state of things, no adequate government could be made without comprising not only Huskisson but also Lord Grey.” The duke said he might have brought himself to make an offer to Huskisson, but not to Grey, who had “spoken of me lately in such bitter terms.”11 A series of discussions between the duke and Palmerston, which spanned the whole month of October, also ended the same way. The main difference in these discussions being that, besides asking for the inclusion of other former Huskissonites (Huskisson had died in a railway accident), Palmerston now insisted on Grey, Lansdowne, Holland, and Carlisle as well.12 This was an accurate indication of the way the wind was blowing, and Grey had already decided to move toward the Huskissonites. There was not to be any formal junction immediately. Grey was firmly of the opinion that “The way in which such junctions should be brought about is by a cooperation which naturally arises out of measures with respect to which we may agree.” This was not, however, meant to exclude previous communication.13



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In late August, meetings celebrating the recent revolution in France took Grey’s mind back “to similar proceedings in 1792,” which had sparked a violent reaction. He was optimistic but hoped the lesson had been learned, and believed that it was only by such errors on the part of his opponents “that the duke of Wellington can be enabled to maintain himself.”14 The duke’s mind ran in exactly the opposite direction. In early October, Grey addressed a letter to Lansdowne suggesting a meeting and received a warm response. At about the same time, Sir Henry Hardinge warned Peel that parliamentary reform might be “the all-important vital question.” Grey had no doubt about it, suggesting to Holland that it ought to be a “sine qua non of . . . coming into office.” Holland had no doubt either.15 Very old friends were also responding. On 1 November, in a conversation with Arbuthnot in which they discussed “the Political Unions which were now spreading in the manufacturing districts,” Edward Littleton also passed on a message for the duke from Lady Stafford that “unless a moderate parliamentary reform was intended by the government, Lord Stafford and all who belonged to him must go into opposition.”16 The whigs were gathering once more. All kinds of exaggerations and rumors were circulating. Tory election managers were putting it about that the party had come out of the general election with a comfortable majority, which was not true or even gaugeable at this point. There were also rumors that the duke would in fact take up parliamentary reform. The whigs who had seen him champion repeal of the Test Acts and Emancipation, and honored him for it, found it difficult to dismiss the possibility completely, but there was never a chance. Already on 14 October he had made as flat a statement as he was soon to make in Parliament, telling Sir James Shaw: “Not only do I think parliamentary reform unnecessary but that it would be . . . injurious,” adding “I shall therefore at all times and under all circumstances oppose it.”17 By repeating these sentiments in Parliament on 2 November, he doomed his government and set in motion events that would lead to Lord Grey taking office with a promise of “Peace, Reform, and Economy.” On 18 January 1831, having reviewed the work of the committee that had drawn up the government’s plan for parliamentary reform, Lord Lansdowne wrote to Grey: It certainly appears to me to go rather beyond than short of what is expected by the public and what would I believe satisfy the most reflecting part of it, without alarming the rest. What are now called the people and their leaders never will be satisfied; but there is good sense enough in the middle classes to receive with favour and support any change which would give persons of small property a decidedly larger share of power.18

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Lansdowne was perhaps the most conservative of the whigs on the question of Reform (i.e., parliamentary reform), but he was also to prove completely loyal. And, in fact, he captured very well the whig objective. For the whigs, “the people” had for a long time meant “the more reflecting part” and “persons of small property”—that is, “the middle classes.” These were the sort of people that ought to be brought within the pale of the constitution—people of some education and substance—which would supposedly guarantee a rational and responsible use of their electoral power and strengthen what was best in the old system of society and politics against the threat posed by the masses outside the pale.19 We are often enjoined to remember that the government was not really a whig government but rather made up of several elements. Though literally true, this is not really relevant. Where they had been before would not provide a basis for predicting how they would act on Reform and certainly not for where they would go afterward. But on Reform they all took a basically whig position.20 This is further illuminated by their plan. Though that plan would change in its details, the basic principles remained the same throughout. Grey outlined them to Palmerston just after the Lords rejected the first bill submitted to them in October 1831: “the disfranchisement of the nomination boroughs, the transfer of the Members thus reduced to large towns and to counties, with such improvements in the right of voting generally as should insure a fair representation of the people in Parliament.” The most important mechanism for achieving the last aim was vesting the vote in towns in £10 householders. And he stated once more those to whom these reforms were being addressed: “the middle classes, who form the real and efficient mass of public opinion, and without whom the power of the gentry is nothing.”21 The idea, then, was to disfranchise a large number of boroughs where the real electoral power was in the hands of one or a very few individuals, what was known as the rotten part of the constitution, and transfer their seats elsewhere. These were to be assigned to large towns, previously unrepresented, but that ought to be. These included large manufacturing towns in the north, but by no means exclusively. There were also towns in the south and added representatives for counties. Various franchises were employed outside the towns designed to ensure respectability. But in the towns the aim was to have a uniform £10 householder franchise. This franchise was hastily adopted at the end, when it was found that a higher one would produce an embarrassingly small number of voters, but the assumption was that someone able to pay that much annual rent, or live in a house capable of commanding it, would probably meet requirements.



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To the duke of Wellington the whig bill meant legislated revolution. He told the duke of Buckingham in March that “I can see no reform however moderate that will not violate some principle.” And he waxed more emphatic. He quite agreed with Buckingham about the threat posed by “the bill now depending, and I certainly never will enter the House of Lords from the time it passes.”22 Wellington would maintain this rigid opposition to any and all Reform until the eve of the debates in late September, when cooler heads prevailed. Meanwhile the bill made its way through the Commons, only to be sabotaged at the end by a tory amendment in late March. A general election in April 1831 brought a whig landslide. But thoughts soon began to turn toward the House of Lords. On 14 June Grey informed Palmerston that he had seen the king, who had agreed to create five new peers. “It may be useful as a hint that more will be made if it should become necessary.” Palmerston was rather afraid it might suggest a planned coup d’état against the House of Lords.23 It had long been taken for granted that the monarch possessed the right to create peers to pass legislation blocked in the Lords, but it had not been exercised since the reign of Queen Anne and then had involved only twelve peers. It was, in short, not a shiny weapon ready for combat, as Grey himself would admit. There has, however, been recent discussion about whether it was a weapon that Grey’s government used as effectively as it might have.24 It is an important question, and it will be useful to follow it closely. The hint was not lost on Wellington, who shaped his policy right up to the measure coming to the Lords accordingly. That policy was to keep lords as quiet and outwardly peaceable as possible. He told the duke of Buckingham that he quite agreed with him that they must make a dead set against the second reading, but they must say as little about it as possible and call no meetings to promote it. The king’s coronation was coming in September. There were always some creations to honor the occasion, but the duke did not want to bring about a large creation with the bill in mind: “These circumstances increase my anxiety to keep the House of Lords as quiet as possible till the bill comes up. It would be unfortunate if the House itself was by its own acts to afford a pretence for the destruction of its independence and utility.”25 Though tory lords did not like his orders and grumbled a great deal, they obeyed. The whig hint may have boomeranged by allowing the duke to instill in the whigs a false sense of security. At any rate it was decided not to go beyond twenty peers for the coronation, the same number as for George IV’s coronation. The cabinet decided against any creation to pass the bill or attempting to rouse the country to support the bill as it moved into the House of Lords.26 The whig government obviously did not wish to appear aggressive. As to an

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additional creation, it is perhaps as well that they did not undertake one. For it appears that the number discussed, thirty or thirty-five, was to include the coronation peers.27 This would have fallen several short of what turned out to be a tory majority of forty-one. At about the same time, Wellington was busy building his majority. But the group he particularly concentrated on at this time was to pay dearly for its complicity. On 10 September, Ellenborough had heard from the bishop of Gloucester that the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London had decided not to vote on the second reading, but to vote against on the third reading. Other bishops would almost certainly follow their lead. Their reason was that a vote against on the second reading would “produce immediate danger to the Church.”28 Attempting to throw out a bill on the second reading, before it had been thoroughly discussed, was considered a discourteous and even provocative act. But as the tory strategy was precisely that, to the bishops this could mean that they did not have to vote at all. That was probably their object. Though on the great issues of recent years—Test Act repeal and Emancipation—there was an obvious reason for the bishops to play a leading role, there was a growing feeling—the position of the bishop of Norwich, for example—that they ought to avoid purely secular conflicts. Wellington, however, would have no truck with such ideas. He told Ellenborough that he believed the bishops would vote on the second reading. He made sure of it. With the help of his old friend Henry Phillpotts, now bishop of Exeter, he busily solicited attendance, collected proxies, and made sure there would be enough bishops present to vote them. He even enlisted the help of the duke of Buckingham and Lord Sidmouth to try to persuade the eighty-four-year-old bishop of Hereford to come up and take his seat.29 No stone was left unturned. The tories were now ready for the contest, and Lord Eldon in a letter to Wellington provides the reasoning behind their chosen course of trying to throw the bill out on the second reading: If we are to let the bill through a Committee, either we shall be beaten upon all motions to vary or reject clauses, or our amendments and alterations after they are adopted will become the subject of endless Conferences between the two Houses, the result of which may be almost certainly anticipated and the duration of which will be considerably long, keeping the country throughout all the time in a state of ferment.

In other words, if they went into the freer atmosphere of a Committee, where every clause was scrutinized and any number of amendments could be made, they might come out worse than they went in. But if they were successful in the Committee, the version of the bill they produced would certainly become an object of contention with the Commons and end either in surrender or dead-



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lock, neither being acceptable and the latter dangerous on account of public reaction. The next sentence of the letter in a sense follows from what precedes, but is rather more of a piece of advice to the duke: “Surely it is more prudent to declare non-agreement to this bill, without either prejudicing or favouring the introduction of any other, which anybody may think proper to bring forward.” This policy, as well as that to try for a knockout blow on the second reading, was unanimously accepted at a discreet dinner at Apsley House for “sixteen peers whose opinions are likely to be influential, and some of whom are in the habit of taking part in debates, among whom were men of all parties.”30 The duke’s ability to keep his party quiet for months shows that he was taking control of it. His willingness to take Eldon’s advice shows that he was growing in political sense and flexibility. For almost a year he had been rigid in his opposition to any and all parliamentary reform. It had served him ill in November 1830, and it would have continued to after October 1831. There was no need to take such a public position, and it would have continued to infuriate his opponents and to annoy or at least baffle his followers, as well as making later shifts of his position even more embarrassing. Unrelieved negativism is not a political asset. While Wellington left nothing to chance, he was confident of his majority. The whigs by this time were not. Holland again pressed a creation of peers on Grey. He replied that aside from the fact that the cabinet had scattered, they first had to know how many would be necessary, “which we do not.” Carlisle also was interested in a creation; he understood that the majority against them would be ten. The duke of Richmond, the whig whip and a good one, told the duke of Portland that “the peers are as uncertain as mares in the spring. My calculations are founded upon the belief that many will not vote at all.”31 The whigs, of course, were right to be nervous. The vote against the bill was 199 to 158.32 The government’s defeat renewed pressure for a new creation. But on 28 October, Grey told Viscount Duncannon that in order to overcome the tory majority a creation of not fewer than eighty to a hundred would do, and that would be impossible. It would mean destruction to the House of Lords and “almost equally to the House of Commons from where the new peers must chiefly be taken. And how could you meet so many new elections? Really people talk of these things without having considered them.” Grey said much the same to Holland, with less detail.33 How Grey arrived at these figures is unclear. Only about twenty tories who might have voted did not, so there was no untapped reservoir to be drawn on. Of course Grey might well not have known this and simply have been adding the tory majority, with an added margin of safety, but

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his would have been pretty broad margins. His other concerns have to be taken seriously. A severely restricted pool and consequent elections were to be genuine concerns when creations became a real possibility. But for a while other matters were to the fore. Public reaction to the defeat in the Lords was not long in coming, and it was explosive. Political Unions sprang into action and multiplied. The one at Birmingham with its monster meetings and military-style drills was very much in the public eye. Rioting was widespread, and two were on a large scale. It had not escaped attention that twenty-two bishops made up more than half the tory majority against the bill. It was marked at Bristol, which was in the hands of the rioters for two days, by burning the bishop’s palace to the ground. At Nottingham, the rioting appeared fearful and saw the burning of the ultra duke of Newcastle’s house, though this was a mistake and the rioting was mostly carefully stage-managed by the Reformers. The duke of Wellington thought he saw a rebellion brewing, believed that the Birmingham Political Union was arming itself, and bombarded the king with warnings that the Political Unions must be put down. The king was not panicked, but he was indignant and insisted that the Political Unions must be dealt with. Grey’s position was more complex. He wrote to Melbourne, the home secretary, on 18 November: “It will be impossible to pass over this Birmingham Union, and yet a conflict with it at this moment will have very pernicious effects. I have written to Althorp to suggest the expediency of a private representation to Attwood.” The popular chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons had the connections to suggest the right intermediary to express the government’s concern. Thomas Attwood, who never dreamed of violence, was happy to oblige. And that was the way the business was handled. A proclamation reminding the Political Unions of the law was issued to placate the king. Grey’s reason for treating the Political Unions so carefully was one he repeated again and again, to keep the middle classes “united with the government by the passing of a Reform Bill.” This would make the Unions unnecessary, but until then he needed the pressure they could exert.34 Another kind of pressure was acting on Grey himself. Shortly after the Reform bill was thrown out by the Lords, two prominent tories of the more liberal variety, Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, took the lead in an effort to find compromises that would allow a bill supported by both parties to pass. Neither party leader welcomed their efforts. Wellington, though outwardly flexible, wanted no compromise at all. Grey, adamant on his three essential points, rejected any proposals that he perceived as impinging on them, and in any case was initially doubtful that the two lords would have much success in swaying



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their colleagues. But they had one great and enthusiastic supporter, the king, and he was not backward in pressing their case with Grey. Parliament had been prorogued, and when it met again in December a third Reform bill was brought into the Commons. The cabinet had to plan for its reception in the Lords, and once more there was a strong feeling among some of its members about the necessity of at least being ready for a creation of peers. The new argument for it was that with public feeling so strongly in its favor, the bill must not be lost, on its own merit and because of the dangerous reaction its loss might provoke. This time the argument took. The cabinet’s recommendation to the king, delivered orally by Grey, was a small initial creation to send a strong hint and permission to purpose a further addition later if that were necessary. He and the king talked about where new peers might be recruited. The king wanted a batch that would “affect the permanent character of House of Lords as little as possible.” Grey agreed. He proposed to call up eldest sons, initially those not in Parliament. This would supply enough for the first creation, “say in all eight or ten,” then those who were in Parliament, and so forth. But Grey had opened his conversation with the king, before delivering the cabinet’s recommendation, by saying that he now expected a majority of twenty on the second reading of the bill and would probably need a further margin of safety to get the bill through the Committee. The king asked for the cabinet’s opinion in writing.35 The next day, though not committing himself to anything, the king wrote that he wished to have the pool confined to eldest sons, collateral heirs, and, if necessary, Scottish and Irish peers exclusively. He also offered an immediate creation of twenty-one peers. It is quite clear where he got that figure.36 Grey replied on 14 January 1832, with a cabinet minute stating “frankly their opinion of the necessity of their being allowed to add eventually to the peerage to the full extent which may be required,” adding their earnest desire to keep such an addition to the smallest number possible. The king replied the next day that he would not deny his ministers “the power ‘of acting at once up to the full exigency of the case.’” On the same day, Grey told Palmerston that he had “a reply from the king to our minute. He consents, but not quite in a comfortable tone.”37 The king was extremely concerned about the Political Unions and not entirely convinced by Grey’s argument that once Reform was carried the middle classes would desert them and a peaceful society would ensue. But what brought the king’s mind back to his promise to create peers, if necessary, was information transmitted to Grey by the king’s secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor. Wharncliffe and Harrowby and the Waverers, as they and their growing follow-

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ing were called, would support the second reading if there was no creation. If there were, they would be in full opposition.38 A few days later, Taylor wrote regarding the size of a creation: “His Majesty consented that it should be indefinite. Yet there must be some limits; and it cannot be supposed by those who urge Your Lordship that his Majesty would agree to exceed certain bounds.” Would forty or fifty be required, though the king trusted he would never be asked to consider such numbers? Grey replied that if the Waverers were to take “a decided part with the opposition not less than the largest number stated” would be required. Grey remarked that perhaps he was being rather premature in saying this, “but I am anxious that the whole matter should be brought in its fullest extent under his Majesty’s contemplation before any further advice is tendered to him by the Cabinet.” Taylor made no comment on the figure but assured Grey that the king did not mean to fail him in his hour of need.39 On 15 February, Taylor wrote that if those disposed to support the second reading, the Waverers, came to some understanding “which shall offer ground for giving up the option which you have, to propose an addition to the House of Lords for the purpose of carrying the bill,” the king considered that the Waverers should be pledged to carry the bill subject to that understanding without introducing or supporting any alteration which should be at variance with it.40 This was rightly taken to mean that the king fully supported the government’s objective. And he authorized Grey to show the letter to Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe. The king’s object was obviously intended to give them a jolt. It had the desired effect, and negotiations moved on quickly toward a satisfactory conclusion. The Waverers could offer twenty-six votes, worth fifty-two. Holland and others desiring a creation pointed out that these could not be guaranteed.41 In fact, the Waverers’ calculations were off by only two, both bishops. The participation of bishops was largely owing to the influence of Bishop Blomfield of London, who had refused to be dragooned into voting against the 1831 bill and had abstained instead. This was the way things stood early in March when the next discussions about a creation took place. Its exponents, most vigorously Althorp and Durham, now talking in terms of sixty, argued that it was absolutely essential to guarantee getting the Reform bill through its second reading and even more through the Committee stage (when proxies could not be used). Grey adamantly opposed. Althorp threatened to resign. But in the cabinet there was in the end only one dissenting vote, Durham’s.42 In a letter to Althorp of 11 March, Grey argued his case. It had never been their object to swamp the House of Lords, and there was no justification for



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doing so now. The king had only reluctantly agreed to give them the power they asked, and it was to be exercised “only in the last extremity and in certain conditions.” As it was, the majority on the second reading appeared to be nearly certain. Would it be “mortally impaired” in the Committee? The Waverers would not move against the bill’s essential principles; they acquiesced in Schedule A, disfranchising the rotten boroughs, the enfranchisement of the large towns, and the £10 qualification. Grey admitted his own prejudice in resisting a creation. But “it is a measure of extreme violence. There is no precedent for it in our history, the question of Queen Anne’s peers not being in point. It is a certain evil, dangerous in itself as a precedent.” He also thought it would be ineffective. They would certainly lose the equivalent of fifty-two votes. Even a creation of sixty therefore would hardly make much difference. And they might lose others.43 Grey was right. The king had never said that he would create peers at any time, but only at a time of “exigency.” And in his later promises, “in your hour of need,” or if the Waverers broke their promise in Committee. And there was no reason for him to have found this a time of urgency, especially when largely through his efforts the whigs had recently had a promise of an accession higher than any request from them he had heard up to that time. Grey was quite right not to risk what he had for a request he knew would not be granted. They could then, of course, have tendered their resignation, and there is every reason to believe that the king would have accepted it at this time. Unlike his elder brother, William IV was not a timid man. As time would prove, he was not timid enough. Grey made the right and the responsible decision for the good of his cause. On 25 March, the day before the bill was to come up to the Lords, Holland went over the list of lords with Charles Wood, Grey’s son-in-law and secretary. Holland found it “though far from unfavorable, not quite so certain as to warrant us in suspending all precautions in case of defeat.” The cabinet then began to discuss its options, and after the debate in the Lords the next day, at 10 p.m., they examined lists again. What they found were names “once reckoned certain of supporting on the second reading but now doubtful.”44 Then, as Holland said, “we proceeded to business.” They drew up a minute advising the king that in the event of a very small majority on the second reading they would probably have to advise a creation. In the event of a defeat they offered the king the alternative of a prorogation and a creation, or resignation. Prorogation would mean a new session of Parliament and enable the government to reintroduce the measure.45 The king ruled out a creation in the case of a small majority on the second

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reading, arguing that such a step would increase the opposition of Waverers and others. This would either involve a creation so extensive that his ministers might not venture to propose it, or “His Majesty think fit to sanction, or may render eventually insufficient and useless the addition which upon any reasonable ground and defensible principle his Majesty may be advised and consent to make.” In the case of a defeat on the second reading, the king would honor his pledge of a creation, “however, as had been stipulated, subject to his Majesty’s consideration of the nature and extent of the addition.”46 On 1 April, Grey went down to Windsor. At the very beginning, he reiterated the three points on which he could not budge. The king made some observations, but did not press them. He said he did not mean to rule out a creation after a small majority, but he wanted to consider it at the time. The king wished to know how many peers would be necessary to carry the bill in case of a rejection. Grey replied not fewer than fifty or sixty. That, the king said, was a “fearful number.” He said he would have to have the number and who would compose it before he could decide. Grey agreed. The result of the interview, then, was that there was no positive rejection and the matter remained open for decision.47 Two letters from the king that followed were less good-natured. The first, written on 5 April, followed the king’s review of all their correspondence on creations. It showed that he had objected to the “growing extent of the measure.” He had no reason to expect this at the beginning, and if he had, he would have placed a “positive restriction” on it. He renewed his pledge, subject to the consideration of limiting any proposed creation to a “reasonable number.” In a letter written on 7 April, he complained that in a list received from Grey the previous day there were thirty-eight eldest sons and collateral heirs, and two commoners barred by their agreement. In January, the king went on, Grey had sent a list of fifty-two eldest sons, fifteen collaterals, and seven Scottish and Irish peers (in compliance with their agreement).48 The first letter was accurate in its facts. The king had become more anxious as the numbers grew, and he would have had no reason in the beginning to believe that they would have ballooned to the extent they did. Grey accepted this, and when it was all over, though they deplored the king’s bad judgment of the national interest, his ministers never accused him of bad faith. The second letter underlined another fact: that the whigs had been rather slipshod in their calculations. Admittedly it was a volatile period, when men and opinions changed quickly, and the divergent lists of candidates for peerages may or may not have meant that the whigs were pressed to find suitable



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candidates according to a definition they had agreed to. What is not open to question is that someone ought to have examined the lists of lords who were to vote on the second reading before the literal eve of the debates. The fault was probably Charles Wood’s. Richmond was certainly an able and assiduous pursuer of lords’ votes, and later calculations that came out under his name were remarkably accurate. But, though Wood was also reporting to Richmond, it would appear that it was the prime minister’s secretary who was responsible for them on this occasion, which makes one wonder whether some other inaccuracies might not be laid at his door. For a while it appeared that all this might not matter. On 14 April, the bill passed its second reading. Though the majority was only nine, there was much jubilation and praise for Grey. Althorp himself told his father that “I perceive that if we had made a large creation of peers we should have not have been supported in the House of Commons.” Their staunchest friends “expressed to me so much pleasure at our having carried the second reading without a creation.”49 Althorp’s colleagues in the cabinet were rather more subdued. They had, however, decided on going into the Committee without asking for another creation. And they had some time to prepare because the Committee would not be held until after Easter, which in this case meant early May. The response of the party was disappointing. On 21 April, Grey wrote to Holland: “All I can do I have done with individuals when the case has been brought before us, and by having directed a very feeling circular for attendance to be sent round. But the superior zeal and activity of our opponents will give them a great advantage.” He also told Holland that he would meet with the leading Waverers on Saturday, but as they were already in touch with the tory leadership, he was not hopeful.50 In fact, through Wharncliffe, the government would be kept well informed on what was going on in those quarters. What the tory and Waverer leaders proposed to do was to postpone the consideration of Schedules A and B, the disfranchising schedules, until the franchising schedules had been decided upon. On the day the Committee met, Lord Grey led by moving an amendment suggested earlier by the Waverers that went in that direction. He proposed to remove from Schedule A a stipulation in its title that the number of boroughs to be disfranchised would be fifty-six, which seemed to prejudge the issue. Lord Lyndhurst announced that far from opposing Grey’s motion he wished to carry it further. From the days of Chatham onward, enfranchisement had always been the basic principle of reforming efforts and disfranchisement only a way of finding room for new boroughs. (The history of the previous decade would have proved him wrong.) He contended

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that disfranchisement should go no further than that and should take place only after a careful consideration of each borough on its merit. Lyndhurst then moved that Schedules A and B be postponed.51 Lyndhurst was a consummate debater and perhaps the most dangerous opponent in the House. In the decade to come, whig legislation would fall before him like wheat before the scythe. He was the master of every style from brutal sarcasm to sweet reasonableness. Here he was in the latter style, a friend to the fair and English way. Lyndhurst was followed by Lord Harrowby. Harrowby agreed with Lyndhurst that enfranchisement should precede disfranchisement; it had always been so. At least Harrowby’s memory went back to Pitt the younger, when it had been so. But he strongly denied any wider hostility to the bill.52 Another who spoke much the same language was the ultra earl of Harewood: “He had no idea that the object was to get rid of Schedule A, and if it were he certainly would not join in any such object.”53 Finally, in this vein, there was Harrowby’s colleague Lord Wharncliffe, who stated that “there was no disposition on that side of the House to be niggardly with disfranchisement.” He went on to say that the aim was not to “postpone disfranchisement altogether, but only first to see what enfranchisement was necessary, and afterwards make disfranchisement accordingly.”54 Most tory ultras, however, were more pronounced in their opposition than Lord Harewood was (though there were several ultras who had consistently supported the bill). Lord Winchelsea, who had begun as a supporter of Reform, still favored a considerable extent of Reform, especially the enfranchisement of the big towns. Lord Bexley agreed with him, but not the duke of Newcastle, who, though he did not much care in what order they considered the clauses, was “convinced that the bill was calculated to produce revolution and therefore . . . was determined to oppose it.”55 Grey’s response to Lyndhurst was sharp and pointed. Lyndhurst had said he did not intend to defeat the bill, “but the tendency and effect of the motion, if ever a motion was calculated to have such an effect, would be to defeat the bill.” He repeated, “it would be fatal to the whole bill.” Grey said “he was pledged to the measure not only from his conscientious conviction that its principles were sound, but also because those principles had received the approbation of the country.” As for the nomination boroughs, they had been notorious for the last century. Their corruption was well known. For that reason they deserved disfranchisement, and there was no reason to postpone the clause.56 Not long after Grey’s speech, the House divided, 151 to 122 for Lyndhurst’s plan, a majority of 29. The credit for this must go to Lyndhurst, who had fore-



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seen the possibilities of such a strategy and was mainly responsible for executing it. He had brought a large number of men of differing opinions under a wide tent, and together they had triumphed. The whigs mainly blamed the Waverers, about whose actual defection in the vote they had not been warned, for their defeat. But the fourteen Waverers, worth twenty-eight, who voted for Lyndhurst’s motion would not have carried it. There is very good reason to believe that there were those with much greater responsibility for the whig defeat. Forty-nine lords who had voted for the second reading of the Reform bill did not vote on Lyndhurst’s motion. These included the duke of Portland, the marquess of Ailsa, the marquess of Westminster, the marquess of Breadalbane, the marquess of Northampton, the earl of Bessborough, the earl of Carlisle, the Earl Granville, and Lord Belhaven. Thirty of them could have turned the tide. Clearly the “very feeling circular” had not been heeded. Their behavior represented a deplorable apathy in the party at a crucial time, and it is hardly likely it would have ended with them. It was a phenomenon that would dog the whigs for the rest of the decade, and beyond. The next day, a cabinet minute offered the king the alternatives they had decided upon in such a case. Their resignations were accepted.

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 On 7 May, following the passage of Lyndhurst’s motion, a strange episode ensued. While the tory side could unite on passing the motion, there was little unity of opinion thereafter. Yet few were prepared for Grey’s announcement when discussion in the Committee recommenced that he would move that further business be adjourned until the following Thursday. This meant that he would not accept defeat, and that either a creation or resignation would follow. The few who were expecting it were the tory leadership, and they were not far ahead of their followers. They had rightly understood the meaning of the intransigence of Grey’s speeches in the debate, and they huddled during the division trying to decide how to put their own position in a more appealing light. Lord Ellenborough was to be the messenger, and what he was to put forward has been described as the leaders’ “scheme of amendments.” Ellenborough described it as “my amendments.” Certainly it did not reflect anything previously agreeable to the duke of Wellington except for the complete separation of town and county voters, which the whigs had already decided against.1 Lyndhurst hoped that he would be allowed to make his second motion, that Schedule B be postponed. Grey had no objection. Ellenborough followed, stating his concern about Grey’s motion to adjourn. He had hoped to be able to give a brief description of motions he had intended to make the next day, but now he would have to give a rather fuller one. He would propose a disfranchisement to the full extent of Schedule A, and one more (113 seats)! He was concerned that the uniform franchise proposed in towns would exclude from direct representation “all the poorest classes of the community.” Instead he proposed, in addition, to retain where it already existed a scot-and-lot, or ratepayer, franchise. Finally, he intended to move an amendment that persons not



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be allowed to vote in counties by virtue of property situated in parliamentary boroughs. The only other tory to speak, the duke of Buckingham, disagreed with Ellenborough, whose proposals he thought would increase the electorate too much and in the wrong direction. That the tory leadership seriously expected to accomplish much from such a presentation does not seem very likely. It was what it sounded like—the product of a snap decision. To have put this before Lord Grey was like a victim rushing to put his neck on the block. In remarks dripping with sarcasm, Grey congratulated Ellenborough and the House on the extent he was ready to go “upon the revolutionary measure, as it was termed.” He was willing to concede all the whig requirements, disfranchisement, enfranchisement, and an extensive popular qualification. Indeed, on the last, he was willing to go further than the bill. “The noble baron objected to the uniformity of the £10 qualification as being . . . democratic and revolutionary, and he proposed to correct it—how? by retaining a portion of the existing system, which was more extensive and more democratic.” Grey concluded that whatever these proposals represented, they confirmed the belief that there was no uniformity of opinion on that side of the House. And, in a final sarcasm, Grey suggested that Ellenborough’s proposals should have been put to the House before the motion just passed (Lyndhurst’s). That, he said, might well have prevented its unfortunate outcome.2 Yet if it was strange for Ellenborough to propose such radical measures, it was stranger still for the duke of Wellington to contemplate a Reform bill of his own, that would have been as radical as the whig bill. Such an action could hardly have been predicted. Wellington’s position on the whig Reform bill was very much his own, at least among leading politicians. Michael Brock thinks that Lyndhurst had in mind defeating the bill and driving the whigs from office, though he probably did not think this would take place immediately.3 Certainly, Lyndhurst’s instinct was always to go for the jugular, and it would not be the last time the duke was enticed by him to go too far. Wellington’s position was less straightforward. He benefited from Eldon’s advice not to paint himself into a corner on the Reform issue, and this allowed him to portray himself as behaving as an ordinary Member of Parliament would with an ordinary bill. In the debate on Lyndhurst’s motion, the duke admitted that he was an enemy to the bill because of its principles. When, however, those principles had been adopted by the Lords on the second reading, “he considered that it then became his duty as an honest Member of Parliament to come down and consider the bill according to the principles, bad or good, upon which it had been brought in, and to do what was in his power to make it as good a bill for the country as possible, consistent with those principles.”

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Wellington had listened to the debates, and he thought that no one had been able to refute Lyndhurst’s argument that “enfranchisement should come first—the constitutional way.” He did not want “to sabotage the bill in Committee, though he had opposed the bill’s principles and would again.” Like Harrowby, and indeed Lyndhurst, he argued that the tories accepted the three great principles of the bill and were simply contemplating adjustments within their parameters. Yet having said that, Wellington also suggested that, even with improvements, he would continue to challenge the bill’s principles, either at the Report stage or on the third reading, or both.4 In short, it appeared that the duke intended to go down fighting. That this was the case is further confirmed by a letter in almost identical terms to J. W. Croker on 30 April. Wellington would do his best to amend the bill. “But I shall take every opportunity of protesting against every part of the system which it is proposed that it should carry into execution.” He would not propose alterations to make the bill any worse than it already was. He would try “to improve the bill in my sense, but still protesting against it, and intending to vote against it upon the third reading.”5 At the end of it all was always the last stand. Wellington’s was not a position of constructive leadership, and on the Reform question he was not a constructive leader. However he might portray himself, he was as negative as ever. But after Wellington was asked by the king to form a government, his position changed rapidly. “His majesty insisted that some extensive measure of Reform should be carried,” and the duke agreed to undertake it. After the failure of the attempt, he admitted to the Lords that he “did not think that under the influence of this measure [the whig bill] it is possible that any government can expect to overcome the dangers to which this country must be exposed.” But that was not the question: “I was called to assist my sovereign in resisting a measure which would enable the ministry to carry through this House the whole bill, unmodified, unimproved, and unmitigated.” The choice, then, was between a measure over which the existing House of Lords might still exercise some control, “or else of suffering the whole bill to be carried and the House of Lords to be destroyed.” In short, the duke took office on the king’s terms to prevent the monarchy from being humiliated and the Lords swamped by new creations. Keep the institutions intact and there might be hope for the future.6 It seems unlikely that there would have been much room for modification, improvement, or mitigation. Peel did not think so. He told Croker: “I foresee that a bill of Reform, including everything that is really important and really dangerous, must pass.” The marquess of Waterford agreed, writing to Richmond: “No sort of men can remain in power for three weeks without a pledge



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to a measure of reform equally effective as that which has been thrown out by the quibble of a lawyer, followed by the retirement of ministers, to the great alarm . . . of many who have been wheedled by the said lawyer.”7 Certainly, most of the tories now behaved very well. Ellenborough said that his proposal had “fallen like a bomb amongst our friends.” But now tory meetings at Apsley House accepted the duke’s pact with the king with little fuss. On 10 May, only three ultras, Newcastle and the earls of Falmouth and Lonsdale, declared themselves unalterably opposed to any reform whatever. The next day, all present gave their unqualified adherence to Wellington, with only five exceptions. Eldon joined the three opposing all reform. The earl of Powis was against any disfranchisement, and the earl of Mansfield any without compensation. On the 12th, Newcastle asked Wellington whether the king’s declaration was inviolable, or could the duke persuade the king to “relax his notions.” The answer was no. The king was “pledged . . . deeply pledged.”8 This was the last of the meetings, for it soon became clear that, with resolutions of the House of Commons and uproar in the country, the duke could not go on, even if he could have persuaded others to join his government—which he could not. The whigs who had never formally resigned once more resumed their full functions, with a promise of a creation if they needed it. To make sure that they would not, Wellington returned to the House only to make his statement and then led tory lords in a secession that would last until the bill was passed. The mostly ultra group, now joined by Ellenborough, would never exhibit a voting power above thirty-six. But they made a brave statement that they would stand and fight whatever happened, with highly unflattering references to the seceders. Only Ellenborough had a kind word for the latter. The Stalwarts, as they were called, did stand and fight till the end on 4 June, when twenty-two voted against the third reading. Theirs was an exercise in futility. Yet there is every reason to believe that if Wellington had followed his own inclination, he would have been with them. But he did not follow his own inclination. He recognized a compelling duty to the king and to the House to which he belonged. He could not entirely save the king from an embarrassment of his own making; but by leading the secession, for which he was reviled by many within his own party, Wellington saved the king from the further humiliation of a creation, and the House of Lords from being swamped. The latter would live to fight again, and soon. It is usually said that the Reform Act seriously weakened the monarchy and the House of Lords, subordinating both to the House of Commons, which now spoke for a powerful public opinion. These propositions must be examined.

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As regarded the monarchy, there is a good deal of truth in the contention. In the passage of the Reform Act, William IV tried to stem the flow but was quite evidently forced to give way by a resolute House of Commons and an aroused public opinion. A glutton for punishment, the king tried again in 1834 to dismiss a government with a majority in the House of Commons, but was forced to give way once more by the electorate in 1835. Yet the weakening of the monarchy had begun long before the passage of the Reform Act and had as much to do with shifting morality and financial stringencies, not to mention the personal deficiencies of monarchs, as with political reform. Nor did monarchical power fade completely. Lord Grey was every bit as concerned with the parliamentary behavior of the male members of the royal Household in the 1830s as Liverpool and Canning and Wellington had been in the 1820s. Peel refused office in 1839 because he could not have his own way about the ladies of the Household. And Victoria and monarchs after her retained much influence, right up into the 1930s. But the monarch was much more the victim of Reform than the House of Lords. Indeed, it is not easy to see the Lords as a victim at all. There is no doubt that the Reform Act, by the abolition of rotten boroughs and other provisions, greatly reduced the electoral power of a number individual peers. Their influence over MPs they returned to Parliament is usually thought to have been an important factor in reconciling differences between the two Houses—or, put another way, keeping the House of Commons in line. This may once have been the case. But, given the fact that from 1812 to 1829 the two Houses were at odds over the greatest question of the day, this would hardly seem to apply to this period.9 The Lords’ legislative powers were not touched at all. They could still revise and reject legislation passed by the House of Commons. Indeed the number and importance of public measures either rejected outright or heavily amended by the Lords in the eight years after 1832 was a record unequalled for the rest of the century. This was hardly the work of a cowed and submissive House of Lords. It is often explained by the fact that the whig—or Liberal, as the party was coming to be called—government did not have a secure majority in the Commons in this period. The first question to be asked is, when before 1859 did the Liberals have a secure majority? And after that, Gladstone often deferred to the Lords in advance in shaping legislation. In 1884 he was forced to give them the redistribution of seats they insisted on to accompany his parliamentary reform bill. In 1893 they threw out his last Irish Home Rule bill. But to return to the 1830s, the question of the insecure majority is an important one. Why was it insecure? Governments whose vital legislation is being



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rejected have a powerful weapon—they can appeal to the country for support; that is, they can call a general election. That is the only way the public opinion they claim to represent can become the deciding factor. The problem was that the legislation in question, mostly Irish and/or religious, did not reflect public opinion, and the government dared not appeal to the country. It was the Lords who reflected public opinion on these matters. The Lords had long been aware of the importance of public opinion and the necessity of deferring to it. In 1807, Lord Grenville made a powerful appeal to the House on the second reading of the successful bill to abolish the slave trade: In calling your attention to this great measure, let me entreat you to consider that the whole country looks to the Parliament to wipe away the stigma attached to its character in continuing this detestable traffic; that it looks not merely to Parliament, but to your lordships’ House. Twice this measure failed in this House, and if this iniquitous traffic is not now abolished, the guilt will rest with your lordships.10

Wellington in 1828 recognized the impossibility of standing against the House of Commons backed by public opinion. It might be argued that he gave short shrift to public opinion on the issue of Catholic Emancipation. That did cause some concern at the time, with the ultras pressing the importance of the massive showing of public opinion against the measure and its proponents attempting to write it off as the work of overzealous clergymen coercing their congregations—or in Lord Holland’s case, arguing that the relevant public opinion was in Ireland, and obviously strongly for Emancipation. In any case, the bill was clearly perceived to be one to meet a national emergency, and ordinary rules did not apply. The duke’s stand on parliamentary reform might seem more difficult to explain away, but there is an explanation. Not long before the second reading of the second Reform bill in October 1831, Wellington wrote to the marquess of Bath, who was lingering at Longleat: “We here think that there is a very prevailing change of public opinion in the country upon the subject of the bill. At all events we think that the House of Lords ought to give the country a chance of being saved by affording further time to consider of the question, [and] that in taking this course the House will perform its peculiar function and fulfill its duty in the Constitution.”11 It is clear that Wellington did not envisage a delay of the bill forever. And it must also be borne in mind that the time between this delay and the final passage of the bill in June 1832 was only eight months—no time at all compared with the delay of Catholic Emancipation for seventeen years (though the length of this deadlock between the two Houses was considered as most serious by all

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concerned). The right of the Lords to delay legislation for further consideration was recognized before this time, and still is. The duke’s judgment that the mood of the country was changing was based on recent by-elections. Looking at the same by-elections, Lord Grey was reluctant to venture too many elder sons in a creation, leaving seats in the Commons that might well be lost. All this is not to say that Wellington did not badly misread hereafter what others saw as clear signs of growing public support for Reform. The Political Unions, for example, he saw—at best—as men taking into their own hands functions that belonged to government, and perhaps as fomenters of armed rebellion. In both cases they needed to be put down. When the king’s government would not put them down, he gave up on both king and government as beyond saving and began his stalwart march to the end, which but for Lyndhurst he might have reached. But while the duke was wrongheaded and obtuse during this period, he never abandoned the constitutional position he had taken in 1828, that it would be wrong to stand for long against the House of Commons backed by public opinion. Thus the House of Lords like the House of Commons was ultimately guided by public opinion, insofar as the lords could understand it. And it must be said that after 1832 Wellington and his colleagues understood it rather better than did the whig governments. If they had not, they would have been in trouble; for though the House of Lords came through reform with all its legislative powers intact, it would not have kept them long had it been perceived as wantonly abusing them. Wellington was determined that this should not happen, and with great good judgment and political skills of a high order, he was successful. Those who do not consign the House of Lords to oblivion because of its being made irretrievably inferior by the Reform Act often dismiss it afterward as becoming simply a branch of the Conservative party, rather on the lines of Mr. Balfour’s Poodle. Wellington’s carrying with him when he left office in 1830 what had previously been the government’s prerogative to elect Scottish and Irish representative peers and bestowing it on what was soon to be called the Conservative party might suggest this. The Conservatives were certainly the largest party in the House and growing larger. Had they always acted together, following the party leader, there might be little point in studying the Lords after 1832. But they did not, and some of the most important decisions in this period were based on cross-party voting. The first of Wellington’s triumphs after 1832 was of just this sort. The great issue of the 1833 session was the Irish Church bill. Ireland had been disturbed since the autumn of 1830. The major grievances were the payment of



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tithes to support the Anglican clergymen of the (Protestant) Church of Ireland, and the Church cess, the Irish equivalent of Church rates, to maintain the fabric and services of the parish churches. The result was what was called the Tithe War in Ireland, which had the effect among other things of virtually halting the payment of both. This left the Anglican clergy there by 1833 in a parlous state, and the Irish Church bill was meant to ease their lot. Wellington’s position on the question was settled early. He wrote to Lord Aberdeen on 19 January that “the principal field of battle of the campaign will be Ireland.” And, speaking of the government, he went on to say that “if they are at all fair on that subject, we must support them.” The reason was that “Lord Grey’s government is the last prop of the monarchy. . . . After him comes Lord Radnor probably and chaos!”12 Radnor, who counted William Cobbett among his friends, had been a radical firebrand since his days in the House of Commons after 1801. When Wellington heard the terms of the bill in February, he did not like them, calling them violations of the king’s coronation oath as well as of the Act of Union. But a letter from the head of the Irish Church, the primate as archbishop of Armagh, to his brother Lord Beresford, caused Wellington to decide that there was much he could overlook. The primate himself had approved of some of the key proposals, and the desperate state of the clergy, he said, made the passage of a bill to relieve them absolutely necessary.13 Arguments like Wellington’s were not ones the ultras, already seriously annoyed with him, wanted to hear. They were itching for a fight and quite ready to stir up a hornet’s nest. Wellington counseled them not to waste their energies and the public’s goodwill before they had something to fight, an actual bill before them, which would not happen until after Easter. In the meantime they should not seek conflict. If they wanted to air their views on an issue, they should call for papers—that is, the relevant government documents and correspondence on the matter. They should avoid moving resolutions, which the Commons could neutralize by moving resolutions of their own. Thus making resolutions was only an exercise in futility, and an irritating one at that. In the meantime the bill made its way though the House of Commons. It had one especially controversial clause. A large number of whigs, and most of the leadership, were convinced that the Irish Church had wealth far exceeding its needs and that this surplus wealth should be put to use for the Irish people, for education or perhaps to relieve the poor. But other whigs and virtually all Conservatives believed that the Church’s property was its own and should be used for its purposes exclusively. Among the former was Edward Stanley, the Irish secretary and later earl of Derby and prime minister. Stanley had an in-

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genious proposal that seemed both to honor his principles and at the same time to allow lay appropriation. The bill was all about redistribution of Church property in the interests of fairness and equity within the institution itself. (Its great aim as public policy, of course, was to calm religious conflict in Ireland.) But the leases on bishops’ lands seemed to Stanley to offer further possibilities. They were let on long leases at low rents and had become more the property of the lessees than the bishops. Stanley proposed to allow the tenant to exchange a twenty-one-year lease for a perpetual one, paying a market price for the privilege. The bishops would recover the existing value, and everything above it—the added value—could be disposed of as Parliament wished, as it was Parliament that would create it.14 The Conservatives were neither convinced nor amused by Stanley’s logic and violently opposed the concept of lay appropriation. On 3 June, Wellington proposed an Address to the king praying him to enforce the declared policy of neutrality in the civil war in Portugal. It was carried 79 to 69. But its fate was the one Wellington had predicted for such measures. The Commons passed a resolution neutralizing it, and the king backed his ministers. Wellington’s closest associates, such as Ellenborough, were perplexed; the duke’s actions were inexplicable. But not to the Government. On 21 June, all was made clear. Citing the danger of a collision with the Lords, the government on that day dropped the appropriation clause from the Irish Church bill. Ellenborough exulted: “All feel that the humiliation of the government is extreme, and the triumph of the Lords, for this concession is the effect of our vote on Portugal.”15 A shot across the government’s bow had brought a vitally important concession, and it brought benefits both to Wellington and to the government. The former was greatly strengthened within his own party, and the latter had removed the only issue that might well have killed its bill. So thought the king’s secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor, and so the debates suggest.16 The duke would surprise the ultras once more, and not at all to their liking, but not at once. The cause of the problem between them was that the more important remaining clauses of the bill all had to do with improving the situation of the bulk of the Irish clergy without inflicting too much punishment on anyone. And Stanley had produced a bill well conceived for its purpose. Peel approved of it, and it passed what was always the duke’s acid test—necessity. The Irish clergy themselves were convinced that the cess had become so poisoned an issue that it had to be done away with. The bill proposed to do so and to replace it with a small tax on the Irish clergy. But they in turn were to be relieved of a large payment called First Fruits, which was expected early in their incumbency. A number of bishoprics were to be suppressed and joined



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to neighboring dioceses on the death of the incumbents. The funds thus freed were to be applied to raising the remuneration of clergymen in smaller livings, and so on. There was not much here that could or should be tampered with.17 And Wellington had no intention of doing so. Wellington’s way, however, was by no means straightforward. As the second reading approached, his remarks on the bill became more ambiguous but could still be taken as critical. He began, however, to take soundings. The ultras were now holding their own meetings, and on 1 July, Lord Carbery reported that he had been to one at the duke of Cumberland’s and found “not one who had agreed to divide on the second reading.”18 This was good news, but it did not last. One of the duke’s close friends, Lady Salisbury, reported that at a meeting on the 8th, the primate of Ireland had declared that if as much of the Irish Church bill as provided for the payment in place of the cess did not pass, “the Irish Church must fall.” But the ultra position was hardening, as a meeting on the 10th demonstrated. Lady Salisbury reported that the duke said: “I have but two objects in view—to save this great party from being split and to secure the Irish Church, and these two are incompatible.”19 Wellington had no intention of giving up, but tensions were growing. When he invited Buckingham, Cumberland’s colleague in leading the ultras, to a meeting on the 14th, the egregious duke replied that he would come, but if Wellington opposed a division on the second reading, he would break the party. Buckingham went on to say that Wellington’s recent language in Parliament had led lords to expect a different result.20 On the same evening that this invitation was issued, there was a small meeting at Apsley House attended by the marquess of Salisbury, Lord Ellenborough, the earls of Aberdeen and Rosslyn, the Conservative whip, and the duke of Buccleuch, along with ten or twelve others. The earl of Roden, a leading ultra, arrived late but was let in. There was a majority in favor of a second reading. Wellington explained that he in no way felt pledged by his speech “the other night.” Nor had he tipped his hand on the second reading then.21 In a letter on 14 July, Lord Strangford warned the duke what was to happen that evening. Before Wellington’s meeting “certain high tory peers were to meet the duke of Cumberland at Holdernesse House, where he is to state his determination to oppose the second reading and persuade them to do likewise.” The duke of Buckingham was to inform the meeting at Apsley House. Strangford feared there would be “a split worse than that of 1829.”22 Wellington did not flinch. In his speech at the end of the debates, after a salvo or two at Grey and the whigs, he laid out the dire straits of the Irish Church. With no Church cess, “there was nothing to support the existence of

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the Church . . . nothing for keeping it up—nothing for repairing the fences of the Churchyards—nothing for paying the salaries of the clerks and of others who are necessary to perform the Church service.” And with no tithes the clergy of the Church, from archbishops to humble curates, were deprived of the major part of their incomes. It was on these grounds that he argued for not opposing the second reading: It appears to me absolutely impossible that the Church of England established in Ireland can continue to exist for a day if some measure of this description is not passed to relieve it from its present unfortunate situation. I do beg the noble duke [of Newcastle] to consider a little what is his duty in the circumstances which I have stated, and which have induced me not to refuse my assent to the bill being committed. The revenues of the Church are reduced to nothing, and it will be impossible for him to act on his views of the question unless a measure for the relief of the Protestant Church in Ireland is adopted by Parliament; and on the 19th of July, if my noble friend continues to say that he will stand upon principle, and upon principle alone, and that he will not allow the property of the Church to be touched on any pretence whatever, he may do so; but what will happen? Why, that the Church of Ireland must go—if he will not act otherwise it must be destroyed.

Having challenged Newcastle and another man of principle, Lord Eldon, to prove him wrong, Wellington then made a comment that put in a nutshell his idea of what constituted statesmanship: “My lords, if the world was governed by principles, nothing would be easier than for a man to govern the greatest possible affairs; but it is not so, and in all these affairs the choice of a wise man is confined to select the least of two contending difficulties.” In this case he believed that this meant going into Committee “to see what measure can be adopted for the relief of the Protestant Church.”23 The division came soon afterward. Wellington left nothing to chance. Richmond had done a first-rate job of whipping and brought out the largest number of whigs between the Reform debates and those on the Corn Law in 1846—this was the kind of measure that had always brought the whigs out. But the duke was probably not aware of how many Richmond had marshaled. Nor could he be very certain of how his party would vote. He stayed in his place almost to the time for voting. Then he rose and walked out, flanked by the sometime ultra marquess of Salisbury; the Canningite earl of Haddington; the liberal tory earl of Aberdeen; the Conservative whip, Lord Rosslyn; and six other assorted grandees. Not many Conservatives actually voted for the bill, but enough followed their leader in abstaining to give it a solid majority of fifty-nine over the eighty-three ultras who had been left to their fate. Needless to say this experience did not make the ultras any happier. But the duke was not through with them. As he wrote to Peel on 23 July: “The majority



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of the House of Lords . . . are decidedly against the bill. It is difficult to restrain them, and they are very much displeased. But it is better to displease them than to increase the anger and confusion of the times.”24 In order to keep the bill from being wrecked in Committee, it was necessary to maintain a constant vigilance and fight the ultras off. Just how is suggested by Rosslyn’s account of an incident the next day. Wellington had suggested an amendment in Committee regarding a relatively minor change in the treatment of the suppressed bishoprics, which Grey turned down. Wellington was quite willing to give way: “But our friends and even some of the reasonable ones showed great dissatisfaction and the duke agreed to divide. . . . This was fortunate for the division reconciled many of our friends, and happily we were beaten, several of our friends not voting. I went to the division with the less anxiety that I was pretty confident we were in a minority.”25 In such ways did a bold leader and a super competent whip maneuver their way to achieve their aim, and the best interests of their country. Lord Wellesley once remarked: “There never was a more crafty villain than my brother Arthur.”26 The vote against the Irish Church bill was the next more or less clear manifestation of ultra strength after 1829. The third would not take place until 1845, in the vote against the Maynooth grant, though that cannot really be described as a show of strength. Yet these three demonstrations gave evidence of continuity. Of the ninety-three peers who voted against Catholic Emancipation in 1829, forty-eight (or their heirs) were among the eighty-three who voted against the Irish Church bill in 1833. In turn, of the same eighty-three peers, twentyseven (or their heirs) made up almost half of the fifty-six peers who were overwhelmed by the supporters of the Maynooth grant in 1845. The continuity is not surprising. In each case, the privilege and property of the Church of England was at issue. Catholic Emancipation (and the repeal of the Test Acts), by establishing the civil equality of its greatest rivals, destroyed the political preeminence of the Church. The Irish Church bill saw parliamentary interference with Church property posing a threat to vast holdings which constituted a heretofore independent basis of the Church’s power. Government endowment of Maynooth College in Ireland, the seminary where priests were educated, was seen by many Protestants as the first step to the establishment of Irish Catholicism as a competitor bound to overwhelm the existing Protestant establishment there. Ultras and their positions on these questions, often called “high tory” because they were extreme, would be manifested in a variety of issues after 1829.

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With the Protestant Constitution gone, they fell back on what they called a Christian Constitution and strongly opposed Jewish Emancipation. Church monopoly, or at least dominant influence, at all levels of education must also be fought for, and the Church’s enemies must be held in check, most especially Irish Catholics. This stand greatly complicated attempts at parliamentary or municipal reform. The ultras were never a majority of the Conservative party, but at least until the 1840s they constituted a sizable minority. Furthermore, because they held, in a clear and sharply defined form, broad principles held by most Conservatives, they were often able to influence members of the party beyond their own ranks. Finally, the ultras’ parallel championing of agricultural protection, evident from 1815, continued, though the identity of anti-Catholic and protectionist positions in the Lords in 1845–46 was not as close as in the Commons, only about 38 percent of those peers voting against Corn Law repeal had voted against the Maynooth grant.

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Toward the end of the 1833 session, the ultras found more to approve of in Wellington’s behavior, though apparently not many of them were there to cheer him on. In response to a demand by the duke of Buckingham for more active opposition in June 1834, Wellington wrote to the marquess of Londonderry: “In the last session of Parliament I fought several fair stand up fights through the dog-days, and till the end of August, with the support of not more than ten or a dozen peers . . . but I do not recollect that I had the advantage of the duke’s support on any one of those occasions.”1 The Jewish Emancipation bill, however, came up early enough for ultra weight to be felt. Like other Emancipation bills, it proposed to open municipal and national offices as well as Parliament to Jews (unlike the Dissenters and the Catholics, they lacked access to all three). On 1 August 1833, Lord Bexley moved the second reading of the bill. Bexley himself was an ultra, but like some others he was acting on his millenarian belief that Christ would not return until the Jews were converted. To accomplish this, they must be treated with every consideration.2 The archbishop of Canterbury at once opposed. He began by dismissing all of the then usual objections to the Jews. If, he said, they still cherished hopes for a return to Jerusalem, that would not lessen their loyalty to their present homes. Their intellect, their piety, their morality were all beyond reproach. What he objected to, however, was the principle: “The great principle of this State was that the religion of the country should be Christian.” The Jews held that the “the Saviour was a wicked imposter.” He moved that the second reading should take place that day six months hence.3 Archbishop Whately of Dublin, a whig, contended that the Jews had as

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good a right to Emancipation as the Dissenters and Catholics and were much less likely to meddle with the Church than the others. In any case, he thought Church affairs ought to be dealt with by a commission appointed expressly for that purpose and made up of members of the Church.4 The marquess of Westminster could not imagine how anyone could be afraid of thirty or forty thousand Jews. And besides believing in civil equality, he too made the point that if their disabilities were removed there would be a greater chance of converting them. The ultra earl of Winchilsea “would not think of putting Roman Catholics, who were Christians, on the same footing with unbelieving Jews.” The bill was “a tissue of blasphemy and impiety.” “The Jews were under God’s judgment because they denied God.”5 The bishop of London, who had been so helpful in passing the second reading of the Reform bill, was equally, if not so insultingly, firm. “He opposed the measure simply and solely from the duty he owed the Constitution of the country. That Constitution, God be thanked, was a Christian Constitution.” He went on to say that what he feared was “lest they should impress the people of England with the feeling that the Legislature was indifferent to the true religion, and he was sorry to see the indifference daily growing on the part of the Legislature to the Christian religion.”6 No longer with a Protestant Constitution, it seemed necessary to most Anglicans to preserve some sort of special position; and it was mainly the tenacity with which they clung to the Christian Constitution that delayed Jewish Emancipation for another fifteen years, after few who had pretensions to education and culture would have openly voiced the grosser forms of anti-Semitism. The bishop of Chichester, a whig like Archbishop Whately and Lord Westminster, would have none of it. “The Jews were the elder brothers of Christians and he did not see much difference between them.” He hoped they would soon merge, and this would be advanced by acts of conciliation such as the bill.7 Though most Jews would not have welcomed this, his was a Broad Church, as opposed to a millenarian, position. Wellington too had seemingly adopted a rather different approach to Jewish Emancipation than he had exhibited toward the first bill in 1830, when he had remarked to Peel that “It . . . gives a false colouring and throws ridicule upon the great measures of 1828 and 1829, which it resembles only in name.” Now he adopted, at least on the face of it, the Christian Constitution argument: “that this was a Christian country and Christian Legislature and that before their lordships could fairly be called upon to agree to a measure which at first blush appeared to invade principles by which the Legislature had been hitherto guided, it was requisite that some case could be brought forward to prove the



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necessity of the bill.” The meaning of what he said may have escaped others, but not Lord Holland, who exploded in his journal. The duke had contended that “no relaxation of exclusive laws should ever be made but under the pressure of necessity and intimidation, and the repeal of the Test Act as well as Catholic disabilities had been granted to the formidable nature of the petitioners and their determined manner of demanding relief not to the reason or justice of their cause.” Holland was quite right; Wellington had never been a friend of religious liberty, though he had overseen the granting of a great deal. Wellington proceeded to expound on another argument from necessity. Brougham had pointed to privileges granted to Jews in parliamentary acts that used the very words of the bill before them. But, Wellington said, “these indulgences were granted to Jews in the colonies—in Canada, Jamaica, and Barbadoes; and what was the reason for this? Was there no State necessity for it? Certainly there was. European inhabitants were required in the colonies, and English inhabitants especially. . . . But no such necessity existed in the present instance, nor did any reason, equally forcible, now occur.” Lord Melbourne remarked that arguments from necessity did not fit very easily with “high-toned arguments about the desecration of the Christian religion, impiety, and blasphemy.” This was undoubtedly true, but in fact Wellington himself had used no high-toned arguments, beyond mentioning the Christian Constitution. He saw no necessity for Jewish Emancipation. Therefore the existing order of things, of which the Church was a vital part, should not be disturbed.8 The vote was 104 to 54 against the bill. On 12 August, the former Lord Goderich, now earl of Ripon and colonial secretary, moved the second reading of the bill to abolish slavery in the colonies. The Conservatives, as had been their policy since the opening of the question in the middle of the previous decade, were not foolish enough to attempt outright opposition to the cause; but arguing from the commercial importance of the West Indies to the British economy and the rights of English colonists to manage their own affairs, they did their best to impede its progress. Even before the debate began, Wellington moved that the proprietors of estates in Jamaica be allowed to have their case stated by counsel at the bar of the House. This was rejected. After Ripon made his motion, the duke and the earl of Belmore, a former governor of the island, pressed for a statement of the bill’s principles. Ripon and Grey responded that they were well known and did not need to be stated. Wellington was particularly exercised about apprenticeship, which was supposed to provide a transition from slave to free labor by providing that the former slaves should work for their former masters for eight years. Later in the debate, the duke criticized the government for not having fol-

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lowed a policy of gradual abolition during which the slaves could have been prepared for freedom. He also said that the proper mode of proceeding on the part of the British Parliament would have been to pass a set of resolutions, leaving the colonial legislatures to implement the principle. Apprenticeship, he said, would have no effect in solving the long-term labor problem.9 During the Committee stage, Wellington opposed dividing the apprentices into several categories according to skills and functions, wishing to leave the planter free to use them as he thought best. He also objected to the restriction on moving the apprentices from one estate to another. He was strongly against a clause exempting apprentices from military service, because he did not want to have even a hint of the possibility that ex-slaves might bear arms.10 Wellington’s proposed amendments in Committee were either withdrawn or defeated by votes on the order of 23 to 12, or 31 to 15. Conservative opposition was obviously not a determined one. At the Report stage the duke was more successful. He moved that planters be allowed to move “slaves” [sic] from one plantation to another on the same island. Grey thought this an improvement, and it was carried. The whig Lord Suffield proposed a clause to prevent the flogging of females. Wellington “though unwilling to oppose the clause, must do so, on the ground that it was unwise to interfere with the internal regulations of the colonies.” It was clear that Ripon was not anxious to accept Suffield’s clause, and it was defeated.11 Promotion of West Indian interests and the institutions involved went back a long way among tories and Conservatives, and their party was not one to look to for sympathy in the cause of slaves and ex-slaves. The bill, however, passed its third reading without a division. The “New Poor Law,” as it was called, introduced into the Lords by Lord Chancellor Brougham on 21 July 1834, was not a partisan measure, though there were differences in party attitudes toward it. Brougham outlined the history of the question, going back to Elizabethan times, when the first poor law, according to him, gave rise to the belief that poor relief was an entitlement. This view had received new confirmation, Brougham said, as recently as an act of 1796, which gave “those who were called the industrious poor—a right by law to be supported out of the parish rates, at their own dwellings, and to receive that support” even though existing law provided that it should be given only in a workhouse. The principles were false. The true principles were “that men should be paid according to the work they do; that men should be employed and paid according to the demand for their labour and its value to their employers; that they who toil should not live worse than those who are idle; and that the mere idle should not run away with that portion which the industrious workman has earned.”



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It was against these self-evident truths that the whole poor-law system had worked since. The solutions to the resulting problems, Brougham said, would be found in the recommendations of the recent Poor Law Commission. In his words, first there must be “such a degree of unity of action in the authorities invested with the parochial superintendence as can be obtained only by the establishment of one central power.” Second, this authority must have wide discretionary power. And third, it must be made up of nonpartisan individuals, “not politically connected with the government” or the opposition. Brougham ended by moving the second reading of the bill.12 Lord Wynford, a Conservative and lord chief justice of the common pleas, spoke next to complain about the fact that while the Commons had had two months to consider the bill, the Lords were expected to get through it at the very end of the session and, though he did not say it, with several other important bills to deal with at the same time. The same kind of crunch had been apparent at the end of the last session, and it would be a persisting problem. Wynford went on to observe that too many problems were probably being laid at the door of the poor-law system. He asked whether the bill would do anything to provide the employment the country so sorely needed. Presumably referring to the population problem—Brougham had praised Malthus—he observed that Ireland had no poor law. Finally, he did not like the idea of centralized power. In any case, he did not think they could give the bill adequate consideration in the time left to them, and he moved that the second reading take place that day six months.13 The ultra earl of Winchilsea supported the bill. He did not blame the statute of the 43rd Elizabeth for the problem, that “law proceeded on the true principles of justice and charity.” But he said that abuses had been allowed to grow and that “the local magistrates were much to blame.” He also urged that an Irish poor law was essential to safeguard the livelihoods of English laborers by saving them from having to compete with a flood of poor Irish immigrants.14 Lord Alvanley, a whig traveling toward Conservatism, believed that the present system was fine if properly administered. He objected to the bill “on the ground that it would prove destructive to that system of self-government under which this country had risen to its present state of prosperity.” He was also very much concerned that the system proposed would destroy “that connection which existed at present, to the great advantage of both, between the poor man and his rich neighbour.” The examples he gave, however, might make one wonder. One was of a clergyman who established a workhouse test and required all residents to contribute to the poor-rate, which made tenants of cottages “more clamorous against those who receive relief than the rich.”15 Lord Radnor agreed theoretically that centralization was dangerous, but it

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was necessary in this case. Wellington concurred. Like Winchilsea, he did not agree that the statute of Elizabeth was to blame, but he did agree that different systems in 12,000 parishes and the abuses that had crept in had to be dealt with. A strong central board was necessary to sort things out, and he warmly complimented the whig ministers for having brought this plan forward.16 The duke of Richmond was highly conflicted. He would vote for the bill because he was aware of the abuses existing under the present system and because he could think of nothing better to propose. But he was worried. The system must be introduced gradually: “If an effort should be made to introduce the system all at once and per force on the country, the worst effects might be produced.” And as well as introducing it gradually, it should be according to the results of practical experience. Richmond’s was good advice, not always followed. The division on the second reading took place on 1 July and passed with a vote of 76 to 13. All but two of the “not contents” was an ultra. The exceptions were Alvanley and the duke of Beaufort.17 Perhaps the discussions most revealing of the mind-sets of the several groups involved began in the Committee on 1 July, on the question of bastardy. Previous law had placed equal responsibility for the child on father and mother. But clause 67 of the bill proposed to put the total responsibility on the mother. It was argued that her responsibility, and only hers, could be established with certainty. The beneficial results would be that the woman would have every incentive to preserve her chastity and thus bastardy would be reduced. What is more, the bill would lower the birth-rate much more than that, as the large number of pregnant brides would be reduced.18 The bishop of Exeter, High Church and ultra, wanted to know on what principle of equity or justice such a position could be based. The bishop of London, himself a member of the Poor Law Commission, replied: “It was perhaps sufficient to say that, under the ordinances of a merciful Providence, it was quite clear that the mother, where human laws could not interfere, must suffer more than the father.” This was the sort of argument that Boyd Hilton made famous as moderate Evangelical, though the bishop was not an Evangelical by any ordinary definition.19 He would elaborate on his argument later. Brougham would put forward his argument later as well. It was certainly not high political economy. He identified it as “common sense,” which “dictated that though want of chastity was a crime, a sin in a man, it was still greater in a woman.” He went on: “Everybody knew that unmarried men did not lead a life of continency and that one-twentieth part of crimes of this description committed by men would be the utter ruin of a woman.”20 Whatever the attempted



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justification, the ultras wanted none of clause 67, but they were beaten by a vote of 38 to 13.21 At the Report stage on 7 August, however, the bishop of Exeter gave notice that on the third reading the next day he would move for the omission of all clauses relating to bastardy. This he did, arguing passionately that men must be held equally responsible with women in questions of bastardy, citing not only Mosaic law but the bishop of London. The latter replied that he did not deny that fathers should take responsibility, but what they were talking about was enforceable legislation. And the course that this bill “points out is the course pointed out by the law of nature; and, therefore, inasmuch as the law of nature is not, in this instance, interfered with by the written law of God, the course pointed out by the bill is the course sanctioned by the law of God itself.” He cited the authority of the Scottish Presbyterian, the Rev. Thomas Chalmers.22 Lord Wynford observed that one of the results of such thinking would be to condemn mothers of bastards to put away thoughts of marriage because it would mean that the man she married would have to assume responsibility for her bastards.23 But the clauses were sustained, the ninety-three contents being virtually all whigs, with the prominent exceptions of the bishop of London and the duke of Wellington. The eighty-three noncontents were virtually all Conservatives of various stripes.24 But the next day Wellington moved several clauses “which have for their object to alleviate the severity of the bill towards females.” The whig marquess of Westminster was pleased to support him. The bishop of London said he would not consent to the alternative just suggested of bringing the question before the quarter sessions. That pillar of whiggery, the marquess of Lansdowne, expressed his intention of supporting the duke: “It was but fair that the burden of supporting it [the child] be shared by the two persons considered to be its parents, when they could be identified.” The bishop of Exeter somewhat reluctantly admitted that the duke’s proposal spoke to what he opposed. The duke of Richmond supported it. So did the marquess of Salisbury. The amendments were agreed to. And so the question of bastardy was to be left to the counties’ justices of the peace, sitting as a court.25 The Lords thought that people like themselves might handle such matters better than the Poor-Law commissioners. When the bill had passed, the ultra Lord Kenyon excoriated it in an eightpart protest. It began: “Because this bill is unjust and cruel to the poor. It imprisons in workhouses for not working, those who cannot find employment, and others for not maintaining their families who cannot by the hardest labour obtain wages sufficient to provide necessaries for their wives and children.”

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The treatment of bastardy was equally lambasted: “Because the alterations made in the bastardy laws are inconsistent with the principles of Christianity on which the Parliament of the united empire has always professed to proceed.” Those principles dictated that both parents were equally bound to maintain their offspring and that the father being more able to contribute to the maintenance than the mother ought to contribute more, “whereas in this bill he is all but exonerated from any such obligation.”26 The ultras, as in the case of Queen Caroline, were genuinely dedicated to the causes of the poor and oppressed. Sometimes, too, the laws of Providence and the laws of God seemed to differ. Yet the bishop of London pleaded in vain for maintaining government support of local provident societies to provide such things as clothing, bedding, and coal, “because it was about the only clause in the bill that bore a kindly feeling towards the poor on the face of it.”27 There was a good deal of genuine sympathy displayed in the Lords and elsewhere for those who suffered, but it was divided and flowed in different channels, prompted by different motives. Besides the nonpartisan Poor Law bill, the Lords in the 1834 session dealt with three questions that were at the heart of political debate, and the Conservatives won on all three. The first was Jewish Emancipation. The Lords made short work of this bill, throwing it out on the second reading. Two other bills were also defeated—one to open Oxford and Cambridge to Dissenters, the other to reform the Irish tithe system. The bill to open the ancient universities to Dissenters was part of a larger attempt by the whigs to mollify their old allies, who were sore at not having any of their remaining disabilities dealt with in the previous session while the Irish Church bill was the main focus of attention. The Dissenters were so angry that they had begun to talk of the disestablishment of the Church. This new Dissenting aggressiveness, added to the Irish Church bill, aroused the Anglicans, who organized massively signed declarations of support for the Church. Grey, more sensitive than most of his colleagues to the dangers of an Anglican reaction, was appalled by the Dissenters’ behavior, writing to Holland on 9 March: “If they choose to drive things to a contest between them and the Church, they must take their consequences, for which they will be responsible, and I certainly shall not side with them.” He had, he told Holland, “done all I can and will continue to do what I think right.”28 What he thought right was considerable. He himself negotiated with the archbishop of Canterbury a Dissenting marriage bill to free Dissenters from the necessity of being married in an Anglican Church. He also presented to the Lords a Cambridge-generated petition to remove all religious tests at universities, thus giving the cause the government’s imprimatur.29 Russell took charge of the marriage bill in the



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Commons, and Lord Althorp introduced an important Church Rate bill, which would have relieved Dissenters of the necessity of paying church rates. The Dissenters themselves forced the dropping of the bills in the Commons because, though the legislation would have supplied practical relief, the Dissenters objected to the principles. On 1 August 1834, the earl of Radnor introduced the second reading of the universities bill, having been asked by the government to take charge of it. Radnor argued that Dissenters’ entry to universities followed logically from the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. As the highest honors in the land were within their reach, so should the best education be.30 The duke of Gloucester first noted the large number of petitions against the bill. His argument was that the universities had been founded for the education of members of the Established Church and should remain dedicated to that purpose. He moved that the bill be read again that day six months. The duke of Wellington, now chancellor of Oxford University, argued that the universities were chartered corporations and as such should be immune from any tampering.31 Lord Melbourne, now prime minister, admitted that he did not entirely approve of the bill. He thought “the thing would be much better done by a compromise and a good understanding than in the manner it was proposed to do it in this bill”—which was by abolishing all subscriptions to the Anglican articles of faith for matriculation and graduation.32 Lord Carnarvon was doubtless seconding Melbourne when he declared that “to compel the universities to admit Dissenters within their walls as a matter of right was unjust; and if tried would be found to the last degree inexpedient and unwise.”33 The archbishop of Canterbury was milder but not more yielding: “At present young men went to universities to learn and not to dispute. When once youths of different persuasions were admitted, he feared that the consequences would be that they would be turned into an arena for theological controversy.”34 The lord chancellor was, like the prime minister but unusual for him, both ambivalent and temperate. Brougham stressed the professional obstacles posed to Dissenters, particularly in law and medicine, by the lack of a university degree. But he went on to say that “the doubt which he entertained with respect to the present measure was that it was not politic . . . for that which was done, if he might so say, against the grain, was not very likely to be of much practical benefit in its operation.”35 Whig support for the Dissenters in the debates was disappointing. The division was as well. The bill was defeated by a vote of 187 to 85, a majority against of 102. The government could not have carried the bill, but its members could

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have tried harder for their old allies. Lansdowne had feared just such an outcome and had begged Holland, generally recognized as the premier champion of Dissent, to do all he could to prevent it. He was particularly anxious because Grey would not be present and thus “appear” not to be concerned about the bill’s fate. And he was dismayed by the reason, “because the duke of Sussex gives a great dinner where many friends with proxies will be, Grey included.” It would, Lansdowne said, be “hard indeed upon the Dissenters to expose them to a minority less than it really ought to be.” But Lansdowne could hardly have expected the open skepticism of the prime minister. And he certainly did not expect it in Brougham, whom he believed had pressed the bill hard, even putting off the Poor Law bill for it.36 There were some excuses for the whigs’ behavior. It was a time of difficult transition. The party was bitterly divided, if not over the principle of lay appropriation, certainly over making it official party policy. Russell had pressed the issue in June, leading to the withdrawal of Stanley, Graham, Ripon, and Richmond. Grey himself openly avowed the principle in Parliament and reminded the king he had never hidden that belief from him, but he went no further than the appointment of a commission to report on the revenues of the Irish Church. But when in July he found that some of his ministers, perhaps not quite realizing the implications of their actions, were in correspondence behind his back with the Irish secretary—and through him with the lord lieutenant and even O’Connell—over a coercion bill, he had had enough and resigned. Grey can perhaps be forgiven for being a little self-indulgent. Melbourne had been in office only since 16 July. It may be significant that as home secretary he had been in negotiation with Wellington, as chancellor of Oxford University, about a charter to London University to allow it to grant degrees. Oxford was not opposed “excepting degrees in divinity and theology, and degrees in arts by the same names or titles as have hitherto been used by law in granting degrees by the ancient universities.”37 This was a generous, if self-interested, proposition, and it was the solution to the problem that Melbourne would always favor. But for the very reason that Oxford did not want Dissenters to have Oxford degrees, Dissenters wanted them. Sticklers for principle, they also wanted the best education, or what was generally regarded as the best. Melbourne was never sympathetic to this position. It must also be said, however, that he was now aware of what could hardly be missed—an Anglican reaction—and anxious not to inflame it further. He was also aware that the king was suspicious of him on the lay appropriation question. And the fires on that issue were being fanned by the second and much greater bill of the session, the Irish Tithes bill.38 Still, when all is said and done, there is evidence in the



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moderate turnout for the Dissenters’ bill of that strain of irresponsibility and fecklessness that ran through the party in the period. It did not, of course, help that a very able chief whip was one of the four seceders. The Irish Tithe bill of 1834 was, as it came to the Lords for its second reading on 11 August, an attempt to deal with two connected problems—one was the tenants nonpayment of tithes for three years; the other was a million-pound loan made the previous year by the government to the clergy to tide them over their resulting financial distress. Recognizing the impossibility of the clergy ever again collecting their own tithes, the bill proposed to make the monetary value of the tithes (a composition) the subject of a land tax. But this was not to be paid directly by the tenant but as a part of his or her rent, and paid as a rent-charge by the landowner to the government. In return for being responsible for the payment of the tithe substitute, the landowners were given a deduction of two-fifths of the composition. It was, Melbourne said in introducing the bill, erroneously supposed that the whole deduction was to fall on the income of the clergy. But the deduction would only be 22½ percent for increased security of payment and 2½ percent for cost of collection. The incumbent would therefore get 75 percent of every £100 with no risk and no odium. Furthermore, the clergy would not be expected to repay the loan.39 One possible difficulty with this scheme was that when all was said and done, the only party that lost income was the clergy, while the landowners were handsomely rewarded for their trouble. The other problem was that while the landowner was to pay only 60 percent of the gross composition to the state, it was obliged to pay 80 percent to the clergy as well as bearing administrative costs. And the state was to recoup itself by drawing on the Perpetuities fund, the fund that Stanley had intended to meet the demand for lay appropriation but which had ended by being designated exclusively for Church purposes. The result of these features of the bill was to allow those who wished to do so to argue that to solve what were in fact its own problems the government had reverted to lay appropriation.40 And that is precisely what the ultras and other Conservatives did argue. Ellenborough charged that the clergy was being asked to pay for the solution to the problem: Church funds were being diverted to secular purposes. He moved that the bill be read again that day six months.41 The bishop of Meath would vote against the bill, citing the use to be made of the Perpetuity fund.42 Lord Mansfield was concerned both about the docking of the clergy and the Perpetuity fund. This was “a diversion to other and secular purposes of sums appropriated by the bill of last year, for it was to supply those payments which have

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been paid by the landlord.”43 Most crushing of all was the bishop of London. The present bill “broke up the great principle of the bill of last session. He voted for that measure on the assumption that whatever sum might be appropriated toward the Perpetuity fund, that sum was to be used for, and solely applied to, ecclesiastical purposes; but one of the principles of the present bill was that 20 percent was to be taken out of that fund.” As to the 20 percent that was to be taken out of the Perpetuity fund, “he looked upon it as a clear bonus put into the pocket of the landlord and therefore . . . a spoliation of the Church; and to that principle he could not accede.”44 The duke of Wellington initially took the position that, though he objected to the bill as it stood, he thought it might be improved in Committee, “and with that view he should much regret opposing himself to the second reading.” He would vote for the second reading, but not for the third unless there were real improvements. This was the position favored by Peel and by Edward Stanley as well, though he objected to much of the revision of his work by the Irish secretary, Littleton, in preparing this bill. Wellington did not hold to his position long, for he joined in voting down the second reading the same day. The vote was 189 to 122.45 At Peel’s request, Lord Aberdeen wrote to ask the duke what had happened. The duke replied: “I could not have commanded our majority if I had allowed the reading to pass unopposed . . . . The Conservative majority in the House would have been lost; at least would not have been under my direction.”46 There is no doubt that he had been under heavy pressure from his supporters, and it would not have been possible to have had too many confrontations of the sort they had had the previous year. But there had been a change in Wellington this year. In April, Lord Londonderry, using a hunting expression, had remarked that he was “decidedly more blooded this session than he was the last. His appointment at Oxford has been the cause of his being aroused for the Church and he seems most eager and determined.”47 There is no doubt that his becoming chancellor of Oxford gave him a position as defender of the Church that he had not had before. But apart from that, he also knew that defense of the Church was perhaps the greatest Conservative issue, and it is likely that he was energized by the gathering Anglican reaction. Certainly he gloried in the three legislative victories he had scored for the Church and against the government. He considered all danger to the House of Lords now passed, “and that we have only now to follow a plain course with moderation and dignity in order to attain very great, if not a preponderating influence over the affairs of the country.”48

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Following the close of the 1834 session, a great deal began to happen in British politics, but not much to which the House of Lords was more than a spectator, until the summer of 1835. Melbourne’s first ministry did not have a long life. The king had come to trust Grey, and probably no other whig minister could have got the commission to look into the revenues of the Irish Church past him, though the king emphasized that it was only a commission of inquiry that he had approved. But William IV did not trust Melbourne, or more precisely, he did not trust Melbourne to control Lord John Russell, the advocate of lay appropriation. Thus, when Lord Spencer died in November, a crisis occurred. He was succeeded by his son, Lord Althorp, who was leader of the House of Commons. When Melbourne recommended Russell to succeed Althorp, the result was Melbourne’s departure from office. Melbourne was not aware that he had resigned, but there was no doubt that he was out of office. The king was launching into his second experiment in removing a government with a majority in the House of Commons. The duke of Wellington advised the king to send for Peel. Peel was in Italy, and for a while the duke was a kind of walking cabinet, uniting the key offices in his own person, while he prepared for the formation of a Conservative government and a general election that was to sustain it in office. At any rate, that was the way it had worked for the king’s father after he had appointed William Pitt in the teeth of a whig opposition, who were beaten in a general election in 1784. But William did not have the ample resources his father had had, and while the Conservatives greatly improved their position in the 1835 election, it was not enough. In April, Russell gave Peel’s government the coup de grace when the House of Commons passed a lay appropriation bill, which would have applied

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any surplus in the revenues of the Irish Church to Irish education. Melbourne resumed office and embarked on the removal of a grievance that had been a lively issue before the final parliamentary reform campaign and was a major factor in its success, the sad state of borough corporations. Most MPs were returned to Parliament for borough (or town) seats. Many corporations (town governments) were themselves the returning body, and even if they were not, they were possessed of considerable influence over the return. But the corporations in their turn were in many cases under the influence of a wealthy and usually aristocratic patron. Such patrons could furnish things desirable to the town fathers, such as churches, schools, bridges, market houses, and other amenities, as well as dispensing all sorts of more personal favors. Often this kind of relationship led to effective control of the corporation by its patron. In 1833, for example, the commissioners who investigated the state of borough governments found the twelve-member corporation of Buckingham composed as follows: as bailiff (or mayor), a former clerk of the duke of Buckingham’s family banker; the duke’s lawyer; two described simply as the duke’s tenants; the duke’s steward; the paymaster of the Bucks militia, which the duke commanded; the quartermaster of the Bucks militia; the former adjutant of the Bucks militia; the landlord of the Cobham Arms inn, who as well as being a tenant would have found the duke (who regularly entertained the whole regiment) an excellent customer; the duke’s draper; and the duke’s grocer. It was this august group which up to 1832 returned the borough’s two MPs. But the post-Reform electorate was sufficiently large to produce an opposition party, made up of a couple of bankers, some substantial tradesmen, and Dissenters who had deeply resented the duke’s stranglehold on the borough, and its nature, before 1832 and who afterward had their revenge in wresting one of the seats from his control.1 But if they had resented the corporation’s control of the return of MPs before Reform, they would hardly have been likely to find its continuance afterward as a poor imitation of town government—especially one that filled any gap in its ranks by co-option—any more acceptable. It was humiliating and insulting. It was such situations and reactions that made municipal reform widely popular. But in the nature of parliamentary business it was a long time before the bill made its way to the House of Lords. The only important item the Lords dealt with before that was another bill to allow admission into Oxford and Cambridge without requiring subscription to the Anglican articles of faith. The Lords quickly knocked that out on its second reading on 14 July 1835. But the ultra leaders, with Lord Londonderry now playing the most active role, were not feeling optimistic, especially about the Municipal Corporations bill. Lon-



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donderry lamented: “The manner in which Peel is yielding ground . . . leave[s] me no show of hope to found a consolatory opinion upon.”2 Peel in his first ministry had come out as a broad-gauge reformer, willing to deal with such issues as Church reform and Dissenting grievances previously eschewed by his party. His attitude toward municipal reform was positive from the beginning. Many Conservative peers who had been ready to tolerate such ideas when he was in power thought it unnecessary to do so when he was not. Wellington, however, agreed with Peel that the bill should be allowed a chance, and he called a meeting at Apsley House to explain what needed to be done. He said the major work would be in Committee, improving the bill, and therefore that personal attendance was absolutely necessary. Lord Westmorland, an ultra but an old and faithful friend of the duke, said that “he was sorry to hear that the bill was to be allowed to go into Committee, that it was a bill of a most revolutionary and exceptionable character, that he should be sorry that something should not be done with it before arriving at Committee.” The duke replied, “it was open to discussion, of course, but that it must proceed, as our friends in the House of Commons have acknowledged the principle of interference and have lent themselves to amending it in Committee.” Though no lord present who commented on it was without some objection to the bill, the duke claimed to see much good in the discussion and suggested that they might meet again to canvass what course they should pursue.3 A meeting of seventy or eighty peers duly took place at Apsley House on 27 July. Wellington stated his intention not to oppose the second reading and to try and improve the bill in Committee. And according to the duke of Newcastle, “All present . . . seemed to chime in with the duke’s wishes and intentions, and not one with the exception of Lord Mansfield, who however agreed more than I liked, dared to oppose the decree of the chief.”4 It was also agreed that—according to precedent it was claimed—petitioners against the bill should be heard through their counsel at the bar of the House. The next day Lord Strangford made such a motion in the House. Melbourne complained that this would delay the second reading. Wellington therefore proposed a compromise, that counsel should be heard after the second reading passed but before going into Committee. This was agreed to.5 With the understanding that the second reading could be taken as passed, counsel were duly heard at the bar. After that had been completed on Saturday, 1 August, Melbourne moved that the House adjourn until Monday, when it would go into Committee. Newcastle asked whether he meant to allow evidence to be heard in support of counsel? Melbourne’s curt reply was, certainly not. Newcastle thereupon exploded into an attack on the bill and its sponsor.

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The bill, by proposing to dismantle the old corporations and put new ones in their place, would in fact bring about a vast and arbitrary confiscation of property. It was therefore unconstitutional and the prime minister ought to be impeached—which Newcastle would be happy to undertake. As Brougham observed, as peers were judges in an impeachment this might be difficult to accomplish. Newcastle’s performances are easy to mock, but he was neither a fool nor a madman. What he meant to do, and what he accomplished, was to throw the House off balance and its procedures into disarray. None of those who followed him went to such extremes, but both Lords Falmouth and Lyndhurst pursued his theme of the necessity of hearing evidence.6 On Monday, 3 August, there was another meeting at Apsley House which was anything but agreeable to the duke’s advice. He urged those attending to consent to go into Committee without any further delay. According to Londonderry, this was opposed by the “high tories” (ultras) aided by the marquess of Bute, Westmorland, and some of the duke’s own affides. The discussion then turned to the hearing of evidence against the bill. This was not according to precedent, and in questioning the principle of the bill, which the Conservatives in the House of Commons had joined in approving, it would be moving the House of Lords onto very thin ice. It could also take a long time, and at this late date in the session there was not much time to spare. Wellington naturally opposed it, but when Lyndhurst declared for it, he gave way. According to a proud Newcastle, Wellington had to give way because “too great an impression had been made.” In the House, Carnarvon moved for hearing evidence before going into Committee, which was carried, with Wellington voting with the majority.7 This incident is usually portrayed as a crushing defeat of Wellington by his own party. Figures as diverse as Disraeli and the late George Kitson Clark see it as the duke surrendering to Lyndhurst, the lead of the House of Lords according to Disraeli, and the party as Kitson Clark would have it.8 Londonderry was cock-a-hoop. It showed that neither “Peel nor the duke can wield the House of Lords.” And the carrying of the motion for evidence would be a “floorer” to the government.9 The evidence, however, does not sustain such dire judgments. If by surrendering the lead to Lyndhurst, it is meant that Wellington gave him the management of the bill, that is quite true. Wellington readily admitted it. Speaking specifically of the next procedural step that would follow (hearing evidence having been got out of the way), that is, what would take place in Committee, he said at the end of the debates: He “would admit that he was the person who solicited his noble and learned friend to undertake the management of . . . amendments.



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He had made that solicitation, and that request, well knowing the talent, the ability, the capacity for business, the great legal acquirements, the eloquence, and the influence which his noble and learned friend justly possessed in their lordships’ House.”10 If this statement had been without precedent or further corroboration, it might perhaps be written off simply as Wellington putting the best face on a bad situation. But he had done it before, and he would do it again. In 1832 he had put the management of the Committee on the Reform bill in the same hands. Later he missed Lyndhurst when he was not present. He told Aberdeen in 1834 that, though the Lords had accomplished a great deal, they could have accomplished still more if Lyndhurst had been there.11 After 1835, Wellington would continue to put a number of other important bills in Lyndhurst’s charge. This was particularly true of those that involved complicated legal questions, as parliamentary and municipal reform did. Doubtless Wellington would have been more pleased if Lyndhurst had backed him in going into Committee at once, but it is important to notice what Wellington did not concede. Hearing evidence was a preliminary to going into Committee, and Wellington never indicated any doubt that that would happen. Wellington did his best to hurry the procedure along. The hearing of evidence began on 4 August. On the morning of the 8th, the duke reminded the House that the bill must be taken up before the end of the session, and he proposed that counsel conclude the hearing of evidence early the next day so that they might then consider further proceedings on the bill. On the morning of Saturday, 9 August, it was decided that the bill should be committed on Wednesday, 12 August.12 Another Apsley House meeting intervened on 10 August, with about a hundred lords present. Lord Fitzgerald described what happened. Wellington “stated his most earnest wish that the bill must be allowed to go into Committee.” And Lyndhurst was there and ready to present an outline of his amendments. “Lord Falmouth was the only un-compromising man there. He was for meeting the bill with a rejection. . . . The duke of Cumberland pressed the necessity of Union, as did . . . others, and it broke up with the understanding that we were to proceed with the Committee on Wednesday.”13 Lord Londonderry’s report of the meeting to the duke of Buckingham is revealing: We were pledged and sealed to the most profound secrecy not to divulge what passed at our meeting today. It is of the utmost importance that it should not be known—there will be schism in the party, and hopes are strongly held out that our large majority will enable us to make it a Conservative arrangement which Lyndhurst has pledged himself

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to do. We could not take the leap of total rejection. . . . If we had divided our party, we were lost.14

The swagger was gone, and the importance of party unity, which Wellington had stressed from the beginning and which the ultras had brushed aside, was finally beginning to sink in. The Lords were once more subject to some direction. Animosity toward municipal reform was by no means confined to the ultras, indeed most Conservatives were more opposed to it than to most secular issues that divided the two parties. But a considerable portion of the party, whether from genuine moderation or political realism, were not prepared to push their opposition to extremes. As discussions in the Committee proceeded, Londonderry deplored the fact that “Wharncliffe and Ellenborough! play Peel’s game.”15 The exclamation point after Ellenborough’s name is not surprising, but he had been a member of Peel’s government as well as of Wellington’s. Wharncliffe too had been a member of Peel’s government. Another old government hand was Lord Aberdeen. All played a moderating role, as did Lord Fitzgerald and the earl of Devon and others outside the official circle. On 10 August, in the same letter in which he informed Peel that the Conservatives had decided to go into Committee, Lord Fitzgerald also informed him that he thought Lyndhurst’s proposed amendments were “so extensive that I cannot believe that Lord Melbourne will subscribe to them. Our friends, however, expect differently.”16 After Wellington had honored his commitment to get the bill into Committee, he became a good deal less restrained, and he certainly did nothing to restrain Lyndhurst. A very good reason was that he entirely agreed with him. In a memorandum for the king in early June, he said that there was “no doubt of the democratic tendency of this measure, and that such is the intention of its framer.” It established an “undesirable uniformity.” It deprived the lowest orders of “their hereditary rights” and established the supremacy of the ratepaying householders over all others residing in the town. And it ensured their supremacy by annual elections to replace that third of the town council that would vacate every year, yet allowing reelection. The town council was to have all the power and dispense all the town’s patronage. After all that had been done in recent years, “it cannot be necessary still further to increase the power of the democracy.” He told Lady Salisbury that “the worst of the corporation bill is that it will form a little republic in every town, possessing the power of raising money. In case of anything like civil war, these would be very formidable instruments in the hands of the democratic party.”17 Still, especially in view of these opinions, Wellington’s speech before go-



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ing into Committee on 12 August, in which he also repudiated the initiative of Newcastle and Falmouth to throw the bill out before it got into Committee, made important concessions to the basic principles of the bill. While Wellington sympathized with some of the positions of the two lords, “that no reform is requisite, I am not prepared to maintain.” Therefore he could not vote against the Committee. Once there he would be willing to accept popular suffrage as the future basis of corporate government. More than that, he would not object to the ratepayer qualification for voting. Yet he would seek to maintain the rights of property, and to protect other vested interests. He conceded much, but on the rights of property and vested interests he and Lyndhurst would attempt to build too much.18 The next day the methodical review of clauses began. When the second clause was reached, Lyndhurst rose to insert a clause. Having castigated the government for selecting “one particular description of persons entertaining one particular class of opinions,” he then accepted the ratepayer qualification. But he swiftly added, here was a case where property must be preserved, “and he would not stir one step in the bill until he found a clause inserted preserving those rights of property which he thought ought to be maintained.” These were those such as the right to graze cattle on common lands, collect wood on the wastes, and so forth. There was a spirited debate almost entirely on party lines, and Lyndhurst’s clause was accepted by a vote of 130 to 37. The franchise question followed. The Reform Act of 1832 had declared the right of freemen hereafter to vote for Members of Parliament. The present bill, however, preserved the right only to existing freemen. The right as declared by the Reform Act, Lyndhurst argued, should be retained, and he moved an amendment to that effect. Melbourne said that he had expected this amendment to follow the previous one, but ventured the opinion that the Reform Act was not a binding precedent for municipal voting. Lord Harrowby said that “nothing could be more desirable with reference to the general peace of the country than that even the lowest classes should have feelings connected with hereditary property.” The new Lord Hatherton, formerly Edward Littleton, “observed that the freemen, generally speaking, were a very inferior class of persons.” They would not necessarily possess any property or pay any rates; “and in many instances their residence was principally in jails.” And so the partisan argument went on. It would probably be fair to say that while Harrowby looked at the freemen with rose-colored glasses, Hatherton looked at them with rather too jaundiced an eye. At the end, Melbourne said he would not trouble their lordships with a division, and Lyndhurst’s motion was agreed to.19

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On 14 August, the following exchange took place. Lyndhurst moved an amendment to “allow persons of indifferent circumstances to be placed on the list of voters.” Melbourne was “very unwilling to offer any factious opposition to the bill of the noble and learned lord; but he should prefer retaining the proviso.” To which Lyndhurst replied, “The noble viscount is not quite correct in calling this my bill; but I am quite certain it is not his. I beg to move that the proviso be struck out.” The amendment carried.20 The next contentious issue was a large one. There was no qualification required for town councilors, which Lyndhurst considered wrong. Almost all important offices required a qualification. He did not mean to say that a pecuniary qualification always secured the selection “of persons of intelligence, of persons of ability for the discharge of the offices, or of persons of integrity . . . but at least it had a tendency to that effect.” He suggested that the best qualification would be the amount of rates paid in each particular borough, and that the councilors be chosen from among the highest ratepayers. He proposed to divide the ratepayers into six classes, and it was from the sixth and highest class that the councilors were to be chosen. And the qualification was to apply not only to this clause, but to several that followed. Brougham argued against Lyndhurst’s proposed amendment on two grounds. One was that no qualification meant anything, and this one would not either. This was not a good ground for one of the leading proponents of the 1832 Reform Act to take, and it was not the only recent legislation that required qualifications. Speakers that followed did not fail to point this out. Brougham’s other point was that the bill would not be much of a reform if it empowered only an elite. Both Brougham and Lyndhurst probably had in mind the £10 householder franchise, which meant different things in different places, when they thought about qualifications. But if Lyndhurst had wished to underline the elitist character of his proposal, he could hardly have chosen better than his six-tiered model to do it. A hierarchy it evidently was, and he pointed to the very top. No Conservative challenged Lyndhurst’s proposal, and Wellington fully supported the necessity of a qualification, and specifically the one proposed. But a number of whigs spoke strongly against its exclusiveness, as did such former whigs as the duke of Richmond and the earl of Ripon. At the end of the debate, Melbourne declared that if the amendment was adopted, “I believe that it will ultimately be fatal to the measure.” Lyndhurst was obviously shaken. He was, he said, as anxious as Melbourne that the bill should pass both Houses, and he would be prepared “to modify his proposed clause.” There was further discussion of modification, but nothing was agreed on. The amendment passed, 129 to 38.21



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Lyndhurst’s next target was what he called “the most important clause in the bill,” clause 24, which dealt with the governing body. The councils were to be elected by the ratepayers and “would act under the control of those who had elected them in order to get re-elected.” They would therefore be swayed by popular whim. A steadying influence was necessary in the popularly elected council. What Lyndhurst proposed was that a certain number, about a fourth, should be popularly elected only once and, having been elected by the council, should serve as aldermen for life. But this would be only in the future. Now, in the interests of justice and continuity, the office should be continued in its present holders. Brougham was outraged and declared that if this amendment was passed the bill would certainly be “gone.” Unfortunately for him, as Lyndhurst had not failed to mention, Brougham himself had proposed a scheme of aldermen for life two years before. Proposing to perpetuate the present incumbents of corporation offices, however, was certainly outrageous. But, Brougham asked, speaking to the Conservative benches, what could be expected when “so many of you entered into the Committee of this bill, with an avowed, a recognized, and openly pronounced hostility to its principle, and when I know that others were with the utmost difficulty restrained from throwing it out on the second reading altogether”? It was not Lyndhurst who had restrained them, but the duke of Wellington’s attachment to the alderman amendment was, if possible, even stronger than Lyndhurst’s. Wharncliffe said that in supporting this amendment Conservatives were by no means refusing to concede the principle of the bill; “they not only conceded that principle, but they were ready to admit that the time had arrived when popular opinion ought to acquire increased weight in all municipal corporations,” but there had to be checks on it. Ellenborough also tried to calm feelings. He and his friends were “most anxious that a bill of some description or another should pass to amend the state of representation in great towns.” And it was intended to extend the benefits to 185 boroughs. He himself was no believer in what he thought were “exaggerated representations respecting excitement out of doors, with which the deliberations of Parliament had attempted to be influenced.” But with the introduction of a new system, however carefully managed, there was bound to be popular excitement, and even turbulence; and it was to counteract it that aldermen for life were to be introduced. Melbourne noted that there was a great difference between the arguments of the two lords and Lyndhurst, who spoke in a spirit of “utmost hostility against the bill.” But if good feeling existed, why was it that Lyndhurst alone was proposing amendments? Wellington replied that it would be most mistaken to believe that there was any difference of opinion between Lyndhurst and his col-

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leagues on that side of the House. He then went on to fully support Lyndhurst’s amendment, though in more measured language. He said that “their lordships must recollect that they had to provide in a measure of this kind not only for the liberties and for the good government of the people, but there was in many cases large property to be administered.” To qualify to administer it, members of Council “ought to have property themselves, they ought to be men from whose education and station in life a proper and judicious administration was most naturally to be expected. He was disposed to go further, but it was impossible to do so from the principle of the bill.” But he did go further and say that he thought it impossible to pass over the claims of those aldermen who held office for life. Lyndhurst’s amendment was passed, 126 to 39.22 All the remaining clauses of the bill were run through and agreed to by 18 August. But then they were to be reprinted and recommitted, which was quite understandable after all the changes that had taken place. It also allowed time to reconsider. The Committee reconvened on 25 August. The first adjustment was made by the Conservative earl of Devon to the qualification required to become a member of the town councils. In larger towns he proposed that any resident voter holding property to the amount of £1,000 in real or personal estate should be eligible; in smaller towns the amount of property required was to be £500. Devon said that “he thought on every ground this was less objectionable than the qualification proposed by his noble and learned friend.” The Committee agreed. Lyndhurst proposed another amendment that town clerks should hold their office, heretofore for life, on good behavior, which he said was in practice the same thing. This was open to much the same objections as retaining the aldermen. Furthermore the motion had already been made and lost in the House of Commons, but the Committee passed it nevertheless, 104 to 36. The rest of the Committee stage was devoted to a long discussion of whether Dissenters should be allowed a voice in the Church affairs in towns, as they had been in the past. It will be no surprise that a clause to the contrary recommended by Lyndhurst was inserted.23 In moving the Report of the Committee on 27 August, Melbourne said that, while he in no way endorsed it, at the same time the bill was one of great importance and the question to which it related should be settled if possible in a timely fashion. “The feelings of the country had been increased by the sudden and unexpected manner in which the opposition to the measure had been raised in the House, and by the alterations which had been made by their lordships.” Under these circumstances, he for one was not inclined to put obstacles in the way of receiving the amendments. He could not, however, answer for the sup-



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port of the other House. Yet, though this was clearly pro forma, he would before this stage of the proceedings was over, “move the omission of those amended provisions of the bill which appeared to him the most objectionable, and by such omissions to endeavor to place the bill in the same situation in which it was brought up from the other House.” Conservative lords attempted to justify, or put in the best light, the actions of their party. Ellenborough argued that they had been quite within their rights in hearing counsel at the bar, as there was precedent in matters concerning property. They had been criticized for hearing witnesses, but by the same token this was justified, and it had been useful to them in their consideration of the bill. Lord Haddington, a former Canningite and generally moderate, though this characteristic was not conspicuous in earlier debates, “would confidently ask their lordships if the system of self-election was not as completely put an end to by this bill as it then stood, as it was sent up by the House of Commons?” All ratepayers were to vote. A third of the town council was to go out each year, “so that there would be an annual and a popular election.” What of that fourth of the town council who would keep their seats for life? A town council elected by ratepayers and out of ratepayers would “form a republic so democratical and turbulent that most injurious consequences would flow from its establishment.” What the Lords’ amendment would mean was “that the ratepayers would be required to elect respectable men for members of the town council, who would have a care of their interests, who had a knowledge of the affairs of the town, and who would render themselves permanently useful.” This would not annihilate the representative system. Rather it would establish a system analogous to the constitution of the country “bearing relation to a limited monarchy.” Haddington’s was about as cool, rational, and impartial a description of what the Lords were after as any of them ever achieved. There is no doubt that it was “aristocratical” in tone and not entirely complimentary about the ratepayers. As far as Parliament was concerned, this was not necessarily a bad thing, for the Commons too had a strong aristocratic cast, and its members were far above the ratepayer class. It was for this reason that so much of the Lords’ handiwork would remain in the act that was ultimately passed. Lord Chief Justice Denman of the court of king’s bench sat as Speaker of the House of Lords while the chancellorship was in commission between April 1835 and January 1836. Brougham had managed to alienate both the king and his colleagues the previous year. Denman had been a good lawyer and was a good judge. He denied the validity of the precedent of hearing counsel and witnesses at the bar in this instance. When private property was attacked, its possessors

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were entitled to send counsel to protect their rights, but the right did not exist in this case. And it is probably safe to say that the purpose of invoking it had little to do with precedent and much to do with ensnarling the bill. But Denman had earlier charged Lyndhurst with once being “what would now be called a liberal.” When Lyndhurst challenged this, Denman repeated it. And they were off. Lord Ashburton said that Denman, having called for conciliation, “introduced a degree of violence and personality into the debate of the evening” without example in his experience. Finally Melbourne regained control of the situation, and instead of moving against all of the offending amendments, decided to limit his amendment to the aldermen clauses. It was this issue that “had produced the greatest alarm throughout the country.” The motion failed 160 to 89. The third reading of the bill on 28 August involved repulsing an effort by the earl of Winchilsea to throw the bill out, which did not take long. It was then passed 69 to 5. The government and its supporters did not vote so as not to express “any opinion on the bill in its existing state.”24 On 26 August, Wellington had written to Sir Henry Hardinge: I understand Sir Robert Peel does not approve of the course which the House of Lords has taken upon the Corporation bill. I should be very sorry if any Member of the House of Commons should say a word of approbation of that course contrary to his opinion. My object is that if the ministers should feel an interest in increasing a good understanding between the Houses, and in passing the bill sent down by the House of Lords, they may be supported by the votes of those supposed to be our friends.

It is evident that the duke was annoyed with Peel, and uncertain what line the latter would take on the bill. In fact, as soon as there had been difficulty with the Lords in early August, Peel had departed London for his country house in Staffordshire, and there he had remained, incommunicado as far as Wellington was concerned. There is no sign that Wellington had any word of Peel’s opinion until he and Wharncliffe met Lord Fitzgerald at the Salisburys’ house at Hatfield on 10 August. Fitzgerald told Peel that he had not concealed “from either of them the content of your feelings on all that had passed—and particularly as to Lord Lyndhurst.” Wellington commented that he did feel Lyndhurst had gone too far in his speech on the 3rd, the day on which it was decided to hear evidence, and that was certainly the duke’s opinion.25 As they were speaking on the very day the Conservative lords decided to go into Committee, which decision Lyndhurst’s action had postponed on the 3rd, the duke may well have thought no more of it. Once the Lords had gone into Committee, Wellington would certainly have assumed that what they ought to do was what they always did in Committee—



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try to improve the bill—and he had no qualms about the way that was going. He probably would have received some secondhand information on what Peel thought. Fitzgerald was in constant communication with him. Fitzgerald was also the member of the small group of peers, mostly former cabinet ministers, who advised the duke. In his letters to Peel, Fitzgerald regularly characterized Wellington as weak and irresolute; and he doubtless considered himself as Peel’s man, though it is unlikely he ever revealed this to the duke, to whom he owed a great deal. This was in marked contrast to Peel’s other informant, Lord Aberdeen, who confined himself to evenhanded reporting. Moreover, Aberdeen and the rest were at least as close to the duke as they were to Peel. Nor was there a sign of disloyalty in any of them. Thus Peel’s stony silence probably made them extremely uncomfortable. In any case, if any of them differed from the party line, there is no evidence that they expressed it. The furthest they went was to express good feeling. As Melbourne had asked, if there was good feeling, why was Lyndhurst making all the amendments? There was one exception—Lord Devon—who dealt with Lyndhurst’s great gaffe over the qualification for councilors and in a way not entirely complimentary to the former lord chancellor. The only conclusion one can draw is that the Conservative party was remarkably united on the bill, as indicated by its steady majority of around 130, against a whig minority in the thirties. On 31 August, the House of Commons began to consider the bill as sent down from the House of Lords. Peel suddenly appeared, unheralded and unexpected, to announce that he did not agree with the Lords on the vital question of aldermen. The fury of the Lords was great. The next day Londonderry wrote to Buckingham: Peel has thrown the Lords over. The question is, are we to yield to him as Conservative leader or be firm. I hear from duke of Cumberland tonight Lyndhurst is firm and that his royal highness will be so. The duke of Wellington is in a great dilemma how to act. His inclinations go one way, his friends push him the other. On Tuesday we have a meeting at the duke’s to decide our course. Out of 140 of our party in the House only 60 [at this party meeting] today owing to disgust with Peel.

Fitzgerald’s account of the same meeting is not one of his clearest. He said that “the duke of Wellington was at first cautious and said little but entreated them to wait until the intentions of government were more clearly ascertained.” The duke of Cumberland then made a fiery speech strongly against all concessions, which was loudly cheered. Lord Devon followed suggesting that he for one found the town clerks clause a “strong one” and would be happy to concede it, which was not loudly cheered. “The duke of Wellington (who had deprecated

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this discussion) rather let out that he would surrender no principle! and was loudly cheered. He afterward professed his wish to give no opinion until, as he again repeated, the measures of the government were obtainable.”26 It is safe to assume that the duke’s advice to the Conservative lords was not to go off halfcocked. Two days later another Conservative meeting at Apsley House agreed, as the duke advised, that concessions must be made. What is more, Lyndhurst agreed to propose them. As a matter of fact, the concessions demanded were not as great as might be expected. Nor was Peel’s desertion of the Lords, even on the aldermen issue, by any means complete. On that question, Russell and he agreed that there should be aldermen and that they should constitute onethird of the council and be selected for six years, half in the first instance going after three, thus starting a regular cycle. Russell also agreed to the qualification proposed by the Lords in Devon’s amendment to Lyndhurst’s original clause, £1,000 for large towns, £500 for smaller ones; although the Commons later added an alternative £30 and £15 rating qualification. The freemen clauses were also accepted. Peel concurred in every instance. The government did not agree about the town clerk clauses with regard to their perpetuation and treatment. Peel backed the Lords. Russell objected to the Lords’ amendments giving Dissenters no voice in Church affairs. Peel backed the Lords. Russell initially objected to an amendment in which the Lords put a great deal of stock—the division of towns into wards for electoral purposes, which would give more opportunity for minority representation. Peel backed the Lords, and the point was conceded in a conference between the two Houses. When it came to seeking the Lords’ agreement to the final adjustments in the bill, Lyndhurst as promised assumed the task. He did so gracefully for the most part. He was pleased by the Commons’ acceptance of the preservation of the property and rights of freemen. He cheerfully accepted their revised version of qualifications for councilors. He then came to the question of aldermen: “He was gratified to find that the House of Commons had in principle adopted the opinion he had formed by agreeing to have among the councillors a distinct class, holding their offices, not indeed for life, but for such a period as was deemed sufficient to ensure their independence from the public feeling of the moment.” But Lyndhurst did not think enough had been done to carry the principle into practice. He was not inclined to drop his amendment. True, it was not popular in the House of Commons. “On the contrary, it had been opposed by a right hon. gentleman in whom they were accustomed to place great confi-



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dence.” Many of his friends did not “feel justified after the course adopted by Sir Robert Peel in objecting to the amendment which the other House of Parliament had made.” How these lords would vote he did not know—“it was for them to decide.” He would defend his amendment.27 Wellington said that when he had first seen the bill he thought it was unjust and ought not to be allowed to pass. At the same time, he was of the opinion that self-election and exclusion ought to be ended. Thus, like Lyndhurst, he supported the qualification for voting approved by the House of Commons. Also, like Lyndhurst, he supported “the continuance of existing aldermen for life.” This, he said, was to preserve legitimate vested interests and “to meet the democratic influence which was raised under the provisions of this bill.” But as to the vested interests, Wellington was sorry to find “not only that it was not the opinion of the majority, but that it did not seem the opinion of any man in the other House” that those interests were worth preserving. It seemed that they had been unanimously given up, and he conceived that it would be nugatory for their lordships to contend for the adoption of that principle.”28 Wellington gave the Lords the release that Lyndhurst had not. He said in plain terms that the time had come to give way. Both, however, reveal the deep resentment felt by the Lords over Peel’s flat disavowal, with no advance warning, of what they considered the vital question—the aldermen. It was so important to them that they paid no attention to the other kinds of support Peel actually gave to the Lords in the debates. Norman Gash has said that fundamentally Peel was “employing the only sanction left to him against the aristocratic mutineers of the party. Even to have appeared to condone their actions would have made nonsense of the new Conservatism he was preaching.”29 Yet for Peel to have decamped at the first sign of trouble and to have left the duke of Wellington to his own devices, refusing any sort of communication with him up to and beyond the time he burst back on the parliamentary scene, would hardly seem to have been a constructive sort of behavior. It is hard to say what difference it would have made had he kept in touch. But it was loyalty to his word to Peel that kept the duke quietly at work until he got the bill into Committee. Was it wise to have left him in the dark thereafter, dependent for information on Peel’s position only on hints from Lord Fitzgerald, if indeed Peel approved even of those? We know what happened when he did leave the duke in the dark. Without restraint from Peel, Wellington followed a line natural to him, and one he fully approved of, Lyndhurst’s. And would it have been too much before he posted south for Peel to have warned the duke that he was coming and what he would say, in which case the duke might have been able to advise him on how better to deliver his message, and others on what they were going to hear? The result

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could hardly have been worse. It is not usual for leaders of great parties to stride into Parliament and denounce half their followers. It would have been easy to see Peel as rude, petty, and arrogant, and many did. If it was necessary to send the House of Lords to Coventry, it was also extremely dangerous to someone who had held the office Peel had held and aspired to hold it again, and Peel would long suffer from the results. He would have suffered a great deal more had there not been a great and powerful mediator between them. As was suggested in the debates, there was a strong popular reaction against the Lords and calls especially by Daniel O’Connell for their drastic reform. The Lords themselves did not pay a great deal of attention to this. The reaction of one lord in particular is illuminating. Melbourne wrote to Brougham in October: “I have never seen any clamour, which was without real cause, prevail very long in this country, nor have I ever observed gross absurdities to make a very durable impression on the public mind.” So much for the agitation and the plans for reform. He went on to say of the Lords: “The outcry is also most unreasonable. The fact is they did the municipal bill little harm, they adopted the most essential parts of it, and in some respects they improved it. . . . There is little case against the Lords on this measure.”30 This was the opinion of the whig prime minister. Melbourne’s assessment was broadly accurate. The whigs did not find it difficult to incorporate, and even to welcome, important amendments made by the Lords. And it would seem that whig peers at any rate did not take a very passionate view of the question, as their relaxed attendance might suggest. Violence of feeling in the country soon calmed, one very good reason being that a great and important measure had been passed, as would very soon be demonstrated by municipal elections toward the end of the year.

chap ter fifte en

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On 24 August 1835, in the middle of the debates over the English Municipal Corporations bill, Aberdeen wrote to Peel that the Lords would that day go into Committee to make amendments to the Irish Tithe bill. It was the first to carry a lay appropriations clause, the issue on which Russell and the whigs had driven Peel’s government from office the previous spring. Aberdeen said that there were those who believed that the government would accept the bill even as amended, but he thought it impossible. That evening in Committee the Conservatives removed the appropriations clause from the bill by a vote of 138 to 41.1 Melbourne withdrew the bill. Russell had found an excellent way into office and had scored a great victory for the principle; but in so doing he had assured that so long as the principle was invoked, there would be no tithe reform for Ireland. More than that he had helped to ensure that for the next few years no great reform of any sort for Ireland would be passed. A number, however, would be blocked or defeated. The next measure that was tried was in 1836; it was one that had been planned for the previous session—municipal reform for Ireland. The reason for its postponement is obvious—one municipal reform bill was more than enough for that session. There were remarkable—one might almost say ominous—similarities in the way the two bills were treated. Once more the Conservatives decided to pay little attention to the government bill, sent up by the Commons, but to craft one of their own. Lord Fitzgerald moved the proposed Conservative instruction to the Committee on 26 April: “that they have the power to make provision for the abolition of . . . Corporations, and for such arrangements as may be necessary, on their abolition, for securing the efficient and impartial administration of justice and good government of cities and towns in Ireland.” The instruction was carried by a vote of 203 to 119.2

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So much for the bill passed by the Commons, which proposed a reform of the Irish corporations modeled on those already carried for Scotland and England. The Conservatives were not really proposing a reform at all, but a clean slate. But if it was Fitzgerald who was proposing the clean slate, it was Lyndhurst who wrote on it and was to see the amendments through Committee. Melbourne had been sorry that it was Fitzgerald, not Lyndhurst, moving the instruction because the former knew much more about the subject and “never gives an opening, as Lyndhurst does, by beginning personal attacks.”3 It was not only that Lyndhurst’s remarks were often personal; it was that they were even more often what can only be called brutal. There was an excellent example in these very debates when he stated as reasons for not granting municipal institutions to the Irish that “they were aliens by descent, that they spoke a different language, and had different habits from ours.” Lyndhurst strongly denied that he had ever said any such thing. But Lord John Russell said he had heard them uttered, and Lansdowne and Melbourne backed him up. Lyndhurst was not the most truthful of men.4 Lyndhurst may not have learned much from recent experience, but Peel clearly had. In March he wrote to Wellington of the great importance he attached to acting “in cordial concert with the House of Lords.” And he reminded the duke that he had “communicated with you and with Lord Lyndhurst as to the course adopted in the House of Commons before I gave my consent to it, [and] that it had been approved of by you both.” The course that had been adopted by the Conservatives was to propose a clean sweep of the old corporations, but allowing those who wished a more organized form of local government within the counties to take advantage of a statute, of the 9th of George IV (1829). This allowed the setting up of improvement commissions, with wide powers, and the election of the commissioners who exercised those powers by the ratepayers. Stanley, now moving cautiously into an alliance with Peel, had made the proposal. He had not expected it to pass but thought it might be popular enough to miss by only twenty or thirty votes, in which case it would serve to bolster a similar proposal later in the Lords. In fact, the motion failed by sixty-four votes. Peel wondered whether, “if you were of opinion upon the whole, notwithstanding the unexpected majority against us, that the best plan for the Lords would be to take precisely the same course which we have taken, and to amend the bill, exactly upon our principle of amendment rather than any other—this opinion would be quite decisive with me, and would regulate my future course.”5 There could have been little doubt in Peel’s mind that Wellington would not agree to continue to follow a policy long since agreed on. What is interesting is



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his elaborate concern to maintain good relations with the Lords and its leaders. This was a great change from the previous summer. The aim of the government was to introduce the Scottish and English form of town government to Ireland. The aim of the Conservatives was very different. Speaking of the still wholly Protestant bastions constituted by the existing Irish corporations, Fitzgerald had said that “no man . . . ventured to defend the continuance of the exclusive system which those corporations fostered now that Catholic Emancipation had been conceded, and had been followed by the measure of parliamentary reform.” Yet having conceded this, Fitzgerald warned that they must not simply substitute one system of oppression for another, “a new ascendancy as exclusive as the old—not . . . build up a fabric full of danger, exposing the community to still greater mischiefs and terror than those to which it is at present liable.” The Protestant population must be protected. Wellington had earlier made the same point in a letter to Peel, making a further admission and suggesting a solution: “I am afraid that there is too much evidence of malversation and misgovernment to enable us to leave the corporations as they are. The only recourse is to introduce the Crown.”6 What the Conservatives proposed to do was to keep all the vital powers of police, justice, and even corporation properties under the control of the Crown, or in this case its representative, the lord lieutenant. Town governments, after the abolition of all existing corporations, were to consist of an elected mayor, aldermen, and councilors, who were to have limited powers of taxation and generally to manage municipal affairs. As in the Committee on the English bill the previous year, the Lyndhurst steamroller steadily leveled all in its path. Only one of his amendments was put to a vote—the one that put corporate property under commissions appointed by the lord lieutenant—and he was sustained by a vote of 107 to 53.7 An attempt by the duke of Richmond on the third reading of the bill on 18 May to maintain corporations in the dozen largest towns was repulsed by a vote of 141 to 82.8 The House of Commons responded with its amendments to the bill as passed by the Lords on 27 June. Melbourne called on the Lords for calmness and restraint, at the same time reproving them for commencing “this warfare, rather in a rough, rather in a rude, rather in an offensive manner.” There can be little doubt whom he had in mind here, but though this is an accurate enough description of Lyndhurst’s manner, the Commons’ response seems relatively mild. They were willing to confine the establishment of town councils to the twelve large towns, as Richmond had proposed in his amendment. They proposed to provide for a further twenty smaller cities and towns “by applying to them the enactments of a statute [of the 9th of George IV] specially relied upon

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in the amendments of the Lords.” But the adoption of the act was to be made compulsory, whereas the Lords had made it optional.9 The debate on whether or not to accept the amendments was full of both threats and reassurances. The earl of Ripon, like the duke of Richmond, who had resigned from the government with him in 1834, continued to take the whig side on most questions. He took the latter tack. He did not agree with his friend Lord Clanricarde, who appeared to be overpowered by apprehensions. Ripon “believed the people of England, and the people of this empire collectively, before they condemned their lordships, before they consigned them to the extinction with which they were threatened . . . would not forget what the House of Lords had done for the country, and that they had always shown themselves to be the real friends of freedom.” This last compliment may have been a little exaggerated, though perhaps justified by the need to mollify lords whose tempers had not been soothed by threats. But Ripon also put a shrewd question. Supposing improvement commissioners, who carried out most functions of local government in Ireland, were not inclined to transfer them voluntarily to the new municipal governments? He wanted “to know what these corporations which noble lords opposite wished to establish would have to do?”10 Ellenborough answered this question. The Commons had incorporated in its amendment a mechanism recommended by the Lords. But instead of maintaining its voluntary nature, the Commons proposed to make it compulsory. This was strongly opposed in the Lords. No one should be forced to do anything. This was certainly freedom of a sort, but it was hardly self-government. And, to keep the growth of new municipal governments to a minimum, the Conservatives relied on ordinary reluctance to change and a desire to avoid having to pay rates.11 Wellington spoke last. He “had entreated their lordships not to attend to . . . threats or menaces on the one hand, and on the other he had entreated them not to be swayed by the apprehension that it might be said that they had attended to those threats.” This would seem to have been an injunction to the lords to vote their own consciences, though it is “threats” that strikes the eye. In arguing strongly against compromise, the duke stressed three issues: the threat of the tyranny of the Catholic majority, the threat of councils elected by the poorest imposing swingeing taxation on the rich, and the wrongness of making the 9th George IV act compulsory. The vote against accepting the Commons’ amendments was 220 to 123.12 It was the effective end of the bill. An Irish Tithe bill was not even introduced in the Lords in the 1836 session. The figures in the division are remarkably near those in the Conservatives’



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own lists of their membership in 1837. I have done my own calculations, based on their voting records, of whig or Liberal voters up to this time. In October 1837 the Conservatives listed 204 peers; no bishops were included.13 I have found no comparable Liberal lists, though one compiled by Lord John Russell in 1836 of the political allegiance of peers created from 1784 to the former date is useful.14 My figure for Liberal peers is 123. There has been some confusion about the decline of the whig-Liberals during this period, based largely on the assumption that their numbers declined “even after the creation of 86 new whig peers between 1830 and 1841.”15 If there had been eighty-six new votes created, the decline would perhaps have been remarkable, but there had not been. Seventy-five of these creations took place between 1830 and 1837. Thirteen were promotions in the peerage, which produced a new title but no new vote. Peel was responsible for six more of the creations during the period, which needless to say did not go to whigs. Nor did a peer created by Goderich in 1828—Lord Cowley, Wellington’s brother—who had not previously taken his seat. Others were creations of heir apparents to peerages in the lifetimes of fathers or brothers, frequently because these relatives were too old or too ill to exercise their votes. There were five of these; the one that lasted longest being Lord Duncannon’s, as he did not become the earl of Bessborough for ten years. Eight more were peerages with special limitations, such as those that could pass through the female line, all in Conservative families and all yielding Conservative peers. If, then, one is concerned with a permanent addition to whig-Liberal voting strength at this time, the thirty-three cases considered above provide little evidence. This leaves forty-two creations that yielded new and permanent votes. For these years A. S. Turberville’s list “Creations and Promotions in the Peerage” provides an admirable source from which one can draw the information required.16 After 1837 I had to rely on my own devices. Following the same guidelines as above, I have eliminated five promotions in the peerage. I should, however, note that the above figure of forty-two includes one vote created by the termination of the abeyance of a peerage by the Crown. Victoria terminated three more. I also include in the figures below Earl Bruce, who though summoned in his father’s barony in 1838, did not succeed as marquess of Ailesbury until 1856. His ultra father had willingly given Melbourne permission to bring his Liberal son into the Lords and thus further his career. Bruce and the three who came in by the termination of abeyance joined sixteen others who came by the ordinary process of creation. From 1830 to 1841, then, there were a total of sixty-two creations producing

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permanent votes, or in Bruce’s case, one that went on for an unusually long period. Sixty-two such creations is a large number for a little over a decade. Yet even such a number would not have been enough ever to have given the whigLiberals a majority. In 1836 they numbered 123 (the Conservatives 204). That number included 38 peers created up until that time. This left the Conservatives with a majority of 81. The remaining Liberal creations were 24. And at the same time their ranks were being thinned by defections to the Conservatives. These numbered 15 by 1837 and totaled 48 by the mid-1840s. The whig decline is usually blamed on lords who because of laziness or bad organization did not turn out to vote. The years 1835 and 1836 certainly showed pitifully small divisions. But the last division on the 1836 Irish Corporations bill suggests a rather different reason. The Liberal whips had obviously exerted every effort to bring out the vote, and with 123, very close to their party’s total number, had done wonders. But the Conservatives mustered 220. (Party lists never quite reflected true Conservative numbers, because of Wellington’s refusal to recognize groups such as the dukes of Richmond and Portland and their friends, and certain ultras who looked to Lord Kenyon; the whips, however, made it a point to keep in touch.) Heroic efforts brought out the 123 Liberals, who went down to defeat to a Conservative majority of 97. With this kind of demonstration, it is safe to assume that it was not laziness alone that caused small Liberal divisions, but despair. In November 1836, Russell was considering dropping the appropriations clause and wrote to Grey for advice. Grey had already excluded the question from his proxy in the previous session. But his answer to Russell was distinctly icy: “Having objected to the unnecessary assertion of an abstract principle from the beginning, I should be glad to see the difficulty got rid of. . . . Whether you can now give it up is . . . a question depending on what you may think necessary for your personal character and honour.”17 Grey and many others never forgave Russell for breaking up the government and the party in 1834 on this principle, especially when Stanley seemed to be coming around to it.18 Russell’s blithe suggestion that it might be discarded was obviously a little more than Grey could take. There is much to be said on both sides. But two conclusions are fairly clear. One is that by invoking the principle, Russell brought his party back to power in 1835, and that it helped him for several years to keep it in power. But if the Lower House was more or less happy, the Upper House clearly was not. This left the Liberals in power, but powerless by themselves to carry their legislation. The first session of Parliament in 1837 spent much more time in party ma-



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neuvering than in serious legislating, and the latter activity was in any case cut off by the death of William IV on 20 June. On the first reading of the Irish Municipal Corporations bill in the House of Commons, Russell, without consulting the prime minister or anyone else, declared that the government would stand or fall with the Irish Municipal Corporations bill and resign if it were not passed. As Melbourne at the end of the previous session had, at Lord Holland’s instigation, already declared that so long as he was supported by a majority of the House of Commons he would not resign, this was rather confusing. But neither side was inclined to give way, so the confusion persisted.19 Then there was the question of the lay appropriations clause. Russell decided to postpone any decision on that, and he gave the cabinet no notion of how he would finally come down. On that, of course, depended the fate of the Irish Tithe bill. As Holland put the cabinet’s decision, “We determined if not to abandon at least not to gratify our enemies and disappoint our friends by hazarding our existence for it early in the session.”20 That left things pretty much up in the air. Russell had made up his mind on one question—the need to do something for the Dissenters. Melbourne managed to put him off one project in December, another bill to open Oxford and Cambridge to non-Anglicans. He begged Russell to think again. There was no question “upon which prejudice is stronger or more intense.” Furthermore the new London University had recently been chartered, which would provide a practical solution to the Dissenters’ problems.21 The next thing Russell brought forward was another Church Rates bill. He sent a copy to the archbishop of Canterbury, who was strongly opposed to it. But Russell told Melbourne: “Nevertheless I am for perseverance.” The bill had been drawn up by the chancellor of the exchequer, Thomas Spring-Rice, and it proposed to provide for the abolition of Church rates by drawing on the increased income from Church lands, to be brought about by the better management of the recently created Church Commissioners. The rationale was very much like Stanley’s in the Irish Church bill of 1833, and, as Melbourne warned Russell, it would be immensely unpopular. It was. The archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London took the occasion of presenting petitions that were flowing in against the measure to announce the total opposition of the whole bishops’ bench. And as the outcry became more violent, the cabinet quietly shelved the bill. Lord Hatherton feared the government “had greatly mismanaged the Church Rates measure.”22 The Conservatives, however, were having problems of their own. On 23 February 1837, Peel wrote to Wellington that the Conservatives had just been beaten in the House of Commons by a majority of eighty on the second reading of the

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Irish Municipal Corporations bill. A number of Members were absent, especially Irish ones. Some in the party were arguing that it would be better to let the corporations go and to take up more popular and comprehensible Church questions instead. What would the duke advise?23 For more than one reason Wellington’s letter the next day did not advise a shift to Church issues per se. He believed that it was not the function of the Conservative opposition to propose reforms. “Others may amend the propositions made by the government, but we whose object it is to protect the institutions of the country ought not to originate motions for their amendment.” And there were also very practical reasons for not shifting legislative focus: “The ministers would only have to delay the discussion on your Church proposition, and to accelerate the stages of the Irish Municipal bill; and they would succeed in making the last mentioned the motive for their resignation.” That is, the Conservatives would end with nothing but the credit for turning the government out on an issue popular with the public. What the duke recommended was going on to a division on the third reading, even though the numbers should be smaller. “Everything which will show an interest felt by the leaders in the House of Commons on a bill on which there will be a decided majority in the House of Lords will be an object.”24 Peel’s letter in reply seemed to studiously ignore every point the duke had made. Peel thought “there cannot be a doubt that the government will resign on the loss or postponement of the measure in the Lords.” The duke had never denied this. Peel thought that there was no chance in the Commons that they could lessen their minority on the bill by more than ten votes, if at all. The duke had said it made no difference, but that the important thing was to show solidarity with the Lords. In contrast, Peel said they had been in a minority of only twenty-three on the Church Rates bill. This showed the greater popularity of Church issues, which would strengthen their position in case of a crisis.25 Wellington replied that there were waverers in the Lords on the issue of the Corporations bill, “even among the leaders. Their opinion will be strengthened and any course of dissent from the majority which they may propose to follow encouraged by the House of Commons abstaining from a debate and division on the third reading.” The duke believed that the government had been and would be encouraged to resign, and on this issue, by the kind of thinking and talking engaged in by those who opposed a division. It was surrounded by difficulties at home, abroad, and in the colonies: They will seize the first opportunity of running away, and ground their resignations upon any question upon which popular opinion may be unfavourable to their succes-



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sors and on which there may be a difference of opinion among the Conservative party. The resignation is a real misfortune. But I cannot doubt that it will take place. [As a consequence:] It is very desirable that the public should understand clearly what the difference of opinion between the two parties is: That you are determined [to maintain] the Protestant religion, the Church of England in Ireland as well as England. That you are determined to maintain the independence of the House of Lords. I think that a debate on the third reading of the Irish Corporations bill might bring out these points very forcibly; and that men might be induced to think a little further than the mere question of the municipal accommodation of towns which are bankrupt in property. I shall be satisfied with whatever course you may decide on.26

Peel replied the next day that he had already reached the same conclusion—that there must be a division on the third reading. Lord Howick had told Sir James Graham “that on the first hostile vote in the Lords on the Irish bill (whatever might be the precise nature of the vote) they would take the course which his father took on the Reform bill of 1832.”27 It was this, not the duke, that convinced Peel, but it is difficult to follow Peel’s line of reasoning in this correspondence. What would it have profited the Conservatives in the Commons to have dropped the corporations question at this point? Nothing, and it would certainly have suggested that they were turning their backs on the Lords, with whom they had jointly embarked in opposition to such a bill the previous year. Nor was it quite clear what alternative Church issue they would have switched to or what it would have gained them. If the government chose to go out on a defeat on the Municipal Corporations bill in the Lords, what difference would it have made if the Conservatives in the Commons were busy with what was bound to be an aborted measure on another issue? Finally, could Peel really have thought that it would have been a Conservative gain to have defeated a Corporations bill in the Lords by a smaller majority? Once more, Peel demonstrated his difficulty, no matter how hard he might try, in thinking in terms of a party united in Lords and Commons. Wellington did not have this difficulty. Rather than concerning himself with how to change horses in the middle of the stream (never easy), he saw that the best policy was to stay on the same steed. At least as keenly aware of the importance of Church issues for the Conservative party as Peel was, he saw that the question they had could and must be turned to that purpose. People must be made to see, what the Conservatives had argued all along, that what was at issue in Ireland was not popularly elected municipal governments for the whole United Kingdom but, Wellington held, nothing less than the survival of the Anglican Church and Protestantism in that country. Russell, by obligingly provoking an Anglican reaction, had made it easier still to get the message across. Another party now entered the discussion of strategy and tactics. The now

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Lord Stanley, his courtesy title since his father had succeeded to the Derby earldom in 1834, Sir James Graham, and others had been gradually moving toward Conservatism since 1835. Stanley was by this time in open alliance with Peel and had been influencing him for some time. He now proposed to turn the fact that there were then three important Irish measures before Parliament to Conservative purposes. The measures were, besides the Irish Corporations bill, the Irish Tithe bill with its Irish appropriations clause, and, introduced in this session, an Irish Poor Law bill. Stanley’s idea was that if they could postpone the Corporations bill in the Lords to the last to be decided, suggesting that its passage might be greatly eased if an acceptable accommodation on an Irish Tithe bill had already been reached, two vexed questions might be resolved. The function of the Poor Law bill in this plan—that is aside from its own intrinsic value—was that information gathered for purposes of rating could also be applied to establishing safe qualifications for voting and office in corporations. Peel put the plan to Wellington in a letter of 31 March. Wellington replied that he had never pledged himself to any “opinion or course” on this Irish Corporations bill. He was therefore “quite ready to take into consideration any course or measure for the amendment of that bill which shall save the country from the evils which it is calculated to inflict, and relieve the two Houses of Parliament from the difficulties in which both are placed. I think you had better see Lord Lyndhurst on the subject.” Kitson Clark placed considerable emphasis on this last sentence, apparently seeing it as the duke himself having nothing to offer and/or as obstructionist because Lyndhurst was then in Paris with his ailing daughter. It is true that Wellington went on to say that he could not accept the bill as it then stood and gave some reasons. He also said that he thought the government would not accept anything less than full surrender.28 But it is difficult to see what this signifies with regard to the duke’s advice to Peel to see Lyndhurst. It was a complicated business, and the former lord chancellor’s advice would not have been amiss. In any case, Lyndhurst’s return was thought to be imminent, and Peel took the advice to the extent of postponing action for over a week waiting for it.29 On 8 August, the members of the 1835 cabinet, without Lyndhurst, met at Lord Aberdeen’s. There, according to Peel, in a letter he subsequently wrote to the duke, he “had asked whether he might inform Stanley and Graham that the Irish Corporations bill would not be thrown out on the second reading and had got unanimous consent.” In any case, he thought it the best way to pass the second reading and postpone the Committee. They had done it that way the previous year. The only difference this year was that they would wait until they saw what the government was going to do about tithes and the Poor Law, “and



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see if this made the Corporation bill any more acceptable.” He also suggested the unacceptable consequences of taking any other line.30 It was a tactful letter, probably written after someone had warned Peel that the duke had a rather different understanding of what had taken place at the meeting and put it down to his own deafness, caused by his being too close to an exploding howitzer shell many years before. That certainly is how the duke explained the misunderstanding in his response to Peel. This is what he understood had been agreed on: I certainly recollect that I stated that I would endeavour to prevail and that I thought I should prevail upon Lord Lyndhurst to abandon his wish to throw out the bill upon the second reading, particularly if the whole case was left open. But I did not consider that anything was settled till he should come to England, when he and I were to meet Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham.

Wellington admitted that having followed the two days of debate in the Commons on the subject and feeling the difficulty and hazards of proposing to delay the bill in the Lords without a plan (and there was none), he had begun “to consider upon the plan of rejecting the bill upon the second reading with explanations of the same nature which Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham and yourself made when you voted against the third reading in the House of Commons.” But if what passed at the meeting and had been reported to Stanley and Graham precluded that course in the Lords, “I don’t care about it, and I will proceed on the course of endeavouring to persuade Lord Lyndhurst when he comes over not to insist on the rejection of the bill on the second reading.” But he did need to know the plan.31 There was no plan. Under the pressure of time and of Stanley and Graham, the meeting at Aberdeen’s had been scheduled without any information about Lyndhurst’s position. But the meeting was informed of it by a letter to Wellington that Lyndhurst had written from Paris on 6 June in response to one from the duke. He believed that the only safe course was to reject the bill on the second reading. The meeting therefore was faced with the uncomfortable necessity of giving an assurance to Stanley and Graham that the Lords would not reject the second reading, without being quite sure. It would perhaps be too much to say that there was no belligerence in Lyndhurst’s letter, but it was mild for him, and he ended by assuring the duke that he was stating his “individual opinion, which I submit to your consideration and better judgment.”32 He was as good as his word and created no difficulties. This episode provides a good example of how well Peel and Wellington could get along when both were of a mind to do so. It was a very difficult and delicate situation, and one in which it would have been very easy for tempers

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to flare. But Peel could hardly have been more sensitive and tactful in his handling of the duke, or Wellington any more anxious to accommodate. Each had a genuine respect for the other. When the duke advised the king at the end of 1834 to send for Peel, it was a deliberate and well-considered act of passing on to him the leadership of the Conservative party. And when Wellington did it, it was with a determination to give the new leader his loyal support. He himself had always guided his own course by what he considered necessity. Henceforward he would be guided mainly by what Peel considered necessity. What happened over the English Municipal Corporation bill in 1835 was an aberration. The leader did not lead but instead fled to chilly silence in the north, and when he swept down and spoke again, it was to repudiate the actions of his own party in the Lords—it was betrayal, or so Wellington thought. But when tempers cooled and they began to communicate again, both found again what they had known before—that when they were prepared to discuss matters, whether in person or by letter, they had little difficulty in agreeing on a course of action. There would be strained relations again, but they would not be fundamental and would not last for long. On 24 April, a large meeting of Conservative peers took place at Apsley House. The duke announced that “it is felt impolitic for the Conservative party to adhere permanently to the principle of having no municipal institutions in Ireland.” He said that a great change was now in the making for Ireland in two bills under consideration in the Commons—that is, the Irish Tithes and Poor Law bills. At the same time, it was impossible to agree to the Irish Municipal Corporations bill as it now stood in the House of Lords. Therefore it was proposed to postpone the further consideration of the bill until the Lords had had an opportunity to see how those other measures had developed. If they were, or could be made, acceptable, then the Lords could propose the alteration of the Corporations bill in such a way as to allow the establishing in Ireland of municipal corporations on the same principle already employed in England and Scotland. Of course, there would have to be safeguards—the main one being a £10 householder franchise. All this was delivered without any apparent dissent. Then the duke of Cumberland asked Lyndhurst, who had now returned, for his opinion. Though much more critical of the bill, he backed Wellington. The meeting accepted Wellington’s proposals unanimously. The duke received the highest accolade of all when Lord Fitzgerald reported to Peel that he had managed the meeting with great skill, though he added that if Lyndhurst had not so swiftly endorsed Wellington, Cumberland would have dared to resist. Cumberland had often dared to resist, with mixed results. If Lyndhurst had joined Cumberland, the situation would have been more serious. But the point



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surely is that he had not. Rather, he had submitted to the “better judgment” of the duke of Wellington.33 Wellington continued to be concerned about the complexities of the situation and how they could continue to keep the three bills up in the air until they wanted to bring them down.34 Nevertheless, he continued on course, and on 5 May, the day after Melbourne’s introduction of the Corporations bill brought up from the House of Commons, he rose to postpone its going into Committee. He reminded the Lords that wishes had been expressed from the beginning of the session for some kind of accommodation on the issue, as well as hopes for the Tithe and Poor Law bills. The Tithe bill was now under discussion in the other House. From what he had heard it might not be acceptable, but he thought there was a possibility. Then there was the Poor Law measure. “If one was adopted . . . it might afford the best and most satisfactory means of testing the qualification with respect to possession of property by the claimants of the franchise in the middle and lower classes of society, and establish a safe resting place with respect to the franchise in Corporations or otherwise.” Trusting that these measures would have the desired effect, he wished to postpone the consideration of the Corporations bill till a period when they could judge its effects, and he moved that the date for the Committee should be 9 June. Melbourne correctly, but not very surprisingly, guessed that “some internal policy of party” was behind the duke’s actions. He considered the whole proceeding “unexampled and reprehensible.” Lord Wicklow argued that making bills dependent on one another was not new and that Wellington himself had done it in 1829. Lansdowne rightly contended that the three 1829 bills were not analogous because, while they were meant to be complementary, passage of one or two was not made a condition for the passing of another. Wellington settled the matter. When questioned, he said that unless there was a satisfactory settlement of the Church question (the Tithe bill) he would not consent to a committal of the Irish Corporations bill. The reception of Wellington’s motion by the Liberal lords was, therefore, hardly warm. It passed, of course, by 192 to 115. Russell’s reaction was positively explosive. He scheduled the second reading of the Irish Tithe bill for 9 June. The same procedure was repeated on that day, now setting the date as 3 July.35 But before that date came, William IV died, on 20 June. A session of aborted initiatives thus ended, and a new reign began.

chap ter sixte en

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The time between the prorogation of the spring 1837 session and the opening of the new Parliament in mid-November was one of taking stock by both parties as well as contesting the election necessary in a new reign. The elections took place in August. The Conservatives were optimistic about achieving a significant gain on the Liberals, and they were justified by the event when Parliament met in November. The Liberal majority in the Commons of fifty-eight was cut by nearly half, to around thirty-two.1 As a result, Conservative backbenchers’ hopes of overthrowing the government, bullish in the previous session, grew stronger still, making them even more difficult to manage. The Liberal peers had never been buoyant. The talk was not so much of what they would do, but rather how they would get out of existing scrapes, and not get into new ones. Russell told Melbourne in mid-August that he thought there would be no difficulty in giving up the Church rates issue. Melbourne was more cautious; it would have to be done carefully, and perhaps there should be at least a Committee to discuss the question.2 On 6 August, Lansdowne had reported that as far as he could tell, among squires and farmers (referring to the county electorate) “since the Church Rate we have scarcely any friends left amongst them.” He reckoned that the result of the election would be a deadlock when Parliament met and that they would lose, “upon the whole, though not sufficiently to enable any party differently constructed to carry on the government.”3 That was about right, and Russell had been close to the mark when he estimated on the 11th that they would have a majority of thirty-four to forty. On 10 September, Lansdowne warned Russell that an expanded education bill Russell had in mind, complete with a normal school, government inspection, and a building-and-maintenance program requiring a substantial increase of the grants begun in 1833, would be highly unwise:



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The great danger of a bill in the present state of parties, and other questions connected with that of religious establishment, is that of controversial differences breaking out, if not on the bill itself on some important clause which would speedily absorb the whole interest about it, and the system be left exposed to the assaults of zealous Churchmen or Dissenters, or perhaps both—and we should have to fight the Irish battle over again.4

The reference to what had happened with the appropriation clause since 1834 is evident. Lansdowne advised that it would be better to start with an increased grant and a board with such authority as the government itself could provide. It would not take very long to prove Lansdowne right in every respect. Not long after, Russell would receive advice from another senior statesman, Earl Spencer, the former Althorp. Russell replied: Many thanks for your letter, which points out our difficulties and dangers very clearly. Dissenters and Radicals are always pressing a Whig ministry to measures which when proposed, however good in themselves, are too large for the public of this country. I agree with you that it is impossible for us as honest men or even as party men to remain in office without carrying good measures. But in Ireland, which is the field of battle, every act of administration is a measure and not only a measure in itself, but one which tends to consolidate a good system so thoroughly that future Tories must govern justly however much they dislike it.5

As Melbourne had already pointed out to him in June, Russell was probably making too broad a claim for the success of whig administration in Ireland, save for one admittedly important element in it: “The fact is the government of Ireland has not been very different from any other in point of principle. The great difference has been in the distribution of patronage.” But if there was to be lasting change, legislation was necessary. As to the possibility of that, Russell was pessimistic. As he wrote to Melbourne in his letter of 11 August, “To effect a fair and reasonable compromise on the affairs of Ireland is rendered far less practicable than it was.”6 The only hopeful development was the government’s decision to put the appropriation clause behind them—unless their followers in Parliament pressed for it. And then, on top of everything else, at the end of September came the news of the Canadian rebellions against colonial oligarchies and the British government that stood behind them. Meanwhile, elements in the Conservative party were becoming restive. The marquess of Londonderry, who, with the duke of Buckingham, was seeking to become a leader of the more ultra-leaning in the Lords, wrote to Buckingham on 1 September. He had found that the party leaders were making no plans for an aggressive campaign in the coming session. There would be no competition for the Speakership of the Commons in the new Parliament because the Liberals’ candidate was a “Conservative mediocrity.” Therefore the Conserva-

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tives were supposed to give their support to the candidate and the government “to bolster them and his Majesty against Radical assault.” The strategy, as they had heard for several years, was that, as the Conservatives were not yet ready to assume power, they should aid the best government available against common enemies until they were ready. But that time was not yet. Londonderry, however, very much doubted that it would be possible even “to keep a party together who are to be handed over to their opponents when it is convenient to the latter to call for them against the desolating inroads of Revolution and Jacobinism.” Those Londonderry chose to call the “statesmen of the present day” seemed not to realize that a “body acting together must have the wages of ambition, patronage and place, always before their eyes and within their expectation and belief of grasping, as well as the fine expression of the love of country and the patriotism which is the virtue.” These latter moral rewards might do for Peel and the duke, but Londonderry thought they were the only ones in the party for whom they would suffice. It is true that the marquess then went on apparently rather inconsistently to say that he felt that there was “but one man and one party for us now, and that is Peel, and that bad as the Conservative chance may be,” if the party split up “the whigs are in forever.”7 From that point of view, Londonderry thought it as well that their friend, the king of Hanover, was no longer with them. King Ernest, heretofore the duke of Cumberland, had succeeded to the crown of Hanover because the Salic Law did not allow Victoria to do so. And the advantage of having him away greatly lessened the possibility of an ultra party forming, for in the past such parties had always done best when they had a royal figure to rally around—Cumberland himself and before him his brother York. Here it is necessary to make a distinction between an ultra party and ultra opinion. Anything approaching a distinct party, with a separate organization and agenda, had rarely existed, perhaps never except for a couple of years before York died and from Catholic Emancipation to 1830. But even then its main function was to give a clearer lead to a larger body of ultra opinion in the Lords—about half the party as shown over Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the Irish Church bill of 1833, and both less and more in the Catholic and corn issues respectively of 1845 and 1846. Londonderry did not aspire to lead an ultra party, but he did aspire to lead ultra opinion and thereby to exert great influence on the Conservative party. His model would almost certainly have been Lyndhurst as ultras liked to perceive him. The discontented in the party, however, did not get much sympathy from the duke of Wellington. At the end of October, the earl of Wilton wrote to apprise



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him of the situation. Wilton said that though it was not yet openly expressed, he knew there was “a growing dissatisfaction among our party at the apparent lukewarmness of Sir Robert Peel in the cause of Conservatism.” The party, Wilton said, “have really made very great sacrifices in the late election struggles, and have found themselves stronger than I should think even you anticipated. But nevertheless their power will be neutralized if there is no hand to give it a proper direction, and what is more to encourage and foster its growth.”8 Wellington replied he had not seen or heard from Peel since before the king’s death in June, so he had no idea what his plans were. However, I will not conceal from you my opinion that Sir Robert Peel with his minority may prevent, and particularly may enable the House of Lords to prevent a great deal of mischief. I would not recommend him to try any votes or resolutions much less measures of his own. Such a course might lead to the evil of having the House of Commons sanctioning by its vote the denial or rejection of a good principle, or possibly the assertion of a bad one. We may rely on it that the parties are fairly en preserve and that there will be no defection upon any good principle to our side. This will not suit your sanguine friends.

Clearly the duke was not much concerned with suiting Wilton or his sanguine friends. Nor would his answer have done anything to conciliate Lord Londonderry, who was obviously right about the position of one of the party leaders. Wellington went on to tell Wilton that he usually found that “without much communication of any sort Sir Robert Peel and I find ourselves pretty nearly on the same ground; I should not be surprised therefore if what I have stated should turn out to be true.”9 It was true. In early January 1838, as the session got under way, the party would find out how seriously the duke took his stance of disinterestedness when the nation’s interests were at stake. On 7 January, Peel wrote that he thought they ought to support the government if it was serious in suppressing the Canadian revolts. Wellington had already been in touch with Melbourne to indicate his intention to give his support.10 On 18 January, Brougham, now sharing his favors between both parties, tore into a statement of affairs in Canada by the colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, and an Address subsequently moved by him on the basis of it. Disraeli described Brougham’s speech as “very clever indeed; as good as his old House of Commons harangues.” Conservative peers were thickly clustered, waiting for the kill. “But,” Disraeli continued, “the duke of Wellington rose and spoilt all, with his damned generosity and all that.”11 Lord Holland reported: The duke of Wellington openly refused lending himself to any factious opposition on the Canada question and expressly exculpated us from the charge to which we were in appearance most liable and which unquestionably, without his great authority and his

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spontaneous, noble, and candid testimony we should have found it most difficult to repel—that of not reinforcing the military establishment of the two colonies, though we had so many grounds for apprehending disturbances.

But, as Holland goes on to say, Wellington did more than that; he made himself the government’s military adviser.12 Lord Aberdeen added his testimony as to what took place, later telling Lady Salisbury (the marquess’s second wife) “that he had no doubt the duke’s famous speech upon Canada, which made so much noise, kept the ministers in on that occasion and that they would have gone out that night if it had not been made.”13 A great deal of noise this speech certainly made. The party was furious, and Peel’s life was not made any easier. But once more he did not quarrel with the duke. For one thing, they had just agreed to support the government. And if they actually believed, as they did, that it would be impossible to form a viable Conservative government, it would have been the height of irresponsibility to have turned out the government in place at a moment of crisis merely as a sop, and a temporary one, to their agitated followers. As it was, they continued on their course. It was not, however, a smooth path. On 27 January, Lord Redesdale, the new Conservative whip, wrote to Wellington, who had as usual returned to Stratfield Saye after the initial business of the year had been dealt with. Redesdale said that he had been asked by some peers when they were to have a meeting and know what policy was to be pursued? After Canada, there was the Irish Corporations bill to be discussed, but there was a special urgency. “In truth there is a sort of impatience existing, which is not very satisfactory and may become very unmanageable.” Wellington no longer attempted to avoid meetings, which after 1835 he had found a useful method of management. He quite understood that lords wished to have one; and he promised to be in London the next day or the day after that, when he would fix a meeting before the second reading of the Corporations bill. But when he came to matters of substance, he stiffened. “I have no objection to consider of any motion that any noble lord may propose.” He, however, entertained an opinion upon such motions founded on several factors—the new political structure resulting from the Reform Act, the state of the administration, that of parties, and the opinions of leading men. He was probably wrong. “There is nobody who dislikes so much as I do, and who knows so little of party management. I hate it.” It was clear the way the duke was moving. “But what I cannot and will not do is to become a party to any vote which is to involve the honor of the country or that of the House of which I am a member. . . . If I am to act it must be according to my own opinion.”14



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The meeting does not seem to have been an explosive one, though what went on there was not appreciated in some circles. According to Londonderry, it was the duke’s intention to hand them all over tied and bound, with a high and mighty “I shall support the government and advise my friends to do the same.”15 In any event, Peel and Wellington remained steady on course, in an exchange of letters on 12 and 13 February, agreeing that they would not cooperate with the Radicals on a motion aimed at unseating Lord Glenelg.16 But this position resulted in two long and patient letters from the duke to Charles Arbuthnot explaining why they could not. The nub of the argument was as follows: “If we support the Radicals we must cast the whigs. If they resign the government, we must take it. . . . Can we depend upon the Radicals to support us?” Arbuthnot’s solution was to dissolve. Given the results the previous summer’s election, the duke asked, was there any chance that they would emerge with a working majority?17 With such sentiments among their followers, it is difficult to see that Wellington and Peel had much choice but to ride roughshod over them. But it was taxing, and the main burden was on Peel as leader of the party. He was growing tired, writing to Wellington on 23 February that he had no desire “to depart from the line of policy to which we have hitherto adhered, and which I believe to be one great source of our strength.” But keeping the party together might require it. Wellington replied on the 27th, dismissive of fears of a party split and confident that it would follow if its leaders remained firm.18 On 6 March, a Conservative motion in the House of Commons, which praised the government for the suppression of the rebellion and moving toward the establishment of a sound constitution in Canada yet criticized it for the dilatory and irresolute conduct which helped to bring the crisis on, allowed the party to be critical of the government, but without joining the Radicals to bring it down. So ended this phase of Canadian business to the satisfaction of the party, in the Commons at least. It was not to the duke of Wellington’s taste.19 There is interesting testimony regarding Peel’s feelings about the duke in this period. They were expressed to the Liberal Lord Hatherton about his wife’s uncle. Peel said he found the duke much altered. Hatherton volunteered that Wellington displayed “characteristics of advancing age.” Peel agreed, “precisely.” He added that he was “displeased with the duke’s comparative indifference about party success. No longer a destined premier, the duke thinks more of the monarchy than of himself.”20 As to the duke’s advancing age, this was an early comment about his decline, physical and/or mental. Such comments alternated regularly with amazement at his remarkable energy and acuteness, and would for many years. The charge of indifference to party success obviously had some truth in it. But anyone

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who expected absolute party loyalty from the duke, who had both opposed and carried Catholic Emancipation, opposed and then proposed to carry parliamentary reform, and who was still getting up and leaving before a division to prevent his party winning it, would have had to be remarkably uninformed. It also depends to some extent on what one means by party success. Would it have been a party success to have allowed the Conservatives to defeat the government and plunge the country into what would certainly have been governmental chaos and instability during a time of imperial crisis? It is obvious that neither Peel nor the duke believed this, and for two months they had resolutely ignored great party pressure in their determination to keep it on a high and responsible course. Peel cannot be blamed for agreeing to an essentially meaningless gesture, which allowed their followers to have their strut and prevented them from doing any real harm. Nor can Wellington be blamed too much for finding it distasteful. The duke’s concern for the young queen was an additional reason for the harder line he took. He had always been more concerned for the monarchy than for himself—what occurred in May 1832 had proved that, if proof were needed. But if he had always venerated the Crown, he had rarely had that feeling for those who wore it. Like Melbourne, Wellington had always had an eye for pretty young women, and the eighteen-year-old queen brought out the gallantry in him. This proved no detriment to the party, or Peel—quite the contrary. In matters of legislation Wellington had some real success in this session. Once more his was a cooperative and not a partisan effort. On 14 May, he wrote to Melbourne to apologize for not being able to attend the second reading of the Irish Poor Law bill that day, but his deafness was so bad he could not hear anything. I recommend to you to postpone the second reading to some future day. I don’t think that the House in general will like to agree to allow the second reading of the bill pro forma and postpone the discussion to a future date. You will have a discussion therefore, if not a serious opposition on the second reading, if not postponed, and another upon a future day and your difficulties in passing the bill will be increased.21

The bill, introduced by Melbourne for its second reading on 21 May, was, as he said, “founded on the amended system of the English poor law.” It was based on the workhouse test—all classes of the indigent to be relieved there, and no outdoor relief. The balance of opinion in the debate was heavily against such a system for Ireland, mostly on the grounds that the problem was too large and to fix it would be hugely expensive. Earl Fitzwilliam was against giving any



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relief to the able-bodied indigent. Lord Londonderry emphasized the expense, which he said would be twice as costly as giving outdoor relief; but he was not prepared to advocate that, and moved the second reading that day two months. Lyndhurst said the Irish themselves did not want it. In the House of Commons, he claimed, there were only four petitions for it, and in the House of Lords the Irish peers were overwhelmingly against it. He advocated the Scottish system, in which only the lame, blind, and impotent were cared for. There should be some means of giving employment to the able-bodied, accompanied by an emigration scheme. Lord Clanricarde took the too big and too costly approach. The earl of Limerick was unqualifiedly opposed. Lord Devon would have preferred work schemes. Brougham made a speech, full of sarcasm, though admittedly more or less directed at the bill until he found the abandoned appropriation clause a more desirable prey. Lansdowne was effective in cutting Brougham down to size, but was guarded in supporting the bill. It would, he said, provide no panacea but would help to make jobs more available by taking some people out of the labor market. The marquess of Westmeath had nothing against relieving the poor but everything against this bill. Melbourne did little but describe the bill. Lansdowne was lukewarm. Wellington, who spoke early in the debate, was the only party leader to give it strong support. “The existence of distress being admitted,” he said, “I for one think some measure necessary.” It would not cure everything that was wrong any more than it had in England, but it would help. He believed that having to pay Poor rates would make Irish landlords manage their properties better and be more concerned about the population on them. “This will lead to better consequences, without regard to the workhouses, for its tendency will be to improve the social relations between landlord and tenant, between the occupier and the labourer of the soil.”22 The duke’s only real support, though Lord Devon agreed about the beneficial effects of landlords and larger tenants paying rates, came from the Liberal Hatherton, a former Irish secretary. He supplied the only detailed defense of the bill in terms of its provisions, strongly countering all the arguments advanced against it. The House divided 149 to 20 for the second reading of the bill. Only ten Irish and five other Conservative peers voted against it. Together, Wellington and Hatherton had beaten off what the latter called a “formidable attack” from Lyndhurst. The government, Hatherton explained, was badly divided on the issue. No minister wanted to answer Lyndhurst, upon which “Melbourne obliged me to say something.” Lyndhurst himself did not vote, and clearly he had not

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inspired many other Conservatives to vote in opposition.23 There is no indication that he attended any more of the debates. It is impossible to say just how the winning majority was made up, as there is no list. But despite the triumph on the second reading, the victory was by no means won. In the general discussion before going into Committee on 28 May, it was evident that there was still determined opposition. The ultra earl of Roden, the main Irish leader of those of that opinion, protested that the Poor rates would ruin a great many hard-pressed Irish landlords. He moved that the bill be committed that day six months. Another ultra, Lord Winchilsea, said that relief should be given only to the indigent and sick poor. That sounded like Lyndhurst. The earl of Wicklow declared they must have some kind of Poor Law, but preferably not this one. He agreed with Roden that the effect on landowners would be very severe, but this would be true of any bill for the purpose. A Poor Law was a tax on property to provide for the poor. He also said relief should be given to all the destitute, for whatever reason. The debate convinced the earl of Macclesfield that he would not vote for this bill, and probably not for any. At this point, Wellington intervened. It appeared that all the lords so far, save for Macclesfield, believed that it was desirable for the House to take into consideration in this session the plight of “the poor of Ireland.” It was also recommended by the petitions to both Houses, but particularly to the Lords. Furthermore, the bill came to them passed by a very large majority of the other House. He recommended that it be allowed to go into Committee. They would have ample time in the stages to come to revise and improve it, and if it did not suit in the end, they might postpone until a future session. In the meantime they should give the bill before them their serious attention. Those whose aim it was to block it should be prepared to introduce another in the course of the present session. “After all that had been said and done another bill must be brought in if it were intended to reject the present measure.”24 Clanricarde said the bill must be thrown out or considerably altered. The alarm in Ireland was such that tenants of the lowest classes were already being ejected. He had had time to think while another lord spoke and had decided that relief should be limited to “orphans of tender age, or persons who through old age or bodily infirmity or defect are unable to support themselves.” Not before time someone realized that as they were not yet in Committee lords should not be making amendments as if they were. Therefore Roden withdrew his motion and Clanricarde saved his for the Committee. There were other comments by Earl Stanhope and Lord Wynford, chief justice of the court



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of common pleas, who had had problems with the English act and saw similar defects in this one. But most of the discontented were worried about expense and aimed to limit it by excluding the able-bodied indigent from the benefits of the bill. This was the aim of Lord Fitzwilliam, who moved to substitute the name “poorhouse” for “workhouse,” and by other changes to make certain that no one able to work should be let in. This brought Lord Wynford to his feet. “If he stood alone,” he would oppose the amendment of the noble earl. A man had as much right to ask for relief if his destitution arose from want of work as he did if it came from physical infirmity. If such a right was not recognized, there would indeed be no need for workhouses in Ireland. It was admitted that 2 million were actually starving from want there. To allow such a state of things to go on “would be neither more nor less than national murder.”25 The duke had once compared Wynford unfavorably with Lyndhurst for the efficiency of his professional aid. But this was probably a time when heartfelt passion was even more valuable. Not that it much affected Lord Fitzgerald, who spoke next. He talked of a number of things that might have been done, coming to the conclusion that none of them could have been done safely. He finally came down on the side of Fitzwilliam’s proposal as an “experiment” that would do little and therefore raise no false hopes. Melbourne, however, came down against Fitzwilliam’s proposal on grounds similar to Wynford’s, though stated with more restraint. Brougham then attacked Melbourne, saying that he did not tell them why he disagreed with Fitzwilliam because both of them were simply groping their ways. The Committee resumed on 31 May. The marquess of Conyngham, the Liberal son of George IV’s last mistress, having stated that “the landed proprietors . . . were bound by nature and should be bound by law to give relief to destitute and worn out paupers,” proceeded to give an example of why many of Ireland’s population were in such a precarious state. He said that nine-tenths of his tenantry were under an annual rent of £5. In the present state of the country it was impossible to create larger farms. Lord Fingall would support Fitzwilliam’s amendment. Fitzgerald put his support in the form of a motion. Wellington intervened once more. If “workhouse” were expunged, “the whole frame of the bill would have to be altered.” He hoped they would reject the amendment. If they did, he would propose a little “further on the insertion of a few words which would point more distinctly to the first objects of the bill, as being the aged, infirm, impotent and others of that character, as described in the Act of Elizabeth.” He also wished to stress that the scheme should be as eco-

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nomical as possible. He thought it was unfair to exempt holders of land of £5 value from the poor-rate, but not another class whose land was heavily subject to annuities, mortgages, and other charges of that kind.26 In the debate that followed, the Conservative earls of Haddington and Glengall and Lord Carbery favored the Liberal Fitzwilliam’s amendment. But the Liberal lord chancellor, Cottenham, strongly supported the duke, as did the earl of Radnor and Lord Cloncurry. He was also supported by the Conservative earl of Aberdeen. The lord president, Lansdowne, effectively summed up the arguments for the bill and against the amendment. The House divided 107 to 41 against the amendment.27 When the Committee stage finally ended on 8 June, after a seven-hour sitting, Hatherton was boundless in his admiration for the duke. With Catholic Emancipation, he said, “this law for the protection of the Irish poor from the rapacity and indifference of their landlords . . . is altogether such a ground of fame as no other man in this country ever occupied.” His enthusiasm for the bill was probably excessive, though no single measure could have averted the awful tragedy of the next decade. The intent, however, was benign in its oldfashioned tory sort of way, with the sometimes repugnant mechanisms of the law obscured by the cloak of the great Elizabeth. And his opponents were without a fig leaf, after all. This episode also reveals much about the duke’s health and faculties at the time. There can be no doubt who managed this bill. It was not Lyndhurst, and it was certainly not the government. As Brougham put it, the government was saved by Wellington “throwing them out a plank,” something in Brougham’s opinion that had happened too often during this session.28 This was not the work of a feeble and failing old man. Unfortunately, the Irish Corporations bill did not fare so well. Lyndhurst continued to manage this one. On 12 July, he discussed amendments to be proposed when the House went into Committee. He recalled Wellington’s hopes the previous year that, with the probable passage of an Irish Tithes bill and similarly an Irish poor relief bill, most of the difficulties in the way of the Corporations bill would be removed. Melbourne had claimed not to see any connection between corporations and tithes. Lyndhurst thought he must be the only one who did not, but proceeded to explain. Municipal Corporations in Ireland were mostly established to protect the Protestant church there. Wellington and he thought that these “barriers of Protection” should not be removed, and certainly no new corporations of a different character should be established “until at least the important question of Irish tithes should be set at rest.” The poor relief bill was now



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settled, and there was a good prospect that the Tithe bill would be. They could now begin to consider the corporations once more.29 But, alas, despite everything seeming to come together as had been hoped, the best-laid plans went awry over the qualification to vote. In the Commons, Peel had offered, and Russell seemed ready to accept, a £10 franchise, but Russell’s followers were not prepared to do so, and so the government lowered the proposed qualification to £5. Lyndhurst, who had proposed £10 the previous year, insisted on this qualification, which was the qualification for a vote in parliamentary elections in English boroughs, though he added that in what he was proposing for Ireland it would be more rigorously determined. This was perhaps not diplomatic. In any case, the Lords insisted on it. It went back to the Commons, which responded with an offer of £8. The Lords would not accept this, and that was the end of the bill.30 The unwillingness to compromise seems to have been about equal on both sides. The Tithe bill passed easily. The offending appropriations clause was gone. There were also provisions to forgive the clergy their debt for money advanced to them under the 1833 act and to reimburse them for 70 percent of the tithes lost to them from 1834 to 1837.31 The logjam of the last two years was beginning to break up, but the log that had caused it in the first place was not to budge for another two years.

chap ter sevente en

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An early concern of the Conservative leaders in 1839 was the desire of their Irish members for a select committee in the Lords to inquire into crime and the enforcement of law in Ireland. This desire was considerably sharpened by the assassination in January of the earl of Norbury, an unpolitical peer and widely respected, shot down in broad daylight and close to his own doorstep. The urgency of Irish lords is therefore not entirely surprising. But politically it was a very delicate matter, as it could easily get out of hand and produce heated party warfare with far-reaching implications. The marquess of Westmeath had already put the question of a Lords’ select committee to Wellington at the very beginning of the year. Wellington replied on 3 January. The duke said that ordinarily he would have had no hesitation about such a committee, but under existing circumstances he thought no benefit would result. Statements might be put before the public about the most terrible situations existing in Ireland. But witnesses would be exposed to severe cross-examination. That would open the door “to the production of evidence to extenuate if not to justify the commission of crime by the proof of the existence of want, and even of destitution among the people.” Even if this proof should fail, “or even more remarkable that it should not have the effect of extenuating or justifying the existence of the state of crime in Ireland, I do not entertain the smallest doubt that in the existing state of the public mind no result whatever will be produced.”1 On 12 February, however, a meeting of the Irish peers at the Carlton Club repeated the same demand. Having consulted Wellington, Peel produced a joint memorandum in response: “Although it would have been more satisfactory to



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have had under our consideration the particular heads of the inquiry and a general outline of the evidence producible upon each, still, after the expression of opinion [of the Irish peers], we do not hesitate to give our assent to the proposal.” But the memorandum went on to urge a careful definition of the matters to be gone into, sifting the evidence carefully, avoiding personal attacks, and stressing the quality rather than the quantity of evidence.2 It is evident that Peel and Wellington did not have great confidence in the ability of the Irish peers to manage a delicate inquiry. Their concern was justified. On 22 March, Peel wrote to Wellington that Lord John Russell had complained in the Commons of the action in the Lords that morning in passing a motion that was ostensibly a vote for a committee of inquiry but the language of which suggested it was much more, calling it a censure of the government and an interference with the prerogative of mercy. Through the confidence of one House of Parliament and the forbearance of another, the Liberal administration had been able to govern Ireland. Now, Russell said, it would be necessary to ascertain if the Commons would continue to approve of the principles on which Irish government had been conducted. He would move for an expression of opinion on 15 April after the Easter holiday. According to Peel, before Russell rose to speak there had been a general impression in the House that the government had actually resigned. What had happened was that the ultra Lord Roden, the leader of the Irish peers of that persuasion, a majority, had moved for the appointment of the select committee. The period into which it was to inquire was from 1835 to 1839, a time for which Roden was unsparing in his criticism. He named the major culprit, though that was hardly necessary. The lord lieutenant of Ireland from 11 May 1835 to 20 February 1839 was the marquess of Normanby, just returned to take over the colonial office from Glenelg and present in the House to hear Roden’s arraignment of his rule, and of the government. As Holland commented, in their ordinary consequences the charges made ought to have led either to some penal proceedings against Normanby or to the dismissal of the government which employed him.3 Wellington replied to Peel: “I have always objected to these motions in the House of Lords. The best noblemen come but little prepared with a case, and it is very difficult to bring to a favourable termination the discussion on their motion.” The duke said that he would never have allowed the motion if he had not been told by Frederick Shaw, MP for Dublin University and leader of the Conservative Irish MPs in the Commons, that a motion for papers had been agreed on and would be made there “founded on real substantial cases; and that

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afterwards a motion should be made in the House of Lords for inquiry into the administration of the law.” He had talked to Shaw on the morning of the day before the motion was made in the Lords. It was, of course, true that all these things had been agreed on, as shown by Peel’s February memorandum. He restated them in his reply to Wellington. But Peel thought “the object had been merely a committee of inquiry in the Lords to ascertain the real facts as to the state of crime.” Previous to Roden’s motion, Shaw had asked Peel’s opinion about how it should it be worded. An indignant Peel had on the morning he was writing asked Shaw “why the motion was not made general and why the inquiry was to begin from the year 1835?” The muddle, then, was not all in the House of Lords, nor did Peel ever suggest it was. The difficulty probably was not primarily with Shaw but with the mover of the motion. Like many ultras, Roden was brutally frank and alarmingly headstrong, though these qualities were not uncommon in many who were numbered among Wellington’s more dependable followers. Roden may even have thought his remarks were restrained, though it is unlikely he would have cared much one way or the other. Wellington thought they were. He told Peel that Roden’s speech was very moderate. In particular there was no reference to the “wholesale travelling excesses of the royal prerogative of mercy complained of some years ago.” Nor had Wellington himself mentioned it in his speech in support of Roden’s motion. Holland said that anyone listening carefully to the duke would have realized that his aim was not to attack Normanby or the government but to take a first step toward a reform of the law. But Wellington “did not convey the distinction between the grounds taken by Lord Roden and himself very explicitly and clearly to the House, and much matter liable to another interpretation was mixed up with it.” Holland had by this time come to recognize some of the duke’s more ferocious statements as one of the ways he kept control of his followers, while he led them in a direction many of them would not have wished to go.4 The reference to the “travelling excesses of the royal prerogative of mercy” was to a tour of jail inspection Normanby had taken a few years earlier. Hatherton, soon the only Liberal on the committee and by no means impressed with its fairness, was nevertheless astounded by this part of the case against Normanby: “Had the House of Commons investigated his conduct at the time, he could only have escaped impeachment by a miracle. Never was a greater instance of abuse of prerogative. In the jail of Country Leitrim, there was not another prisoner under sentence, whom he did not either liberate or whose sentence he did not mitigate by parole order.” When Hatherton raised this matter with the prime minister, Melbourne re-



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plied that Normanby and Durham were two of a kind—both “were intoxicated the moment they received their appointments.”5 So there may have been something to be said for the Irish Conservatives’ dislike of the flamboyant former viceroy. This is not, however, to say that the case ought to have been raised in the debate on calling for a committee. And, as Wellington had said, it was not Conservatives who had raised it; it was the egregious Lord Brougham. Wellington was especially annoyed about this incident because as Lord Mohun, heir to Earl Stanhope, reminded him, “I observe that this is precisely the result you have always apprehended from an aggressive motion in the Lords.” A war of resolutions was unlikely to be profitable for the Lords against a government enjoying a majority in the House of Commons; and in this case it could have serious consequences. A combination of an Easter holiday to cool off in and a skillful handling of the issue by Peel in the House of Commons, however, drained the issue of most of its poison.6 In any case, the government had other things to worry about and would soon have more. Early in the session a proposition was put forward in the House of Lords to abolish the Corn Laws. The issue had been audible at the constituency level since the passage of the Reform Act, but it had taken the bad times after the financial upheaval of 1837 to bring it to national attention. Melbourne had declared against it in the 1838 session, and what was to become the Anti-Corn Law League was formed in the autumn of the same year. The first discussion of the issue in the House of Lords took place on 14 March 1839, when Earl Fitzwilliam, who had demonstrated strong Malthusian tendencies in his opposition to relief for able-bodied Irish indigents, moved a resolution for abolition. Reviewing the effect of the laws from 1815, Fitzwilliam concluded that it had not been good. Both the 1815 and the 1828 Corn Laws had tended toward complete prohibition, and neither landlord, farmer, nor consumer were satisfied that there had been any real benefit. The two former could never feel secure, and the consumer had to pay too much for food. Free trade would also provide more markets for the manufacturers. Fitzwilliam moved that the 1828 act had “failed to secure that steadiness in the price of grain which is essential to the best interests of the country.” The new duke of Buckingham, who as Lord Chandos before his father’s death had become famed as the “farmer’s friend,” strongly denied Fitzwilliam’s contention that the Corn Laws were a “landlord’s tax” imposed solely to keep rents high. The interests of all three agricultural classes were, he argued, intricately intertwined. People like Fitzwilliam should leave things alone; their activities served only to encourage agitation. The fact was that under the existing law the agriculture of the country was improving every day.

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The earl of Ripon, the former prime minister, who had gone from liberal tory to whig and back again to his first allegiance now under a new name, had had a lot to do with the Corn Laws. He used his knowledge effectively in a detailed review of their history, which seemed to establish a good case for them; and he recommended giving “at once” a distinct negative to the motion. Wellington, quoting figures, argued that prices had, in fact, kept fairly steady. He contended that the present system was one conceived for the encouragement of agriculture, which had indeed, according to him, “risen to a degree of superiority, throughout the country greater than existed in any part of the world.” In 1846, he would argue that it had been his intention to encourage such a growth so that when the inevitable day came that British agriculture had to do without the protection of the Corn Laws, it would be ready to do so. The Radical earl of Radnor supported Fitzwilliam and questioned the duke’s figures. Wellington took advantage of his right to speak in explanation to say that he had “expressed it as my opinion, an opinion founded on unquestionable evidence, that enormous sums have been laid out during the last twenty years in the improvement of land—an improvement that I said tended to benefit the whole country.” Certainly such improvements were going on at Stratfield Saye. The duke of Richmond strongly defended the existing system. Melbourne was very sorry that the question was being agitated both for public reasons and because of differences within his cabinet. He himself was for the Corn Laws. Brougham naturally wished to push a motion of his own, which he would introduce later in the session, but not to any effect. Lansdowne said he would vote against the resolution, not because he wished permanently to preclude the question, but because he did not wish to scuttle the present law without having something to put in its place. The marquess of Northampton said that what the House was prepared to affirm was that Fitzwilliam had not proved his case—“but they would not say that a counter case had been proved.” Northampton’s conclusion would not, however, have been that of the vast majority of those attending the debate. The vote against the motion was 224 to 24. The list of the minority contained only one Conservative—Lord Calthorpe—a longtime whig who had not been able to stomach Reform. There were a number of prominent names on it: the dukes of Bedford and Grafton; the marquess of Westminster; Earls Spencer and Leicester (both well-known farmers) as well as Carlisle, Durham, and Radnor; and Lords Holland and Denman. But most of those voting would have thought the debate over before it began.7 The real legislating business of the House of Lords would, as usual, not begin until much later, in this case late June. It would have begun a little earlier but for



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a legislative upset that caused the government to resign. This one occurred in the House of Commons. The Jamaica legislature, or Assembly as it was called, had been doing all it could for years to flout the efforts of the British government to ameliorate the condition of the black population there. This had gone on from the abolition of the slave trade through the abolition of slavery itself. The last suggestion of its existence, legally at any rate, had just been removed with the ending of apprenticeship in 1838. But while such functions as the making and enforcement of laws and the administration of jails and other forms of correction remained in the hands of former masters, freedom could be a very tenuous thing. The Assembly intended to keep it that way. The British government was equally determined and proposed to suspend the Assembly, putting all the legislative functions in the hands of the Britishappointed governor and council. As Holland put it, this was rendered necessary by “the outrageous language and conduct of the Assembly, which amounted to defiance and libel of the Parliament and abdication of its duties.” The Conservatives were critical of the bill as too drastic, but it was the government’s own Radical followers who refused their support and defeated it. Sensitivity to the rights of colonial legislatures had an honorable tradition that went back to the consequences of a tea party in Boston Harbor. It was a natural position for Radicals. The Radicals, however, were rarely united on any issue, and abolitionists among them were deeply concerned about justice for the freed slaves. But enough were in the other tradition to abstain, or in nine cases to actually vote against the government and bring it down.8 Hatherton remarked that Melbourne, whom he met going to the queen, “looked very much annoyed.” What the outgoing prime minister advised the queen to do was to send for Wellington, and if he did not accept the office himself, and Peel was the choice, to insist that Wellington be a member of the government. As Wellington had not the slightest intention of supplanting Peel, or Peel of excluding Wellington, these stipulations caused no problems. The problem, as is well known, came over the ladies of the bedchamber. It was the custom when governments changed that members of the Household also changed, to a large extent, if not always completely. This was considered an important sign of the monarch’s confidence in a new minister. Peel insisted on it. For this reason he has often been considered old-fashioned and out-ofdate in his constitutional views. Hatherton, however, who as a whig cannot be suspected of undue partiality for Peel, defended his position: “I must own that I think Peel quite right in desiring to remove Lady Normanby—a very clever, engaging, intriguing woman, who has the greatest influence with the queen, and is her principal confidante.” It is true that Hatherton strongly disapproved

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of her husband. But it is also true that wives and close connections of members of the whig cabinet, themselves keen politicians, would not be the best companions to surround the keenest whig of them all, when her government was Conservative. As neither the queen nor Peel would budge, the formation of a new government was impossible.9 When the Liberal government returned to office, it introduced a new government of Jamaica bill. This one would not suspend the Assembly but would allow it to be overridden by the governor and council. The bill was passed by the Commons but faced trouble when it got to the Lords. The formidable Lyndhurst, now the champion of colonial rights, managed proceedings in the Committee. The first clause was the operative one, and Lyndhurst began by announcing that he would move to expunge it. He thought there was a disposition on the part of the government to abolish the Assembly, thus introducing a new form of government in place of one that had lasted for two hundred years. A similar attempt had been made in “the arbitrary reign of Charles II” and was now renewed by the “liberal ministers of this day.” So far the attempt had been defeated, but now the ministers were attempting to accomplish by a “side-wind” what they had failed to accomplish by a direct attack. The issue that had brought about the proposed legislation had been the government’s effort to impose a prisons bill passed by the British Parliament. This was after continuing efforts by the government from 1834 onward to get the Assembly to pass its own measure to deal with practices and conditions in the colony’s prisons, which were rightly held to be cruel and degrading. The Assembly’s response to Parliament’s bill was to angrily suspend all business except for the necessary funds to keep the government going. Lyndhurst argued that the government’s actions constituted unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a colony, whose right to conduct its own affairs was grounded in its not being represented in Parliament and therefore was not to be interfered with except in cases “of necessity and extreme emergency.” So far this was quite acceptable constitutional theory. But then he pushed his case too far. He argued that the Assembly, though often rude, had been basically in the right and could have been brought around if the colonial office had handled it properly. In a review of the Assembly’s response to demands for action by governors, Lyndhurst claimed to demonstrate that it had always been ready to cooperate and readily appointed committees for the purpose. Finally, he denied categorically that there was any connection between prisons and the abolition of slavery. Lord Glenelg answered Lyndhurst. Criticized for being timid and indecisive



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in handling the Canadian rebellion and what followed, in this case he showed both courage and determination. To begin with, Lyndhurst intervened repeatedly as Glenelg spoke, obviously trying to put him off balance. But Glenelg proceeded unruffled and on course. There were indeed numbers of committees appointed. They were a favorite means of evasion, going on and on and never recommending any action. As to the connection of prisons with abolition, it was in prisons that all too many former slaves were now to be found. Not much more was heard from Lyndhurst for the balance of the debate. As he rarely was in this period, Brougham was acute, crisp, and persuasive. Parliament could in case of necessity legislate for the colonies. This was one of those cases—the Prison Act could and should stand. But was this a sufficient ground for destroying the Jamaican constitution? It was not. Such was the shape of the bill as it finally stood and passed. The amelioratory measure was left, but the Jamaican constitution remained intact.10 Time would prove that it was the wrong decision. Wellington was annoyed with the Assembly for having created an impossible situation. He told advocates of the West Indian interest, such as Lords Harewood and St. Vincent, when they asked for pressure to be put on the government to call together the Assembly, that it was the prerogative of the Crown and could not be forced. Yet Jamaica must have an Assembly. “Gentlemen in the colonies and those who advise them should consider before they involve themselves and us in these difficulties.” Yet Wellington’s bias would always be for the planters. He was concerned about their labor difficulties, promoted bringing in laborers from India, and was ready to blame the laziness of the former slaves for the necessity, when in fact what they were tired of was abuse. His was not a unique position, of which Thomas Carlyle provides regrettable proof. Usually the duke was yielding in his prejudices, but never this one.11 Russell, for his part, was quite prepared for the result. He told Melbourne on 30 June: “The peers are rather inclined to throw out the Jamaica bill, but it will probably end in their throwing out the first clause.”12 The next subject of contention, full of evil portent for the future, arose from the introduction of the government’s education plan mooted by Russell the previous year. It proved every bit as explosive as Lansdowne had warned it would be. Thus far the government’s role in educating the country’s children had been to make building grants to two societies, the Anglican National Society and the mainly Dissenting British and Foreign School Society. In the new scheme, an Order in Council established an education board in the form of a committee of the privy council. Besides its general supervisory capacity, it was

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to oversee a normal school to educate teachers and to receive the reports of a new school inspectorate. The Church saw these measures as a bold new government intervention in education—which it was—and definitely did not like it. On 5 July 1839, Archbishop Howley told the Lords that he had presented petitions that evening all of which had been against the education plan proposed by the government as well as the committee of the privy council that was to implement it; “and praying the House to avert the evil by which the Church was threatened by such a course.” He said that for the Church, this was a matter “not only of the Church, but of religion itself.” It was a question of “the manner in which the people should be educated.” Should it be on the “sound principles of the Church,” or would the door be thrown open to the “instillation of principles of every sect, however wild or extravagant?” The archbishop claimed that since the founding of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1685 the Church had had an admirable record in education, especially recently. Indeed, since the first government grants in 1833, the Church’s efforts in promoting education had exceeded those of Dissenters, “in a degree he was almost afraid to mention.” Taking the lowest calculation he had seen, in the provision of schools the Church was ahead of Dissent twenty to one. Given the Church’s remarkable achievements, the archbishop said, it was hardly surprising that there was considerable suspicion about the government’s recent actions. It was to this that he attributed “the great sensation in the country respecting the minutes of the privy council.” These minutes laid the foundation of a permanent system without any reference to Parliament. The board established had wide discretionary powers and intended many innovations, none to be effected by legislation but rather by “a mode of proceeding entirely excluding one branch of the legislature, excluding their lordships’ House from interfering, or expressing any opinion on a matter of such great importance to the interests of the people.” He complained that no bishop on the privy council had been included in the committee. He knew why—because they would never have agreed to the plan. But that was not a reason to satisfy the country. He was also concerned about several other things, most notably that grants would no longer require matching funds from the societies (which is what had given the wealthy Church its great advantage). Finally, Archbishop Howley wanted to know whether it was consistent “with the respect due to the Lords spiritual and temporal, that the only assembly in which the Church had a voice should not be heard at all upon such an important subject?” He was clearly doing his best to stir up the amour propre of the Lords, and he succeeded.



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Lansdowne answered Howley. As lord president of the council, the matter was within his area of responsibility, and education was a question close to his heart. He put pointed questions to the archbishop. Did he hold “that the Church of England in this country has a right to educate, and ought to exercise the right of educating, the public at large to the exclusion of all other teachers”? The last ambiguous phrase, he said, had recently been used in the resolutions of a large public meeting. But did Howley mean that the Church should educate all the people, “including no inconsiderable portion unfortunately, but amounting, I am afraid, to millions in this country who are not members of the Church?” He understood Howley’s answer to be a distinct “no.” Lansdowne next wanted to know whether Howley claimed for the Church a monopoly of secular education, combined always with religious education but taking care also, on behalf of the state, “that the secular instruction shall be of the best possible quality that can be found; ever uniting with every new practical discovery that can be brought into operation for the improvement and cultivation of the minds of the people of this country.” It was necessary that there be an understanding on this question. There must also be an understanding, assuming that the Church did not take the responsibility for the religious training of the whole population, whether it would not be the duty of the state “rather to lend than to withhold its countenance from the education and consequent well-being of these particular classes . . . whose position in society are such as constantly to act upon the safety and condition of the whole community.” Howley had said that the quality of education in England, thanks to the Church, was not to be surpassed anywhere. Having contrasted it most unfavorably with that in every comparable continental state, Lansdowne begged to differ and urged action at once. He claimed to have got the desired response to his questions from the bishops who sat nearby—that is, that the Church did not claim a monopoly on religious education, or secular education, and that it was right that the state should aid Dissenters in pursuing them. Since assent during his speech could only have been evidenced by shouts and gesticulations from the bishops’ benches, his belief could not have been firmly grounded and was probably an instance of rhetorical license. In any case, Lansdowne moved on to comment on several other matters. He severely reproved the archbishop for drawing a distinction between religious and political Dissenters. What right had he to “tell any man that his religious opinions are determined by considerations of politics and not of conscience?” He explained, if it needed explanation, that the reason a bishop had not been put on the committee was that the Dissenters would then have demanded a

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representative. And he pointed out that the House of Lords had never had a voice in monetary grants. He finished by moving the previous question to the archbishop’s motion for an Address to the queen asking that she (actually her government) not appropriate the annual grant of £30,000 voted in the House of Commons for education. Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter rose next, taking it upon himself to supply answers to Lansdowne’s questions. They were certainly not the answers Lansdowne would have wished to hear. The Church did not pretend to a monopoly of religious education, but it had the right to demand of the state the means of offering education to all. Similarly with secular education—no monopoly, but the right to expect from the state the means of sanctifying secular education. In other words, the Established Church was not the church of all the people, but it ought to be and should be rewarded as if it were. Phillpotts’s expectations for secular education were not high. He did not think that it would actually get far beyond the study of the Bible—learning history to illustrate the Bible, science for the same purpose, and so on. He wished to qualify the answer to Lansdowne’s third question, that regarding the secular education of those not members of the Church. He believed that “the State should provide for the education; I did not say for the spiritual and religious instruction, but for the secular education of the people.” Given his own idea of what he expected secular education to be, making such a distinction would obviously not be easy. Phillpotts was a High Churchman, and an extreme one, in the traditional sense of defending its principles, rights, and properties. The bishop of London had often been a voice of moderation and conciliation. But not in this case. He thought the government was “in the hands of a party hostile to the Church, and bent on its destruction, who entertain the hope of securing their assistance, as the instrument for carrying their own pernicious designs into effect.” And he went on to warn that “if the Church falls, all the other glorious and happy institutions of the country will follow.” What the bishop referred to was not the Liberal or any other political party but, to begin with, two societies—one devoted to educational reform and another that went further. The latter was what he called “The Society for the Promotion of Religious Equality,” which probably referred to what became the Liberation Society. In describing the aim of the society, the bishop gave a very broad hint as to who the real enemy were. Its object was exactly the same as that of a delegation of Dissenters who called on Lord Grey in 1834 and who said that “nothing would satisfy them short of an entire subversion of the Church Establishment.” That delegation was from the United Committee, the official representatives



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of Dissent. Many Dissenters would not have been very serious about disestablishment at that time, but remarks like Bishop Blomfield’s were not likely to have made them any less so. Lansdowne’s moving the previous question failed, and the provocative Address was carried 229 to 118.13 Unfortunately, this was only the first of many battles in which the Church and Dissent between them would prevent any fundamental education reform until 1870, which would by no means end their damaging animosity. The Irish Municipal Corporations bill was not destined to pass in this session either. It arrived in the Lords very late. As Brougham complained on 22 July, the day when the second reading was to take place, they had been sitting for almost six months waiting for bills and now ten more were waiting for their attention after this one. It was what had become the usual problem, but rather worse. The lords were getting restless and were beginning to leave. Wellington said that as Parliament was unlikely to sit for more than a fortnight, it was unlikely they could get through all the bill’s stages, but they might as well try. The second reading was passed by a vote of 59 to 8. On 25 July the House went into Committee. Lyndhurst thought it was hardly worthwhile to make his amendments, but he did. He had made a concession, though he still proposed a £10 franchise. He had changed his calculations in such a way as to make its value the same in both Ireland and England, rather than making it higher in Ireland. Russell, however, still insisted on £8. The Lords were in exactly the same position they had been in at the end of the previous session, and it ended exactly the same way.14

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Wellington, Peel, and the Triumph of the Conservatives

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The 1840 session was to see several differences of opinion between Wellington and Peel. None led to a crisis, but what those differences were and how they were handled is instructive both as to the leadership styles of the two men and how those styles affected their actions in Parliament. The first difference, not an entirely new one, was over what attitude the Conservative party ought to take toward the government—whether it ought to be an aggressive and challenging line, or whether it ought to take their more usual stance of watchful waiting. Once more Peel felt that their followers demanded the aggressive line and that refusing it would lead to the breakup of the party. What he had in mind was a motion of no-confidence, which if successful would mean the Conservatives taking office. Since the Reform Act, Wellington had never thought the time was right for the party’s taking office, and he still did not. There was much to be done. The military strength of the country had to be built up to deal with many knotty problems in the Empire and abroad. The country would accept such a buildup much better from the Liberals than from the Conservatives, and there were equally difficult problems at home. The only one he specified was having a new whig queen; they had already experienced one example of the difficulties this could create. But what he probably had in mind as well was that much recent legislation, especially Irish legislation, was better put forward by a Liberal government, which could take the blame while the House of Lords tailored it to meet their specifications. Peel was clearly impatient with such arguments. But after several exchanges of letters, the duke gave in gracefully. It was not, he said, his decision to make. “Nor am I of the necessity of making a motion at a particular time in order to



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keep the party together. Political parties are at times very unreasonable, and I must admit that my task is in this respect easy indeed in comparison with that enforced upon you.”1 As it turned out, the resulting motion of no-confidence brought a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons, with a government majority of twenty-one. On 10 April 1840, Lord Hatherton recorded in his diary his impression of the duke’s health: “I was painfully affected by observing the extreme feebleness of his voice and of his body, which seems to increase every month.” A month later on 11 May, this was Hatherton’s description of Wellington: “as bold, clear, and vigorous as if he had been 25 only—a speech his biographer will quote.”2 It was in speaking of this same period that the late Cambridge historian Kitson Clark conjured up a picture of the duke as “little more than the bones of a field-marshal, and very wasted and shrunken inside his clothes. He stooped a good deal to one side.”3 In short, the duke is portrayed as a scarecrow with a pronounced list. Kitson Clark is right in saying that he had a series of sudden attacks or seizures, actually strokes, at this time. He is wrong in saying that they greatly affected him. There were two serious episodes. One was on 19 November 1839. The duke was found by his valet lying on the floor. He recovered consciousness in three-quarters of an hour, and soon thereafter his sight and speech. On the 23rd, he was feeling fine and going about his business, attending a privy council meeting. Three months later, in February 1840, he had another stroke while riding to visit his niece in Harley Street. His groom, holding the reins of both horses, managed to get him home. Again he had a remarkably quick and complete recovery. The duke’s doctor could detect no ill effects whatever.4 The fact is that the duke had an iron constitution, seeming to throw off strokes like most people do a common cold. It is this that accounts for the remarkably different descriptions of him by the same observer in the space of a single month. Often accompanying the reports of physical decline are reports of mental decline. It is not uncommon even today for people to describe politicians with whom they disagree as suffering from mental disability. It was equally true in Wellington’s day, and Wellington was a controversial politician, not always as consistent as many wished. Nor were the reports of him entirely consistent. A year later, Hatherton would find him “showing much childish passion now and then. His nerve being gone, his energy has become petulance.”5 A much greater offender in belittling the duke is another diarist, Charles Greville, whose reliability on this and other matters is often questionable. But the best way to test this kind of question is to examine what the duke said and did in a career that would find him at the center of power and authority for another half dozen years.

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The next case of difference of opinion with Peel also came at the beginning of the year. The Hansards’ sole right to publish parliamentary debates had been challenged, and the House of Commons had taken up their cause, declaring that the matter came under the privileges of the Commons and therefore could be decided by them alone. Given that the Lords was also a House of Parliament and that their debates were published in the same volumes, they were likely to take a different view of the question. The duke of Wellington did, and so did the court of queen’s bench. The Commons, therefore, was now in the position of having to decide whether it would punish the sheriffs of Middlesex for obeying the orders of the court of queen’s bench. It had become a messy constitutional question, and one that arguably might have been avoided. But Peel personally had taken a leading part in establishing the Commons’ policy on the question over several years and would not give an inch, completely losing his temper in the House and managing to offend friend and foe alike. Russell sent the resulting bill up to the Lords, begging Melbourne not to divide or even dissent from it. For, as Melbourne wrote to Holland, “if we did, it might lead to a very awkward and unpleasant discussion in the House of Commons.” Melbourne was grateful to someone who had it in his power to spoil the game: “The duke of Cambridge no doubt thought with the duke of Wellington, and they did well in abstaining from saying so.”6 The duke could exercise his power simply by sitting quiet in his place. In July there occurred another difference of opinion, this one intrinsically much more serious. The government had decided to follow Lord Durham’s recommendation to undo the division of Canada into two provinces, which had been decided on in 1791, and reunite them. Peel had supported the government’s bill in the Commons. Wellington was much troubled by it. He did not like the idea of the union of the two provinces, and he did not like the way in which what purported to be Canadian acquiescence had been secured. He gave his reasons on the bill’s second reading on 30 June. He had, as he said, been deeply involved in the Canadian question from its first crisis, and “he felt most anxious on this measure.” Melbourne had said it was absolutely necessary that they should come to a decision on the question. Wellington disagreed. “He felt quite sure they had not got the better of the temper which had occasioned the insurrection in these provinces, nor the desire to encourage it in a neighbouring country.” He deplored what he saw as a growing wish in Britain to get rid of their North American dominions. He thought it a great mistake. In 1836 the government, Wellington said, had rejected the notion of union. It had been mentioned for the first time in the last session. At the present time the cry in Canada was “the flag of Lord Durham and responsible government”—



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not union. The two subjects had been yoked together, but there was no natural connection. He went on to warn that “local responsible government and the sovereignty of Great Britain were completely incompatible.” Again and again, the duke came back to the loyalty of Upper Canada during the rebellion: “The activity and ability of the governor, joined to loyalty of the legislature and of the people, saved the province at the time; but he would beg the government not to rely on the same chances occurring if such an assembly was formed as would be established under the provisions of this bill.” The bill gave the two provinces an equal representation in a proposed legislative assembly, and the duke’s fear was that this would encourage conflict between the two nationalities and do nothing but weaken the loyalty of both, perhaps to the point of secession. The duke was also indignant about what he considered the duping of the British residents of Upper Canada. This was made clear in a long protest he entered against the bill after its passage. There were a large number of people in Upper Canada eager to attain responsible government. These people took a 16 October 1839 dispatch from Russell to the governor general as holding out the assurance that that goal would be attained. This dispatch was published. A 14 October dispatch, which made clear that responsible government would not be granted, was not published. And when the legislature of Upper Canada was in session to consider the question of legislative union and called for dispatches on the subject of responsible government, the request was refused. The governor general expressed “his regret that it was not in his power to communicate to the legislative assembly any dispatches on the subject referred to.” Wellington concluded his contribution to the debate on the second reading by saying that he would not recommend to their lordships not to allow the bill to go into Committee, there to give its provisions the fullest consideration, for the bill must be amended, at least so far as to call together the assembly of Upper Canada again. . . . He could not after all the consideration he had been able to give the subject, vote for this bill, but their lordships in deciding it must look to the opinions of other members of that House and of the other House of Parliament, and not to his only. If their lordships did so, and if they fully and impartially considered the measure, then, if the government thought proper still to take the responsibility of it upon themselves, in God’s name let them do so, but, for himself he must say “not content” to this bill.7

The speech was certainly a passionate one, but as its final paragraphs show, hardly unyielding. Could anyone doubt the meaning of the duke’s injunction to look to opinions of members “of the other House of Parliament, and not to his only”; or advising that, if after full consideration the government was still

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determined to go on with the bill, to let them do so? He recommended the second reading and going into Committee, while suggesting his own strong reservations. The duke put anyone who cared to listen on notice, but he was very careful to close no doors. Unfortunately, however, Peel had not forgiven Wellington their differences over the Hansard affair, and they had spoken very little since Easter. From the beginning of June, Peel’s friends had pressed him to call on the duke, but he refused to.8 Yet after the duke’s speech, Peel reacted at once, and in the worst possible way. He did not propose to call on the duke; he did not write him a letter; rather he sent him a formal memorandum that reached Wellington on 3 July. It is one of Peel’s classic “others may do as they like, but I will do likewise” letters, warning the duke that if he chose to turn the government out on this question, Peel would not assume power.9 Given Wellington’s earlier reluctance to attempt to bring the government down, this warning could have been taken as sarcastic; it was undoubtedly pompous, and it was entirely uncalled for. The duke was furious. He wrote identical letters to Graham and Stanley, who were anxious to talk to him, on 4 July, enclosing a copy of the memorandum: I have always endeavoured to keep the House of Lords in a position to be useful whatever might be my opinion upon a question under discussion. I have done so upon this question and will continue the same course as long as I am able to take any part in political affairs. I have nothing further to say upon the enclosed paper.10

So much for Peel. But the duke also wrote another letter the same day to Stanley, who was also concerned about a motion (of which Lord Hardwicke had given notice) aimed at throwing out the Canada bill before it went into Committee. Wellington said, though he shared Hardwicke’s concerns, he regretted the motion, of which he had received no advance warning.11 The next day, the 5th, Lord Aberdeen coolly wrote to Peel: “I have come to town this morning, after Church, in order to meet the duke and Lyndhurst and to discuss our position in the Canada affair. I am very glad to have done so, for I think we shall all get right.” Having described what Wellington intended to do, Aberdeen added: “The duke was in perfect good humour throughout—remarkably so, with everything and everybody, except with the government.” What the duke intended to do was to give up his own notice of moving to hear evidence on the subject, and he would naturally oppose Hardwicke if the latter pressed his motion to block going into Committee. He would call a meeting of Conservative peers at Apsley House and explain to them the course that he would recommend them to take. He would, while repeating his own objec-



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tion to the Union, give his reasons for desiring them not to oppose the bill of the government.12 Wellington was as good as his word. Aberdeen described to Arbuthnot the meeting at Apsley House: of all the admirable statements I have heard him make at these meetings, I was never so much struck as on this occasion. The effect of his address was like magic; and though we had many present who were obstinate, violent, and wrong-headed, not a syllable was said in opposition to the duke’s suggestion. He treated the whole subject with the utmost dexterity and skill; and when he spoke of his own position it was beautifully done, and the effect irresistible. I am happy to think that he was pleased with the conduct of the peers. Indeed, I have never known such an instance of his power and influence. Under the very peculiar circumstances in which this question was placed, that he should only have found ten persons refractory is most wonderful.13

There is also an account of what happened in the House itself on the crucial vote on Hardwicke’s amendment, and it came from the other side of the House. Hatherton marveled at the evidence that was presented of the discipline maintained by the duke among his party. Nobody during the debate knew how he meant to vote. At the division, the Contents (ministers and their friends) were all up and walking forth and not a tory rose. All eyes turned to the duke. When two or three minutes had elapsed, the duke rose to go forth— notwithstanding his speech—and all his party with the exception of ten of them rose up with him and followed him out. Yet not one in ten of them had an idea of what he was to do till he saw the duke rise. When the division was over, I heard him asked whether it was necessary for his friends to stay for the Committee that night. He replied, “Tell them to take their seats, and we’ll see”—which they all did.14

It was not the case, of course, that Conservative lords had no idea of what the duke would do, though the debate on Hardwicke’s amendment may have confused the issue a little. Hardwicke was greatly concerned with the same things that concerned the duke. As Hardwicke rightly argued, “the union was avowedly intended to secure the preponderance of British influence,” yet by the very act of passing the bill, “they would perpetuate the dissensions which prevailed.” And Hardwicke went on to provide considerable evidence of official doubts about the wisdom of such a measure on both sides of the Atlantic. The duke joined in, continuing to press the case of the hoodwinking of the Upper Canada assembly. On that matter, Melbourne said he believed that the 14 October Russell dispatch might not have been published. As to its not being produced when requested, he said that it could have been held back for some other reason, though he could not say what reason. Wellington once more urged this situation as an example of why the bill ought not to be rushed through. But he

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ended by “entreating his noble friend not to press his motion on the House.” And he entreated “their lordships not to reject the bill if her Majesty’s government persevered in calling on them to pass it.” He also recommended considering “well the opinions of others in another place” and so forth.15 Still, though the thing was not done with quite the drama, as well as military precision, Hatherton suggests, it was a remarkable achievement. The vote against Hardwicke’s amendment speaks for itself—107 to 10. It is perfectly safe to say that no one else could have done it, and in less than a week. Kitson Clark has said of this affair that “It was a curious position for the victor of a thousand fights, but a man must be in a curious, and tragic, position when his influence ought to be more important than his opinions.” This is seriously to misunderstand Wellington. Kitson Clark quotes Ellenborough to the effect that the duke put aside all his personal feelings for his party. If properly understood, this is correct. That he was a “my party right or wrong” man, no one with even a rudimentary knowledge of his career would argue. Nor did he hesitate to defy his party when he thought it was wrong—in 1828–29, May 1832, and 1846. In fact he put a comparatively low value on his own opinions and consistency—in marked contrast to Peel. That is because he put the highest value on what he called necessity, which can roughly be translated as the national good. The Test Acts must be repealed and Catholic Emancipation carried, because the issues involved threatened to seriously divide the nation; so did the Corn Laws. In his own way, therefore, he was a Burkean conservative, reforming in order to preserve, though his stated beliefs were ultra. But he cherished the institutions of the country and the Empire and worked hard to shelter them from radical change. Here is where party came in. He said he hated “party,” by which he meant the kind of manipulation that was sometimes required to keep the party happy, such as allowing it to act against its own and the country’s best interests by indulging its purely partisan instincts. But he also held that the Conservative party provided the greatest and best hope for the country’s future. As he said to Stanley in February 1846, with Peel discredited forever in his own party and the duke himself anxious to pass on the power and influence that was left to him: “That which I look for, therefore, is the holding together in other hands, of the great and at this moment powerful Conservative party; and this for the sake of the queen, of the religious and other ancient institutions of the country, of its resources, influence, and power; all necessary for its prosperity and the contentment and happiness of the people.” Though the party was but a tool, it was a marvelous tool, and one capable of doing great good.16 Given that the duke received Peel’s memorandum on 3 July and settled his plan of action on the 5th, it is obvious that he can have spent little time brood-



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ing over a fate which there is no reason to believe he found either tragic or curious. He had yielded his position often before, indeed just a few months previously. It did not embarrass him in the least. It is true he considered the Canada question a very important one. But it is hardly surprising that he thought the party should not be thrown into damaging conflict over a single issue. Nor had that ever been Wellington’s intention, as once again Peel could easily have found out. But though the duke was furious, he did not lose his temper or waste his time in recriminations. Others could make up their own minds about “the paper.” His mind was on making a plan and using all his power and influence to implement it. Anyone who doubts the great pride the duke took in his influence ought to read his 1846 letters to Stanley, to whom he wished to bequeath it. He discussed his achievements, talking, for example, about how in the years 1835 to 1841, “I prevailed on the House of Lords to depart from many principles and systems which they as well as I had adopted and voted; on Irish tithes, Irish corporations, and other measures, much to the vexation and annoyance of many.” But I recollect one particular measure, the union of Upper and Lower Canada upon the early stages of which I had spoken in opposition to the measure, and had protested against it; and in the last stages of it prevailed upon the House to pass it, in order to avoid the injury to the public interests of a dispute between the Houses upon a question of such importance.17

One reason this incident stood out in the duke’s mind six years later was doubtless the fact that it was a remarkable achievement, which it certainly was. But it also revealed some of the duke’s basic values: that overconcern with consistency impedes actions necessary for the public good; that principles rarely fit exactly any given political problem; that therefore every problem had to be examined on its own merits, and a decision made as to where duty lay. By 5 July, Wellington had made such a decision and was in “perfect good humour . . . remarkably so, with everything and every body.” The above qualities are almost the exact reverse of some of Peel’s. The latter was obsessed with consistency, quite understandable after 1829 (though the same experience had no effect on the duke). It therefore took him a long time to decide to abandon principles that might better have been abandoned earlier. Nothing above is meant to be an arraignment of Peel, but simply to put Wellington in perspective. Diarists and historians have often focused on his deafness and other infirmities, and on their effect on his behavior, sometimes annoying to his colleagues. So it is necessary to bear in mind that, despite being possessed of all his faculties, Peel too had his peculiarities, especially his extended bouts of almost childish petulance. But did these seriously affect his

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ability to lead his party and the country? They might have had they come too often, but fortunately they were infrequent, and others made allowances for him. In any case, his admirable achievements are sufficient answer to the question. Similar conclusions can be made about the duke of Wellington. On the question of the Irish Municipal Corporations bill, Peel’s impatience to have it settled was entirely justified. It was his strong opinion that it was more than time for the bill to be allowed to pass. The two bills for which it was supposed to have been held hostage had passed two years before. Yet this year the Lords were probably more aggressive on the question than in any year since the first bill had been proposed in 1836, and Wellington was in the forefront of the fray. Yet Peel was in no position to put pressure on the Lords, for the Irish Conservative MPs were no more inclined to concession and did not allow him to be.18 Several difficulties were raised by the duke in recommending the second reading. The first was that the problem of creating elective councils, and at the same time safeguarding the rights of Protestants and their Church, had still not been solved. Nor had a proper qualification for the franchise yet been agreed on. Putting faith in the Poor Law machinery, the duke said, had been a snare and a delusion. The valuations had been improperly done and therefore provided no basis for a safe qualification for voting. This must be supplied by Parliament. Finally, he charged that the Irish Tithe Act had not been fairly carried into effect. He urged the passing of the second reading, but warned that if the bill was not suitably amended he would vote against it on the third reading.19 On 14 May, when Melbourne inquired whether there was any objection to going into Committee, Wellington replied that indeed there was. He must first see another bill that was not yet before them. This was the Grand Jury Cess bill. Up until now the grand juries had been responsible for taxation in their respective counties. This bill would transfer the responsibility in towns to the new councils. Melbourne accordingly proposed a time for the Committee when the bill would be before them.20 But the Grand Juries bill proved not to be acceptable because it gave the councils the power to tax not only the boroughs proper, but also extensive rural districts around them. As it was the Conservative aim to keep as much of Ireland as possible out of the control of the town councils, this was not acceptable. The Lords had dealt with this question by an amendment the previous year, but the Commons rejected it on the grounds that the Lords had no right to amend a money bill. Now, pointedly citing that fact, Lyndhurst said they had no recourse but to throw out the Grand Juries bill, which he proceeded to do.21 When the Committee met on 12 June, Wellington rose to argue that they



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could not proceed until they had the opportunity to become acquainted with the contents of the bill they had disposed of at their last meeting. What he meant was that they needed to have more time to acquaint themselves with the government’s thinking on the question. He also said that the government ought to come forward with a solution to the problem, and moved that further discussion of the Corporations bill be postponed. Melbourne said that the government had already agreed to a postponement of the Grand Juries bill and, given the results, was not inclined to postpone any more. But Wellington’s amendment passed, and the Committee was adjourned for a week.22 Previous to the Committee on 19 June, the House was treated to a highly alarmist speech by the bishop of Exeter. In Tuam, where the corporation had been voluntarily thrown open, a new Catholic corporation had appropriated all of its funds to support the Roman Catholic cathedral there. He reminded their lordships that O’Connell had said he wanted to transform corporations into normal schools of popular agitation. And O’Connell had also said “Give me Corporations as I want them to be, and I will secure everything else.” Bishop Phillpotts regretted that Lyndhurst proposed to make amendments to the bill because it simply could not be made safe for the Protestant Church. He observed that Wellington had always said he would not consider a Corporations bill until there was a property qualification and safety for the Church secured with a Tithe bill. They now had a Tithe Act, but O’Connell was already attacking the property of the Irish Church. The bishop could never agree to this bill. Wellington said he had not been in the House when Lyndhurst had agreed to present his amendments that very evening, but he hoped it would be adhered to. The bishop’s objections could be properly taken into consideration in Committee or at the Report. It seems highly likely that the decision to present amendments had been taken to divert attention quickly from Phillpotts’s incendiary remarks to undoubtedly Conservative but more generally acceptable goals. Phillpotts was a kind of episcopal Newcastle whose fiery speeches were calculated to stampede the formidable ultra element in the House, as Newcastle had in the early stages of the debate over the 1835 English act. The House immediately went into Committee. Lyndhurst proposed his amendments, which were ordered to be printed. And the House resumed.23 Hansard does not reveal the nature of those amendments until its report of the 29 June proceedings when the House went into Committee once more. After the Order of the day had been read, Lord Londonderry rose and began to speak. Lyndhurst asked whether he meant to oppose going into Committee, and Londonderry replied that he certainly did. Referring to the counsel who had been heard on behalf of some of the old corporations in May, he said that

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their arguments were unanswered and unanswerable, upon which he launched into a diatribe against O’Connell and his schemes for overturning the Union. But the House did go into Committee, and Lyndhurst proposed his amendments. The first had to do with the rights of freemen to vote in parliamentary elections. These had previously been fully agreed to by the House of Commons but had been curtailed in this bill, which would prevent those who got their freedom by birth or marriage before March 1831 from passing it on to their heirs, but allow those who got it by servitude afterward to do so. This, Lyndhurst said, was a clear attempt to discriminate in favor of Catholics. Lyndhurst’s second amendment concerned the vexed question of corporations and their rural districts. The Conservative amendment of the previous year had separated the rural districts from the towns, the point being to free them from taxation from which they would gain no benefit. In the present bill this was reversed. Lyndhurst wanted it reversed back to a situation that had been specifically recommended by the boundary commissioners. These clauses, of course, could not be amended by the Lords, so Lyndhurst appealed to the ministers to find a remedy. Lyndhurst’s third amendment dealt with another vexed question, the qualification for voting. The Commons had accepted the Lords’ qualification, a £10 householder franchise for the eleven big towns in schedule A, but insisted on an £8 franchise for the thirty-eight towns in schedule B. There was no variety of franchise in England or Scotland, Lyndhurst said, and there should be none for Ireland. Finally, there should be no substitution in three years of a franchise based not on value but on payment of rates and taxes, as was at present proposed. Lyndhurst said he did not want to depend on speculation. His amendment proposed that there should be a uniform £10 franchise in all boroughs in Ireland, that franchise corresponding exactly to the Scottish Municipal reform bill’s requirement. Lyndhurst’s final proposals were aimed at strengthening the control of the lord lieutenant and his government over the administration of justice and the auditing of the accounts of the new corporations. All his amendments were carried.24 The bill passed its third reading. The Commons returned the Lords’ amendments with their amendments of them. Lyndhurst announced that he would not discuss again questions the Lords had been discussing for three months, but when the amendments were read, he would simply state whether he agreed or disagreed. Accordingly, the Commons’ amendments were read one by one. Those Lyndhurst objected to were negatived without a division. The others were adopted. Lord Lansdowne said he had not objected to the course Lynd-



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hurst had taken because he had wished to bring the question to a determination. In a Conference with the Lords’ representatives, Lord Morpeth said much the same. He would not ask the Commons to persevere in the amendments they had made.25 To weigh and balance the pros and cons of the act is not easy. Of the three Municipal Reform Acts in the United Kingdom, it was the least liberal. Nevertheless, the forty-nine larger towns in Ireland now enjoyed genuinely elected municipal government for the first time. The franchise was high, but as was pointed out at the time, a £10 franchise in the counties established in 1832 had not served to make the electorate there more conservative in any sense of the word. Nor did the similar franchise have that effect in the towns. The limitations and restraints put on the new corporations may have helped, outside their jurisdictions at any rate, to protect legitimate interests of Irish Protestants, which was a genuine concern of the Conservatives throughout. The instincts of those such as Lansdowne and Morpeth, who were prepared to be thankful for what they had received and anxious to put the issue to rest, were surely sound. Not much more of the unrelenting bickering, punctuated by worse, that had been going on for years could have been safely tolerated. The duke of Wellington during this session might seem to have been a prominent offender. Some might wonder, therefore, about his claim to have persuaded the Lords to accept the bill. But what happened at the bishop of Exeter’s speech was probably significant. It is unknown where the duke was when it started, but he was very much there at the end, leaping in at once to back Lyndhurst’s sudden arrangement to present his amendments right away—apparently off the top of his head. Thereafter they became the focus of discussion. None of the amendments was extreme. Indeed, all but that dealing with the franchise had, at one time or another during the several years bills had been under consideration, been accepted by the House of Commons. While Wellington’s belligerence always pales beside Lyndhurst’s, the duke in the earlier debates was not only playing a more active leadership role than he often did, but evidently making no effort to be conciliatory—warning, threatening, and postponing, and generally badgering the government. But from where he finally ended, it is probably safe to assume that earlier he was playing to the ultra gallery. They wanted aggressive leadership, and he wanted to oblige. It seems not to have troubled his colleagues unduly, nor his opponents for that matter. The latter had come to trust the duke a great deal more than they once had, and with good reason. Of his colleagues, Sir James Graham, though convinced that as leader of the Lords he was irreplaceable, was not always Wellington’s friend. But in reviewing the dangers that had been avoided and the gains

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made in the session just passed, he was impressed with the duke’s contribution. Referring first to the Hansard affair, he said: “The privilege question is settled; the Canadas are united. . . . The Irish municipal bill is settled on terms dictated by the duke. . . . The Regency also has been determined by the duke, in concert with his friends in both Houses, in a manner most agreeable to the wishes and feelings of the queen.”26 It was not a bad record. The last session of the 1837 Parliament was not a busy one for the Lords, for the very good reason that it ended in June before the usual deluge of bills from the Commons arrived. They dealt with only one bill of importance. This was on a motion by the Conservative marquess of Bute on 3 June to open municipal offices to Jews. Bute had shown occasional flashes of radicalism since taking his seat in 1819 and had been a consistent supporter of religious liberty from that time. Now he rose to present the case of the Jews. Before the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, he said, Jews had not been excluded from office as improvement commissioners, which bodies had done much to make up for the deficiencies of the corrupt and largely moribund corporations of the period. But a clause of the 1835 act had excluded them from the new town councils. He thought the Jews had the high ground. Dissenters refused to pay tithes and Church rates. But the Jews behaved in a friendly manner toward the Church, and he thought they should be rewarded. He therefore moved the second reading of the bill. The archbishop of Canterbury naturally opposed. He accepted the distinction the marquess drew between the behavior of Jews and Dissenters, but the latter “were Christians, and it was not the feelings and character of individuals on a question of this sort to which he would refer, but to the opinions which they professedly held.” The only thing he had against the Jews was their religion. Once more he put forward the Christian nation argument. If Jews were allowed to sit in Parliament, Britain would no longer be a Christian nation. He admitted that this bill would not accomplish that, but it would be a “first step.” The archbishop moved that the bill be read that day six months, which was defeated by one vote, 48 to 47. Only forty-eight were actually present, with about half of the votes on each side being proxies.27 Bute moved the third reading on 11 June. This time it was the bishop of Llandaff who rose to oppose. This bill would extend an indulgence already granted to Quakers, Moravians, and Separatists in their cases because of their difficulty with the declaration on the “true faith of a Christian” that replaced the sacramental test in 1828. This would obviously apply to Jews as well, but not according to the bishop, because “they denied the very foundation of the Christian religion.” He then made the motion to throw the bill out.



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The Liberal Lord Lyttleton, High Church in the new sense of the Oxford Movement, said that if he did not view this measure as a stepping stone to Parliament he would not oppose it, but he did. The ultra earl of Winchilsea, an old-fashioned High Churchman, took the same position, though he respected the Jews “and recollected the position which they held under the Mosaic dispensation.” Lord Wicklow, a liberal Conservative, said he had always opposed bills for letting Jews into Parliament and would continue to. But he did not think this bill committed him at all in that respect. In any case, the Jews already had the rights it would confer. They were eligible for offices in municipal corporations and already sat in three. Corporations had the discretionary power of admitting them or not. What the present measure would do would be to remove an anomaly. No fewer than thirty-eight of the largest towns in the country had petitioned in their favor, and none was against. The principle of the bill had already been established by the removal of disabilities that had prevented them from being elected sheriffs, and Jews had been elected in London and a couple of counties. The bishop of St. David’s was newly created and making his maiden speech. He was a former Cambridge academic who had been forced to leave because he supported the admission of Dissenters and in making his case had argued against the teaching of religion at the university. This bill, he said, was not, as the archbishop had intimated in his remarks, one simply to satisfy the vanity of a few ambitious men but one that would help to bind closer the whole community, “to conciliate the affections of a very large and powerful body of men to the land of their birth.” The bishop of London took the now usual line, which he had helped to popularize, on the vital necessity of preserving the Christian State, at the same time indicating that he did not care for the line taken by the bishop of St. David’s. The last speaker was the earl of Galloway, who said that like the bishop of London he was mortified by the bishop of St. David’s speech. It was actually a vintage whig approach, but this would not have recommended it to the bishop of London and Lord Galloway. It is likely, however, that they had come prepared to dislike whatever the new bishop had to say. His idea of the Church and what it ought to tolerate was not theirs. The bill was defeated 98 to 64.28 Not long afterward, the Liberal government, long teetering, was finally toppled by a vote of no confidence moved by Peel. On 22 June, the queen dissolved Parliament. The next Parliament the duke of Wellington faced would find him once more in office.

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The first meeting of the 1841 Parliament in August and September was not a long affair, being important mainly to determine the result of the summer general election by demonstrating that the Conservatives had a majority capable of turning the Liberals out. This was done by rejecting, by means of an amendment of no confidence, the Liberal government’s Address in response to the Queen’s Speech at the opening of the session. There were similar votes in both Houses, the vote in the Lords being 168 to 96.1 Parliament sat for another month, and the rest of the time was largely taken up in forming a new government and deciding on what it would put to Parliament in February. The duke of Wellington, who was to be in the cabinet without portfolio and continue as well as the leader of the Lords—now once again officially—was kept very busy. In late September he wrote to Lord Aberdeen begging for a promotion in the diplomatic service for Lady Brougham’s son-in-law. Her husband’s desires in this respect, Wellington said, needed to be attended to. Brougham had attacked on Monday the home office, yesterday the [office of] woods and forests, the queen’s gardens, stables and so forth. We shall have him on Thursday on the chancery bill; in short, on some subject or other every day till we can contrive to fix him in harness. He will have a party of malcontents in the House of Lords and another in the House of Commons and will render our lives very uncomfortable.2

The duke was constantly approached for advice. Peel wanted it on the next governor-general of India and followed it. Aberdeen regularly asked him for his opinion on questions related to foreign affairs, and Peel was anxious to talk to him about pressing current problems—a continuing war with China and the



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possibility of hostilities with the United States over borders and other causes of friction with Canada. Graham too asked for advice, and perhaps got more than he wished, including a scorching arraignment of the Poor Law Commissioners’ derelictions of duty in Ireland.3 Prince Albert wrote to ask him to a be trustee, with Melbourne, for the infant duke of Cornwall, the future Edward VII. Peel always consulted him about appointments of lords lieutenant of counties as well as other honors and decorations for members of the House of Lords. The most important legislation to come before the Lords in the spring of 1842 had to do with the connected questions of finance and trade regulation. The deficits suffered by preceding Liberal governments demonstrated the need for more revenue. But Peel was also anxious to lower duties for imported goods to bring a better and more comfortable life to the British people. This, however, would only make the deficits worse. The result was to determine him to restore a property, or income, tax. There were dangers in these measures. It is odd that Peel, with his sensitiveness about consistency, should have decided on lowering duties not long after he had won an election for appearing as the champion of protection. It is true, if one reads his speeches carefully, that he never promised not to make adjustments, but this was not widely advertised and certainly not in the election of 1841. It was not until the spring of 1841 that Melbourne finally decided to make free trade, in the form of a low fixed duty, an avowed principle of the Liberal party. As Lord Hatherton recognized at the time, the moment he chose could hardly have been worse. Had he only done it the year before, when office was not at stake, Hatherton lamented, he would have gratified his colleagues and probably gained much support from public opinion. As it was, he had made it look like little more than an election ploy.4 But it was an election ploy that very much frightened those who had any vested interest in protection, or thought they had, and the result was a handsome electoral victory for Peel. The earl of Ripon introduced the new Corn Law to the Lords on 18 April 1842, in what appears to have been his usual competent style. The impact may have been lessened somewhat by the variety of such bills he had championed in just such a style since 1815. He admitted that it was an issue that touched the vital interests of many. But, he said, “however we may estimate the separate or aggregate importance of these, there is one consideration which rises above them in importance, and that is the consideration by what means the people may be most easily fed.” Having surveyed the possibilities of getting adequate supplies of corn from other places, Ripon concluded that it would be “much wiser, much safer, to rely

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upon our own produce.” But in order to be able to rely on that source, it would be necessary to give protection to such produce sufficient to ensure the necessary application of capital to bring about its production. In short, farmers must be able to make an adequate profit. Ripon said that one very important factor in drawing up the 1828 bill had been the assumption of a very significant and increasing supply of wheat from Ireland. During the past seven years, however, that supply had been diminishing. During this time, the Irish had not found it to be as profitable to grow wheat for export to Britain as it was to grow oats. One obvious reason was a greatly increasing consumption of wheat to feed a fast-growing population in Ireland itself. Another defect of the 1828 act, Ripon said, was that the protection it gave was “most extravagantly high.” Indeed it was higher than had ever occurred. What was the use of that? Still another problem with the existing law was that the varying of the duty still brought problems. Speculators continued to find ways to take advantage of it. This phenomenon had baffled and exercised would-be Corn Law reformers, not least Ripon and Wellington, since 1815. Ripon believed that the new lower target figure of 56s. now proposed would take away the temptation to raise prices in the markets to the highest point in order to obtain the lowest amount of duty. Another suggested improvement in the bill was to increase the number of towns from which averages were taken, on the basis of which duties were raised or lowered. This would make fraud or manipulation more difficult. The bill would work in the following fashion. The highest amount of duty would be 20s., and that would come whenever the average price of wheat in the country was under 51s. It would go down one shilling for every one shilling increase in the price with two exceptions: when the price arrived at 52s. or was under 55s., the point being to bring a return to 56s., the remunerating price for the producer. Then another mechanism was triggered: if the price rose above that figure, the duty would again diminish by one shilling with every similar rise in the price till the latter reached 66s., when the duty became 6s. to guard against the holding back of corn in hopes of a greater profit.5 The scheme was nothing if not ingenious. Ripon moved the bill’s second reading. Earl Stanhope, an ultra who denied a party allegiance but was an Evangelical with a social conscience, was biting in his criticism of Peel for first holding an election on protection and now seeking to lower it. He moved that the bill be thrown out. He also warned that the government was being much too complacent about the social turmoil, manifested by Chartism and the Anti-Corn Law League, swirling around them.



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Lord Hardwicke gave a moderate speech supporting the government and the bill. The duke of Buckingham, “the farmer’s friend,” gave a passionate one defending the status quo. The ultra earl of Winchilsea, rather surprisingly, supported the bill. He said that “the agitation which had prevailed in the country on this question had produced great evils.” It had shaken the confidence of the “agricultural classes in the continuance of that prosperity which was secured to them by those laws on the faith of which they had invested their capital.” He would cordially give his vote for the second reading.6 Lord Western, a recently created Liberal peer, did consider Peel an apostate. He had withdrawn his support from Melbourne because he thought the 8s. duty proposed by him was just the first step toward free trade. He had been sorry, and he was much more sorry “after discovery of the total want of confidence to be placed in the right hon. baronet.”7 Lord Brougham said the bill would be an improvement over the existing system. A fixed duty would be better still. Free trade would be best of all. And he moved a free trade amendment which was to be an amendment to Stanhope’s amendment to throw out the bill. Brougham was acting true to form, and the result was to create a stir. The earl of Shaftesbury, a former chairman of Committees and an experienced parliamentarian, said Brougham could not attach a more general amendment to one specifically directed to the second reading. Brougham replied he certainly could; he could attach his amendment to Ripon’s motion if he chose to. Ripon denied this, and he was backed up by Lord Canterbury, a former Speaker of the House of Commons. Canterbury finally proposed a solution to the complicated impasse that was accepted by all parties, making a vote on Brougham’s motion possible. Earl Fitzwilliam would vote for the second reading, as a step toward free trade. Melbourne too thought the bill would be an improvement over the existing system and he would vote for the second reading, intending later to move for a fixed duty. The second reading passed 102 to 17, the latter a mixture of mostly ultra Conservatives and Liberals.8 The next day, the 19th, Melbourne had his opportunity before the House went into Committee. Melbourne said that he too was an advocate of free trade, but he did not go as far as some others to the “immediate and decided recognition of those principles.” He would be for complete free trade if he accepted Ripon’s contention that the supply of corn from foreign sources would be modest, but he thought it quite possible that the exact opposite would be the case. He said the question could not be answered beforehand, and it was no time for experiments. He believed a fixed duty would be the best solution. It would give a certainty to trade while providing an equal amount of protection to agri-

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culture. What is more, it would be a significant producer of revenue. Finally, it would help to avoid frauds.9 Ripon said that they had already turned aside two efforts to stop the present bill, Stanhope’s and Brougham’s, and as they had already approved its principle, they should move forward with it. Melbourne’s motion, if carried, would be certain to kill it. The Liberal earl of Clarendon gave a long and able speech supporting Melbourne. The Conservative earl of Wicklow said that if the aim were to increase commerce, Melbourne’s fixed duty would be the way; but if it was to protect agriculture, the sliding scale was best. Lord Vivian had given a vote for Brougham’s motion, but he would also vote for Melbourne’s. He too celebrated free trade but believed that commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture were and must be complementary and march forward together. The new duke of Cleveland had moved away from his father’s whiggery and was inclining toward Conservatism. But he had always been cautious of touching the Corn Law because he believed it would be but the first step toward free trade. However, the present bill retained the sliding scale. He also thought that after all the outcry about the Corn Laws, lesser reductions in the scales would not do. Finally, “he hoped that the Corn Laws would never experience any further alteration during his own life.” Ripon replied that he hoped the present bill “would be final.”10 The Liberal earl of Rosebery was for a fixed duty. “Having the markets of the world at all times open to them, the price would rarely, if ever, rise to such an elevation as could make it necessary to repeal the duty.” It was also the only means to end fluctuations and frauds. Though the government bill was an improvement, a low fixed duty was the only way to attain what he wanted: “a steady, regular, and wholesome trade in corn.” For that reason he had abstained from voting on the second reading.11 The sometime-ultra Lord Salisbury, also a close friend and ally of Wellington, was prepared to support the bill. He thought there were two grounds on which the government was bound to the support of the agricultural classes of the country. First, by encouraging native agriculture, they would render themselves independent of foreign nations. Second, agriculture was entitled to the same protections enjoyed by other trades. There was another reason for giving agriculture favored treatment. Special burdens were imposed upon the land in the form of rates and taxes, “and if the burdens were equalized he had no objection to give up every protection which the landed interest at present enjoyed.” Salisbury went on to say that under the 1828 law the average price had been 56s. a quarter, and he believed that this price would be maintained by the present bill, even though the duty was greatly reduced. Finally, the new bill was “necessitated” by the “agitation which had been raised on this subject.”12



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The former Liberal chancellor of the exchequer, Thomas Spring-Rice, the first Lord Monteagle, admitted that the present bill was an improvement over its predecessor. But it could not be a final measure. The corn question was now being argued on grounds never advanced before. For the first time it was being contended that Britain must now seek from abroad a considerable portion of corn for home consumption. It was also being admitted that the country could not go on increasing its production of corn in ratio to the increase of population. These factors would force new legislation. Monteagle then turned to another important change. In the past, there had been an appeal to Ireland and Irish interests as an argument for maintaining the Corn Laws. That argument was no longer possible, as less and less wheat was imported from Ireland every year because of growing consumption there. Monteagle was for complete free trade.13 A less rambunctious Brougham contented himself with expressing his support for Melbourne’s resolution as an improvement over the bill now before them, though he indulged himself a little by enumerating all the disadvantages of a fixed duty. Wellington gave a longish, but apparently able, speech in support of the new bill. Hatherton, who praised Monteagle’s speech, did not find it so. He called the duke’s speech “dreadfully dull and slow—an hour long—many speakers would have said it all in five minutes.” Lord Clarendon called it “deadly lovely.” And according to Hatherton, Lyndhurst, next to whom he was sitting on the Woolsack during the counting of proxies, remarked of the duke, “how melancholy and painful it was to hear him, and how much he wished he would sit aside and let others do the work.” In a further remark on his own view a day or two later, Hatherton said that the duke’s speech was “throughout marked by great ignorance of the most universally admitted maxims of political economy, or rather openly expressed contempt for them.”14 There was a difference. The marquess of Lansdowne also recommended Monteagle’s speech, which he considered an “unanswered and unanswerable statement.” But for the present he would support Melbourne’s resolution, opposing any proposition to do away at once with all duties on foreign corn: He entirely agreed with those who wished the application of the principles of free trade to be universal on all subjects and all commodities, corn included; for he should not doubt the power of agriculturists of the country to contend with any growers of corn in Europe, were it possible at the same time to reform the financial system of this country at one sweep or to make the application of capital upon free and equal terms to all manufacturers, corn included.15

The vote on Melbourne’s resolution was a party vote, 207 Conservatives to 71 whigs. Two Brougham amendments attracted 9 and 6 votes respectively.16 The Order of the day on 21 April was for going into Committee on the Corn

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bill. But before that happened, Lord Stanhope reminded the House that this measure had been identified as a money bill in the other House and therefore not to be amended, as that would lead to rejection when it was returned. Stanhope urged the Lords to pay no attention and amend. The earl’s intention was obvious, and he set the example, moving as soon as the House went into Committee that the former rates on barley and oats be restored. He quoted the earl of Clanricarde to the effect that “lowering the duty on oats, as proposed, would prove a very great evil.” All who knew the nature of Irish agriculture, Stanhope said, knew that the best crop that would be taken out of newly drained land was the second or third crop of oats. If any change was to be made in the scale as it affected Ireland, it ought to have been in favor of oats, not wheat.17 Ripon was able to defeat this and all other efforts at amendment, and so the Committee stage was concluded without any unfortunate incident. In the debate on the third reading the next day, Ripon had a more uncomfortable time. Lansdowne wanted to know why there was such a discrepancy in the new bill between the relative treatment of wheat on the one hand and cattle on the other. Before the new bill, the importation of cattle had been effectively barred. Now there was to be a flat rate of one pound a head for live cattle. No careful calibration here, and there could be a good deal more meat on one set of hooves than another. Ripon first answered that the difference had to do with the weather, which had more impact on wheat than on cattle. But what Lansdowne wanted to know was why there had been such a drastic change in the case of cattle. Huffing and puffing, Ripon responded that he had not known he was going to be asked this question and that it would take some time and discussion to explain satisfactorily. Lansdowne replied sweetly that all he wanted was a satisfactory explanation of why the government had acted as it did. The real answer was that there was no real answer, and it would get the government into a good deal of hot water.18 Having kept the president of the board of trade dancing rather clumsily around this issue for a fair amount of time at the end of the debate must have given Lansdowne much satisfaction with his evening’s work. The bill passed without another division. The debate on the bill was notable throughout for its general moderation and good temper. The issues were thoroughly discussed, and even the fixed duty had its day. What that seemed to indicate was that even the Liberals who supported it were not in principle averse to complete free trade and that the difference was over timing. The initial reaction of the Liberal lords in December 1845, accepting Russell’s free trade proposal, would seem to confirm this. It is true that there would be worrying discussions between mainly backbench



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Liberal and protectionist peers in May 1846, but the Liberal peers were brought back into line fairly easily by Russell. The unity and moderation of the Conservative lords in 1842 is also striking. They were two hundred-odd in number and still growing. The highest the Liberals mustered in the period was ninety-six at the opening of the 1841 Parliament, for the vote on the Address. That required heroic efforts by the Liberal whips and the voting of a peer or two who, if not quite dead, were very close. It is often the effect of such dominance as the Conservatives enjoyed that it brings slackness in attendance, but that was not the case here. They turned out to support even measures, such as the Corn bill, about which many cannot have been enthusiastic. That Lord Winchilsea came to support it is remarkable. Also worth noting is the sense of responsibility, and awareness of a wider public, that prevailed in the discussions. Stanhope had always been aware and sympathetic. Winchilsea clearly did not like the agitation, but neither did he rail against it. Indeed he accepted that some measure was necessary to restore public confidence. Lord Hardwicke advised the Lords that a system that was always agitated was never satisfactory. The duke of Cleveland said that after the outcry against the Corn Laws a lesser reduction would not do. Lord Salisbury declared that a new bill was “necessitated” by the agitation that had taken place. It is true that the party was still basking in the good fortune of being in office, but this by itself cannot explain the unity and size of the Conservative majorities on the bill. It was a party with which much might have been done, and a good deal was done. The Income Tax bill does not provide a good example. It was subjected to an odd, not very thorough, and generally bad-tempered debate. The second reading was planned for 10 June, but postponed, Hatherton noted, “as usual.”19 So that stage was in effect passed over. The first debate on the bill was on 17 June, by way of an amendment to the third reading. The marquess of Clanricarde offered what was admittedly a somewhat satirical summary of what took place on that and the following day. His account is more or less as follows. The only one he had heard say something favorable to an income tax was Melbourne, and he had voted against it. What Melbourne had said was that the bill would provide money, and that had been taken up by Wellington, who said that the government needed money. Melbourne said that the income tax had been too hastily abandoned in 1816 and suggested that if he could have he would have revived it when he was prime minister. Melbourne did not say the present bill was a bad one, and he had voted against it only because he had a better one. Like the ministers the only plea he could make for the bill was one of necessity. They had never justified that claim. If they had, Clanricarde might have voted

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for it. He then moved that the bill be read a third time that day six months. The rest of the debate on the 21st did not add much to what had gone before. Lord Stanhope spoke against the bill, claiming that it would establish a tax that was unequal, oppressive, and inquisitorial. Lord Fitzgerald said everyone took that for granted, but he had not heard Stanhope say anything against the principle of the bill. Lord Beaumont seemed to argue that, having thrown away protection, the ministers should have seized the opportunity of raising revenue by adjusting the diminished duties on corn, cattle, timber, and so forth. As it could only be done by adjusting them upward, that suggestion might have seemed counterproductive. Lord Monteagle gave a long and learned, but not very accessible, disquisition on the subject. The earl of Ripon wound up the debate contending that no one had convincingly argued that a necessity did not exist and that none of the alternatives came near to meeting the deficit. The vote on a motion in Committee was 99 to 28 for the bill, with 28 lords paired.20 The income tax had had a bad name for a long time, and the vote was probably simply one of resignation. In July, there occurred a contretemps with his colleagues over a bill, which caused Wellington considerable annoyance. With the Conservatives now in power, he had been quite ready from the beginning to take his cue from his colleagues in the Commons, including which lord should be in charge of managing which key bills in the Lords. Sir James Graham, the home secretary, was the colleague with whom the duke was in the most regular contact. But it was sometimes difficult to get a cue from Sir James. The handling of Lord Ashley’s (better known as Lord Shaftesbury) bill to protect women and children in the mines in 1842 provides an example. On 2 July, with the bill about to arrive in the Lords and Lord Londonderry for the colliery owners pressing him hard for information, Wellington wrote to remind Graham that the cabinet must decide what course it wished to take on the bill. In the same letter he warned Graham that the bill would be opposed by Londonderry and a party in behalf of the colliery owners in the north of England; by Lord Hatherton and others in behalf of coal and iron mines in the inland counties; and by others in behalf of owners of mines in North and South Wales and Scotland.21 On the same day Wellington wrote to Londonderry saying that the ministers in the House of Lords would take the same course in discussing the bill as their colleagues had in the House of Commons. He said he did not “know the noble lord who will take charge of it.” On 4 July, the duke had a letter from Ashley “sincerely entreating of you to see that I have fair play. There is no party in the



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House to back the measure, while I find Lord Hatherton and Lord Wharncliffe prodigiously active in predisposing all the peers to a mutilation of it.” Ashley considered that such conduct was singularly unjust in Lord Wharncliffe, who “notwithstanding his pledge to support the bill, is bestirring himself, although a cabinet minister, to effect very serious alterations and, in fact, the postponement of nearly all its essential provisions.” Graham in the House of Commons had promised the government’s support in the House of Lords. Therefore Wellington’s response to Ashley that “I must take upon it the course taken by the ministers of the Crown in the House of Commons,” adding that “I hope that no individual will take any course upon it that will be otherwise than fair,” ought to have been reassurring.22 Perhaps it was not, however, because the duke of Buccleuch, the lord privy seal who had agreed to take charge of the bill in the Lords, explained to Ashley that he had to withdraw because his colleagues felt that it ought not to be a government measure. And as soon as discussion on the bill began, Wharncliffe announced that the government intended to be “passive.” It is possible that the cabinet had been put off by the strong and determined efforts of the mine owners, a large and influential body in the peers, to block the bill.23 Wellington was still none the wiser as to what peer was to manage the bill. On 14 July, however, he received a letter from Graham, who, like Ashley, was worried about extensive alterations to the bill that were being proposed in the Lords. Graham complained that they would be “inconsistent with the pledge I gave in the House of Commons that the bill was approved by the government and would receive our cordial support.” He hoped the duke would “prevent any extensive changes in the bill in the Lords which cannot be reconciled to the assurances which I gave deliberately in the Commons.”24 Two days later, Wellington reported on the Committee stage of the bill, in which Lord Devon had managed proceedings, and said that he understood Ashley did not object to the bill as reported from the Committee the previous night. Devon, however, intended to recommit the bill for any further alterations that might be desirable. The duke ended with the dry comment: “You will observe that I am not exclusively the conductor of the interests of the public on this question in the House of Lords.” This might seem to have provided the answer to the question about who was managing the bill in the House of Lords. But it did not. On 19 July, Wellington wrote again about the later stages of the proceedings, advising Graham to write to Lord Wharncliffe if he had anything further to suggest: “I mention Lord Wharncliffe as he has been charged by the government with the conduct of this measure.” Wellington added that he would

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endeavor to prevail on the Lords to adopt whatever Lord Wharncliffe proposed on the part of the government.25 So the lord privy seal had been removed at the beginning because the government did not wish the bill to be seen as a government bill, so that the lord president, whom Ashley suspected above all others of evil designs, could be brought in at the end. About all that is evident is that the cabinet had a hard time making up its mind what line to take. It would appear that either the home secretary was not fully informed himself, which seems highly unlikely, or that he was discussing House of Lords’ business with others without keeping the leader of the House fully informed. Writing the duke the kind of admonitory letter he did was not wise. Only two possible reasons suggest themselves. He might have thought that the duke, perhaps imprisoned in his own world by his deafness, was completely oblivious to the recent lively proceedings in the House of Commons, ignorant of the position the government had taken and therefore in need of instruction. The other possibility is that he thought Wellington was on the other side, working against the government. One reason would have been condescending, the other insulting. Graham was either foolish or malicious, probably the former; but it would not be their last tiff. The duke’s colleagues sometimes treated him cavalierly. But this did not mean that they ever thought they could do without him. This was made evident in August when, the commander-in-chief of the army having retired, Peel offered the duke the office he had so reluctantly left when he became prime minister in 1828. Wellington was delighted but worried about a possible appearance of impropriety, which might suggest itself in having a leading party politician at the head of the army and dispensing its considerable patronage. He wrote: “My desire that no ground should be afforded even for suspicion has induced me to desire to discontinue in future any attendance upon the business of the queen’s government in the House of Lords and upon the cabinet council.” He went on to give other good reasons for his wish to give up his political offices. He thought that for many reasons it would be preferable that every member of the cabinet should be a working head of a department and that one of these should be chosen to have supreme direction of the Lords. He pleaded his deafness, that he could hear with only one ear, frequently making attendance at cabinets “only the loss of so much time.” He was aware that some might see advantages in his retaining his offices. “But, on the other hand, I am and always have been the object of malevolence of party, and you can rely upon it that you will feel the inconvenience of not taking the course I recommend.” He would, however, as he always had, be willing to take any course thought to be desirable for her Majesty’s service.26



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There is no reason to believe that Wellington was not genuine in his desire to give up his political offices. Certainly he provided Peel with adequate justification for accepting his resignation. But the answer came back the next day: “I earnestly hope . . . that you will continue to give to the administration and to the government of the queen . . . the advantage of your name and authority as a member of the cabinet and organ of the government in the House of Lords.”27

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The 1843 session of Parliament was not so concerned with explosive secular issues as that of the year before, but it had more than its share of religious issues. The most controversial measure, Sir James Graham’s factory bill, which had a component designed to provide a national system of education for the country’s children, never reached the Lords. Graham had attempted to devise a scheme fair to both Church and Dissent, but he had felt obliged to give the former too much of a role to be acceptable to the latter. This was the Dissenters’ turn to show their muscle after their defeat in 1839, and they did, with a powerful national agitation that forced Graham to drop the bill. Graham was evidently shaken by the experience. Lords Hatherton and Lyttleton, who had a scheme for giving a day’s rest to canal and railway workers by stopping the carriage of merchandise on Sundays, went to Graham to get his support. He thought the plan smacked of religion. They stoutly denied that it was anything more than it purported to be. But Graham frankly stated he was alarmed at any measure which wore even an appearance of a religious character. All three parts of the kingdom were in a ferment on questions partaking of that nature—Ireland with the religious antipathies of the people—England with the education question—Scotland with its now intrusive question. He was evidently somewhat alarmed and uneasy.1

In the sense that every issue in Ireland had to do with religion, O’Connell’s agitation for the repeal of the Union did, and that was a big issue in 1843. The education question in England had already proved explosive. The intrusive question in Scotland had to do with a patron’s right to “intrude” a minister on an unwilling parish of the Church of Scotland, and this would be the subject of a bill during the session. There was another religious issue of which Graham



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was not yet aware, the proposed union of two Welsh bishoprics, recommended by the Ecclesiastical Commission established by Peel’s government in 1835, with further steps being taken by Melbourne’s government and Parliament in subsequent years. This case was to become a vehicle by which a large and significant body of Churchmen tried to stem the progress of what they saw as a dangerous and growing Erastianism. A bill introduced in this session began the conflict. The first significant question to come before the Lords came early, on 9 February, posed by Earl Stanhope’s motion for a Committee of the Whole House to inquire into distress in the country. Stanhope declared himself unconnected with either political party, a position which he would amply demonstrate. He violently attacked the doctrine of free trade, which was, he said, heartily detested by the productive classes, as proved by the result of the 1841 election. He was a strong critic of Melbourne’s government, whose only virtue, he contended, was its inability to carry its policy into effect. That virtue was, alas, not shared by the present government. And now the country was in a vessel of state “navigated by Conservatives and bearing the Conservative flag, steered on a whig course.” Peel, an apostate in 1828 and 1829, was an apostate once more. There were, Stanhope predicted, terrible times ahead. Some indication of future conditions had been given by the disturbances (generally treated as part of the Chartist agitations) of the previous autumn. These had not, he argued, except in North Staffordshire, had the character of an outbreak but were “merely a strike for wages, accompanied of course by some acts of violence.” But, Stanhope contended, things were tending toward a “social revolution, accompanied by the total subversion of our established institutions.” The late disturbances would have been very different in nature if the new Corn Law and tariff had been in operation longer; and if the distress of the manufacturers—by which he meant workers as well as masters and the former especially—had extended as it now had to other classes. From these disturbances, Stanhope said, a very important lesson might be learned—“that no country can be safe unless labour is protected.” Take the plight of the handloom weavers, in whose case the principle was fully recognized in the report of their condition in 1835. But nothing was done, and they had sunk ever further into misery. The same was true of the silk weavers, whose situation showed that under free trade no protection could be given to labor. In the first year after protection was withdrawn their wages declined 50 percent, and they had never recovered. Stanhope shared the opinion of Sir Robert Peel, the elder, and the duke of Wellington that machinery was the problem. The master manufacturers who benefited by it should have been forced to make up the difference in their la-

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borers’ wages. Full protection should be given to children employed in factories. The labor allowed even under a ten-hours bill should not be permitted for them. There was also a lack of consumer demand among the laboring classes. It could not be explained, as it often was, Stanhope said, as being a result of the Temperance movement. He was himself involved in that cause, and he “knew that the deficiency was not the result of temperate habits—not the result of choice, but the consequence of dire necessity.” Stanhope therefore proposed a Committee to look into the distress of the people. He would call for “as indispensable, as the necessary precursors of all others . . . the repeal of the new tariff, and the repeal of the new corn law.” He was aware that legislation for such purposes could not originate in the House of Lords, but they could convey their opinion in an Address to the Crown.2 It should be noted that the steps he demanded were only to be precursors, not the be-all and end-all. What he had in mind beyond the limitation of the hours of labor of adults and children is unclear. Ripon complimented Stanhope, who “Upon many former occasions . . . had manifested the same feelings in the same manner . . . [and] had given expression to generous sentiments in which all were disposed to agree.” It was getting more difficult to ignore voices such as Stanhope’s and Ashley’s, which were becoming important solvents to conventional laissez-faire ideas.3 But Ripon went on to say that Stanhope “had also given utterance to many erroneous doctrines,” which he proceeded to refute.4 Lord Beaumont, a whig who indicated his independence by sitting on the cross benches, said he intended to vote for Stanhope’s motion, not because he entirely agreed with Stanhope, but as a way of getting a straight answer from the government on its future policy intentions regarding “the great question of free trade which now occupied men’s minds.” He went on to say that it was impossible to “disguise from one’s self the rapid growth of the monstrous giant who had risen up in the form of the Anti-Corn-Law League.” Beaumont did not know whether the league deserved to be put down or not; but if active measures were not taken against it, at least the country was entitled to a solemn pledge from the ministers that they would maintain “the remnant of protection which the sweeping measure of last session had still left to the country.” The government had done too much too soon, which had led to panic. Now they must do something to rebuild stability. Beaumont’s argument about a growing fear of a change in government policy was confirmed by Wellington’s difficulty in finding peers to act the necessary roles at the opening of Parliament. He had been asked by two successive peers whom he had approached to move the Address at



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the opening of Parliament for assurances that the government had no further legislation in mind before they would even consider his request. Wellington was so annoyed by the duke of Cleveland’s demand for a binding pledge that he sent his response to Peel to make sure that it was not too strong. He managed to satisfy both himself and the earl of Powis in his response to him.5 Brougham defended the government and the league, though he roundly criticized some of the tactics of the latter.6 The Radical earl of Radnor deplored even the modest degree to which Brougham had criticized the league. He said that the panic of the previous year was not due to the legislation passed then. He twitted Stanhope on his ideas. Were they to fix laborers’ wages as they had five hundred years ago? Did he really dislike all machinery? What about trains? Radnor wished to retrace no steps—he wanted to go straight to a repeal of the Corn Laws.7 The vote against Stanhope’s motion was 25 to 4, a small division. But it was less than a week into the session, and many lords had not yet arrived. Still, a state-of-the-nation motion, as this one was, had always been accorded a special importance, because if it went the wrong way it was tantamount to a vote of no-confidence. Clearly no one expected that to happen in this instance. But Stanhope would have been sure that his ideas and criticisms would be well covered in the newspapers. And the government made sure that the responsible minister was there to respond as necessary. The next important bill would not reach the Lords until the end of May. In the meantime the two party leaders in the Lords had their own preoccupations. Melbourne had suffered a stroke between the sessions, and Lansdowne had taken his place as Liberal leader in the Upper House. At the beginning of the session it was the queen’s uncle, the duke of Sussex, who stood in for Melbourne, providing the eve-of-the-session dinner and exhortation for the Liberal lords. For a royal duke to have assumed this function was unusual to say the least. There was no doubt about his being a whig and a loyal one, as had been evident since he took his seat in 1805. Nor was he entirely lacking in either intelligence or debating power. But such qualities would only make it more impossible for the queen’s uncle to lead the opposition to her government, and no one seriously considered it. Lansdowne was obviously the best choice for the job. But Melbourne was by no means completely incapacitated and was able and anxious to be consulted. Nor was there any accepted way to choose a new leader, no election process. Lansdowne therefore gradually edged his way into the position, with the great tact and diplomacy that the situation demanded and which he possessed in abundance.8 But Lansdowne’s was not a happy lot. Hatherton told of a conversation he

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had with him in the House in March. “Brougham’s support of the government, Lord Northesk announcing against the whigs, makes the task of leading the opposition in the House of Lords, now devolved on Lord Lansdowne, very distasteful and unsafe.” The next night Hatherton described Brougham’s behavior in the House: no man can ever tell what Brougham means. In the evening on Lord Monteagle’s motion, he kept away from his usual seat and lounged by Lyndhurst on the Woolsack, not liking to appear to the government he is now courting for some object, as one of Lord Monteagle’s band. And at the close of the debate he, out of his seat, made a speech abusing any body except the government and any thing he thought might please them. While he still expressed adherence to his own opinion of entirely free trade, he seems at this time to be at great enmity both with whig and Radical. . . . His enemies have always hopes of him, and his friends have always fear of him.9

Wellington had trouble with restive Irish peers. On 4 May, Lord Roden wrote to him of “the fearful advance which has taken place throughout this country on the subject of the repeal of the Union, and of the national alarm felt by all loyal subjects of her Majesty on account of it.” Roden said that what was “most frightful is the apparent apathy which is observed on the part of the government in not taking measures to arrest its progress, or show the mind of the administration on the subject.” Roden said that he knew the duke would “not for a moment suppose that I could do anything to embarrass the government,” but he would feel it his duty to put a question to him in the House of Lords in the course of the following week. Wellington made a general reply to the effect that the government had taken steps to reinforce the troops in Ireland, that it had made it abundantly clear it would preserve the Union at all costs, and that it was fully prepared to do so. He suggested that if Roden could think of anything more that could be done, he should suggest it to the lord lieutenant. Peel dealt with a similar menace by Roden’s son, Lord Jocelyn, in the House of Commons in the same fashion.10 But the threat to the Union was no sooner averted than the Irish peers began agitating the question of the Irish Poor Law and its excesses and deficiencies. In the meantime, on 23 May Lord Powis proceeded to move the second reading of “an act for preventing the union of the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor.” He said that it was his great misfortune to introduce this bill, “one of the greatest ecclesiastical importance to the principality of Wales and to the Established Church under the avowed opposition of the most rev. Prelate, who presides over the English Church and his right rev. brethren the original members of the ecclesiastical commission.” He must explain himself. Nothing but a sense of public duty, to his fellow countrymen and to the Church of Wales, would have



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induced him to undertake the task. While some other bishops might oppose him, he had the support of the two present bishops of the dioceses. No others were really acquainted with the case, and as the union would only take place after their deaths, they had no personal interest. Furthermore, the Convocation of the Church when it had last met in 1841 had given its unequivocal support to the cause. Convocation, which up until 1717 had been a kind of ecclesiastical equivalent of Parliament, with two houses made up respectively of bishops and lower clergy and meeting simultaneously with Parliament, had not sat regularly since that date, when it had not been convenient to the whig government to let it continue to be a power in the land. But it was usual for members of Convocation to meet when summoned at the beginning of every new Parliament and for each house to pass an Address to the Crown before they were prorogued. Convocation’s revival in 1852, taken as a powerful sign of the Church’s reaction to a growing state interference in its affairs, was not far off, and its major architect was the bishop of Exeter, an enthusiastic opponent of a union of the two sees. Powis’s rhetoric was an early sounding of the clarion call. Despite the pronouncement of Convocation in favor of their cause, he charged, the Ecclesiastical Commission still maintained its position; “we have reason to fear a spirit of Erastianism, when the acts of the State continue to be promoted notwithstanding the Church disapproves thereof, and declines to recognize the same.” Powis then addressed practical problems. Two arose from the connection between the proposed union and the creation of a bishop of Manchester: one because if the union did not take place, it would mean the addition of another spiritual member of the House of Lords; the other because without it there would be no means of providing an income for him. “The interests of North Wales were to be sacrificed to the expediency of creating a bishop of Manchester.” Powis had no objection to an additional bishop in the Lords. For those who did he had a suggestion. The newest bishop in the House always became chaplain of the House. That position carried heavy duties when the Lords were in session and lasted until another junior bishop was appointed. Powis suggested that when a vacancy occurred on the bench the person nominated to succeed should not become either chaplain or a peer of Parliament until a second vacancy had occurred. That would have the added advantage that the new bishop would be able to learn his spiritual and diocesan duties at once and be better able to perform them when he became chaplain. And this would be the pattern for the future. Powis also had suggestions for providing an income for the bishop of Man-

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chester. The government could provide a loan from Queen Anne’s bounty. And the surplus income from the archbishopric of York would be quite ample to endow a bishopric when the archbishopric became vacant. North Wales already contributed generously from its tithes to the support of Oxford colleges and English bishoprics. Powis said they objected “to the further abstraction of any portion of our mountain tithes for the benefit of wealthy England and their transfer from an individual holder, a kind and venerable inhabitant of our principality to any corporate body.” Finally, Powis argued that the circumstances of the passage of what he called the “unconstitutional” acts of 1836 and 1837, which had provided for the union of the two bishoprics, gave him an additional claim to their lordships’ sympathy. It had been a period of great political excitement. Although objected to by the two bishops, little attention appeared to have been paid to the legislation at the time. The unfavorable feelings toward the Church (which had begun with the bishops’ vote against the Reform Act and been followed by proposals of their ejection from the Upper House) and the probably distant period when the death of one of the bishops would bring the actual union itself had very likely combined to still the protest that would otherwise have occurred.11 Wellington answered Powis. The duke emphasized that there had been no protest until now. And what was under discussion had been part of the legislation to carry a great reform of the Church to restore public confidence in it. Powis, he said, vastly underestimated the problem of an additional bishop, “and it is not all who walk the streets of these large towns who would approve of the admission of new bishops to the House of Lords.” Indeed, he went on, “there have been times when the presence of bishops in the House of Lords was not very agreeable to some.” Hence, when the Ecclesiastical Commissioners decided that Ripon and Manchester needed bishoprics, they considered it necessary to unite two dioceses to free two seats; Bristol and Gloucester had already been united to provide one for Ripon. Wellington urged the Lords to make clear “that it was not its intention to depart from any portion of this measure of which this bill proposes to repeal a part; but that on the contrary, it is the intention of the House of Lords that the whole of it shall be carried into execution as early as circumstances will permit.” It was, the duke said, a measure in which the reputation of the Church and the honor of Parliament were involved. He stressed again “how important it is that the public should not entertain the notion that it is the intention of the House of Lords to give way on any point of this subject.”12 The archbishop of Canterbury then justified the actions of the Commissioners. They had found that in the two sees combined there were 255 benefices



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for a population of about 350,000—a ratio better than that of sixteen other dioceses, about equal to five, and worse than that of four. In this and other ways Archbishop Howley took a firm and unyielding position. The union would be good for the Church as a whole and did no harm to the two sees.13 The bishop of Salisbury said “this was no mere question of Welsh bishoprics; it was a measure deeply important to the whole Church.” The consolidation of the two ancient bishoprics was a measure which could not but hurt the feelings of all the inhabitants of the district—of a sensitive people still possessed of a considerable degree of national feeling on this subject. This was a measure which it must be allowed weakened the Church in a part where least of all it could bear it and in a part where it behooved them to consider how it was possible to add new strength.

He too believed that tithes should be spent locally. He also believed that the Manchester bishopric was an urgent necessity, but not one that required the union of the Welsh sees. Manchester already had a rich collegiate church, and all that was needed was to raise it to an episcopal see.14 The bishop of London, another of the original Ecclesiastical Commissioners, said that if Powis’s bill passed it would put an end to the bishopric of Manchester because its creation was linked by law to the union of the Welsh sees. He agreed with the bishop of Salisbury that there was no problem finding funds to endow the new see. The difficulty was in creating a bishopric the holder of which would be entitled to a seat in the Lords. He disagreed with those who argued that it would be possible to create bishops who were not also peers of Parliament. It would lead to injurious comparisons and eventually with an inclination to dispense with bishops entirely in that House. As for Powis’s suggestion, the difficulty was that bishops sat by virtue of their barony. He would vote against the measure.15 The bishop of Exeter, perhaps by design as his passionate onslaughts had caused him to be treated with some skepticism, confined himself to practicalities. He too believed that a bishopric for Manchester was urgent, but if they waited for the deaths of the present bishops, they would probably be waiting for a long time. The bishop of London had said there were abundant funds, so that could be ruled out as a problem. He did not think that a seat in the Lords was absolutely necessary; but as to baronies being required for that purpose, four representative Irish bishops already sat in the Lords without baronies, and the rotation of the Irish peers might well suggest a solution for new English bishops. The bishop of Exeter thought he sensed an ambivalence in the bishop of London’s remarks; and certainly Blomfield had not strengthened the position

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of the defenders of union by his brisk dismissal of its financial necessity. The Liberal Earl Fitzwilliam also detected ambivalence and was annoyed by it. It sounded to him as if Blomfield was making an apology for the Commissioners. Fitzwilliam thought that if the crux of the problem was a bishop without a peerage, someone was being a little silly. If more bishops were needed, they should be created without privilege, and obviously there would be support from the bench of bishops for such action. He thought he had come to support real reform, but what he found was that the Commission had created an impediment to real reform. That must be got round, and he wished the two Welsh bishops long lives.16 The Liberal Lord Lyttleton also saw the best omens in what had been said. The case was very clear. No one had attempted to deny the great evil of the union; and it was also generally admitted that the question of the increase of the number of bishops must be separately, seriously, and speedily considered. There was no counterbalancing benefit at all to be found by uniting the two bishoprics.17 The bishop of London clarified the role of the Commission in an area that had not been in contention, and then added that he “should be happy to find any means of reconciling, unobjectionably, the two great objects in view.” He referred to a bishop for Manchester and no union for the Welsh bishoprics.18 The earl of Powis was not quite sure what to do but had decided to act on suggestions made by the bishop of London and the marquess of Salisbury. The latter had said that he was not prepared to abandon the present state of affairs—that is, the proposal for union—until it had been demonstrated that a properly substituted provision for such a large population as Manchester could be arranged. Then he hoped that the present proposal would be withdrawn. The bishop and the marquess shared the same position. Powis said he would withdraw the measure for this year but reserve the right to renew the question the next year if satisfactory measures were not adopted regarding the three bishoprics. Wellington had no objections but reminded Powis that if he did act the next year, he should obtain the queen’s permission to do so.19 The first phase of a continuing controversy was over. Lord Aberdeen’s Scottish Benefices bill of 1843 was aimed to deal with a wound that had just been inflicted, when four hundred clergymen, about a third of the total number, seceded. The basic issue was similar to that in the English Church revealed in the controversy over the merging of the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor; in both the English and the Scottish cases, it was the question of to what extent the state had the right to interfere in the affairs of an



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Established Church. But in the Scottish case the bone of contention was over the right of a congregation to refuse a minister proposed to it. As in England, in Scotland patrons nominated clergymen to serve in parishes to which they had the appointment. In England those who believed in government by the congregation itself had long since left the Church for Dissent. It had happened in Scotland to a certain extent, but never before on such a massive scale. For most of the eighteenth century, and up to the 1830s, what was inaccurately called a period of “Moderatism” prevailed, in which the rights of patrons were little questioned. Largely because of the evangelical revival, however, the fires of faith began to burn with a more intense heat; and in 1834 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed what was called the “Veto” Act by which it was declared to be a fundamental law of the Church that no pastor should be “intruded” on a congregation contrary to the will of the people, to be indicated if a majority of the heads of families in the parish dissented. In 1838, however, this act was struck down by a civil court. The decision was upheld by the House of Lords, sitting in its judicial capacity, in 1839. But the General Assembly argued that civil courts had jurisdiction only in matters of civil and property rights, but not in matters spiritual, in regard to which “the Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of the church hath . . . appointed a government in the hand of church officers distinct from the civil magistrate,” and that it was the former, and they only, who could decide in questions of doctrine, discipline, and Church government.20 The positions of the Church and government did not change. Lord Aberdeen had introduced a bill in 1840 in an attempt to find a middle way, but it did not pass. In 1842 the Assembly petitioned the queen for an outright abolition of patronage. The answer of the home secretary, Graham, received in January 1843, effectively quashed any hope of redress from that quarter. And a final appeal to the House of Commons was rebuffed by a vote of 211 to 76. The General Assembly met on 18 May, and on that day the secession began with two hundred walking out to begin immediately the formation of a new Free Church. Thus, when Aberdeen announced his bill on 26 May, the horse was already long out of the barn. The marquess of Breadalbane charged that the Lords’ treatment of the Church of Scotland was clearly “inconsistent with the principles of civil and religious liberty.” As a consequence, an “alarming secession had taken place and no less than 400 ministers have seceded.” For the marquess there was little left to say or do. He had no confidence in the government, and Aberdeen had been so tardy in bringing his measure forward that he had lost confidence in that too. But he did have one parting shot for the government. In

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its treatment of the people of Scotland, it had been hostile “to one of the principles of good statesmanship, which was that there should be no interference with the religious principles of the people.”21 It is difficult to say whether Aberdeen’s solution would have worked earlier. In 1840, it was not popular in General Assembly or supported by the whig government. It was, however, a statesmanlike solution. Aberdeen rejected the veto. He was against “mere will—the arbitrary and capricious will of the people.” What he wanted was a will “capable of being explained and judged of.” And he wanted the judging to be done by an intermediary that had been ignored by the Veto—the presbytery of the district in which the parish being appointed to lay. The presbytery was made up of both clergymen and laymen, and it combined the advantages of being a traditional Church body and a local body. As Aberdeen explained it, “The whole principle of the settlement of the ministry in Scotland is composed of the people being entitled to object, and the presbytery to judge. My object is to allow the greatest possible latitude of objection on the part of the people and giving the entire freedom of judgment to the presbytery.”22 Whatever the plan’s earlier chances of success, it is certain that Aberdeen was the only prominent figure in the whole affair who showed the slightest interest in compromise or made any effort to bring it about. Peel and Graham demonstrated the same cold and unyielding negativism that they were to demonstrate in other similar cases. During this period, however, it must be admitted that Graham is deserving of some sympathy for the attention he received from the duke of Wellington. Whatever other good or evil was derived from the duke’s resuming his place as commander-in-chief, it brought him into contact too close for comfort with Sir James. As home secretary, Graham was ultimately responsible for, and very active in, the maintenance of law and order in both Great Britain and Ireland; and in both islands the army played an important role. Graham requested advice from Wellington and got it in abundance. But he got a good deal more than he asked for—a stream of letters suggesting, advising, admonishing, deploring, and fulminating. And the language could be appropriately fiery and inappropriately alarmist. Graham was, it is true, not the only one of the duke’s colleagues treated to his colorful language. Peel also had his share, as did Stanley, the colonial secretary. Wellington warned Stanley in June 1843 that in case of war with the United States he need not expect loyal Canadians to turn out and serve “under the direction of the executive council composed of traitors.”23 And the duke never mentioned the Canadian equivalent of the cabinet without reference to its traitorous past. It is true that ex-rebels did very well in Canadian politics—four



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became prime ministers—but without any evident untoward effects. Stanley noticed the duke’s irritability but was not overly concerned by it. His correspondence with Wellington, however, though considerable was not the shower that rained down on Graham. On 13 July, the duke wrote to Graham about a hostile motion on the Irish Poor Law, obviously desiring an immediate reply. He got one the same day with the information that a cabinet meeting had been set on the subject for that day. On the 18th there was another letter from the duke on the same subject, again answered by Graham on the same day. On 19 July, Wellington wrote enclosing a letter discussing the connection between disaffection in Ireland and Canada, and of both with hostile feeling in the United States. The duke recommended that the subject was worth attention, adding French republicans into the mix. Graham agreed that “it will be a serious struggle if matters take this turn, and we must be prepared for an event by no means impracticable.” On 22 July the duke wrote to Graham complaining about the lazy and irresponsible behavior of Lord Eliot, the Irish secretary, who caused all kinds of trouble by not keeping the Lords apprised of important business that would come before them. Graham had apparently taken the position that the Irish peers were more to blame than Eliot. The duke very firmly put him right on that matter. More correspondence on Irish legislation followed. On 25 August, after Parliament had been prorogued, Wellington sent Graham a long memorandum in which he viewed the existing situation in Ireland and discussed the ways to deal with the dangers inherent in that situation, or, as he put it, to bring about “a return to an obedience of the law and the rules of sound order and civilized life.” This, he said, would not be easy. The middle and lower classes had got too used to marching around the country and defying law and the authority of the government, in pursuit of all kinds of unsuitable and illegal purposes. This habit would be hard to break. He foresaw a cessation of the payment of rents, which the laws of the country, too long in abeyance and held in contempt, would be unable to enforce. And the result would be chaos. Wellington’s solution would be a determined and rigorous enforcement of the law, one that would make those who are the leaders of these Repeal combinations in Ireland, and have in reality been the cause and the principal actors in effecting mischief, feel the power and the authority of the government and of the law, which should be brought to their very doors; and they must be made to feel that no mischief could be done which should not be immediately followed by a searching inquiry having for its object to discover not only the perpetrators thereof, but under whose influence, at whose instigation and by whose advice, the crime was committed, and by whose assistance.

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The system of inquiry, which must be certain and invariable, would convince evildoers that there existed a government with power and inclination to search out the causes of crime, its extent, and the nature and degree of evidence against the criminal. It would also increase the confidence in the government of the well affected. The duke also recommended that whenever a breach of the law was discovered that was capable of proof, immediate steps should be taken to bring the accused to trial.24 Graham duly forwarded the memorandum to Lord de Grey, the lord lieutenant, who had apparently written back a soothing letter, suggesting that everything was under control and the lord lieutenant was fully up-to-date on what was going on. Clearly this was not the sort of response the duke expected or was willing to accept. He wrote to Graham that he knew nothing about a so-called central office and “the accurate reports received there of the various outrages and breaches of the social order.” He knew nothing about these. But I heard of murder unnoticed; of illegal combinations excited by priests and demagogues, to refuse to work for individual landlords and farmers. I knew that large assemblies of mobs had been collected consisting of bodies marched in regular array under the head of priests, with bands and banners. That these mobs and bodies . . . defied the law and the government, terrified the whole country, threatened social order, which in Ireland is nearly annihilated.

This was not a temperate letter. The duke was furious with what he saw as the temporizing of the lord lieutenant, and he made no attempt to hide his fury. The picture he drew may have been accurate, but as well as being fiery, it was drawn in the deepest of dark hues. In short, it was positively volcanic, not the sort of letter usually exchanged between colleagues. In fact, other parts of the letter were both sensible and restrained and showed the duke’s basically moderate position. “I know enough of these matters,” he wrote Graham, “to be sensible that the most successful military operations are of no avail in settling the government of a country, in restoring social order, respect for influence and authority of law, without the assistance of the law and execution of the law itself.” What he had wanted to suggest in his memorandum was that “the power of the civil government and the terror of the law should be carried to the very seat of these evil designs; now, immediately, before we come to the necessity of these operations of massacre and blood.”25 As it happened, Graham did not take exception to this particular missive. He thanked the duke for his “important letter,” with which he entirely agreed and said he would use it to impress the views it contained on de Grey.26 Of course, Graham himself was not the one being attacked, though he could well have seen the situation as described as reflecting badly on himself. He did not, how-



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ever, and he continued to pass on Wellington’s views to de Grey, who claimed to agree with them. But if this is not an example of a letter which offended Graham, it is a good example of a vein in which the duke could and did frequently write. And this sort of letter, combined with a string of others more often than not critical if not extreme, might well have worn down the tolerance of the recipient. This happened in October of 1845, when Graham wrote, enclosing one of the duke’s letters, seeking Peel’s comfort and support. Peel replied: “I am accustomed to communications of a similar nature, written without weighing expressions, and under the temporary influence of excited feelings.” Even Graham admitted of the duke that “when the truth is presented to his mind he yields to reason and is generally just.”27 It is not surprising that his colleagues sometimes found Wellington irritating as a counselor. Generally, however, they treated his eccentricities charitably and with good humor, as he treated theirs. There was, however, one area where it was difficult to find any fault with the duke and that was as leader of the House of Lords. Rarely was his supremacy there doubted, and those who doubted it were almost always sorry.

chap ter t wemt y - on e

The Dissenters Chapels Act, the Factory Act, and the Welsh Bishops Bill

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In January 1844, Lord Hatherton remarked in his diary that “Peel has seen that changes in many matters are necessary to meet the exigencies of society and the temper of the times, and he has sacrificed his consistency to a sense of duty.” The final clause had long characterized the situation of the duke of Wellington—indeed might have been, though it was not, coined to describe it. Save perhaps in economic affairs, it was not as yet a characteristic as apparent in Peel. Ireland, however, was at the moment the primary issue for the whigs, and Hatherton probably knew more about Peel’s thinking on Ireland than many Conservatives did. As early as 24 July 1839, Hatherton had had a long conversation with Peel, who was looking to the future, about Ireland. Hatherton advised him that “the priests could and would keep Ireland quiet for this ministry [Melbourne’s]. But I feared not for another.” The key to the pacification of Ireland, Hatherton advised, lay in giving the Roman Catholic Church state recognition and support commensurate with its influence in Irish society. But this would have to be done slowly and tactfully; the Irish clergy were very wary of becoming stipendiaries of the state. There was, however, an excellent way to begin to gain their confidence “and that was to commence by improving the education in the College of Maynooth,” the seminary for the training of the Irish priesthood. If the education was made excellent and affordable, immense good might result. Peel appreciated the advantages of such a scheme, Hatherton thought, but feared the reaction of British Protestants. This was the difference between whigs and tories, Hatherton sniffed: “the former fearlessly encountered danger and labor of molding the public mind to what was right; the latter have applied measures only where it was unsafe to delay them.”1 The 1844 session had hardly begun when Peel brought the Maynooth plan before the cabinet; though it would not be proposed to Parliament until 1845.



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But the earliest government bill to come up to the Lords at the beginning of May was not one calculated to bring the government great popularity. It was designed to settle disputes that had been plaguing Dissent ever since Unitarianism had been recognized as legal in the Unitarian Toleration Act of 1813. Before that, most Unitarian congregations and charities had gone under the name Presbyterian, which denomination had by then been virtually taken over by Unitarians. When Unitarians began to sail under their true colors, however, Dissenters from the trinitarian majority began to lay claim to their properties, which, they argued, no trinitarian donor would ever have intended for people who held beliefs that were both repulsive and illegal. The resulting suits were very expensive, sometimes eating up all or most of the properties in dispute; and they were a source of untold bitterness as well, driving Unitarians out of the traditional bodies, clerical and lay, which looked after Dissenting interests and which until now they had mostly led. The government bill aimed to settle this question as it affected property and to settle it in favor of the Unitarian minority. The peer in charge of the bill was the lord chancellor. Tough, sarcastic, and more than a little outrageous, Lyndhurst was the man for the job. He had never expected, he said, when he agreed to bring forward this very moderate measure of justice, “that it would have met with such clamorous opposition.” There were petitions in great numbers against it. Lyndhurst had examined these petitions. The greater portion were couched in the same language, repeating the themes of “surprise” and “alarm.” Obviously, Lyndhurst said, they came from the same hand and the same manufactory. Therefore he paid no attention to these petitions, but there were numerous others from members of the Established Church, Presbyterians, and members of other denominations of Dissenters, not couched in general terms but speaking to specific hardships and grievances and asking for redress. None of the categories he mentioned provided any guarantee of orthodoxy. But having swept the hostile petitions aside, Lyndhurst shifted to personalities. He also had to face the opposition of the bishop of Exeter. This was formidable indeed, but Lyndhurst did not think formidable enough in this case. He was, however, very surprised at the new company the bishop was keeping, by which he meant the great majority of Dissenters. The lord chancellor then began to describe the contents of the bill. Some charities had been established in a period when by law their form of religion was illegal. It had since been declared legal. He had therefore inserted a clause to make the illegal charities legal. Until he was otherwise convinced, he would maintain this position, resting on the support he expected to get from “my right rev. friends” (the bishops!) and opinion everywhere out of doors. Another section of the bill dealt with what was the major bone of contention,

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and Lyndhurst went on to explain what was involved. A place of worship is established by a deed or will. That place has existed perhaps for a century and a half or two centuries. For a long period of time—thirty, fifty, perhaps seventy years—the congregation there has maintained the same religious opinions and doctrines. The religious opinion of the founder is a matter of speculation; there is no record of his or her opinions or intentions. “What! are we,” Lyndhurst exclaimed, “not to take the uniform usage which has so long prevailed as the evidence of the intentions of the original founder?” The answer for him was a resounding yes.2 The bishop of London rose, reluctant, he said, to object to going into Committee on any bill proposed by Lyndhurst, and especially a government bill. But he claimed that the lord chancellor, in his role as a judge, had contradicted his own argument. Also, apparently taking personally Lyndhurst’s speaking “somewhat sarcastically” about Bishop Phillpotts and his new associates, Blomfield denied that he himself had any. He had only recently seen the new bill and had objected to the second section as soon as he saw it. This explanation served no useful purpose. It did, however, strongly suggest that the bishop had no desire to be associated with Dissenters, which might have raised the question why he was speaking to this bill at all and could easily have put him down as a pompous snob. His argument against the bill was essentially that since Unitarianism was illegal until 1813 then every chapel up until that time must have been for trinitarian purposes. He cited several decisions made by Lord Eldon, and finally one made by Lyndhurst himself in the case of Lady Hewley’s Trust. Lyndhurst in his opening remarks had cited this case as a warning that most trusts would be destroyed by the expense of determining the proper claimant, but his decision had been for the trinitarian. Blomfield finished by moving that the bill be committed that day six months.3 Brougham responded that the bishop had erred in not recognizing the distinction between the judge and the legislator. The former stated the law; the latter sought a solution. Doctrines preached for thirty years past made a chapel safe from litigation. It said nothing of the founder’s opinions. The bishop of Exeter argued that the Unitarian Toleration Act did not make Unitarianism legal, as it remained against the common law to deny the trinity. But his argument was submerged by Lords Cottenham and Campbell, past and future whig lord chancellors respectively. Lord Teynham did make a genuine plea for the trinitarian Dissenters, saying that the petitions against the bill expressed the general opinion of the Dissenters and Wesleyan Methodists and ought not to be dismissed. But by the end of the debate, the bishop of Exeter had left the House, and the bishop of London said he saw no use in a division. Thus the bill passed through its Committee stage without one.4



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On 9 May, the third reading of the Dissenters Chapels bill being moved, the bishop of Exeter inquired what the lord chancellor meant by “usage of the congregation.” Lyndhurst replied that it meant the doctrines preached and inculcated in the chapel. Phillpotts observed that he had thought it would have meant the habit of the congregation. He then posed what he claimed to be an actual case. There was a Presbyterian chapel in Cork which for some time had had two ministers, one a Unitarian, one a trinitarian. What was the “usage” of that congregation? Lyndhurst replied that it could not be determined, so the legislation would not apply. Phillpotts then began to press his questioning further, but he was halted by Lyndhurst, who said he did not wish to discuss an entirely fictional situation, which he now knew the purported Cork case to be. His source was Lord Monteagle, who was very well acquainted with the venerable Unitarian minister—one only—of the chapel. Phillpotts flew into a rage and challenged Lord Monteagle to come forward and challenge him to his face, a request that was immediately granted.5 No more was heard from the bishop. The debate which followed showed a variety of political party, and some Church party, opinion. The ultra earl of Winchilsea made an impassioned speech against the bill. The Liberal Earl Fitzwilliam made a favorable but distinctly tongue-in-cheek speech offering congratulations all around and expressing his pleasure at the unanimity that existed. The ultra Lord Kenyon gave a markedly grumpy speech and insisted on taking the sense of the House. The Liberal earl of Minto defended the Unitarians against earlier attacks by Phillpotts. The ultra earl of Mountcashel spoke strongly against the bill. The Liberal and Evangelical Lord Teynham (i.e., of that party in the Church) also opposed the bill, suggesting that arbitration might be the best solution. On Kenyon’s insistence, the House divided, 44 to 9 for the bill, the nine being made up of eight ultras and Teynham. Neither of the two bishops who had stood forth as leaders were included.6 It was a classic Lyndhurst victory. Sweeping the majority of petitions against the bill to one side, dancing lightly over the minority for the bill, which he left discreetly cloaked as to size and nature, he taunted and badgered his way through opposition. Blomfield was all too visibly stung by his remarks; Phillpotts humiliated. It was Lyndhurst at the top of his form, and for one of his better causes. The factory bill of 1844 introduces many of the same individuals in a different guise. In the Committee stage, the evangelical trinitarians’ friend Lord Teynham was concerned that there was no provision in the bill requiring the inspection of children in the factories at stated periods or one rendering it imperative to exclude from work any child injured from work or confinement

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in the factories. The objection of many to the twelve-hours clause would be removed and many heartburnings on the question would be put to an end by the inclusion of such provisions. There ought also to be a provision that no child should be reintroduced into a factory without a surgeon’s certificate that the child was recovered and would not be injured by the work.7 Lord Brougham, for his part, saw the bill as a whole as one to “protect people from the consequences of their own improvidence, to give increased wages for lessened work, to interfere in the market of labour.” But a clause requiring the painting and cleansing of interior walls was completely beyond the pale—“the height of absurdity.” It made him so angry that he threw the bill on the table and sat down. The Liberal Earl Fitzwilliam adopted a more roundabout means of attack. If regulation was so beneficial for factory workers, why limit it to them? Why not include other sorts of labor—agricultural labor, for example? But it did not take him long to come to his own conclusion about the bill: “it was a monstrous misapplication of benevolence thus to interfere with the only property which a poor man had.”8 The marquess of Normanby, another Liberal, answered Fitzwilliam. Agricultural laborers did work under better conditions than those in the factory. According to the marquess, the “course of nature protected” them. He argued strongly for a further reduction of hours than that provided in the bill, twelve hours for adults. The bishop of Ripon entirely agreed. The ultra earl of Winchilsea also “deeply regretted that the limitation of labour had not been extended to ten hours.”9 Clause 32 of the bill provided that “no female above eighteen years of age shall be employed in any factory save for the same time and in the same manner as young people”—young people being those between thirteen and eighteen— and the number of hours twelve. This meant that the government target of twelve hours would be met for all adult workers, since men alone could not keep the mills running. A number of lords found this clause unacceptable because they objected to the regulation of adult labor and/or the twelve-hour limit. The Liberal Lord Kinnaird moved that the clause be struck out as sanctioning an improper interference with labor. Wharncliffe, the lord president of the council, who was managing the bill in the Lords, however, thought this “the most material clause in the bill.” There was a strong feeling in the country against the “excessive employment of females, and he thought it would be well if female labour could be altogether dispensed with, so that females could turn their entire attention to domestic matters.” But circumstances did not yet permit this. The Liberal Normanby agreed with Wharncliffe, though he added as another reason the opportunity it would



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afford for the further education of women. And the Liberal Lord Campbell agreed with Kinnaird on the principle of restricting adult labor, but approved of the limitation to twelve hours. Clause 32 was the only one on which there was a division in Committee. It passed 48 to 21. The minority was made up entirely of Liberals.10 The debate continued on the third reading. The Radical Lord Radnor “expressed his disapprobation of all meddling interference with the labour of the people.” The Liberal duke of Sutherland regretted that a shorter period of labor had not been sanctioned by the other House. He also thought it would not do simply to trust to the “progress of civilization to shorten the hours of labour for women.” Brougham declared himself just as concerned as anyone else about the welfare of children and women, but it must wait on the “the dispensation of Providence, the advance of society.” He believed that interference with capital and labor “stayed the progress of society, deterred the advance of civilization.”11 Once more, Liberal answered Liberal. Lord Normanby differed so entirely from Brougham and Radnor that he hoped that this was not the last bill they would see, for he did not believe “it at all went the length which alone could render interference unjustifiable.” If, as Brougham argued, they could “with perfect safety and justice to the labourers, leave matters in the hands of masters to whom they were connected by well recognized mutual interests,” that would be fine. But why, then, had the masters not acceded to the overwhelming desire of the workers for a ten-hour day? Brougham had told them that the “progress of civilization would provide a cure,” but things were getting worse, not better. Let them read the reports of the factory inspectors.12 Lord Wharncliffe disclaimed that he had ever said that the principle of interference would soon be carried still further, and women be prevented from working in factories at all. What he had said was that at the beginning of the manufacturing system it would perhaps have been wiser if women had not been allowed to work in factories. But that evil had gone too far to be easily remedied now. He reminisced. Manufacturing had given the country great wealth. Yet it had been happier before. He remembered the domestic system in Yorkshire with every dwelling a little mill and every member of the family playing a part. But then a woman besides being a spinner was also a wife and mother. Factory girls were only workers. It was, however, too late to abolish the existing system now. Wharncliffe did not think things were becoming better. Women were getting more like men. “They drank together and instead of fetching their husbands home from the public house, their husbands fetch them.” Yet

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Wharncliffe did not entirely trust the men. He was not for the ten-hour day. Men might say now that they did not expect twelve hours pay for ten hours work, but when the time came, they would agitate for higher pay. The middle road, he said, was best. The bill passed its third reading without a division.13 The middle road may not have been the best, but it was certainly better than nothing. And the Lords’ debate revealed a wide range of opinion. There were the doctrinaire political economists, such as Brougham and Fitzwilliam, whose views seem to be drained of every ounce of compassion. But their views were more than compensated for by the genuine compassion of the Evangelical Teynham and the old-fashioned High Churchman Winchilsea, and others whose views were of a more uncertain foundation, such as Normanby and Wharncliffe himself. The interests of working men and women were not unrepresented in the Upper House; they were probably at least as well represented there as they were in the House of Commons. The earl of Winchilsea would also take an active role in the second round of debates on the question of the two North Wales bishoprics. The issue was becoming dangerous for the government. On 24 May 1844, Wellington wrote to Sir James Graham: Lord Powis proposes to move for the repeal of the St. Asaph and Bangor diocese union act on the 10th of June. I have very bad accounts of the feeling of the Lords upon that question, of the bench of bishops particularly. We shall certainly be beat if our opposition do not support us!

The warning was clear and urgent, but Graham, despite his apparent supersensitivity to anything that smacked of religion, took this very calmly, indeed offhandedly. Tacked on at the end of a letter on another subject a few days later, he wrote: “With regard to the St. Asaph and Bangor arrangement as now fixed by law, Sir Robert Peel is firm in his resolution to adhere to it, and I conclude that the archbishop and bishop of London will defend a measure as sanctioned by their own authority, one introduced by themselves.” He was to have a very unpleasant surprise.14 The debate on the second reading of Powis’s bill took place on 11 June. Powis introduced his measure. Wellington argued strongly against it. He was followed by the archbishop of Canterbury, who gave support, if it could be called that, so tepid as to be utterly useless. In a very short speech, he made clear that his heart was on the other side, that if he had it to do over, he would never do it, but what was done was done and would be difficult to undo.15 Lord Winchilsea, who followed, said he “never gave more cordial and warm support to any motion



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than that which he was prepared to give” to this one. He gave high praise to Powis for his service to Wales and to the cause of religion there, and he warned that it would be unwise for Parliament to do violence to the feelings of the Welsh people on the subject. Finally, he declared that a bishopric should be established at Manchester, and established at once.16 The bishop of London spoke next. “If he could be assured of the creation of such a bishopric, with the proper dignity of a place in that House he would at once abandon the position which, as one of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners he now felt called upon to maintain.” But he had to have “some other equally valid security.” And going on to discuss the one leg he had left himself to stand on, he said that he was not absolutely convinced that a new bishopric might not be created without a seat in the Lords, for a time at least. The bishop went on to say that the Commissioners had acted on the best information they could get in the 1830s. It was true, he admitted, that now a different state of feeling prevailed, not only in the principality, but throughout the country at large. He admitted that a strong and deep feeling prevailed throughout the great body of the clergy in favour of the measure proposed by the noble earl; such a feeling did not prevail when the commissioners made their recommendation, a duty which they had discharged at the time with great reluctance.17

The bishop of Exeter stated the obvious. The bishop of London had made it evident that he thought the union of the two sees would be an evil, and he would be anxious to relieve the people of Wales from this mischief. All he needed to be assured of was that there would be a bishopric of Manchester. Phillpotts thought it would be entirely appropriate for Blomfield to give his support now and withdraw it if his condition was not met in Committee. Cheered though he was by Blomfield’s remarks, Phillpotts was also concerned “when he found wise and good men say, ‘We will not assent to this proposal; we insist on its being cast out, and we have power to enforce our determination.’” Clearly it had been intimated that the government would use its prerogative power to stop the bill.18 Commenting on the need for a bishop to have a seat in the Lords, the bishop of Salisbury said he was quite willing to accept Powis’s suggestion of the newest bishop not taking a seat until a second one was vacated. He went on to discuss the more general need and importance of increasing the number of bishops. The great point for him was to put forward the bishops in close connexion with the people, as a visible centre of unity, governing and guiding and counselling with those committed to their charge; not to establish them as remote powers, unseen and little known. That was what he considered

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the great and real question which should be brought before their lordships’ House, and which he wished to see engage the attention of the executive government. That was the question which the universal voice of the Church was pressing upon their notice.

It was not therefore the time, he reasoned, to be decreasing bishoprics, but to be adding to them. The connection with the two Welsh bishoprics is evident. But he now turned back to their plight: “He was reluctant to believe that the government would long continue to refuse to entertain the proposition of the noble earl. He was reluctant to believe this because he was sure that such a course would greatly tend to shock the feelings, to disappoint the hopes, and to shake the confidence of those who were disposed to look with better hope to the present administration.” What the Church wanted to see was “an administration strong too in those higher qualities which were best calculated to engender the confidence, to conciliate the feelings, and to command the respect of a Christian people.” This was a strange admonition to address to a Conservative government headed by Sir Robert Peel. But it would be one increasingly repeated in the future. Partly it was because his government was beginning to realize a promise that had begun to blossom, only to be nipped in the bud in the early months of 1835— advocacy of measures to achieve a broad and comprehensive tolerance of other denominations and faiths. That is to say, he was conforming to Hatherton’s definition of a whig—someone who not only recognized necessity when it looked him in the face, as Wellington did, but sought to anticipate and embrace it. But Peel did not get the credit he deserved for his growing liberalism—partly because it was liberalism. But partly also, it was because he managed to create the impression that the only faith he did not value was his own. The battle over the Welsh bishoprics would do much to create this impression. Belief in the mere threat of the iron fist as sufficient to bring his followers around proved as misplaced as his faith in prelates to do the job. The second reading of the bill passed 49 to 37.19 The government had been beaten, as Wellington had predicted it would be. On 22 June, Wellington wrote to Powis to remind him of the need to get the queen’s permission to proceed with the bill. There could be no doubt, he said, that its provisions affect the prerogative of the Crown and the state of the Church of England; and it has always been considered that bills of which the provisions affect those subjects ought to receive the consent of the sovereign in the course of the discussion upon them in the House of Lords. P.S. I do not propose to take the sense of the House upon the question of referring the bill to a Committee or to give your lordship any further trouble upon it unless some alteration should be made which would render it necessary for me to draw the attention of the House of Lords to the subject. 20



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On the same day, 22 June, Wellington forwarded to Peel a letter from Powis, dated the 21st, requesting the queen’s permission. The duke wrote to Peel: I conclude that you persevere in declining to advise the queen to signify her Majesty’s consent to the discussion of the bill by the House of Lords. But I could not refuse to refer Lord Powis’s letter to you.21

It seems clear from the dating of the respective letters that the duke had taken upon himself to decide that Powis should not simply be left dangling and had given the earl verbal advice no later than the 21st. On the 22nd he wrote his letter to Powis and on the same day forwarded Powis’s letter requesting permission, written the previous day, to a prime minister the duke evidently thought might well not welcome it. On 27 June, Peel let Wellington know that the cabinet would discuss the question.22 The Committee stage of the bill took place on 24 June. The first question asked was Lord Monteagle’s about whether the bill yet had the consent of the Crown. The duke replied that he “had not the authority of her Majesty to give consent to the bill.” He said that he had in the last session suggested that it would be “expedient and proper” to obtain the consent of the Crown before proceeding with the bill. But, as Lord Powis said it was “not necessary that the consent of the Crown should be obtained at any particular stage of the bill,” the duke had no objection to proceed with it in Committee. Lord Campbell then asked if the government would allow the bill to pass into law. Wellington reiterated that he would offer no opposition to the bill going into Committee or being altered there. If he were authorized to give the consent of the Crown, he would; but at present his answer was “that he had not the authority of her Majesty to signify her consent to the bill.”23 In the debate that followed, Monteagle said that, reviewing the actions of the Ecclesiastical Commission in his own time on it, he had discovered that originally the surplus arising from the uniting of the two bishoprics had been intended to increase the incomes of their poorly remunerated clergy. Since it was now evident that the funds were not needed for Manchester, they should be put to the use for which they were originally intended. Obviously, therefore, he was not for scrapping the union. But he also saw the need for new bishoprics.24 A leading Liberal had now come to the government’s aid. Powis said he had discussed the consent process with Wellington before introducing his measure and that he was comfortable with it as described by Wellington. He saw no virtue whatever in Monteagle’s suggestions. After a couple more brief comments, the bill went through Committee with no alterations.25

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The third reading of the bill took place on 1 July. Wellington rose to summarize the state in which the question now stood and to indicate the course he intended to take that night on the part of the government. The bill had gone through Committee, “but with no alterations there which would have the effect of carrying into execution the measures which formed part of the Act which the bill now before the House proposed in part to repeal.” In short, it did not address such questions as how the Manchester bishopric was to be implemented. Beyond this, he was still not authorized to give the queen’s consent on this last stage of the bill. He considered that “a very material point for their lordships’ consideration.” This bill had the effect of repealing part of the act that was the foundation of all the measures to be carried into execution by her Majesty’s Order in Council to promote the union; therefore the bill did touch the prerogative “in a most material degree, and on a most important point—with regard to the regulation and revenues of the Church.” Wellington was sure that if their lordships reflected they would see that it was much more important to the interests of religion, as connected with the interests of the Church, that the Establishment should not lose the advantage which it now enjoyed, of being protected by such a regulation . . . namely that a bill regarding the revenues of the Church, connected as they were with the prerogative of the Crown, could not be discussed without the previous consent of the Crown.

He wished to impress on their lordships, and especially the right rev. bench, “how much more important it was that they should not establish a precedent for the passing of such a bill through Parliament without the previous consent of the Crown than that they should pass the bill to prevent the union of these two dioceses.” After canvassing a number of important Church projects that would be discommoded by the passage of the bill, Wellington summarized his position. He was not authorized to give her Majesty’s assent—and on that ground alone the right rev. bench ought to withdraw their support for the bill. It was apparently at this point that a scene vividly described by Hatherton took place. The duke “turned his back on the House and stood with his face towards the bishops, now crossing his arms, and then outstretching his right arm, with his fist clenched—and lectured them roundly in his slow, but despotic and energetic manner, his countenance full of severely subdued anger.” Wellington could undoubtedly be ill-tempered and peevish, as his colleagues testified. But there was nothing petty about this performance. The duke meant to make an impression, and he did. In a powerful speech, he succeeded in making as full and strong a case as could be made for the government position.



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As to the future, Wellington said that he had neither the power nor the inclination to amend the bill. If therefore their lordships did persist in the third reading, the bill must be sent to the other House, there to be amended so that it would be possible to obtain the other objects included in the original act. Under the circumstances, he certainly did not mean to call for another division. He contented himself with declaring “that he had not the authority to signify her Majesty’s consent to the discussion of this bill.”26 In the debate that followed, Monteagle backed the duke to the hilt. The lord chancellor doubted that he had the right to put the question on the third reading and advised a committee to examine precedents. Lords Cottenham and Campbell defended Wellington’s position. Lord Lansdowne, leader of the opposition, advised Powis that it would be unwise to press the matter. Only the duke of Richmond and Brougham spoke for the other side. Finally, Powis agreed to postpone the third reading.27 On 4 July, Lord Wharncliffe brought up the report of the committee to examine precedents. There were none. Wharncliffe moved that the committee should inquire whether the bill was of a sort where consent of the Crown was given before it passed the House. This was agreed to. On the following day the committee reported that the bill was one where royal consent was necessary and that it was customary to receive it at various stages.28 The next meeting of the House on the bill was on the 11th. But on the 8th, Wellington had written to Powis that he had no authority to convey the queen’s assent, “nor shall I have such.” Thus, if the motion were made that the bill pass, he must oppose it and, in view of the select committee’s report, take the sense of the House.29 On the 11th, therefore, Powis recognized that he had little choice but to withdraw the bill. It was, he said, an unusual step to take with a bill that had received the Lords’ sanction on its second reading. But he thought it was the only course to take. It was clear what would happen if the bill were sent to the House of Commons—nothing good. It could be discussed in the Lords the next year. Only thirty-seven peers had opposed the measure, and his decision to withdraw had been sanctioned by the bishops. What he proposed to do would, he said, leave this “unusual, as he must call it, exercise of the prerogative in such a prominent point of view—the most likely to secure the ultimate success of his object.” Similarly angry remarks were made by speakers who followed. The earl of Mount Edgecumbe, who had opposed the second reading, deplored the fact that “a majority of that House, was in the face of the country, overborne by the government.” The bishop of Bangor complained that the bill had been disposed of “upon a formal and technical objection.” Lord Lyttleton said “he

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could not think it a very fair way of stopping a bill if it could not be resisted on its merits, and he thought it was a proceeding not very worthy of this or any other government.” And the bishop of Salisbury felt it necessary to defend the proponents of the measure from the charge that the bill “expressed the wishes and gave effect to the intentions of parties who desired to dissolve the union between the Church and the State, with the view of establishing the supremacy of the Church over the State.” The only basis for such a notion, he said, was that Powis had, in introducing his bill, quoted a pamphlet that advocated the revival of Convocation.30 It did not require a great deal of proof in this period to arouse a great many fears. Early in July, Sir James Graham acknowledged a proposal from Lionel de Rothschild for opening municipal offices to Jews, forwarded to Graham by Rothschild’s next-door neighbor, the duke of Wellington. A decade earlier the latter would have been a very strange intermediary indeed. Graham promised to speak to Peel about the proposal. But, he said, it was late in the session to introduce such legislation, “especially while the St. Asaph and Bangor bill is still pending, which places us more or less in hostility to the bench of Bishops and the high Church party. We must exercise caution therefore before we decide on Mr. Rothschild’s proposal.”31 A government bill to open municipal offices to Jews would be the first important item of business for the Lords in the next session. But their troubles with the Established Church were by no means over. Graham and Peel had badly miscalculated on the St. Asaph and Bangor bill. Their faith in the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London had proved to be entirely misplaced. If the archbishop produced at best only a damp squib, the bishop absolutely sold the pass. Wellington had given his colleagues an urgent warning and suggested the solution. But they did not even bother to mention the hint about alerting the whigs, which, as the whig rallying round after the event suggested, would have saved the day. Besides relying on weak reeds, the government relied on veiled threats of invoking the prerogative, which proved equally ineffective. The end result was a humiliating defeat on the second reading. After that, if they were to resist, they had little choice but to rely on the prerogative. This, despite Wellington’s able pleading of the case, was bound to look like what it was—an artificial device to rescue the government from a tight spot of its own making. The episode marked the beginning of real ill feeling toward the government and its handling of religious affairs. Things would only get worse.

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On 24 June 1844, just after the end of the session, Stanley wrote to Peel that he had become bored with the routine work of the colonial office. He hinted that he had felt hurt by Peel giving the home office, where most of the activity and authority was, to Graham. There was no other office in the Commons that interested him. He thought, however, that he could be of real assistance in the Lords. He said he did not know what his colleagues would feel about such a move. But “with one of them I can have no rivalry. His age, his character, his position would render such an idea not less presumptuous on my part as absurd with reference to the feelings of the House, the party, and the country.” But he thought he could take some of the load of debate off Wellington’s shoulders as well as supporting and reinforcing his lead in public business. Stanley made it clear that he would not serve under any other colleague in the Lords. If Peel wished at any future time that he should have the lead in the Upper House, “I think it is of paramount importance that I should be introduced into it while the duke is still in full possession of his powers.”1 Peel informed Wellington of Stanley’s desires. The duke was more than supportive. He said that, as in the natural course of things Stanley must be in the Lords, and the same would be true of others in the opposition succeeding their fathers, “it would undoubtedly be desirable in that view of the question alone that Lord Stanley should be called to that House at an early period.” The duke went on to say that “I am as well as I have been for the last twenty-two years, and as well able to transact business in the House of Lords, or elsewhere. But I cannot but feel that it would be highly advantageous to have, and that a great object would be attained by having there Lord Stanley.” Wellington would, he said, “continue as I am, or take any part or no part, as might be deemed most convenient”2

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Peel replied that though they would miss Stanley in the Commons, it would be in the public interest that he should have the opportunity, as he must be in the Lords at no remote period, of acting there under your guidance and under your direction. It is your influence and authority in the Lords, founded not merely on your position and high character, but on the weight which is attached to whatever falls from you in debate, that has smoothed our difficulties in the Lords and kept that assembly in harmony in the House of Commons.

Peel would not hear of the duke retiring.3 The Jewish Disabilities bill, to open municipal office to Jews, was introduced on 10 March 1845. Once more Lyndhurst, who in the previous year had seen that justice was done to the Unitarians, was put in charge of seeking it for the Jews. His purpose, he said, was to get rid of “some anomalies, and some inconsistencies, and I may be permitted to say, some absurdities” regarding the admission of Jews to corporate offices. There was, he pointed out, no bar to their appointment as county magistrates, as could be shown in half a dozen counties. By parliamentary sanction, they were also eligible to the office of high sheriff, and they were bound by law to serve. As everyone knew, that office in London was often a stepping-stone to the office of alderman. Was it fair that Jews should be barred from the reward? And there were indeed cities where Jews were aldermen, in Birmingham, Portsmouth, and Southampton. The way the Jews were excluded was highly objectionable. To take office, they were required to make a declaration on the true faith of a Christian as provided in the statute repealing the Test and Corporation Acts. “This, my lords, is a species of mockery.” It was time to stop this kind of insult. What Lyndhurst proposed was that for Jews the offending Christian clause be omitted, similar adjustments having already been made to suit the cases of Quakers and Moravians. Lyndhurst admitted that the grounds he had chosen to base his bill on were narrow. This was deliberate. He and his colleagues were anxious that this measure should pass. They were “desirous, therefore, of not resting it upon those great views of general policy which might admit much matter of controversy, of difficulty, and of doubt; and in the consideration of which the particular measure might be forgotten and lost.”4 The bishop of London said that he had previously opposed a similar bill because he thought it was likely to lead to the admission of Jews to Parliament. He would not offer any opposition to this measure, “because were he so disposed, it would only raise discussion, and excite angry feelings, and lessen the grace of the boon they were about to confer on this respectable body of men.” Blomfield



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wanted it clearly understood, however, if a bill for admitting Jews to Parliament were introduced, he would not support it.5 Lord Lansdowne “expressed his happiness at seeing the proof of the advance of liberal opinions.” He twitted Lyndhurst a bit for not having taken up the cause long ago, but he gave his strong support both to the substance of the measure and to the tactics employed to pass it. Brougham and Campbell joined Lansdowne in these sentiments.6 Bishop Blomfield was a little worried when he heard the word unanimity used. He wanted to make it plain that he was “no party to this measure.” He simply did not wish to oppose it “and stir up angry feelings.”7 The bill passed its second reading and its subsequent stages without opposition. There is no doubt, as Lansdowne said, that the bill’s passage marked a significant advance for liberal opinion, as had the Dissenters chapels bill the previous year. Both were courageous measures, marking a distinctly new departure for a Conservative government. Such a conclusion is not weakened by the tactics employed in 1845. The grounds for adopting them were openly admitted, but the necessity for such tactics was real. Tempers on several religious issues were rising high all at once and reinforcing one another. The situation was becoming explosive, threatening the breakup of the Conservative party in a surge of bigotry, and thus a halt in the advance of civil and religious liberty. It is evident that Blomfield was fully aware of the danger, and it is likely that he had been consulted beforehand. He and Peel were on close terms (which makes the Commons leaders’ ignorance about the wider implications involved in the St. Asaph and Bangor bill and the bishops’ position on it the previous year even stranger). It was essential that if the Jewish Disabilities bill was to be passed, a formula must be found that all parties could safely accept without arousing their constituents and that it could therefore be done quietly without the danger of provoking a public outcry. These things were accomplished, but the passage of the bill was neither forgotten nor forgiven by those who disapproved. On 26 March 1845, Wellington called Peel’s attention to the fact that Lord Powis had given notice that he would bring in another St. Asaph and Bangor bill after the Easter recess. “I conclude that we shall again withhold the assent of the Crown to the bill, if it should be intended to oppose, which I should think would lead to an unpleasant proceeding and discussion in the Lords, judging by what passed in the last session of Parliament.” The duke was not being at his most forceful and direct in this letter, but this was clearly a broad hint to cease and desist. Wellington then went on to discuss tactics. Previously the argument against the bill had rested mainly on the monetary blow it would give to other Church

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schemes dependent upon it, especially the Manchester bishopric. But, he said, the difficulty arising from the “weakening” of the number of bishoprics, of adding to the number in the House of Lords or of leaving any unprovided with seats in the House had not been referred to by him in the debates in the last session of Parliament, but in both debates (1843 and 1844) it was very little considered by Lord Powis’s supporters. Here the duke was probably going a little too far, because though these issues were certainly much less discussed than the monetary ones, one of the reasons was because a number of Powis’s supporters simply brushed them aside as unimportant. They wanted more bishops, whether or not they had seats in Parliament. Wellington reported that he had seen the archbishop and the bishop of London and had urged upon both “the necessity [that] the members of the Ecclesiastical Commission should take part in the debate and oppose [not to put too fine a point on it] Lord Powis’s bill.” The archbishop had also said that the original Commissioners, himself, and the bishops of London, Lincoln, and Gloucester would oppose the bill. The duke then turned to something that both the archbishop and the bishop of London had said, and what Wellington had already reported to Peel, that the union of the bishoprics was no longer necessary to carry out the projects previously dependent upon it. Blomfield, of course, had already proclaimed this to the world. Wellington said that he had “requested the archbishop to speak to you on the question.” Having himself spoken to the archbishop, Wellington would have known perfectly well that what the archbishop would press on Peel was dropping his opposition to the bill. What Wellington wrote to Peel, however, was that if the information about the funds of the bishoprics no longer being needed was correct, “it would remain for us to consider whether it would not be best for the government to consider of the measure to be adopted in the view of an increase in the number of bishops in relation to the seats in the House of Lords.” The duke may well have been serious about this as a useful tactic. It was, however, not his only aim in writing the letter. He wanted Peel to think again.8 Though they were in worried communication over the threatened resignation of the veteran Conservative whip, Lord Redesdale, who was deeply concerned about all three of the government’s religious bills, the duke had no response from Peel about the Welsh bishops bill for almost two weeks. When the response came, it was curt: I have seen the archbishop of Canterbury on the subject and have told him that I regretted I could not give my consent to the bill—and must oppose it if it should be sent to the House of Commons.



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The question is one involving many of the considerations affecting the Church, besides those that immediately relate to the union of the sees. My own opinion is that we ought to adhere to the course taken in the Lords last year and decline at the proper stage of the bill giving the consent of the Crown to it. In addition to the other objections which I should feel to the repeal of the existing act so recently passed by Parliament, I stated in the House of Commons last session that I should oppose the bill if it came down to the Commons.9

Peel was adamantine, and in the last paragraph there were those telltale signs of pique and petulance that had caused crises in the personal relationship between the two men before. Wellington would naturally have been aware that such a reply was more likely than not, and that is doubtless what lay behind the relative opacity of his own letter, treading carefully so as not to provoke an unfortunate reaction. In any case, as in the previous year, the duke’s reaction to a rebuff of his advice was quite calm and unperturbed. It was simply “I will take the course which you have suggested.” There was, however, a new threat in the situation that had been mentioned in passing at the end of the previous year’s debates. “The difficult question will be a motion for an Address to the queen to pray her Majesty to give the Royal Assent to the discussion of that bill, or to order that another should be presented to provide for the repeal of the act which unites the dioceses of St. Asaph and Bangor.”10 It was one thing for the government to invoke a queen who had to be addressed through one of her ministers and whose reply was delivered by her ministers, in this case to announce her supposed unwillingness to grant permission for a bill to go forward. It was quite another when an Address directly to the queen, which required an answer from her, was the mode of approach. To put words into the mouth of the monarch, and head of the Church, would have brought the queen herself to center stage, on a very controversial issue, and at a time when the conventions of advice still were not fully agreed on, much less widely understood. Many had held both of the queen’s uncles personally responsible for legislation in their reigns. If there were an Address to the queen, it would be acutely embarrassing both to her and to her government. On 12 April 1845, Powis sent the duke a letter that began with an acknowledgment of “the kindness your Grace has shown me during our ecclesiastical differences of opinion,” and went on to describe his proposed course of action on his bill. He intended to move the second reading on the 22nd, but on Monday of that week he would ask the ministers whether the queen would grant permission for the passage of the bill through Parliament. If the answer was unfavorable, it had been thought by “those I have advised with” that the proper

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parliamentary course for him to pursue would be to distribute on Tuesday an Address to the queen “praying her majesty to be graciously pleased to give her permission for the discussion and passing of the bill instead of moving for the second reading.” The Address would take the place of the bill. Wellington immediately fired off a note asking for a postponement so, he said, that the cabinet would have more time to consider the printed bill. Powis declined because this would not suit the “convenience of others.”11 Clearly, however, the duke did not give up; for on 18 April, he informed Peel that Powis had postponed the second reading or Address for a week, and on the preceding Friday would ask for an answer to his question about the course to be followed by the government, “which I may answer or not as may suit your convenience.” Wellington also drew Peel’s attention to references in Powis’s letters to “those I advise with,” and “the convenience of others,” which showed, according to the duke, that Powis “was acting with a party.” This obviously concerned him.12 The duke’s next letter to Peel on the 19th brought glad tidings indeed. The previous day Powis had put his question as to how the government intended to proceed. Wellington answered, “as had been settled I should,” that the cabinet had the bill under consideration. He could only say that he had not received the queen’s authority to give her assent to the progress of the bill. Powis had said he would give his decision on the Monday following. Wellington, however, acted the same day: I deemed it desirable to see him this evening, and I pointed out the consequences of the different courses he might take in relation to the prerogative of the Crown and the public interests, particularly those of the Church, protected by the Crown, and in addition to his immediate object, the prevention of the union of the Welsh dioceses. He is certainly a great deal in the hands of a party. Thus he told me before he quitted me that he would not give this notice till Thursday and that it will be his object to prevail upon his party and proceed in the regular course with the bill and endeavor to amend it in the Committee and not to call for the queen’s consent till the 3rd reading. I think that the trial of strength will be upon the bill, and not upon the Address to the queen.13

On 24 April, Powis withdrew his bill and presented a new one for its first reading.14 The first crisis had passed. There is no record of precisely what the duke said to Powis. But whatever it was, he got to Powis before his friends did, and what he said persuaded the earl to abandon the embarrassing course he was pursuing. Powis’s introduction of the new bill for its second reading contained several pieces of interesting information. The bill was described as one “to enable her Majesty to make certain provisions for preventing the union of the sees of St.



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Asaph and Bangor, and for the appointment of a bishop of Manchester.” Powis and his friends had taken account of comments and advice in previous sessions that they make some provision in their proposal for the realization of other worthy projects included in the bill they wished to revise. Peel, however, was not in the least impressed by the new version of the proposal, claiming that in substance it was just as objectionable as the previous one.15 Powis also announced that the effort to save the bishoprics had the support of twenty-five English counties and every county in both North and South Wales, thirty-seven in all. Powis himself had been given an honorary degree by Oxford for his exertions in the cause. Last, but not least, Powis read a letter from the archbishop of Canterbury. The only reason that the archbishop was unable to support the cause was because other objects to which he was pledged were dependent on the union of St. Asaph and Bangor. This, as the archbishop and a large number of others knew, was not true. Indeed he himself had made a last effort only a little over a week before to persuade Peel to let Powis’s legislation pass: It has struck me that advantage might be taken of the new bill now proposed by Lord Powis to let it pass without opposition in both Houses and thus put a stop to the annual excitement occasioned by the repeated discussion of this measure as well as to avoid any diminution of the influence of the Church in that part of the principality.

This does not suggest that the archbishop felt that there were any binding obligations to specific projects that could not otherwise be met. The only possible justification for Howley’s stated one would lie in Peel’s general approach to the whole issue. As he wrote to Howley, the severance of the intended union would in my opinion be an essential alteration of the general scheme of Church reform—would weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical commission—would encourage proposals for further alterations of the general plan of improvement—and would be vehemently contested in the House of Commons by persons hostile to the Church who would plead the recorded authority of the ecclesiastical commission for resistance to the proposed repeal of the act of the legislature.16

Peel’s argument, in short, was that, remove this linchpin and the whole structure would come tumbling down. Coming only ten years after the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Commission, this argument is understandable. But like most such arguments it was exaggerated. The whole issue was to be settled in a little over a year’s time, when the bishop of St. Asaph died and a successor was named by the Liberal government of Lord John Russell, without any cataclysmic consequences. It is unlikely that such a broad and sweeping argument influenced Howley. Probably what decided the archbishop was loyalty

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to Peel and his promise to oppose Powis’s measure. But the nature of his statement of opposition, and the fact that it was delivered by Powis, cannot have convinced many, if any, to oppose. Worse was yet to come. Wellington’s response to Powis did not contain much new argument. He pointed out that only about a hundred of the petitions came from the two dioceses and the other two-thirds “from the clergymen and others from all parts of England.” As these included petitions from Cambridge University, as well as Oxford, which had already honored Powis, this was not necessarily a cause for complacency. He also pointed out that St. Asaph and Bangor stood to gain by funds that would be diverted to them. And he employed Peel’s argument that the effect of Powis’s motion, if carried, would be to shake the foundation of the activities carried out on the recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commission’s reports. But the basic logic of his speech was that it was too late to take things apart and put them together again and that the two dioceses were actually doing very well out of the arrangement. In conclusion, he moved that the second reading take place that day six months. Most of the speakers had, like Wellington, already spoken in earlier debates and did not have a great deal new to say. Lord Stanley was an exception on both counts. He accepted that the bill was supported by the “assent of many of your lordships, and by the almost unanimous concurrence of [the] right rev. bench and, I am bound to admit, by a great portion of public opinion out of doors, on the part of those most sincerely attached to the Church and interested in its welfare.” Having admitted what most, if not all, of his colleagues had either denied or tried to brush aside, Stanley then put his version of their position. Her Majesty’s ministers, however, “who have a duty to perform, are bound by higher considerations not to defer to any authority however high . . . or to support . . . a measure which they believe not to be advantageous to the best interests of the Church.” And then, given the opinions of the prime minister and the actions of the duke, there was another surprise: “I throw aside the advantages I might derive from the objection that this measure has not received the previous sanction of the Crown.” Instead, Stanley insisted on raising the whole question to what he called a higher plane. He said they must bear in mind the reason the Ecclesiastical Commission was founded in the first place: to even out inequalities that were both wrong and damaging to the Church. He begged their lordships not to raise the question of adding bishops and thus rekindling conflicts about the political power of the Church.17 Lord Hatherton recorded the reaction of the bishop of Exeter, who to his traditional High Church ultra position had recently added some modern Pusey-



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ism and a defense of Ritualism. Phillpotts, Hatherton said, was greatly struck by Lord Stanley’s power of speaking and said his speech was “‘capital,’ though he differed from him. He particularly admired Stanley’s courage and bearing and the confident, determined front he presented, which with his great information, quick susceptibility, full and tenacious memory, and wonderful command of words certainly made him a formidable opponent.”18 Known in his younger, whig days as the “Rupert of debate,” after the gallant Cavalier of the Civil Wars, Stanley was certainly bold and daring and supremely confident. He began by playing to the self-esteem of his audience, devalued by his colleagues. Even more attractive to many must have been his cavalier dismissal of the detested prerogative argument. And, inviting everyone to move with him to a higher plane, he put forward an argument for the government’s position, including Peel-like admiration for the latter’s darling creation, the Ecclesiastical Commission, as well as employing the strategy Wellington had recommended to Peel of stressing the political dangers of adding to the numbers of bishops. Stanley’s promotion to the Lords had been no mistake. The other speech which deserves attention is the bishop of London’s: Seeing that the argument of the noble earl did not go to prevent the establishment at Manchester, and viewing the strong feeling which had been shown for increasing the number of bishops, he did not see how he could consistently reject the noble earl’s motion. He was strongly opposed to breaking down the system of ecclesiastical reform which had been established by the ecclesiastical commissioners; but still he thought they ought not to adhere pertinaciously to a particular measure which the almost universal voice of the Church condemned.

But he hoped they would not consider him inconsistent, “if in deference to the peculiar position in which he was placed, he abstained from voting altogether.”19 Of its promised supporters, the archbishop at least gave the government a vote. Only one bishop did, the whig bishop of Worcester. Fortunately for the government, it did not need the support of the bishops. In the division Powis’s supporters numbered 97, including 13 bishops. The supporters of the government numbered 129, including 2 bishops.20 But a further breakdown of the government vote reveals a more sobering picture; it was made up of 79 Conservatives and 50 whigs. The position was as Wellington had stated it to Graham the year before; the government could not win on this issue without the whigs. The whigs were well inclined. They were staunch supporters of the Ecclesiastical Commission and had been the first to implement it. Also they were even more suspicious of High Churchmen and their motives than the government. Besides these mutual interests, Lansdowne, as leader of the opposition, was as

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anxious to be helpful to a government in need of support for a worthy cause as Wellington had been in a similar position (and the whigs had not forgotten it). The time had come again when a government had to be backed against its own supporters. But whig support could not be assumed. Wellington’s strong hint to Peel and Graham that it ought to be sought in 1844 had met with a cold reception, which is why it was not forthcoming in time. The duke would take no chances with the next great issue that lay before them. In the meantime he had achieved a great deal. He had made the best of a bad situation in 1844. Defeated on the second reading, he had almost single-handedly managed to block the bill by a skillful deployment of the royal prerogative argument. It was not his chosen weapon, but it is what Peel had given him; and he loyally used it, sometimes with great force, almost brutality, as in his lecture to the bishops. It was not a task that many would have wished to undertake or would have got away with. It took brass nerve, of which the duke had plenty. But what he was relying on was in fact a pretext, and pretexts do not get far without considerable force behind them. At the same time, he treated Powis with great consideration and courtesy and kept him and the House informed as far as he was able. In this session his achievements for the government’s cause were even greater. He had called Powis to Apsley House and face to face talked him out of the embarrassing Address to the queen. He had then, after Powis presented a new bill, chosen to throw it out on the second reading. This might seem a little hard, but it was the way a dangerous bill was often treated—and this had become a dangerous bill. With no help from his colleagues, rather hindrance, the duke had achieved this mostly by himself, though with vital aid from the whigs. And he did it for the most part with impunity. His reputation with the peers at any rate seems not to have suffered much, as is suggested by the fact that on 28 May he received a warm invitation to dine from Lord Powis.21 The bishops were another matter. They gave Powis strong support, and probably all those who did not vote would, like Blomfield, have supported the bill as well. The archbishop admitted as much. Their animosity toward the government would continue, as would that of a group of mainly High Church ultra peers who had also supported Powis. On 20 May, Wellington had written to Peel that “notwithstanding the ill temper in the House of Lords on the Welch [sic] dioceses question, on Maynooth, and Irish academical education,” they would have no trouble with the election of an Irish representative peer.22 Nor did they on that question. They had relatively little problem with the Dublin University Act. But the closely connected Welsh dioceses bill and the Maynooth bill, as well as the Jewish Disabilities bill, produced serious ill temper that would carry on beyond the currency of the immediate issues.



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Before the debates on the bishops bill began, the government was struggling within itself over the Maynooth bill. The proposal was for an outright grant of £30,000 to rebuild the college, a tripling of the annual grant, and provision for its permanent endowment. It was the last provision that caused the greatest controversy because it involved incorporation. In a long letter to Wellington on 4 April, laying out his objections to the bill, Lord Redesdale began: I object to the college being made a corporation as conceding the principle of a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical Establishment. How if you admit that body to be a corporation for the purpose of educating Roman Catholic priests can you object to the priest being made a corporation sole for the endowment of a chapel or district for the spiritual service of the Roman Catholic population? The principle appears to be the cause in each case, or so nearly as to be a fatal concession. It was Mr. O’Connell’s demand in his bill of last session and justly objected to by you on the ground of its being a Roman Catholic establishment.

Peel and others would argue eloquently against the conclusion that the passing of the bill would amount to the establishment of Roman Catholicism. But their arguments never convinced Anglicans, who feared such an establishment, or Dissenters and Scottish Free Churchmen, who objected to any sort of establishment. The petitions of all three against the bill would roll in by the thousands. But the focus of the Lords would be mainly on the first Anglican objection. Another great objection Redesdale had to the bill was raising the number of students to be educated. He admitted the necessity of maintaining Maynooth. He accepted that the annual grant had to be raised in order to enable the college to carry out the purpose for which it was founded. But he was neither very optimistic nor very gracious in his expectations. What was done, would be done, in the hope that as it is now very bad it may become better by improving the condition both of masters and scholars. But this can be held out but to be an experiment, and it may fail. It is bad enough to educate 450 to mischief. Till it is proved that the change of system amends the man educated there, why agree to educate 500? The principle of giving more money in the hope that the 450 may turn out better men is unreasonable, but to augment the numbers of this establishment, bad in its original principle and hitherto mischievous, while all pants to supply the spiritual destitution of our own Church in the country are uniformly refused, is a concession to popery to the injury of the Church. The whole policy is a serious discouragement to Protestantism.

Wellington conveyed all the information in the letter to Peel, adding a comment of his own on Redesdale’s state of mind. He said that Redesdale appeared to apprehend that this and other measures intended on the part of the government a relaxation of zeal for the support of the Church of England, particularly in Ireland. He mentioned any further relaxation in relation to the disabilities of the Jews as

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objectionable to him and in his opinion a symptom in relaxation of feelings of attachment to the Church of England.23

Redesdale had been the Conservative whip since 1837 and had been punctilious in his duties—so punctilious that, though he resigned over the Maynooth question, he voted for it. No one knew the Conservative lords better than he did, and there is no doubt that he represented a broader opinion than his own. He stated it clearly and well. These were the basic positions that its leaders must try to overcome in their own party. Redesdale also demonstrates once again the intertwining of issues. The current issues were religious, and the position taken on them by Peel’s government, whether from idealism or ignorance, were such as to alienate a large and important segment of their own party. The only issue besides Maynooth mentioned by Redesdale or Wellington is the Jewish disabilities question, which the former obviously did not consider settled by the recent bill. This session’s debates on the Welsh bishops bill had not yet begun, but it is likely that Redesdale would have secretly supported that bill as well. In any case, complaints like his about the government’s neglect of the Church and its positions had already been made by participants in those debates in earlier sessions. A Conservative government at loggerheads with the Church was in a precarious position. The debates on the Maynooth bill began with a bang on 2 June. Wellington had hardly started to open the question for the second reading of the bill than the duke of Newcastle staged one of his notorious performances. He rose to a point of order. He thought it right as a preliminary to discussion to put the question to the duke as to whether he had the queen’s permission to make this proposition to the House? This was followed by shouts of “Hear” and “Order!” Whether Brougham was aware what was being parodied here—which was, of course, the weapon wielded by the government on the bishops bill—he took it seriously, declaring: “This is not order,” going on to inform Newcastle that the question should not have been put until after the duke had finished his speech.” Newcastle replied: “I wish to put the question as it affects the Act of Succession, as it affects the nation, and as it affects individuals.” This was followed by more cries of “Order,” “Order.” An angry Brougham was on his feet once more: “My lords, I rise to order. I will not sit here and allow any man to deny that we have the right to enter into, to continue, and to close any discussion of any nature.” And he instructed their lordships that the permission of the Crown was required only to measures affecting the revenues or patrimonial interests of the Crown. He added that this “was one of the most disorderly proceedings I ever witnessed in the whole course of my experience.” But an unrepentant



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Newcastle “was understood to say that he had previously asked the question, and had not received an answer, and he now interrupted what he must say he thought a most improper discussion.”24 Newcastle had not, as some thought, gone mad. He had confided to his diary several days before he left his country house in Nottinghamshire to go up to London that he went to interrupt the minister’s statement on the Maynooth bill. He would reveal his scheme to no one, “as surprise will be everything.” And he “was sanguine enough to think that it might be successful.”25 But unlike his 1835 halting of the progress of the Municipal Corporations bill, he was not successful in this and later attempts in the debate to disrupt proceedings for long. The reasons will be discussed later. Wellington, calm and unruffled, resumed his speech with a long but not ineffective historical background, talking of the decline of the persecution of Catholics and the founding of the college. He observed that, judging from the petitions against it, “the principal objection to this bill is the danger which is likely to result from it to the Protestant Church Establishment.” Having recited a long list of names of those who supported the foundation of the college in 1795, including George III, William Pitt, and Edmund Burke, he suggested they would have been unlikely proponents of a dangerous institution. But if the attitudes of the Irish Catholic clergy were to be kept safe and moderate by a Maynooth education, they had better be sure that it was a good one. No one could call the education now provided by Maynooth that: the college buildings were falling down; the salaries paid to those who taught there were grossly inadequate; students were overcrowded, underfed, and generally ill supported. The aim of the present measure was to raise the quality of the institution and to make sure that “the character of those educated in it should be elevated, with a view to furnish ecclesiastics of the same character and station as those who administer the rites of the Roman Catholic religion in foreign countries,” who inspired respect in everyone. Irish priests should be “men educated in manners and habits to enable them to exercise a fitting influence over the social habits of the people, to which they ought to be entitled by their fortunes, by their situation, and by their acquirements.” In short, as Wellington would remark later in the debates, the bill’s object for Maynooth students was “making gentlemen out of them.” Turning his attention to a clause which “has made some impression,” he said that when the institution was founded it was incorporated. A few years later, a flaw was found in the incorporation, and there had been an effort to correct it, but that too was found to be flawed. In the measure before them, the trustees were to be incorporated and the property now held was to be transferred to

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the corporation, which was to have all the powers of other corporations. The government grant was to be made perpetual—that is, it was to be a permanent endowment. Having described the aims of the bill and its provisions, the duke moved its second reading.26 The duke of Cambridge, another soldier son of George III and an enthusiastic supporter of the Jewish Disabilities bill, “considered the bill as most important, being one of the most conciliatory measures proposed for a long period.” Seeing it as a political question and of no danger to the Church of England, he gave it his heartiest support.27 Lord Roden was strongly opposed to the measure and announced that he intended to move for a select committee to inquire into the nature of the instruction given in the seminary before they proceeded further with the measure. He was opposed to vote any grant, even an annual grant, for the support of a Roman Catholic institution—how much more the present proposal not only different in degree but in principle. So long as an annual grant continued, the college was a Roman Catholic institution, supported and tolerated by the state. But the moment they “admitted and acted upon the principle of endowment, that moment the College of Maynooth became a state institution for which the state was responsible.” Roden complained that Protestant educational institutions in Ireland had been neglected or diverted while favor was shown to Maynooth. Irish Catholics were disloyal, and he pointed to accounts over the years where that disloyalty had been expressed in student festivities. These, it must be said, sounded more like student festivities than anything very dangerous.28 The bishop of London thought Roden had established a case that would justify the House in granting the committee he sought. His own reason for not supporting the bill was that, “while it involved an utter violation of one of the most fundamental principles of the constitution, it held out no valid prospect of such results as might justify it on the grounds of expediency.” Drawing on the report of the 1824 Commission on the State of Irish education, he said that the students “were taken from the decidedly inferior classes of society” and were bigoted and disloyal. As to the principle, “their lordships were in great danger, by passing this measure of sanctioning a principle that would rivet upon the Church the first link in a chain of evil, from which they would not be able thereafter to set it free.” It was the first link “to tie together the state and the Roman Catholic church.”29 The Irish secretary, the earl of St. Germans, said in effect that as Roden and the bishop were already clearly convinced of the error of the doctrines taught at Maynooth, he thought there was little use in having an inquiry. But he would point out that the evidence for the disloyalty of students there was based on



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evidence from an unnamed gentleman, describing a meeting of a certain society at the college twenty years ago. There was plenty more evidence, which he cited, in the other direction.30 The earl of Carnarvon said that those who argued the absolute incompatibility of Roman Catholicism and their own religion and pronounced so harshly on what is religious truth and what falsehood, ought to remember that “in this very city in which we are now debating the Tractarian and the man of the Evangelical school hold on points of no slight importance opinions diametrically opposed to each other. Absolute truth my lords cannot dwell with both parties; truth unmixed with error probably dwells with none.” Lord de Ros also spoke in favor of the bill. “His prayer was that all those who called themselves Christians might be led and knit together in the bonds of peace; and believing that this measure was calculated to cement that bond of peace he had great pleasure in giving it his cordial support.”31 The vote took place on 4 June. In the information given on the division, Hansard excels itself in inaccuracy and obscurity. It gives a division list for a preliminary vote, without proxies. The numbers were 155 to 59, giving a majority for the measure, it is claimed, of 106 instead of 96. On the second reading, it lists the proxies, but provides numbers only for those present, which indicate that fifteen lords left after the first division. On such an issue, and as the second division immediately followed the first, this seems highly unlikely. Therefore I base my calculations on the list of those present in the first division, and the proxy lists. Of the 155 present, the Liberals supplied 71 votes, including 5 bishops. There were also 37 Liberal proxies, making 108 Liberal votes in all. The figures for the Conservatives are 84 present and 45 proxies, 129. The figures for those against the measure are 59 present and 14 proxies, 73. This figure includes the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishop of London, and 14 other bishops, 17 in all. My division, then, is 237 to 73, a majority of 164 for the bill. Hansard’s figures are 226 to 69, a majority of 157.32 It was a smashing defeat for the opponents of Maynooth, a far cry from the two previous decades when opinions such as theirs could count on divisions of a hundred and more. It was taken at the time as a sign that the Conservative lords had become a great deal more liberal, especially as compared with their party in the Commons. Peel, though the bill was saved by the Liberals, was humiliated by his own party voting against it 149 to 148. Wellington would have had a majority of about 50 in the Lords without any support from the whigs. “Thank God, we have a House of Lords,” a friend of Hatherton exclaimed a day after the vote, “as the Orangemen used to say in former times.”33 It is true that the Lords were becoming more liberal in religious matters. One reason was the

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whig converts to Conservatism, who now numbered 48 in a party of 24834 and who usually brought their liberal opinions with them. (Twenty-five voted for the Maynooth grant, fourteen abstained, and nine voted against it.) Also, as their speeches in Parliament suggest, many younger Conservatives were shedding the tory views of their fathers. But if one remembers the fate of Jewish Emancipation measures in the Lords over the next decade, it would probably be wrong to take the division on the Maynooth bill as an accurate reflection of a decline of bigotry. The fourteen proxies were a particularly pitiful showing, suggesting little or no organization, and probably a lack more of spirit than numbers. What might have caused such a situation? The most likely explanation is the loss of the Welsh bishops bill a month before. Close to half of those voting for that bill—thirty-two peers and eight bishops, about 44 percent of the supporters of the bill—voted against the Maynooth bill. Thus, though the bishops bill was not solely an ultra measure, it was clearly one in which they took a great interest. Therefore its defeat in 1845 was naturally disappointing. Coming after the victory over the government in 1844, which raised great hope, would have made the disappointment even greater. And the fact that in 1845 the bishops bill was defeated with whig support is likely to have been the crowning blow. Because of the difference between Wellington and his colleagues, there had been no effort to call on whig support in 1844. This was what allowed the victory of Powis and his supporters then, but it allowed it no longer. The ultras had been a significant minority in an effort that had failed. Clearly they had little hope of achieving anything by themselves. Wellington left nothing to chance on the Maynooth bill. He kept Lansdowne well informed of what was going on.35 Lord Campbell moved the third reading, and Lansdowne delivered the final summing-up just before the division. It was cooperation that paid the government dividends. Of course, the extent of the whigs’ participation in carrying the Maynooth bill would not have been known in advance, but the support they had just provided in the defeat of the bishops bill would have been an evident warning, and that was probably enough. It would hardly be surprising, therefore, if the ultras were somewhat dispirited. Obviously the forty who fought against Maynooth did not give up, but the group from which they were drawn, future Protectionists, produced the largest number of abstainers, thirteen, and the lack of many additional recruits is evident. It was this situation that doomed the duke of Newcastle’s initiative. In 1835, when he stopped the Municipal Corporations Act dead in its tracks, he had had a large number of enthusiastic supporters ready to join in the mayhem he created and turn it to the advantage of their cause. Now his supporters were certainly not large in number, and there is no evidence they were enthusiastic.



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This, however, did not prevent Newcastle from trying again on the third reading. He showed it in the first sentence he uttered, saying that he thought it “criminal in the state to give encouragement to Roman Catholicism.” He was sorry, but just because certain lords not of the established religion had been allowed to take their place in that House, he would not abstain from expressing his opinion on a subject which had been forced upon him. “He considered the Roman Catholic faith as error. He had always been taught to understand plain facts, and he could not doubt that the Roman Catholic religion was both superstitious and idolatrous.” He thought it that if this bill were passed the Lords would expose themselves to the penalty of praemunire.36 Newcastle evoked no reaction, save for a few corrections in a summary speech by Wellington that followed. Lord Lansdowne gave a much longer and very effective one, which canvassed every major question in the debates, but one of the most appealing of his remarks came at the end. He was replying to all those who reviled the students at Maynooth as coming from the lowest and most inferior levels of Irish society: “He must not be told . . . that the son of an artisan who was educated at the college would not be a better man and a better subject.”37 The bill passed its third reading, according to Hansard, by a vote of 181 to 50.38

chap ter t went y-t h re e

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The late summer and early autumn of 1845 were filled with reports of bounteous harvests, and politicians were among those rejoicing in them. By mid-October, however, there were clouds on the horizon. Peel wrote to Wellington on the 15th, reporting that the potato blight in Ireland had created a potentially dangerous situation, and said they must have a cabinet meeting soon to discuss the matter.1 Wellington replied on 17 October with a reassuring letter. He had always been aware of the importance of a failure of the potato crop, “but it would be but a partial remedy for the evil inflicted by such a misfortune to adopt measures to import into Ireland other descriptions of food.” The problem was that “the largest proportion of the people does not live upon the market.” “Thousands raise their own food. They make bargains to work for a certain period on condition of having a certain proportion of land on which they raise the crop of potatoes which is to feed them and their families for the year. If the potato crop fails, what is to become of the bargain? The labourer, bound to give his labour, must starve!” Naturally the cabinet must consider the question, Wellington said. He added, however, another bit of good news. Oats, the natural substitute in Ireland for potatoes, were especially plentiful this year all over the United Kingdom.2 The cabinet duly met on 31 October and continued its discussions into early November, but it was only to disagree. Peel suggested his proposed remedy, which was first to open the ports and then enact the repeal of the Corn Laws over a three-year period. A large majority of the cabinet, including Stanley, and less forcefully Wellington, disagreed with this solution. Wellington believed that “that which was required for Ireland was the organization of the means to find employment for those in want of food. This, it is true is likely to be expensive,



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but still practicable.” In any case, there was nothing that suggested the necessity of augmenting the amount of food in Ireland, except possibly maize, “which might have been substituted in some cases for potatoes.” This hardly required the repeal of the Corn Laws. The only thing determined in these cabinet meetings was that the ministers would wait longer to see the nature and extent of the potato blight’s development before they made any final decisions.3 Exchanges of opinion between individuals continued. One between Stanley and Peel gives some idea of their nature. Stanley wrote of his great regret at having to differ with Peel and Graham about the necessity of proposing “to Parliament a repeal of the Corn Laws.” But he said that he foresaw that “this question, if you persevere in your present opinion must break up the government one way or another.” Peel replied that he did not wish to have a controversy with Stanley, but he must say that “I have not proposed to the cabinet that we recommend to Parliament the repeal of the Corn Laws.” What he meant was that he had not formally recommended it to the cabinet, but this was an unnecessary and not very good-natured splitting of hairs. Perhaps he had been offended by another remark of Stanley’s, which was that if the government did have to be broken up, he would greatly regret “if it should be broken up not in consequence of our own feeling that we had proposed measures which it properly belonged to others to carry, but in consequence of differences of opinion among ourselves.”4 Peel was, after all, clearly willing from the beginning to undertake what “properly belonged to others to carry,” and he may not have appreciated Stanley’s judgmental tone. But Peel was certainly in a dilemma. Lord John Russell was soon obligingly to offer what appeared to be an honorable way out. Russell, who had been in Edinburgh with his ailing wife, had watched events in London with a keen interest. He had taken heart at the gathering of the cabinet at the beginning of November, sure that the ministers would embrace free trade to meet the problem in Ireland. But when the cabinet broke up and scattered without any sign of a decision, and there was no call for an early meeting of Parliament, Russell concluded that the government intended to do nothing after all. He therefore decided that he would do it himself, repeal the Corn Laws. In Edinburgh he wrote a letter for publication. The letter declared that there was a crisis, the government was doing nothing, and the time for a low fixed duty had passed. That kind of duty had been official whig or Liberal policy since the 1841 election, but Russell consulted no other whig leader, except his father-in-law, who was close at hand—unlike the other whig leaders, Russell explained. He then set out for London, leaving his wife to post the letter to the Morning Chronicle. By the time he reached his brother’s house at Woburn on 24 November, the letter was safely in the post. If it had not been, Lord Lansdowne,

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whom he met there, would have done his very best to stop it. But Lansdowne was quite aware why Russell had done as he did, “to avoid all remonstrance and advice.” This was one thing that bothered the Liberal leader in the Lords, because it would annoy their colleagues and cause trouble. He thought it would have the same effect on Peel, which would make it difficult for free trade Conservatives to support Russell: “the letter instead of making a pont d’or for Peel would interfere and quibble.”5 Russell’s letter appeared in the Morning Chronicle of 26 November. It has sometimes been described as a “bombshell,” but the Conservative leaders, at any rate, remained unshaken and did not take much, if any, notice of it. Peel wrote to Wellington on 29 November that “in the enclosed memorandum are contained the reasons which induce me to advise the suspension of the existing Corn Laws for a limited period.” He goes on to say, “I thought it right to mention to the queen that I feared there were serious differences in the cabinet as to the measures which the present emergency requires.”6 It is clear Peel and others were still floating proposals for their colleagues’ reactions at this time. Stanley wrote to Peel on 2 December 1845, thanking him for sending a letter from Lord Wharncliffe. Stanley said he concurred with much that Wharncliffe had to say and would concur much more were the question confined to the temporary measure—that is, the temporary suspension. But as it extended to “the main question of permanent protection our minds ought to be made up as to the extent of that protection, in the main, if not in every detail.” And as to the course that Wharncliffe suggested “of throwing the question before Parliament, and promising to “‘consider with calmness’ any measure of compensation for the removal of protection which we think ought to be maintained,” Stanley thought that this might be language suitable to an opposition, but not, in his view, to a government. Wellington’s opinion of the procedure proposed was equally withering and a little more accessible. He described it as that of meeting Parliament, “stating to Parliament the propositions not agreed upon and taking the sense of the House upon them.”7 Wellington considered the cabinet’s final decision to resign greatly to be preferred to doing business in such a manner. That was clearly Peel’s feeling as well. On 8 December, he went down to Osborne to inform the queen of the cabinet’s decision. He wrote to the duke: The result of my interview with the queen was so far satisfactory that her Majesty appeared convinced that immediate resignation was better for the queen and for the country than a hopeless struggle with the risk of closer alliance between whigs and Radicals. Her Majesty resolved on summoning Lord John Russell from Edinburgh [where he had returned after attending Lady Holland’s funeral].8



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The hopeless struggle was to keep on striving to reach a consensus in the cabinet. This effort had not been affected in the least by the Edinburgh letter. What that did was, by identifying a leading whig and self-proclaimed champion of free trade, providing an eligible alternative for the queen to turn to in order to form a government. That, in turn, allowed the Conservative government to extricate itself from an impossible situation. On 10 December, the whole cabinet went down to Osborne to tender their resignations. On 12 December, a letter from Russell summoned Lansdowne to London. He went up immediately, finding another letter from Russell at Lansdowne House saying that he had been commissioned by the queen to form a government, and “it would depend on me whether he could.” Lansdowne then went straight to Russell’s house. There Russell showed him a letter from Peel to the queen, in which Peel promised to “facilitate” a settlement of the Corn Laws undertaken by another government. Sir James Graham came later to further confirm this. Graham also said that because there had been opposition from the beginning, there had been no detailed planning of a measure by Peel’s government. On 13 December, Lansdowne went to Windsor with Russell to see the queen. There the problems that often followed Russell’s precipitate actions began to emerge. Lansdowne stated his concerns. He had no majority in the Lords to rely on. Nor obviously was he left with any options as to the time and circumstances of bringing forward the controversial measures he would have to propose. Lansdowne also worried that Peel’s only stated justification for resigning was his inability to carry on the government. What about the colleagues who disagreed with him? The queen later told Peel that Lansdowne was also very anxious that the Lords not be humiliated and that he wanted no general election. Lansdowne and Russell wanted to know as well to what extent Peel would back a repeal measure. The queen promised to get the information required from Peel. The needed information was received on 16 December. Peel’s letter to the queen was no more explicit about the extent of a measure he would tolerate than the general assurance Graham had already provided. He did, however, state firmly that no member of his government was prepared to form a government on the basis of the existing Corn Laws or the principle of protection. A group including, among others, the new Earl Grey and his cousin Edward Ellice, enthusiastic proponents of free trade, was present. There was strong pressure for total and immediate repeal, to which Russell was inclined to accede, though three days earlier he had decided an initial period of several years with a fixed duty would be desirable. Lansdowne insisted that if the more radical plan was agreed to, it had to be accompanied by a substantial remission of taxation

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as compensation. In view of these new developments, it was not surprisingly decided that Peel’s letter was not satisfactory. Russell was to write to the queen inquiring whether Peel would be willing to review an outline of a plan for repeal, with a view to supporting it. Russell and Lansdowne went down to Windsor on the 17th, for an overnight visit to hear the results. Peel’s letter to the queen turned down the proposal of reviewing an outline on the grounds that once he reviewed it, they would be unable to change it without his permission, and that his support would be just as effective at the time. Without giving an opinion, Russell and Lansdowne took the letter with them on their return to town on the 18th. There they submitted it to their colleagues, who voted nine for taking the government, and five against it. The minority of five was made up of Lansdowne first, joined by Russell’s brother the duke of Bedford, the earls of Auckland and Clarendon, and Lord Monteagle. They agreed “with reluctance” to be bound by the majority. On 19 December, Lansdowne, who had returned to Lansdowne House after a long meeting, received a letter from Russell announcing that Lord Grey refused to serve in any cabinet in which Lord Palmerston sat as foreign secretary and that it was Russell’s own opinion that it would be better to give up the government.9 To give it up on such an issue made Russell’s whole scheme appear a great fiasco, and by and large appearances were not deceiving. For Russell to have launched it with a minority in both Houses of Parliament, and with no idea of the opinions of those who would be his colleagues, had not boded well for its future. Sir Robert Peel was more cautious. Before he went to Windsor on 20 December, on the queen’s invitation after Russell had resigned his commission, he wrote to the duke of Wellington. As the duke described it, Peel informed me that if the queen should desire it, he would resume his office, and even if he stood alone would, as her Majesty’s minister enable her Majesty to meet her Parliament, rather than that her Majesty should be reduced to the necessity of taking for her minister a member of the League or those connected with its politics. As soon I heard of this determination I applauded it and declared my determination to cooperate in its execution.

Wellington was indeed overjoyed by the new state of affairs. He had not considered that the potato blight and its effects had necessitated a repeal of the Corn Laws. And for that reason and because the issue threatened to break up the government and the party, he had tried to persuade Peel not to adopt the policy. But, as with most economic issues, he had no strong attachment to the Corn Laws per se. And when Peel had been asked, for Russell’s purposes, about



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the position of members of his government, he had no hesitation in saying that the duke would not advise resistance to repeal. The question now, the duke said, would be not “what the Corn Law should be, but whether the queen should have a government?” The duke of Wellington now had an issue into which he could throw his whole heart and soul—and he did.10 Great exertions were needed, not least in the Lords. On 16 December, Wellington, trying to persuade Lord Redesdale (who had returned as whip after the Maynooth issue was out of the way) not to resign over the Corn Law issue, attempted to reassure him by pointing to Lord Stanley. Wellington had been deeply touched by a letter from the queen a few days before, expressing her “strong desire”, with double underlining of the first word, “to see the duke of Wellington remain at the head of her army,” whoever might be her prime minister. At the time it appeared it would be Russell. And Wellington had begun to worry again about how the office he valued most in the world might be compromised by his political activity. Very likely too he was despondent about the recent course of politics. At any rate, he indicated to Redesdale that he would stand aside for Stanley: “There stands my substitute all ready and prepared and I am very much mistaken if you will not find his opinions, at least upon the Corn Laws as sound as mine.”11 The duke was right enough about Stanley’s opinions on the Corn Laws, but after 20 December he was no longer the duke’s recognized heir apparent as Conservative leader in the Lords. Quite the contrary; on 22 December, Stanley arranged to meet Peel at a railway station “prepared to give up my seals of office,” before he sped north to Lancashire. It was already known that he would lead the opponents of repeal in the House of Lords.12 Redesdale was not long after Stanley in going. As early as 9 December he had informed the duke: “On no consideration whatever can I consent to the abolition of the Corn Laws. I will not be a party to my own ruin and to that of those with whom I live.” He resigned on Christmas day, though Wellington refused to accept the fact for another week or more.13 Returning to his brooding over whether as commander-in-chief he ought to be in politics, Wellington observed in February that “some may think that I ought to have declined to belong to Sir Robert Peel’s cabinet on the night of the 20th of December. But my opinion is that if I had, Sir Robert Peel’s government would not have been formed.”14 Of the latter claim there can be absolutely no doubt. The duke may have been right that Stanley could have done the job, but Stanley was by then as good as gone. So was the veteran whip. It was Wellington, now about to enter his seventy-seventh year, or nobody. On 22 December, Lord Aberdeen told the duke of a visit he had had from the Russian ambassador, who

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wanted to know if Wellington was still a part of the government. When that was answered in the affirmative, the ambassador replied that the emperor would need to know no more. The duke wrote back to Aberdeen: His Majesty is very gracious to me, having made every effort in my power to keep the government together during the last two months, of course I cannot run away from it now that it is about to be established, whatever may be the difficulties of my peculiar position in the House of Lords! And I am now doing everything in my power to reconcile the minds of men to the course which it is probable will be followed.15

On the day the duke received Redesdale’s resignation, he reported his own activities: “I write the usual circular letter to the Members of the House of Lords and will invite the usual party to dinner, and I will apply for a mover and seconder on the Address.”16 That is, he was doing exactly what was usually done when a session was approaching but without the assistance of a whip, who in the past had done most of the detailed work. And, as he told Aberdeen, he was also doing everything he could to reconcile men’s minds to the new situation, writing long letters of exhortation to individual peers. One was to the duke of Beaufort: “Although I have been but little in the habit of communicating with you upon political subjects, we are placed at this moment in such peculiarly difficult political circumstances, that I think it advisable that you should hear exactly how we stand.” Wellington said that there was no one more aware than he was of the importance of protection to agriculture; and not alone to landed interests, but for the prosperity of the whole community. He reminded Beaufort that he had brought in the Corn Law bill of 1828, and strongly supported that of 1842. Wellington continued: “I do not think the potato disease rendered necessary any important alteration of the law.” This was not, however, he said, the opinion of others, among them Sir Robert Peel, who had so strenuously defended the Corn Laws in the previous session. Peel had considered that “the crisis, the measures that were rendered necessary in consequence, and the general feelings of the country, would render necessary some further alteration of the Corn Laws, and this even for the sake of the landed interests.” Wellington rehearsed what happened after that. A majority of Peel’s colleagues differed from him, and when it was found impossible to agree on a policy to be put to Parliament, there was nothing for it but to resign. The queen sent for Russell, and he naturally had to be “informed of the causes and circumstances” of the termination of Peel’s administration. In the course of the negotiations, “it had been ascertained that none of those who in the cabinet had objected to Sir Robert Peel’s plan of amendment of the Corn Laws were prepared any one of them to undertake to form an administration.”



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What followed was classic Wellington (he wrote on 22 December): When Lord John resigned his commission on Saturday, the queen’s selection of a minister rested between Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Cobden. I will not do any peer or individual in public life at all distinguished the injustice of mentioning his name even in a private letter in connection as a colleague with that of Mr. Cobden. But Sir Robert Peel determined before he saw the queen that he would not expose her Majesty to the necessity of taking such men as her ministers, and that happen what might he would assume and remain in his office and enable her Majesty to meet the Parliament.

An effort having been made, and failed, to form another government, and Sir Robert Peel having resumed office “to preclude the necessity of her Majesty’s resorting to persons to form an administration, into whose hands no reasonable man can think it desirable that the administration of the government should fall,” Peel’s colleagues had no hesitation in approving, and Wellington himself had been delighted by his decision. Wellington now focused on the new status of the Corn Law question. Peel had relinquished power because his colleagues would not support him in taking the action he considered necessary. “This was perfectly known . . . in all details, by his opponents in debate in the House of Commons, even to those belonging to the Corn Law League.” It would therefore be “absolutely impossible” for Peel to take the position he had hitherto taken in Parliament on the issue, and it naturally followed that he could not oppose the alteration of the Corn Laws—quite the contrary. The colleagues who had disagreed with him, but who had resumed office to relieve their sovereign from the only, but obviously unsuitable, alternative, had no choice but to “see and consider if the details of the measures which Sir Robert Peel proposes should be adopted for the relief and protection of the interests in amendment of the existing Corn Law.” Wellington then turned to the broader political importance of the issue: However attached I may be to the Corn Laws, and however small the alteration which I may think desirable at the present moment, I have never been insensible to their inconvenience. The violent and constantly renewed opposition to them occasions at least the inconvenience of uncertainty of their duration, and affects more or less every negotiation of letting land in this country. It cannot be denied likewise that the imputation has been more than once cast upon the great landed proprietors, the members almost exclusively of one House, and very generally of the other, of having favoured their own class and themselves in the provisions of the law. Under the circumstances I confess that I have always considered the great benefit resulting from the Corn Law, that agriculture would become so improved in the country as that the law might be repealed without any injury to any party or to the general interests.

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Wellington entreated Beaufort to “consider maturely this long letter, don’t decide on the subject of it in a hurry, don’t allow yourself to give an opinion on what has been passing till you will know all from undoubted authority. See what Sir Robert Peel will propose by way of security for the landed classes before you decide.”17 It was a powerfully written and well-argued letter, calling on loyalty, patriotism, and common sense to make the case for Peel’s government. As often happened, in Wellington’s speeches as well, it came to a resounding conclusion, in this instance taking a hard look at the Corn Laws and finding them wanting. The Corn Laws would not be there always, and Wellington did not want them to be. This meaning may or may not have been clear to the duke of Beaufort, or meant to be. Also, though he would repeat it countless times in his letters, neither did Wellington in all likelihood believe that there was much chance of Cobden’s becoming prime minister. It is true that though the duke might not couple Cobden’s name with that of any respectable politician, others coupled it with that of Earl Grey; but the chance of that coupling succeeding in forming a government was equally remote. More likely, had Peel not stepped in, there would have been a period of instability and confusion in the search for a government, and for Wellington, at this time of mounting crisis, that would have been almost as bad. Wellington did not expect to accomplish a quick and massive conversion by his letter, which in various versions and later expanded letters to other peers, had a wide circulation. As is suggested by his admonitions—to consider, not to hurry to conclusions, not to express opinions prematurely, and to wait to see what Peel had to offer—what he was trying to prevent was what had happened with the Catholic Emancipation question in 1829—a coalescence of opinion and freezing of position before Parliament ever met. Wellington continued his efforts to calm and cajole. He did acquire a whip to help him. Lord Ellenborough had suggested that the “most efficient and popular” successor to Lord Redesdale would be the marquess of Winchester, saying that he would have “much more weight” than Lord Hawarden, who had assisted Redesdale. Wellington, however, favored Hawarden. He admitted that Winchester was of much higher rank than Hawarden but feared he might not be entirely sound on the Corn Law question. Hawarden, whatever his opinion on the Corn Laws, was a lord of the bedchamber, and the duke believed that was a guarantee he would not leave. Besides Hawarden had filled in for Redesdale during the Maynooth debates. The latter then returned. Wellington hoped this would happen again.18 The duke was looking for a reliable, rather than a weighty, assistant.



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Peel’s long-awaited plan was finally revealed in his House of Commons speech on 27 January 1846. It was what he had always favored, a repeal of the Corn Laws in three annual stages. There was nothing in the way of solid compensation for the landowners. Lord Salisbury complained to the duke: “I had entertained some hope that if the agricultural interest was to be injured, some compensation would be offered in the shape of relief from taxation. . . . I need hardly say that this hope no longer exists.” Salisbury was thoroughly disappointed.19 He was not alone. Wellington, however, continued his wooing of peers. By far his most unusual choice was the leading defender of the Corn Laws in the House of Lords, Lord Stanley. What he suggested to Stanley was that in the interest of Stanley’s own future leadership of the Conservative party in the Lords, he should do his best to lessen divisions there. Stanley found this a remarkable proposal. Writing on 18 February, referring to a conversation he and the duke had had a few days earlier at Apsley House, Stanley said: “you advise that I should now endeavour to rally the Conservative party. I am forced to remind you that in the present state of affairs and feelings they could only be so rallied in opposition to the measures of your own government.” Yet Stanley was obviously interested. He spoke of the duke’s own exalted position as leader of the Lords, which was his as long as he chose to keep it. And this leads me to speak with entire unreserve of my own position, to which you referred in such kind terms the other evening. I will not affect to deny that my wish to be removed to the Upper House was influenced in great measure by my desire to assist you as a colleague . . . nor that I looked forward to making myself so known to the Members of that House as to qualify me in some degree to act as your successor whenever you should yourself desire to be relieved of the burdens of office.

Important differences of policy now separated him, Stanley said, from his former colleagues, and he might be compelled to vote against measures put forward by the government, “but I have resisted and I shall continue to resist entreaties that I would take an active part and put myself at the head of a movement to throw them out.” Such a course would be wholly repugnant to his personal feelings, not for the public good, “nor even for the ultimate interests of the Conservative party, which I think would tend rather to disunite than to consolidate.” Whatever course he took, the differences should be “the least prominent the circumstances will allow; and above all, it should be such as to place me as little as I can help in even apparent competition with you.” Stanley ended, “if you desire to see me on the state of public affairs, I will readily obey your call at any time.”20 Wellington replied that Stanley was well aware of his long and strong sup-

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port for Peel, whom he thought fully deserving of Parliament’s support. But he was very much afraid that “the confidence of Parliament has vanished and that there is no chance of its revival.” This was a “sad change.” But it was evidenced by the fact that, though the second reading of the repeal bill had recently passed in the Commons, less than a third of his party had supported the prime minister, and it was whig votes that had carried it through. “That which I look for therefore is the holding together in other hands the great and at this moment powerful Conservative party.” This was for the sake of the queen, of the religious and other great institutions of the country, of its resources, influence, and power—all necessary for its prosperity and the happiness of the people. The duke himself was obviously not the man to undertake the task, though since the death of Lord Liverpool he had exercised great influence and power through the House of Lords, whether in or out of office. But events were bringing that influence to an end, and if it had not already terminated, it must in a very short time: You will see therefore that the stage is entirely clear and open for you, and that notwithstanding that I am thank God in as good health as I was twenty years ago, I am as much out of your way as you contemplated the possibility I might be when you desired to be moved to the House of Lords. I think you do right in doing so; and I rejoice and still now rejoice that you did so.

It was no secret to anyone that it had always been Stanley’s ambition to lead the Conservative party in the House of Lords, and no doubt the Conservative party itself. Though the duke’s loyalty to Peel was drawing down his influence, there was no one more likely to be able to guarantee Stanley success in the Lords. At the same time, it was evident that Peel would never again lead the party, and Stanley had a low opinion of the potential of other Conservatives in the Commons to do so. It was a heady time for Lord Stanley. The above might lead some to doubt Wellington’s continuing loyalty to Peel. But this would be wrong. The analogy to their situation that both the duke and Stanley saw was the period when Catholic Emancipation had pulled their party apart, followed by the Reform period in opposition, which had knitted it together again. Peel’s government would be forced out of power, the leader of the House of Lords with it. Then the field marshal and commander-in-chief would go his own neutral way, content; and Lord Stanley, in opposition, would mend fences and reap his rewards—which is what happened. The duke, however, had no idea of coasting to defeat. Stanley had expressed his doubt that even Wellington could secure a majority for repeal in the House of Lords. The duke replied:



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I am aware of the difficulty, but I don’t despair of carrying the bill through. You will be the best judge of the course which you ought to take, and of the course not likely to annihilate the confidence of the House of Lords. My opinion is that you should advise the House to vote that which would lead most to political order, and would be most beneficial to the immediate interests of the country. But do what you may it will make no difference to me, you will always find me aiding and cooperating in the road of good order, conservatism and government; and doing everything to establish and maintain your influence in the Conservative party which my position may enable me to do.21

What Stanley had to gain in his negotiations with the duke is plain enough. What motivated the duke in the exchanges he initiated at Apsley House is a rather more complicated question. Partly, certainly, it was what he said he wanted—to save the Conservative party, as well as his own legacy, for the good of country. Broken, the party was in danger of being shattered. Someone must prevent that happening, and Stanley was in his mind the ideal candidate. As Stanley himself initially thought, it did seem an odd time to launch such a project. But the end was not far away, as the desertion of two-thirds of the party in the Commons had just illustrated. Yet there was more in Wellington’s actions than simple disinterested statesmanship or concern for a party that he had done much to make great. There was also craft and guile in what he did. From the time the government had resumed office in December he had worked hard to prevent bitter divisions from developing among the Lords, to prevent the growth of an atmosphere in which it would be hard for men to maintain objectivity, and not be forced to take sides. From such a state of affairs, his cause could only lose. For all the passion was on the other side, as he was early reminded by Redesdale: “It is childish to consider this conflict merely as a question of cheaper or dearer corn. It is one in which the monarchical and aristocratic principles of our constitution are directly involved; and indeed this is now openly declared by the avowed republicans of the Anti-Corn Law League.”22 There were not many Leaguers in the Lords, though there were a couple, but there were large numbers of Redesdales. Those who were likely to follow Wellington were neither; they were noblemen not given to excesses, but who might be unsettled by the terms in which the Redesdales couched the debate. What Wellington expected from Stanley was what he had asked for from Beaufort, Salisbury, and others before—moderation and restraint. That is what Wellington asked for, and that is what he got. It is what Stanley promised in his letter, and what he delivered. Stanley was well inclined from the beginning. But it is not too much to suppose that if he was ever tempted in

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the other direction he would have been held back by his pact with Wellington in February. As it was, though he opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, with his usual skill and ability, it was without any rancor, with the greatest respect and solicitude for the duke, and with strong hints to others to do likewise. And it worked; the debates in the Lords were, relatively speaking, calm and rational. In the Commons where the pit bulls relentlessly snarled and tore at the prime minister, it was otherwise. The bill arrived in the Lords early in May. Wellington moved the first reading on the 8th, without any recorded comment. The earl of Ripon moved the crucial second reading on the 25th. Wellington did not speak until the end of the debate on 28 May. He was preceded by the duke of Beaufort, who like many opponents of the measure who had come before him, expressed his pain at being separated from old friends, and “above all, he felt pain in differing from his noble friend, the noble duke.” It had been a long and exhausting debate. Wellington began by appealing to long friendship and to past contests fought together. He spoke of duty—his own to Crown and country, which left him no choice but to do things of which others might not approve. Then he returned to their long association in the business of the House of Lords, “and I shall lament the breaking up of that confidence in public life. But, my lords, I will not omit, even on this night—probably the last on which I shall ever venture to address to you any advice again—I will not omit to give you my counsel with respect to the vote you ought to give on this occasion.” An absent Stanley, whose great talents and abilities the duke warmly praised, had advised them to vote against the bill, “that it was your duty to step in and protect the people of this country from the rash and inconsiderate measures passed by the other House of Parliament, and which, in his opinion, were inconsistent with the views and opinions of the people themselves.” Wellington was going to give them different advice. It was indeed the Lords’ duty to consider all measures brought before them and to decide on them. It was certainly their duty to vote against those that were rash and inconsiderate. But it was also their duty to consider the position of their own House: “it is the duty of every one of you to place himself in the situation of this House, to ponder well the consequences of his vote, and all the circumstances attending it, and the situation, I repeat, in which this House would be placed if it should adopt the vote which he himself is about to give.” What were the facts of the case as they affected the Lords? They were that the bill had been recommended in the Speech from the Throne and that it had been passed by a majority of the House of Commons. Stanley had argued that the Commons’ action was inconsistent with the opinions of their constituents.



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Wellington thought that this was not a subject the Lords could take into consideration. In the first place, the opinion of the electorate at that particular moment was not a fact of which they could have accurate knowledge. In any case, the pertinent fact for the Lords was one about which there could be absolutely no doubt—that it came to them passed by a majority of the House of Commons. Thus, if the House of Lords rejected the bill, they would stand alone: “Now that, my Lords, is a situation in which I beg to remind your Lordships, I have frequently stated you ought not to stand; it is a position in which you cannot stand, because you are entirely powerless; without the Commons and the Crown, the House of Lords can do nothing.” This pronouncement requires some explanation. The repeal bill, as it affected revenue, was a money bill and could not be amended in the Lords. (Or, more precisely, it could not be successfully amended, for when it was sent back to the Commons, it would be rejected.) For the bill, then, it was a question of up, or out. The latter meant maintaining the status quo. But even if there were a change of government and if the Crown were to decide to turn to a Conservative, all the evident candidates were on record as being unwilling to form a government to defend the principle of the existing Corn Law. The duke proceeded to canvass the dilemmas that would result from rejecting the bill. It would almost certainly bring down the government, “and do your lordships suppose that you will not have this very same measure brought before you by the next administration that can be formed?” Did they mean to reject it again? How long did they intend that the issue should churn up the country? There was the hope and intention among some of the bill’s opponents that its rejection would bring an immediate dissolution. “Now, really if your lordships have so much confidence, as you appear to have, in the result of other elections, and the exercise of public opinion on this question,” why not rely on the general election that must come within the next year? After a few more general remarks and a little more sarcasm about “a fresh election of which you are so desirous,” the duke sat down.23 Lord Hatherton did not like the duke’s speech at all: “He never mentioned the Corn bill . . . and declared in the most unconstitutional speech I ever heard that the House of Lords was bound in this case to submit to the House of Commons.”24 Hatherton was quite right in his first point, and quite wrong in his second. Perhaps fortunately, Wellington was not addressing his remarks to whig lords. He did not, quite deliberately, as he explained to Peel, mention the Corn Laws. Just before the debates on the second reading began, Lord Ripon got cold feet and wished to be excused from conducting them, on the grounds that he had an embarrassingly long record on the question. Wellington told Peel he would do it himself, but aside from having a different opinion on the

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issue, “I am really ignorant of all the details and the grounds on which the bill is founded and has been supported in the House of Commons by you and others.” The duke went on: The course which I can take in the House of Lords, and in which I can really be of service to the Government is in urging the House to avoid to separate itself from the House of Commons and the Crown, which is the course I have usefully taken on former occasions, even on subjects on which I had given opinions in debate, and even in protests directly the reverse of the course recommended to House to follow.25

On contentious issues, where tempers ran high, the duke preferred to take what might be called the high constitutional line and to appeal to duty, responsibility, and patriotism.26 He had already employed it in persuading the Lords to give way in the end on the Municipal Corporations bill in 1835 and on the union of the Canadas in 1840, to give two prominent examples. Wellington’s record of success was good. How successful he was in this instance can best be judged by examining the results of the division. As with the Maynooth bill, Conservative lords showed themselves more loyal than Conservative MPs—40 percent voted for the bill, as opposed to less than a third in the Commons. And this time nine bishops, including the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, swelled their ranks. It is true that the 96 votes the duke was able to muster for the bill was less than the whigs’ 113, also including 9 bishops. Eighteen whigs voted with the 145 Protectionists, with their 9 bishops, against the bill. Once more the whigs had saved the government in the Lords, but they would not have got very far had they not been able to join a substantial government force in the Lords. In the Commons, government supporters had accounted for only a third of the majority; in the Lords they made up 46 percent. There can be no doubt to whom the credit was due. It was to the one leader who had not deserted—seventy-seven years old, but still vigorous in body and mind; deaf it is true, but certainly not daft. No one else could have done the job. And if it had not been done, there would have been no Corn Law repealed in 1846. The second reading in the Lords passed by a vote of 210 to 163, a majority of 47.27 There is no other division with a full list, though the minority supporting a provocative amendment moved by the duke of Buckingham in June is listed. It was beaten back by a majority of 33.28 The bill passed its third reading on 25 June.29 Not long after, an unholy alliance of Irish, Protectionist, and whig MPs joined to defeat Peel’s government, and Lord Stanley and the duke of Wellington duly went to their own desired rewards.

Conclusion

 The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was not only a striking event in British history; it was also the end of an epoch in the history of the House of the Lords. It began with the establishment of the regency of George, prince of Wales. This was followed by the realization that the Catholic question, which George III had done his best to ban from politics, had to be made a legitimate political issue. Indeed it became the greatest domestic political question of the period and determined the configuration of parties until well after the immediate issue, or issues (for Dissenting disabilities were too closely intertwined with those of the Catholics to be easily separable), had been settled. Issues of civil and religious liberty divided whig-Liberals from tory-Conservatives into the middle years of Peel’s second ministry. Similarly, Corn Law repeal brought new and different political patterns, which for a while included three parties—protectionist Conservatives; freetrade Conservatives, or Peelites; and Liberals. Although Liberals and Peelites agreed on free trade, it was a long time before they were prepared to merge. Former Conservative lords therefore were apt to be pulled in two directions by old friendships. The majority ultimately returned to Stanley’s fold after the free trade issue was put to rest in 1852, though some prominent Peelites joined the Liberals in 1859. So the sorting out process took a while, and when it was over there were new issues, or old ones in different forms, to be faced. It was a new era. What can be said of the House of Lords in the previous era? To begin with, the leaders of the new tory party were, not surprisingly, preoccupied with the war against Napoleon. As war leaders they were successful, less so in dealing with war’s consequences. The whigs meanwhile were engaged in spirited opposition. If opposition means exposing government faults and abuses,

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and occasionally making it change its policies, the whigs did rather well. Their relentless hammering at the Catholic question forced the government to recognize the issue. They were able to affect government policy as well on the Orders in Council and the subsequent American war. Though they were also vocal in criticizing Irish policy, they did not succeed in inducing any great change there. There was no doubt whence whig policy emanated. Grenville and Grey had established themselves as the great champions of civil and religious liberty in 1807, and other whig lords moved important questions in 1812. It is significant that when the new Protestant Society sought help in the defense of Dissenting liberties in 1811–12, it was to six whig peers, including Grenville and Lansdowne, that they applied. The only member of the Commons mentioned was Samuel Whitbread, another whig. The attack on the Orders in Council was also launched in the House of Lords, though Brougham had a prominent role at the end. These were great days for the whigs. However, as the tide of war changed in 1812, whig fortunes receded, and soon afterward whig attendance in the Lords declined. This did not halt the whigs’ efforts to remove religious disabilities, which would continue to command a substantial attendance. During these years as well, whig peers made a deliberate effort to identify themselves as defenders of the people—farmers, tanners, shoemakers, shoplifters, and others threatened by the savage punishments of the law—as well as trying to thwart government incursions on liberties of the subject. These efforts all produced small divisions and were easily defeated by the government, but they allowed whig lords to state their cases, which were then widely disseminated by the press. The whigs took a similar approach to a much more famous cause—the effort to prevent the passage, or at least alleviate the worst excesses, of the 1815 Corn bill. The bill was widely hated and petitioned against. Grey and Grenville championed the popular side and gave an ill-supported Liverpool rough treatment, though of course they did not prevail. After this, the peace and economy line of the two whig leaders, arguing against keeping a large military establishment in peacetime and spending money in other wasteful ways, struck a responsive chord with the public and helped to make the government itself exponents and practitioners of economy. Grenville and Grey parted ways in 1817 because of their different responses to popular agitation, with parliamentary reform the most commonly stated object. Grenville saw the agitation as but a prelude to revolution in the French style. Grey viewed popular demands for universal manhood suffrage and other only slightly less radical franchises as dangerous. Yet at the same time



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he felt that the underlying discontent was because of the government’s failure to address grievances such as heavy taxation and other disruptions in the economy growing out of the war, and he believed that if these were dealt with radicalism would subside. He also believed that British men and women had a right to meet and discuss political issues and to petition to achieve their objects, however wrongheaded they might be. Significant whig gains in the general election of 1818 suggest that their efforts in the preceding years had found approval among the electorate. Grey continued on the same course, putting his principles into action most forcefully in his reaction to Peterloo in 1819. Grey and the former whig lord chancellor, Erskine, tore into the government’s case and denounced the methods that had caused twelve deaths and serious injury to many more, whose only fault was attending a peaceful reform meeting. In 1820, with the accession of George IV, came the crescendo of whig performances in this period. Now there appeared a figure who was, by the standards of her own order at any rate, poor, and without doubt downtrodden and likely to be stripped of her just rights. Common people identified with Queen Caroline, she with them, and the whigs with both. And all three recognized a common oppressor, the king, who was attempting to get rid of his wife for adultery, while at Brighton he all too publicly pursued the last of a long line of mistresses. It was a cause that rallied the wider whig party once more. The king’s behavior also disgusted the devout High Church ultras. The vigorous advocacy of the whigs and the consciences of the ultras drove the majorities on the government’s bill of pains and penalties in the Lords so low that the ministers were forced to drop it. Grey had been the queen’s major advocate, making him a popular hero. He has often been criticized for not taking advantage of the situation to put the whigs at the head of a great radical movement for reform. But such a thing would never have occurred to Grey and his colleagues. Grey had said at the time of Peterloo that he had never been more convinced of the necessity of parliamentary reform—but not the sort advocated by the radicals. The sort he had in mind was revealed in the Reform bill put forward in 1831. In the 1820s, party lines tended to blur. Whiggery appeared at its clearest (as it had in the teens) in a series of bills to do away with religious disabilities and give civil equality to Catholics and Dissenters. Until Lord John Russell put himself in the forefront of the cause in 1827, these efforts were always headed by whig peers—Lord Lansdowne, Lord Holland, and Lord Grenville. And even after Russell’s success in 1828, as he himself admitted, the darling of Dissenters of all convictions was Holland.

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Yet the dominance of religious issues in the period also served to blur party lines because it brought ever closer cooperation between the whigs and the growing number of Catholic tories. This cooperation ultimately brought about a formal alliance of most of the whigs and a group of Catholic tories who supported George Canning in 1827. The aim that bound them together was Catholic Emancipation. Canning’s death in August ended any possibility of carrying that for the time being, but the cooperation on religious causes did not end. Indeed the Canningites, as well as a number of other Catholic tories, joined the whigs in carrying both the repeal of the Test Acts and Catholic Emancipation, thus saving Wellington from his usual political friends in 1828 and 1829. Most of the Canningites would end as whigs after 1830. There were other reasons as well for haziness in party boundaries. New economic issues having to do with the freeing of trade became important. Though Grey could master such issues, they bored him, as they did Holland. Constitutional issues and questions of freedom were what they liked. The whigs had once had a monopoly as the patrons of freedom abroad, but in the 1820s they found a great rival in Canning, who pursued not only what at least appeared to be a liberal foreign policy, but one in Latin America that expanded trade. Most whigs, with the great exception of Grey, became quite content with Canning’s policies, particularly Lansdowne. Their brief coalition, carried on for a few months under Lord Goderich, who crumbled under the bullying of George IV, was followed by a government headed by the duke of Wellington. He would be the de facto, if not always the official, leader of the House of Lords for the next eighteen years, including those from 1833 to 1841, when the Upper House was at its most powerful in the nineteenth century. Wellington, though his personal opinions were ultra, prided himself on being a supreme pragmatist. He believed in yielding to “necessity.” Thus in 1828, though his government had decided to resist Russell’s motion to repeal Dissenting disabilities, when the motion was passed in the Commons and supporting petitions began to roll in, Wellington declared that the House of Lords could not stand against the House of Commons backed by public opinion, and put his government behind the measure. He had long believed, though he kept it mostly to himself, that Catholic Emancipation was necessary to pacify Ireland. He would have preferred to work quietly toward that end; but when Daniel O’Connell, leader of the powerful Catholic Association, decided to test the law by getting himself elected to Parliament, the duke decided that an attempt to enforce the law would bring chaos. Once more it was his duty to follow the dictates of necessity and champion Emancipation. Unfortunately, by allowing himself to be ensnared by the king, action was put off for six months. But at last, thanks to whigs and Catholic tories, the Emancipation bill passed.



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Wellington’s position on parliamentary reform was simply to stand firm and immovable against it. It might seem that trying to meet the whigs halfway, as Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe did, would have been a more constructive and statesmanlike approach. But Wellington steadfastly refused. This did not, however, mean that he had abandoned the position he stated in 1828 about the Lords’ relationship to the Commons and public opinion and that he would never have yielded on reform. His argument was that the country needed more time to think over the question of reform and that it was the Lords’ duty to provide the time for reflection. The duke’s mistake was in thinking the time was available—that is, it was a misjudgment of public opinion. (In fact, the delay he imposed was only eight months.) Because the House of Commons is popularly elected, it has always claimed to represent public opinion. But if the Commons’ claim is challenged, it has to be put to the test—there has to be an appeal to the people, an election. The Lords certainly believed after 1832, if not before, that they had to bow to public opinion. What they did not believe was that the whig House of Commons represented public opinion. Wellington was wrong to think that in 1831–32. But he was never proved wrong after 1832. Despite the Lords’ mauling of their measures, the government never appealed to the people. The 1835 election was called by Peel after the dismissal of Melbourne’s government. The 1837 election was necessitated by the death of the sovereign, William IV. Neither of these elections would have encouraged the whigs to call one of their own. The reason was that after 1832, whig governments were forced to tackle highly controversial issues on Church and other religious or religiously connected reforms, as well as an array of Irish problems. The Church of England was the state church—wealthy and powerful, resented by some, but revered and loved by more, in part as a pillar of Protestantism. It was also, since the Union of 1801, joined to the Church of Ireland. What this tangle of often-intersecting issues meant was that governments had to contend against deep British suspicion of any tampering with the Church; any solicitude shown for the Irish, because they were Irish, and because they were overwhelmingly Catholic; and sympathy for the Church of Ireland, because it was Protestant. The first major reform of the new reformed Parliament in 1833 provides a good illustration of the challenges involved. It may be remembered that Irish Catholic refusal to pay tithes or the Irish equivalent of Church rates—the Church cess—for several years had left the Irish clergy in desperate straits. To pacify the Irish Catholics, the government decided that the Irish Church must be made to bear more of its own burdens, while at the same time improving the lot of the great majority of parish clergy by a relatively modest redistribution of the Church’s resources. For example, the Irish Church was overloaded

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with bishoprics, and it was decided that ten could easily be dispensed with by merging them with another diocese on the death of the incumbent, using the wealth thus freed to raise the income of the lower clergy. The result was the Rev. John Keble’s fiery sermon on “National Apostasy,” which he held the interference with Church property to have constituted, and the launching of the Oxford movement, which would cause great disruption in the Church itself. In short, any action, however enlightened, was likely to bring angry and divisive responses. Another characteristic of this legislation was that it could never have been carried without the support of Wellington. He believed the relief of the Irish clergy was essential, and therefore he supported the bill. But he objected to a clause in it that would have allowed lay appropriation of some of the surplus it would create. When he signaled his discontent, the government immediately removed the clause before it got to the Lords. Then the duke had to meet resistance to the bill from half of his own party, and what he did was quite literally to walk out and leave them to their defeat by the whigs. Neither friend nor foe could escape Wellington’s power. In this decade, the duke and the Conservatives either threw out or reshaped a number of other government measures on, to name a few, Irish tithes, English and Irish municipal government, opening Oxford and Cambridge to nonAnglicans, and government supervision of elementary education. They also repulsed efforts to give civil rights to Jews and, while not daring to block it altogether, tried to make sure that the abolition of slavery was accomplished on the best possible terms for the planters. Such behavior on the part of the Conservative lords is unattractive and even reprehensible in modern eyes. But it did not seriously disturb the British public at the time. In 1841, the Conservatives won the election, and Peel for the second time became prime minister. With their own party in power, the Conservative lords became more tolerant and amenable to direction. Wellington, who had refused the premiership in 1834 and recommended Peel instead, gave his loyal support to the latter and tended even further to subordinate his personal opinions to what he saw as the country’s and the party’s best interests, mostly as interpreted by Peel. The duke was of vital assistance to the prime minister. Peel neither liked nor understood the Lords (and these feelings were reciprocated). Often he seemed to forget that they constituted half his party and, what was more, that, Conservative prime minister or not, he could not pass a single measure without their consent. Wellington effectively mediated between the two, in effect explaining Peel to the House of Lords, and the House of Lords to Peel.



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And once the initial honeymoon was over, such mediation was essential. Peel wanted to liberalize his party, and with Wellington’s assistance he got a fair way. A law was passed that saved Unitarian chapels from seizure by grasping trinitarians. Wellington himself delivered to the cabinet a request from the Jewish Board of Deputies that municipal offices be opened to Jews, and it was carried at the earliest opportunity. The Maynooth College bill, meant to be the initial measure in a broader effort to conciliate Irish Catholics, passed the Lords easily. In contrast to the Commons, where Peel was in a minority in his own party and saved only by Liberal votes, the duke would have had a comfortable majority without any Liberal support. Finally there was Corn Law repeal, where the Lords, supposed to be the great bastion of the landed interest, saw Conservative lords surpass Conservative MPs in voting percentages and almost equal them in numbers. In both Houses the bill could not have been passed without whig support. Yet while Peel could command a little less than a third of the Conservative votes in the Commons, 40 percent of the Conservative lords voted for repeal. The Commons contributed 113 Conservative votes, the Lords 96, which represented 46 percent of the majority in the Lords. It would be in vain to argue that the Lords were characteristically a progressive body. On questions such as the removal of religious disabilities and parliamentary and municipal reform in Ireland as well as England, they clearly were not. Neither, however, were they dangerously intransigent. This was largely due to the fact that throughout the nineteenth century the Lords enjoyed leadership of men of a very high order—men who knew how far the Lords could go, and when it was time to draw back. However, the political impact of the Lords was not only in their response to such highly controversial political questions. In considering these and other questions, issues were thoroughly canvassed in debates, and the quality of those debates compares favorably with those in the Commons. The debates on the Poor Laws—Irish as well as English—and factory legislation saw as passionate and eloquent defenses of those on whom they were going to be bestowed, or imposed, as in the Commons. Indeed, it is probably true to say that mainly due to the old-fashioned High Church ultras (joined by Evangelical whigs), the grip of political economy was not as strong in the Lords as it was in the Commons, and such measures had a relatively easy passage through the Lords, not least because they had the blessing and the active advocacy of the duke of Wellington. Had the Lords listened more carefully to some of their number, this legislation could have been much improved. Yet, if the debates did not sufficiently enlighten the legislators, we must always remember that there was the country to be enlightened through the press.

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But perhaps when all is said and done, in this period it is leaders that we are most likely to remember. In a system where there were two equal Houses, legislation must get through both. Looked at in this way, it was Grenville who carried the bill abolishing the slave trade, Grey who carried the Reform bill, and Wellington who carried the Maynooth Grant and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Liverpool deserves a special award for holding things together for so long.

reference mat ter

Notes

 The following abbreviations are used in the notes: BL Bucks R.O. DUL HL HMC NUL Parl. Debs. RA Staffs R.O. SUL

British Library Buckinghamshire Record Office Durham University Library Huntington Library Historical Manuscripts Commission Nottingham University Library Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) Royal Archives Staffordshire Record Office Southampton University Library

1. A King, a Prince, and Civil and Religious Liberty 1. James J. Sack, The Grenvillites, 1801–29: Party Politics and Factionalism in the Age of Pitt and Liverpool (1979), 130. See also Sack’s illuminating discussion of what constituted whiggery, 123–31. 2. Richard W. Davis, “The House of Lords, the Whigs and Catholic Emancipation 1806–1829,” Parliamentary History 18, pt.1 (1999): 23–43. 3. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 12: 582. 4. HMC, Fortescue MSS 9: 93–106. Though sent out over the name of Earl Spencer, home secretary, he was too ill to draft it, so Grenville did it himself. DUL, Grey Papers, Grenville to Grey, 8 Feb. 1807. 5. HMC, Fortescue MSS 9: 103–7. 6. Ibid., 109–10. 7. BL Add. MS. 58864, the king to the cabinet, 12 Feb. 1807. 8. DUL, Grey Papers, Grenville to Howick, 2 and 4 Mar. 1807. Because of the urgency of passing the annual Mutiny bill, the clauses had now been decoupled from it and put by Grenville into a separate bill.

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9. HMC, Fortescue MSS 9: 116. 10. HL, STG 37(45), Thomas Grenville to the marquess of Buckingham, 14 Mar. 1807. 11. HMC, Fortescue MSS 9: 118–19. 12. Ibid., 120; DUL, Grey Papers, Howick to Bedford, 19 Mar. 1807. 13. BL Add. MS. 51661, copy Holland to Bedford, 13 Mar. (1807); HMC, Fortescue MSS 9: 103–11, Grenville to Bedford, 13 Mar. 1807. 14. HL, STG 41(45), Grenville to Buckingham, 12 Feb. 1807. 15. Ibid., STG 42(34), Grenville to the marquess of Buckingham, 13 Feb. 1812. 16. Ibid., STG 79(13), Grenville to the 2d marquess of Buckingham, n.d. Mar. 1821. 17. Parl. Debs., n.s., 21: 346–47. 18. See M. W. McCahill, Order and Equipoise: The Peerage and the House of Lords, 1783–1806 (1978); and G. M. Ditchfield, “The Subscription Issue in British Parliamentary Politics, 1772–79,” Parliamentary History 7 (1988): 45–80. 19. NUL, Newcastle MSS Ne 2F 3, 131. 20. Lambeth Palace Library, MS. 2189, Bishop Howley’s “abstract of the king’s account to him and the archbishop of Canterbury of his position on the Catholic question, which had been entirely consistent, on 12 April (1827) at St. James’s.” 21. E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990), 96. 22. E. A. Smith, George IV (1999), 239. 23. BL Add. MS. 59863, Lord Grenville to the earl of Donoughmore, where he comments on the improved prospects for Catholic relief “now presented by the removal of that personal obstacle which . . . had a decisive weight in the opinions of many.” 24. Ibid., 38191, the duke of Portland to Lord Hawkesbury, 8 Mar. 1807. 25. Ibid., 38190, George III to Lord Liverpool, 22 Apr. 1809. 26. Ibid., 58951, Grenville to Holland, 6 June 1809. 27. Ibid., 51593, the earl of Albemarle to Holland, 31 Jan. 1812. 28. Ibid., 38246, Liverpool to Wellington, 11 Apr. 1811. 29. See ibid., 58963, Donoughmore to Grenville, 3 Aug. 1811, advising on the election of Irish peers. 30. Smith, Lord Grey, 156–63.

2. The Regency Crisis 1. The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland 4 (1862): 363. 2. Parl. Debs. 18: 196–98. 3. Auckland, Journal 4: 363. 4. Parl. Debs. 18: 402–18. 5. HMC, Fortescue MSS, minute of Lord Grenville for Mr. Adam, 30 Dec. 1810; Parl. Debs. 18: 455. 6. Parl. Debs. 18: 390. 7. BL Althorp G 83. 8. DUL, Grey Papers, Lauderdale to Grey, 3 and 4 Jan. 1811. 9. For the debates of 4 Jan. 1811, see Parl. Debs. 18: 687–753; DUL, Grey Papers; Lauderdale’s account to Grey of the debates sometimes gives a clearer idea than Hansard does of what took place.



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1 0. Parl. Debs. 18: 201, 240–41. 11. Ibid., 750–53. 12. Ibid., 786. 13. Ibid., 812–13, 828–30, 976–85. 14. For the debates on the regency bill discussed here, see Parl. Debs. 18: 999–1082. 15. E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990), 192. 16. BL Add. MS. 51571, Thanet to Holland, 23 Nov. 1810 and n.d. (Dec. 1810). 17. Parl. Debs. 18: 199; 201. 18. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 95. 19. Ibid., 104. 20. Ibid., 100.

3. The Catholic Question 1. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 108–10; 116–19; 113–14. 2. Parl. Debs. 19: 693–700. 3. BL Add. MS. 35649, Grenville to Hardwicke, 18 Apr. 1811; ibid., 58943, Lauderdale to Grenville, 19 Apr. 1811. 4. BL Add. MS. 58943, Lauderdale to Grenville, 23 Apr. (1811); ibid., Althorp G 86, Tom Grenville to Spencer, 26 Apr. 1811; ibid., Add. MS. 35649, Grenville to Hardwicke, 1 May 1811. 5. For the debates, see Parl. Debs. 19: 791–95. 6. This number is based on those who had acted together in the regency debates, or soon would the following spring, in the last division over the Catholic question before it was declared an open one. 7. BL Add. MS. 35649, Fitzwilliam to Hardwicke, 8 Apr. 1811. 8. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 133–34; 136–37; 140; 165–66. 9. 2d duke of Buckingham and Chandos, ed., Memoirs of the Court of England during the Regency, 1811–1820 (1856) 2: 137. 10. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 181; BL Add. MS. 35649, Grenville to Hardwicke, 26 Dec. 1811. 11. BL Althorp G 90, Grenville to Spencer, 6 Jan. 1812; HL, STG 42(30), Grenville to Buckingham, 6 Jan. 1812. 12. BL Add. MS. 35650, Grenville to Hardwicke, 8 Jan. 1812. 13. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 152, Grey to Grenville, “June 1811.” This is one of a number of letters in this volume so identified. This one, I think, is a bad guess, and the letter is most likely to have been written in early January, some time previous to the prince’s announcement on the 6th. 14. E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990), 162–63. 15. Parl. Debs. 21: 407. 16. Ibid., 412–16. 17. Ibid., 416. 18. Ibid., 418. 19. Ibid., 421–22. 20. Ibid., 431. 21. Ibid., 449.

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22. Ibid., 470, 475, 474. 23. Ibid., 477. 24. BL Add. MS. 35649, Grenville to Hardwicke, 26 Dec. 1811. 25. Ibid., 58879, Buckingham to Grenville, 2 Feb. 1812. 26. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 225–27; 205. 27. Buckingham and Chandos, Regency, 1: 228–32; 225–27. 28. BL Add. MS. 35650, Hardwicke to Grenville, 16 Feb. 1812. 29. HMC, Fortescue MSS 10: 214–15. 30. HL, STG 42(37), Grenville to Buckingham, 17 Feb. 1812. 31. BL Add. MS. 58948, Grey to Grenville, 6 and 7 Mar. 1812. 32. DUL, Grey Papers, Grenville to Grey, 24 Mar. 1812. 33. Ibid., Bedford to Grey, 31 Mar. 1812; BL Add. MS. 58948, Grey to Grenville, 1 Apr. 1812. 34. Parl. Debs. 22: 509–29. 35. Ibid., 599–603, 603–6. 36. Ibid., 606–28. 37. Ibid., 628–41. 38. See Richard W. Davis, Dissent in Politics, 1780–1830: The Political Life of William Smith, MP (1971), chaps. 10 and 11. 39. Parl. Debs. 22: 641, 642–53. 40. Ibid., 653–51. 41. Ibid., 661–99. 42. Lambeth Palace Lib. MS. 2186A, Aberdeen to Howley, 12 (sic) Apr. 1812. 43. HL, STG 38(33), Tom Grenville to Buckingham, 24 Feb. 1812. 44. Ibid.

4. The Ways Begin to Part 1. BL Add. MS. 35652, Bedford to Lord Hardwicke, 26 Feb. and 19 Mar. 1816. 2. C. D. Yonge, The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool (1868), 2: 180. 3. Parl. Debs. 30: 125–47, 175–205, 259–63. 4. 2d duke of Buckingham and Chandos, ed., Memoirs of the Court of England during the Regency, 1811–1820 (1856) 2: 107–8; Yonge, Liverpool, 2: 75. 5. Parl. Debs. 21: 1041–49; 1073. 6. HMC Fortescue MSS 10: 282–85, 288–89. 7. Lord Holland, Further Memoirs of the Whig Party, 1807–1821, ed. Lord Stavordale (1905), 160. 8. BL Add. MS. 38249, Mulgrave to Liverpool, 20 Sept. 1812; ibid., 40181, Liverpool to Peel, 1 Nov. 1812. 9. Ibid., 58952, Holland to Grenville, 11 Nov. 1812. 10. Ibid., 51686, Lansdowne to Holland, 16 Nov. (1812). 11. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 14 Nov. 1812. 12. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1813. 13. BL Add. MS. 51545, Holland to Grey, 27 Dec. 1812; DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 3 Jan. 1813.



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14. BL Add. MS. 51545, Holland to Grey, 11 May 1813; ibid., 51593, earl of Albemarle to Lady Holland, 19 May 1813. 15. Parl. Debs. 25: 1112–13. 16. BL Add. MS. 51576, Whitbread to Holland, 8 May 1813. 17. Ibid., 59264, Grenville to Thomas Newnham, 27 Jan. 1813. 18. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 18 May 1813. 19. See Michael A. Rutz, “The Politicizing of Evangelical Dissent, 1811–1813,” Parliamentary History, vol. 20, pt. 2 (2001): 187–207. 20. See BL Add. MS. 58949, Grey to Grenville, 9 May (1814). 21. Parl. Debs. 10: 930–32. 22. Ibid., 25: 524–26. 23. Yonge, Liverpool, 2: 75. 24. These debates are covered in Parl. Debs. 26: 173–99. 25. HMC Fortescue MSS 10: 358, 361–62, 365. 26. R. G. Thorne, The House of Commons, 1790–1820: Introductory Survey (1986), 229; Lord Granville Leveson Gower (first Earl Granville): Private Correspondence, 1781 to 1821, ed. Castalia, Countess Granville (1916), vol. 2. 27. HL, STG 38(51), Tom Grenville to Lord Buckingham, 6 June 1812. 28. Ibid., 42(49), Lord Grenville to Lord Buckingham, 6 June 1812. 29. BL Add. MS. 35650, Hardwicke to Moira, 7 June 1812; ibid., 51795, Ossory to Holland, 7 June 1812. 30. Leveson Gower Correspondence, 2: 500. 31. BL Add. MS. 35651, Lord Somers to the earl of Hardwicke, 25 Mar. 1816. 32. HMC Fortescue MSS 0: 311–12, Grey to Grenville, 17 Nov. 1812; HL, STG 42(54), Lord Grenville to Lord Buckingham, 25 Nov. 1812.

5. The Parting of the Ways 1. C. D. Yonge, The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool (1868), 2: 18–22. 2. Ibid., 18 Dec. 1814. 3. The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland 4 (1862): 412. 4. Parl. Debs. 30: 127–38. 5. Ibid., 138–40. 6. Ibid., 140–44. 7. Ibid., 144–46. 8. Ibid., 147. 9. Yonge, Liverpool, 2: 137. 10. Parl. Debs. 30: 175–82. 11. Ibid., 186; Yonge, Liverpool, 2: 143. 12. Parl. Debs. 30: 186. 13. Ibid., 187–99. 14. The debate on the third reading is covered in Parl. Debs. 30: 259–63. 15. Parl. Debs. 31: 333–59. 16. Ibid., 363; 2d duke of Buckingham and Chandos, ed., Memoirs of the Court of England during the Regency, 1811–1820 (1856) 2: 119.

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Notes to Chapter 5

17. HL, ST 96, political journal of the marquess of Buckingham, 1811–1816, 83; ibid., STG 94(13), Lord Buckingham to Lord Grenville, 16 July 1815. 18. DUL, Grey Papers, Bedford to Grey, 13 Jan. 1816. 19. Ibid., Grey to Holland, 14 Jan. 1816. 20. Ibid., Grey Papers, Lansdowne to Grey, 8 Feb. 1816. 21. Parl. Debs. 33: 174–76. 22. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 23 Nov. and 8 Dec. 1816. 23. E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990), 212; Parl. Debs. 35: 579. 24. Parl. Debs. 35: 583–86. 25. Smith, Grey, 212. 26. Ibid., 213. 27. HL, ST 97, Note and Letter book, 1818–1823, of the 2d marquess and 1st duke of Buckingham, 26 Jan. 1818, 7. 28. HL, STG 78(33), Grenville to Buckingham, 28 Jan. 1818. 29. James J. Sack, The Grenvillites, 1801–29: Party Politics and Factionalism in the Age of Pitt and Liverpool (1979), 132. 30. The peers are Fortescue, Bulkeley, Carnarvon, Minto, Spencer, Auckland, Stafford, Yarborough, Essex, and Hardwicke. 31. A. Aspinall, The Formation of Canning’s Ministry (1937), 249. 32. Parl. Debs. 61: 33–35. 33. Sack, Grenvillites, 167. For Sack’s fuller survey of how individuals split between the two parties, see 166–69.

6. Peterloo and Queen Caroline 1. Parl. Debs. 51: 1–4. 2. Ibid., 4–20. 3. Ibid., 26–32. 4. Ibid., 21–23. 5. Ibid., 44–45; 48. 6. See R. J. White, Peterloo: The “Massacre” and Its Background (1958). 7. Parl. Debs. 51: 50. 8. Ibid., 418–33. 9. Ibid., 433–41. 10. Ibid., 443–47. 11. Ibid., 448–62; 494, 500. 12. Ibid., 499–500. 13. Ibid., 507. 14. Ibid., 1235–36. 15. Ibid., 1282–87. 16. Ibid., 1289. For an important discussion of public opinion and its place in the politics of the period, see Peter Jupp, British Politics on the Eve of Reform: The Duke of Wellington’s Administration, 1828–30 (1998), esp. chap. 8. The book covers a wider period than its subtitle might suggest. 17. Flora Fraser, The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline (1996), 87. This, the latest biography, though with some historical slips, is based on thorough and meticulous research, is excellent on Caroline herself and her travails, and is a pleasure to read.



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1 8. Ibid., 233. 19. Lambeth Palace Lib. MS. 3274, the archbishop of Canterbury to (Lord Liverpool), n.d. (Feb. 1813). 20. E. A. Smith, George IV (1999), 179. 21. Lambeth Palace Lib. MS. 3274, Liverpool to the archbishop of Canterbury, 5 Feb. 1820. 22. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 18 Feb. 1820. 23. Parl. Debs., n.s., 11: 2–4. 24. Ibid., 2: 1075–77. 25. Ibid., 24–25. 26. To identify the societies usually called Evangelical and some of their members, see Ford K. Brown, The Fathers of the Victorians: The Age of Wilberforce (1961), 329–40 and index. 27. Parl. Debs., n.s., 3: 1439–51. 28. Ibid., 1530–37. 29. Ibid., 1544–72. 30. Ibid., 1575. 31. Ibid., 1619–20. 32. Ibid., 1098–1700. 33. Ibid., 1712–13. 34. Herbert Maxwell, ed., The Creevy Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence and Diaries of . . . Thomas Creevy, MP, 1768 to 1838 (1903), 1: 320. 35. Parl. Debs., n.s., 2: 1621. 36. Ibid., n.s., 3: 1723. 37. Ibid., 1726. 38. Ibid., 1729. 39. A. Aspinall, ed., The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot (1941), 20. 40. Parl. Debs. n.s., 3: 1714. 41. Ibid., 1730–32. 42. Ibid., 1718.

7. Efforts at Emancipation, 1819–1825 1. R. G. Thorne, The House of Commons, 1790–1820: Introductory Survey (1986), 358, 360–61. Belhaven and Rosebery may have been elected on a mistaken assumption. Creevey accepts Belhaven as a whig during the Queen Caroline debates in the autumn of 1820 but calls Rosebery a government man and one of the Scottish peers who made “a very good speech” against the bill. Presumably he did not know Rosebery as well as he knew Belhaven, but both had been active for the queen from the beginning, and so far as one can tell took no tory positions from the time they entered Parliament; The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence & Diaries of . . . Thomas Creevey, M.P., 17681838 (2 vols., 1903), ed. Sir Herbert Maxwell, 1: 309, 335. 2. Parl. Debs. 40: 111–15. 3. Ibid., 388. 4. Ibid., 398. 5. Ibid., 414–16, 416–19. 6. Ibid., 447.

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7. HL, ST 97, Buckingham’s letter book, 1818–23, Buckingham to Wellington, 18 May 1819. 8. BL Add. MS. 59863, Grenville to Donoughmore, 11 Feb. 1821. 9. Parl. Debs., n.s., 5: 2, 263. 10. Ibid., 313–38. 11. Ibid., 257. 12. Ibid., 291–92. 13. Ibid., 343. 14. Ibid., 347. 15. HL, STG 79(11), Grenville to Lord Buckingham, 5 Mar. 1821; ibid., 71(56), Fremantle to Lord Buckingham, 30 Mar. 1821; A. Aspinall, ed., The Letters of King George IV, 1812–1830 (1938), 2: 424–25, Charles Arbuthnot to Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, 29 Mar. 1821. 16. Parl. Debs., n.s., 5: 282; 2d duke of Buckingham and Chandos, ed., Memoirs of the Court of George IV (1859) 1: 151. 17. Parl. Debs., n.s., 5: 356–59. 18. Samuel H. Romilly, ed., Letters of the Earl of Dudley to the Bishop of Llandaff (1841), 283; BL Add. MS. 51663, Bedford to Holland, 14 Apr. 1821. 19. Ibid., 58963, Plunket to Grenville, 6 Apr. 1821. 20. Ibid., Donoughmore to Grenville (3 Apr. 1821); ibid., Donoughmore to Dr. (bishop) Troy, 4 Apr. 1821. 21. Parl. Debs., n.s., 13: 742. 22. SUL, Congleton MSS 23/4, Dr. James Doyle to Sir Henry Parnell, 6 Apr. 1821; ibid., 22 Apr. 1821. 23. Parl. Debs., n.s., 13: 662–75. 24. Ibid., 683. 25. Ibid., 699. 26. Ibid., 708. 27. Ibid., 711. 28. Ibid., 711–28. 29. Ibid., 728. 30. Ibid., 730. 31. Ibid., 739–45. 32. Ibid., 752–56. 33. HL, STG 73(31), W. H. Fremantle to the duke of Buckingham, 10 Mar. 1825. 34. C. S. Parker, ed., Sir Robert Peel (1891–99), 1: 373; HL, STG 73(33), W. H. Fremantle to the duke of Buckingham, 27 Apr. 1825. 35. HL, STG 73(31), Fremantle to Buckingham, 10 Mar. 1825. 36. HL, ST 95, the duke of Buckingham’s diary, 1823, 43–44. 37. Buckingham and Chandos, George IV, 2: 257–59.

8. Questionable Theories and Practical Politics 1. A. Aspinall, ed., The Diary of Henry Hobhouse, 1820–1827 (1947), 115–16. 2. A. Aspinall, ed., The Letters of King George IV, 1812–1830 (1938), 1: no. 90. 3. 2d Lord Colchester, ed., The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester (1861), 2: 211–12. 4. C. D. Yonge, The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool (1868), 3: 159–63.



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5. HL, STG 89(53), Wynn to Liverpool, 11 Dec. 1821; ibid., (54), Liverpool to Wynn, 12 Dec. 1821. 6. Aspinall, ed., The Formation of Canning’s Ministry (1937), Canning to Lansdowne, 24 Apr. 1827. Emphasis mine. 7. HL, ST 95, the duke of Buckingham’s diary, 1823: 24–43, 48, 50–51. 8. HMC Bathurst (1923), 583. 9. HL, STG 79(16), Lord Grenville to Lord Buckingham, 4 Dec. 1821. 10. E. A. Smith, George IV (1999), 192. 11. BL Add. MS. 51547, Holland to Grey, 2 Sept. 1825. 12. Ibid., Holland to Grey, 18 Sept. 1826. 13. Parl. Debs., n.s., 8: 1175–94. 14. Ibid., 1195–98. 15. Ibid., 1218. 16. Ibid., 1235–38. 17. Ibid., 1240; 1247. 18. Ibid., 1248–49. 19. Parl. Debs., n.s., 9: 1033–38. 20. Ibid., 1041–42. 21. Ibid., 1043–46; 1046. 22. Ibid., 1038–39; 1041. 23. Ibid., 1046–51. 24. Ibid., 1058–“68,” actually 62. 25. Ibid., 1065. 26. Ibid., 1068–71. 27. Ibid., 1071–72. 28. BL Lansdowne Papers 3/34, Holland to Lansdowne, 23 Aug. 1822. 29. SUL, Wellington Papers, WP1/724/9, draft memorandum on steps leading to Canning’s inclusion in the government. 30. HL, STG 73(36), Charles Wynn to the duke of Buckingham, 31 May 1825. 31. HL, STG 89(47), Charles Wynn to the marquess of Buckingham, 9 Sept. 1821. 32. BL Add. MS. 51547, Holland to Grey, 2 Sept. 1825. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid., Grey to Holland, 10 Feb. 1826. 35. The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence & Diaries of . . . Thomas Creevey, M.P., 1768-1838 (2 vols., 1903), ed. Sir Herbert Maxwell, 2: 101. 36. Colchester, 3: 429. 37. Yonge, Liverpool, 3: 378; BL Add. MS. 40315, Eldon to Peel, 24 June 1826. 38. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/P/5/27/3, Viscount Dudley to Littleton, 27 May 1826; ibid., Huskisson to Littleton, 5 June 1826; ibid., marquess of Stafford to Littleton, 30 June 1826. 39. Ibid., D260/M/F/5/26/34, 4 Feb. 1845.

9. Lansdowne and Canning 1. Lambeth Palace Lib. MS. 2189. 2. Ibid. 3. A. G. Stapleton, George Canning and His Times (1859), 582–86. Second emphasis mine.

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4. Ibid. 5. University College Library, London, Brougham Papers 38911, Lansdowne to Brougham, 26 Mar. 1827; BL Add. MS. 51687, Lansdowne to Holland, 13 Apr. 1827; ibid., Lansdowne to Holland, 21 Apr. 1827. 6. Leeds City Library Archives, Harewood MSS 806, memorandum of a whig meeting at Lansdowne House, 19 Apr. 1827. 7. Ibid., Harewood MSS 64, Canning to Carlisle, 19 Apr. 1827. 8. BL Lansdowne 3/34, Holland to Lansdowne, 21 Apr. 1827; Leeds City Library Archives, Harewood MSS 86, Canning to Wellesley, 27 Apr. 1827. 9. A. Aspinall, The Formation of Canning’s Ministry (1937), 187, no. 255; Bucks R.O., earl of Buckinghamshire Papers 0.143, Canning’s memorandum, 23 Apr. 1827; Leeds City Library Archives, Harewood MSS 806, Lansdowne to Canning, 27 Apr. 1827. 10. C. D. Yonge, The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, 3: 146. 11. A. Aspinall, ed., The Letters of George IV, 1812–1830 (1938), 3: 344. 12. Richard W. Davis, Dissent in Politics, 1780–1830: The Political Life of William Smith, MP (1971), 240. 13. Parl. Debs., n.s., 17: 707–8. 14. Ibid., 708–9. 15. Ibid., 724, 730. 16. Ibid., 986–97. 17. Ibid., 999–1006. 18. Ibid., 1026. 19. Ibid., 1089. 20. Ibid., 1096–97. 21. Ibid., 1097. 22. Leeds City Library Archives, Harewood MSS 806, Canning to Lansdowne, 4 June 1827; ibid., 79, Canning to Portland, 7 June 1827; HL, ST 78, 1st duke’s diary, 1827–28, 29 May 1827. The date of Canning’s letter to Portland is wrong, as the vote did not come until the 12th. 23. Parl. Debs., n.s., 9: 1238. 24. Bucks R.O., earl of Buckinghamshire Papers 0.114, draft Goderich to Wellington, 8 June 1827; Parl. Debs., n.s., 17: 1226. 25. Aspinall, Formation of Canning’s Ministry, 290–91; Richard W. Davis, “Wellington,” in R. W. Davis, ed., Leaders in the Lords: Government Management and Party Organization in the Upper Chamber, 1765–1902 (2003), 44. 26. HL, ST 98, 1st duke of Buckingham’s diary, 12 and 13 June 1827. 27. Ibid., vol. 2, 3 July 1827. Emphasis mine. 28. Ibid., vol. 2, 13 July 1827. 29. Aspinall, Formation of Canning’s Ministry, 226. Aspinall dates the letter somewhere around mid-May. But the context, the whigs taking or about to take office, makes it evident that it was much later. Lansdowne became home secretary on 16 July. 30. Aspinall, Formation of Canning’s Ministry, 248–49. 31. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 13 Mar. 1827. 32. University College Library, London, Brougham Papers, Grey to Brougham, 19 (Aug.) 1827, unnumbered.



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33. Bucks R.O., earl of Buckinghamshire Papers F67, George IV to Goderich, 8 Aug. 1827. Emphasis mine. 34. Ibid., 0.86, Goderich to George IV, 10 Aug. 1827; ibid., F68, George IV to Goderich, 10 Aug. 1827. Emphasis mine. 35. BL Add. MS. 40862, Goderich’s “Memorandum on what took place on my being appointed first lord of the treasury [from the 8th to] 17th August 1827.” 36. Ibid., 38750, copy Huskisson to Lord Granville, 31 Aug. 1827; ibid., copy Huskisson to Goderich, 1 Sept. 1827. 37. Ibid., 51687, Lansdowne to Holland, 2 and 5 Sept. 1827. 38. Aspinall, Letters of George IV, 3: 295 fn.

10. The Constitutional Revolution Begins 1. Horace Twiss, The Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon, 3d ed., vol. 2 (1846), 204; Spencer Walpole, The Life of Lord John Russell (1891), 149. 2. Richard W. Davis, “Wellington,” in R. W. Davis, ed., Leaders in the Lords: Government Management and Party Organization in the Upper Chamber, 1765–1902 (2003), 45. 3. NUL, Newcastle MSS Ne 2F 3, the 4th duke’s diary, 30 Jan. 1828. 4. Richard W. Davis, “Wellington and the ‘Open Question,’” Albion (1997) 29: 45. 5. R. W. Davis, “The Tories, the Whigs, and Catholic Emancipation, 1827–1829,” English Historical Review 97 (1982): 95–96. 6. SUL, WP 1/930/39, draft Wellington to the duke of Montrose, 29 and 30 Apr. 1828. 7. HL, STG 79(36), Grenville to Buckingham, 19 Apr. 1828. 8. SUL, Broadlands MSS, Palmerston’s journal, Mar. 1828 to Jan. 1829: 23 May 1828. Palmerston’s lists are not exhaustive. In his Lords list, for example, he leaves out Canning’s son-in-law, Clanricarde, and his brother-in-law, Portland, among others. 9. RA GEO/IV 24480–1. 10. Parl. Debs., n.s., 19: 179. 11. Ibid., 1294–97. 12. Ibid., 1286–92. 13. Peter Jupp, British Politics on the Eve of Reform: The Duke of Wellington’s Administration, 1828–30 (1998), 88–89, fn. 37, 104–5. 14. HMC Bathurst (1923), 583. 15. Wellington, Despatches, Correspondence, 3: 463–64. 16. R. W. Davis, “Wellington, the Constitution and Catholic Emancipation,” Parliamentary History 15 (1996): 210. 17. BL Add. MS. 51567, copy Wellington to Anglesey, 28 Sept. 1828. 18. SUL, Broadlands MSS GMC/24, Palmerston, “Substance of the understanding verbally come to in a conversation between Huskisson, Dudley, Grant and myself on one side and the duke of Wellington on the other, 18 Jan. 1828.” Palmerston had also made it a major item in an earlier interview with the duke; ibid. 25/1–4. There is a full text of Canning’s memorandum, as well as a condensed version, in Wellington’s papers; WP1/982/1 and 980/1. 19. Francis Bamford and the duke of Wellington, eds., The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1830–1832 (1950), 2: 205. 20. Here I begin to clarify what I managed to confuse in “A Last Blast,” Parliamentary History 20 (2001): 360.

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Notes to Chapter 10

21. Lord Colchester, ed., A Political Diary, 1828–1830 by . . . Lord Ellenborough (1881), 1: 182. 22. HMC Bathurst (1923), 654. 23. Wellington, Despatches, 4: 564–65; 573. 24. Bamford and Wellington, Journal, 2: 214. 25. Wellington, Despatches, 5: 268. 26. The 7th duke of Wellington, ed., Wellington and His Friends (1965), 85–86. 27. Richard Pares, King George III and the Politicians (1953), 157. 28. BL Add. MS. 51567, Anglesey to Wellington, 24 Sept. 1828. 29. Ibid., Wellington to Anglesey, 28 Sept. 1828. 30. Ibid., copy Anglesey to Wellington, 15 Nov. 1828. 31. Ibid., 40308, Peel to Lord Talbot, 27 Nov. 1828. 32. Ibid., Wellington to Peel, 28 Oct. 1828. 33. University College Library, London, Brougham Papers (Grey), Brougham to Grey, 29 Oct. 1828. 34. Staffs R.O., Hatherton Papers D 260/M/F/27/5. Starting with a letter from Goderich to Edward Littleton of 23 October, there is a cluster from Charles Manners Sutton, Huskisson, and ending with one from Harrowby of 15 December. 35. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Holland, 9 Jan. 1829; BL Add. MS. 38757, Goderich to Huskisson, 12 Jan. 1829. 36. Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State (1972), 178. 37. BL Add. MS 40308, Peel to Wellington, 12 Jan. 1829. 38. Wellington, Despatches, 5: 548–49. 39. SUL, WP 1/993/77, Wellington to Salisbury, 30 Jan. 1829; ibid., 994/28, Camden to Wellington, 6 Feb. 1829. 40. HL, STG 79(37), Lord Grenville to the duke of Buckingham, 7 Feb. 1829. 41. Beyond their voting on religious issues, my identification of whigs is based mainly on four significant divisions, or in the case of Queen Caroline, a set of divisions from 27 June to 10 November 1820. Two others were on Lord Ellenborough’s motion questioning the government’s policy on the Spanish issue on 24 April 1823 and the duke of Devonshire’s on the state of Ireland on 19 June of the same year. Finally there was the vote on the duke of Wellington’s amendment to the Corn bill on 12 June 1827. 42. For Wellington’s November proposal, see Wellington, Despatches 5: 256–68. 43. Ibid., 550–53.

11. Reform 1. Lord Colchester, ed., A Political Diary, 1828–1830 by . . . Lord Ellenborough (1881), 2: 10. 2. A. Aspinall, The Letters of George IV, 1812–1830 (1938), 2: 362–63, Lyndhurst to Knighton, 11 Jan. 1828. 3. NUL, Ne 2F 3/1. 4. DUL, Grey Papers, Durham to Grey, 20 and 25 Jan. 1830. 5. Parl. Debs., n.s., 13: 538–40. 6. R. W. Davis, “The Duke of Wellington and the Ultra Peers,” and D. G. S. Simes, “A Long and Difficult Association: The Ultra Tories and ‘The Great Apostate,’” in C. M. Woolgar, ed., Wellington Studies III (1999).



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7. DUL, Grey Papers, Durham to Grey, 8 Feb. 1830; E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990), 254. 8. Parl. Debs., n.s., 25: 706–67. 9. SUL, WP1/10856/6; ibid., WP1/1090/23. 10. BL Add. MS. 40333, Henry Goulburn to Peel, 11 May 1830. 11. SUL, Broadlands GMC/33/1–2, “Memorandum of the duke of Wellington’s proposal to Lord Melbourne at the end of June 1830.” 12. Ibid., 36/1–3; 38/1; 42/2. 13. University College Library, London, Brougham Papers 10343, Durham (quoting Grey) to Brougham, 7 Sept. 1830. 14. BL Add. MS. 51555, Grey to Holland, 22 Aug. 1830. 15. DUL, Grey Papers, Lansdowne to Grey, 6 Oct. 1830; C. S. Parker, Sir Robert Peel (1891–99), 2: 169, Hardinge to Peel, 6 Oct. 1830; BL Add. MS. 51555, Grey to Holland, 8 Oct. 1830; ibid., 51548, Holland’s reply, 11 Oct. 1830. 16. BL Add. MS. 40340, Charles Arbuthnot to Peel, 1 Nov. 1830. 17. I owe this quotation to the kindness of the late Lady Longford. 18. DUL, Grey Papers, Lansdowne to Grey, 18 Jan. 1831. 19. Richard W. Davis, “The Whigs and the Idea of Electoral Deference: Some Further Thoughts on the Great Reform Act,” Durham University Journal (Dec. 1974), 79–91. 20. Ibid., 80. 21. SUL, Broadlands Papers GC/GR/2042/1–3, Grey to Palmerston, 10 Oct. 1831. 22. Ibid., WP1/1180/13, Wellington to Buckingham, 24 Mar. 1831. 23. Ibid., Broadlands Papers GC/GR/1989, Grey to Palmerston, 14 June 1831, with a penciled reply. 24. Most recently by Edward Pearce, Reform! The Fight for the 1832 Reform Act (2004). It is a fine book, though I disagree with him on this point. 25. Wellington, Despatches, 8: 493. 26. The background and agenda of the cabinet meeting are discussed in RA, Windsor, MP 11/2, Palmerston to Melbourne, 3 Sept. 1831. 27. DUL, Grey 46/58 A; the pros and cons for a creation set forth by Lord Holland. 28. SUL, WP1/1195/16, Ellenborough to Wellington, 10 Sept. 1831. 29. Ibid., 45; 1196/6, letters from Bishop Phillpotts; 1196/22, Sidmouth to Wellington, 28 Sept. 1831. 30. Ibid., 1195/21, Eldon to Wellington, 15 Sept. 1831; Wellington, Despatches, 7: 532–3. 31. BL Add. MS. 51548, 29 Sept. 1831; ibid., 51578, Carlisle to Holland, n.d. Oct. 1831; West Sussex R.O., Goodwood MS. 1489, Richmond to Portland, 2 Oct. 1831. 32. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 8: 340–44. 33. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Duncannon, 28 Oct. 1831; BL Add. MS. 51548, Grey to Holland, 30 Oct. 1831. 34. RA MP 5/97, 98, Grey to Melbourne, 18 Nov. 1831. 35. RA GEO/Add. 15/1660, correspondence of Earl Grey and William IV, Grey’s minute of a conversation with the king on 4 Jan. 1832. 36. Ibid., 1661. 37. Ibid., 1673, 1677; SUL, Broadlands GC/GR/20076/1–2. 38. RA GEO/Add. 15/1723; Grey and William IV correspondence, 8 Feb. 1832. 39. Ibid., 1725, 1726, 1727.

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Notes to Chapter 11

40. Ibid., 1729. 41. Abraham D. Kriegel, ed., The Holland House Diaries, 1831–1840 (1977), 131–32. 42. Ibid., 152–53. 43. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Althorp, 11 Mar. 1832. 44. Kriegel, Holland House Diaries, 160–62. 45. RA GEO/Add. 15/1776, Grey and William IV correspondence, 27 Mar. 1832. 46. Ibid., 1778, the king to Grey, 30 Mar. 1832. 47. Ibid., 1780. 48. Ibid., 1784, 1787. 49. Michael Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973), 282. 50. BL Add. MS. 51556, Grey to Holland, 21 Apr. 1832. 51. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 12: 676–86. 52. Ibid., 692–93. 53. Ibid., 713–14. 54. Ibid., 712–13. 55. Ibid., 712–13, 709. 56. Ibid., 1714–17.

12. Resurgence 1. Michael Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973), 291; A. Aspinall, ed., Three Early Nineteenth Century Diaries (1952), 239; ibid., 237: Wellington had already ruled out three days earlier the retention of scot-and-lot voters, the second of Ellenborough’s three major proposals. The wide disfranchisement he was to propose was at least equally foreign to Wellington’s previous ideas. It seems more likely that what the leadership did was simply to seize on Ellenborough’s plan as something they thought might be popular. 2. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 12: 727–33. 3. Brock, Reform, 290. 4. Ibid., 697–99. 5. BL Add. MS. 38078, Wellington to Croker, 30 Apr. 1832. 6. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 12: 996. 7. C. S. Parker, ed., Sir Robert Peel (1891–99), 2: 205–6; West Sussex R.O., Goodwood MS 1435, Tryconnel to Richmond, 13 May 1832. 8. NUL, Newcastle diary, Ne 2F 4/1, 116–20. 9. Wellington, Despatches 5: 437–38. 10. Quoted in Michael W. McCahill, “William, first Lord Grenville,” in R. W. Davis, ed., Leaders in the Lords: Government Management and Party Organization in the Upper Chamber, 1765–1902 (2003), 42. 11. SUL, WP 1/1197/8, draft Wellington to Bath, 22 Sept. 1831. 12. BL Add. MS. 43060, Wellington to Aberdeen, 18 Jan. 1833. 13. John Brooke and Julia Gandy, eds., Wellington Political Correspondence, vol. 1, 1833–November 1834 (1975), 67, 83–84. 14. R. W. Davis and R. J. Helmstadter, eds., Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: Essays in Honor of R. K. Webb (1992), 33. 15. Richard W. Davis, ed., Lords of Parliament: Studies, 1714–1914 (1995), 105–6. 16. West Sussex R.O., Goodwood MS. 1462, Taylor to Richmond, 23 June 1833.



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1 7. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 19: 727–55, Grey’s speech introducing the second reading. 18. Brooke and Gandy, Wellington Political Correspondence 1: 243–44. 19. Ibid., 148. 20. Ibid., 255. 21. Ibid., 256–57. 22. Ibid., 258. 23. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 19: 954–57. 24. BL Add. MS. 40309, Wellington to Peel, 23 July 1833. 25. A. Aspinall, ed., The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot (1941), 172–73. 26. Davis, Lords of Parliament, 100.

13. Cooperation and Confrontation 1. John Brooke and Julia Gandy, eds., Wellington Political Correspondence, vol. 1, 1833–November 1834 (1975), 561–62. 2. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 20: 222. 3. Ibid., 224–26. 4. Ibid., 226–31. 5. Ibid., 235. 6. Ibid., 236–37. 7. Ibid., 238. 8. Wellington’s 1833 speech and Melbourne’s remarks on it will be found in Brooke and Gandy, Wellington Political Correspondence, 1: 245–47. The other quotations, from Wellington in 1830 and Holland’s journal in 1833, are from BL Add. MS. 40309, Wellington to Peel, 6 Apr. 1830, and ibid., 51870, 27 July 1833. 9. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 20: 502–21. 10. Ibid., 590–94. 11. Ibid., 753–54. 12. Ibid., 25: 211–51. 13. Ibid., 252–62. 14. Ibid., 262. 15. Ibid., 264–65. 16. Ibid., 266–68, 268–69. 17. Ibid., 274. 18. Ibid., 586–613. 19. Ibid., 599. 20. Ibid., 697. 21. Ibid., 612–13. 22. Ibid., 1061–87. For the significance of Evangelicalism, see Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785–1865 (1988). 23. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 20: 1088. 24. Ibid., 1096–97. 25. Ibid., 1097–98. 26. Ibid., 1098–99. 27. Ibid., 914. 28. BL Add. MS. 51557, Grey to Holland, 9 Mar. 1834.

362

Notes to Chapter 13

29. DUL, Grey Papers, Grey to Canterbury, 21 Feb. 1834; Richard Brent, Liberal Anglican Politics: Whiggery, Religion, and Reform, 1830–1841 (1987), 189–90. 30. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 25: 815–28. 31. Ibid., 829–30; 832–40. 32. Ibid., 840–45. 33. Ibid., 840–45; 845–48. 34. Ibid., 854–58. 35. Ibid., 861–65. 36. BL Add. MS. 51688, Lansdowne to Holland, 31 July 1834. 37. Brooke and Gandy, Wellington Political Correspondence, 1: 461. 38. On all the issues discussed above, see R. W. Davis, “The Whigs and Religious Issues, 1830–35,” in R. W. Davis and R. J. Helmstadter, eds., Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: Essays in Honor of R. K. Webb (1992), 29–50. 39. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 25: 1143–48. 40. BL Add. MS. 40863, Stanley to Ripon, 25 July 1834. 41. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 25: 1156. 42. Ibid., 1171. 43. Ibid., 1173–74. 44. Ibid., 1196. 45. Ibid., 1190–95; 1204–7. 46. Brooke and Gandy, Wellington Political Correspondence, 1: 663–64. 47. HL, STG 85/17, Londonderry to Buckingham, 24 Apr. 1834. 48. Brooke and Gandy, Wellington Political Correspondence, 1: 639.

14. The Municipal Corporations Act 1. R. W. Davis, “Buckingham, 1832–1846: A Study of a ‘Pocket Borough,’” Huntington Library Quarterly 34 (1971): 159–81. 2. HL, STG 85(35), Londonderry to Buckingham, 5 July 1835. 3. NUL, Newcastle Diaries, Ne 2F 5/1, 43–44. 4. Ibid., 48–49. 5. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 29: 1132–36. 6. Ibid., 1338–40. 7. NUL, Newcastle Diaries, Ne 2F 5/1; HL, STG 85(36), Londonderry to Buckingham, 3 Aug. 1835; Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 1425–27. 8. M. G. Wiebe, ed., Benjamin Disraeli Letters (1987), 2: 216; George Kitson Clark, Peel and the Conservative Party: A Study in Party Politics, 1832–1841 (1964), 269. 9. HL, STG 85(36). 10. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 1336–37. 11. John Brooke and Julia Gandy, eds., Wellington Political Correspondence, vol. 1, 1833–November 1834 (1975), 639. 12. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 29: 136–37. 13. BL Add. MS. 40323, Lord Fitzgerald to Peel, n.d. (fos. 292–99). 14. HL, STG 85(38), Londonderry to Buckingham, 10 Aug. 1835. 15. HL, STG 85(39), Londonderry to Buckingham, 17 Aug. 1835. 16. BL Add. MS. 40323, fos. 292–99.



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17. SUL, WP 2/34/14–17, Wellington memorandum for the king, 8 June 1835; Richard W. Davis, ed., Lords of Parliament: Studies, 1714–1914 (1995), 108. 18. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 356–57. 19. The debate on the two clauses will be found in Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 426–63. 20. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 480–81. 21. Ibid., 481–500. 22. Ibid., 579–601. 23. Ibid., 971–77. 24. Ibid., 1026–70. 25. BL Add. MS. 40323, Fitzgerald to Peel, 10 Aug. 1835. 26. Ibid., fos. 253–57, Fitzgerald to Peel, n.d. 27. SUL, WP 2/35/69, Sir Henry Hardinge to Wellington, 31 Aug. 1835; Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 1307–50. 28. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 1363–67. 29. Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: the Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972), 136. 30. University College Library, London, Brougham Papers 43538, Melbourne to Brougham, 13 Oct. 1835.

15. Irish Questions 1. BL Add. MS. 40312, Aberdeen to Peel, 24 Aug. 1835; Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 30: 934–36. 2. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 33: 306, 306–10. 3. BL Add. MS. 51558, Melbourne to Holland, 25 Apr. 1836. 4. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 34: 892–93. 5. SUL, WP2/38/128, Peel to Wellington, 11 Mar. 1836. 6. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 33: 238; SUL, WP 2/38/33, Wellington to Peel, 11 Feb. 1836. 7. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 33: 722. 8. Ibid., 1061–62. 9. Ibid., 876–77. 10. Ibid., 913. 11. Ibid., 933–35. 12. Ibid., 948–55, 964–66. 13. SUL, WP2/47/158, a list submitted to Wellington by the Conservative whip, Lord Redesdale. 14. William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Russell MSS, box 2, “List of peers created each year since 1784, distinguishing the prime minister of the time and the mode of voting in Lord Melbourne’s administration.” 15. E. A. Smith, The House of Lords in British Politics and Society, 1815 to 1911 (1992), 96. Smith was not alone in quoting this figure. 16. A. S. Turberville, The House of Lords in the Age of Reform, 1784–1837 (1958), app. 3. 17. E. A. Smith, Lord Grey (1990), 318–19. 18. Richard W. Davis, “The Whigs and Religious Issues,” in R. W. Davis and R. J. Helmstadter, eds. Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: Essays in Honor of R. K. Webb (1992), 29–50. 19. Abraham D. Kriegel, ed., The Holland House Diaries, 1831–1840 (1977), 361.

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Notes to Chapter 15

20. Ibid., 357. 21. SUL, Mel/RU/281, Melbourne to Russell, 18 Dec. 1836. 22. Ibid., 24; Staffs R.O., Hatherton diaries D260/M/F/5/26/15, 9 Mar. 1837; ibid., 11 Apr. 1837. 23. SUL, WP2/44/140, Peel to Wellington, 23 Feb. 1837. 24. Ibid., WP2/44/142, Wellington to Peel, 24 Feb. 1837. 25. Ibid., 45/48–50, Peel to Wellington, 22 Mar. 1837. 26. Ibid., 50. 27. Ibid., 52. 28. Ibid., 80. 29. George Kitson Clark, Peel and the Conservative Party: A Study in Party Politics, 1832–1841 (1964), 344–45. 30. Ibid., 110–11. 31. Ibid., 112. 32. Ibid., 88. 33. Ibid., 147, 351. 34. SUL, WP2/46/4, memorandum from Wellington to Peel, 3 May 1837. 35. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 38: 550–602, 1308–21.

16. Discontented Conservatives 1. Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: the Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972), 195. 2. SUL, MEL/RU/38/2, Russell to Melbourne, 11 Aug. 1837; ibid., 387, Melbourne’s reply, 13 Aug. 3. BL, Add. MS. 51688, Lansdowne to Holland, 6 Apr. 1837. 4. Ibid., Lansdowne 3/43, Lansdowne to Russell, 10 Sept. 1837. 5. Ibid., Add. MS. 76389, Russell to Spencer, 14 Sept. 1837. 6. SUL, MEL/RU/357, Melbourne to Russell, 28 June 1837; ibid., 38/2. 7. HL, STG 85(57), Londonderry to Buckingham, 1 Sept. 1837. 8. SUL, WP2/47/197, Wilton to Wellington, 29 Oct. 1837. 9. Ibid., 198, Wellington to Wilton, 31 Oct. 1837. 10. Ibid. 48/173–77, 153; ibid., 49/7. 11. M. G. Wiebe, ed., Benjamin Disraeli Letters (1987), 3: 709. 12. Abraham D. Kriegel, ed., The Holland House Diaries, 1831–1840 (1977), 381. 13. Carola Oman, ed., The Gascoyne Heiress, The Life and Diaries of Frances Mary Gascoyne-Cecil (1968), 276. 14. SUL, WP2/49/44–45, Redesdale to Wellington, 27 Jan. 1838; Gloucestershire R.O., Redesdale MSS 5/1/2, Wellington to Redesdale, 28 Jan. 1839. 15. HL, STG 85(61), Londonderry to Buckingham, ca. 28 Jan. 1838. 16. SUL, WP2/49/85, 86. 17. Ibid., 91–93, 102, Wellington to Arbuthnot, 15 and 19 Feb., 1838. 18. Ibid., 110, 115. 19. Gash, Peel, 204–5. 20. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D1178/1, 16 May 1838. 21. SUL, WP2/51/61, Wellington to Melbourne, 14 May 1838. 22. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 43: 21–22. 23. Ibid., 21 May 1838.



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2 4. Ibid., 358–60. 25. Ibid., 366–69. 26. Ibid., 477–81. 27. Ibid., 501. 28. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D1178/1, 8 June 1838; D260/M/F/26/16, 10 July 1838. 29. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 44: 150–52. 30. Ibid., 161–68, 1037–40. 31. Ibid., 926–77, 1103–12.

17. The Jamaican Constitution and the Education Controversy 1. SUL, WP2/56/16, Wellington to Westmeath, 3 Jan. 1839. 2. Ibid., 119–20. 3. Ibid., 58/32, Peel to Wellington, 22 Mar. 1839; Abraham D. Kriegel, ed., The Holland House Diaries, 1831–1840 (1977), 393. 4. SUL, WP2/58/32, Peel to Wellington, 22 Mar. 1839; ibid., 58/34, Wellington to Peel, 23 Mar. 1839; ibid., 38–39, Peel to Wellington, 25 Mar. 1839; Kriegel, Holland House Diaries, 393. 5. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/6, 7 May 1839, 29 Apr. 1839. 6. SUL, WP2/58/33; Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: the Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972), 217–19. 7. For the debate and division list, see Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 46: 566–627. 8. Kriegel, Holland House Diaries, 397. 9. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/16, 7 and 10 May 1839; ibid., 17, 11 May 1839. 10. For the debate and division on the first clause, see Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 48: 1096– 1133, 1151–52. 11. SUL, WP2/59/136–37. 12. Ibid., Mel/Ru/90/1–2. 13. For the debate and division, see Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 48: 1234–335. 14. Ibid., 49: 597–620, 747–65.

18. Wellington, Peel, and the Triumph of the Conservatives 1. SUL, WP2/63/156–58; ibid., 64/12–49, Wellington to Peel, 18 and 23 Dec. 1839. 2. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/1/5/26/17, 10 Apr. 1840, 11 May 1840. 3. George Kitson Clark, Peel and the Conservative Party: A Study in Party Politics, 1832–1841 (1964), 453. 4. Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State (1972), 330–31. 5. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/21, 18 Mar. 1841. 6. Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: the Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972), 243–44; BL Add. MS. 51559, Melbourne to Holland, 17 Jan. (sic) 1840. 7. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 50: 239–46, the duke’s speech on the second reading; 662–66, his protest. 8. Gash, Peel, 245–47. 9. SUL, WP2/69/102, Peel to Wellington, received 3 July 1840. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., 69/103. 12. BL Add. MS. 40312, Aberdeen to Peel, 5 July 1840.

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Notes to Chapter 18

13. A. Aspinall, ed., The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot (1941), 221. 14. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/18, 8 July 1840. 15. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 55: 490–522. 16. SUL, WP2/138/41–44, Wellington to Stanley, n.d. Feb. 1846. 17. Ibid. 18. Gash, Peel, 212. 19. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 53: 1164–71. 20. Ibid., 54: 119. 21. Ibid., 1101–5. 22. Ibid., 110–13. 23. Ibid., 55: 1283–94. 24. Ibid., 161–91. 25. Ibid., 1356; 1389. 26. SUL, WP2/70/36, Graham to Arbuthnot, 27 July 1840. 27. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 58: 1048–49. 28. Ibid., 1449–58.

19. A New Corn Law and Lord Ashley’s Mines Bill 1. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 59: 106–9. 2. SUL, WP2/79/55, Wellington to Aberdeen, 29 Sept. 1841. 3. Ibid., 81/77–78, Wellington to Graham, 11 Nov. 1841. 4. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/22, 3 May 1841. 5. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 62: 572–88. 6. For Winchilsea’s speech see Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 62: 608–12. 7. Ibid., 612–13. 8. Ibid., 636–37. 9. Melbourne’s speech will be found in Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 62: 721–26. 10. Ibid., 750–52. 11. Ibid., 753–55. 12. Ibid., 755–56. 13. Ibid., 761–76. 14. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/24, 19 and 21 Apr. 1842. 15. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 62: 790–98. 16. Ibid., 801, 804. 17. Ibid., 895–901. 18. Ibid., 991–95; Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: the Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972), 325–26. 19. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/23, 10, 17, and 18 June 1842. 20. The final debate will be found in Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 64: 283–341. 21. SUL, WP2/89/87, Wellington to Graham, 2 July 1842. 22. Ibid., 90, Ashley to Wellington, 4 July 1842; 91, Wellington’s reply. 23. Gash, Peel, 334–35. 24. SUL, WP2/90/9–10, Graham to Wellington, 14 July, 1842. 25. Ibid., 90/80, Wellington to Graham, 16 July 1842; 19 July 1842. 26. Ibid., 90/112, Wellington to Peel, 10 Aug. 1842. 27. Ibid., 122.



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367

20. Religious Conflicts Begin, 1843 1. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/26, 5 May 1843. 2. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 66: 261–74. 3. For an important recent study of the diverse origins behind the changing values of the period, see F. David Roberts, The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians (2002). 4. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 66: 275–83. 5. Ibid., 283–89; SUL, WP2/96/95–96, duke of Cleveland to Wellington, 20 Jan. 1843; ibid., 97/6–7, earl of Powis to Wellington, 26 Jan. 1843. 6. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 66: 289–95. 7. Ibid., 296–99. 8. See John Powell, “The Third Marquess of Lansdowne,” in R. W. Davis, ed., Leaders in the Lords: Government Management and Party Organization in the Upper Chamber, 1765–1902 (2003), 57–73. 9. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/26, 13, 14 Mar. 1843. 10. SUL, WP2/101/55, Roden to Wellington, 4 May 1843; ibid., 56, Wellington to Roden, 6 May 1843; ibid., 94, Peel to Wellington, 9 May 1843. 11. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 69: 756–72. 12. Ibid., 774–80. 13. Ibid., 785–88. 14. Ibid., 788–90. 15. Ibid., 794–97. 16. Ibid., 379–80. 17. Ibid., 802–3. 18. Ibid., 803. 19. Ibid., 804. 20. The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., (1910), 72. 21. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 69: 921. 22. Ibid., 1400–13. 23. SUL, WP2/104/16, Wellington to Stanley, 2 June 1843. 24. Ibid., 109/93, Wellington memorandum, 25 Aug. 1843. 25. Ibid., 110/43, Wellington to Graham, 3 Sept. 1843. 26. Ibid., 45. 27. C. S. Parker, ed., Sir Robert Peel (1891–99), 3: 190–92.

21. The Dissenters Chapels Act, the Factory Act, and the Welsh Bishops Bill 1. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/17, 24 July 1839. 2. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 74: 579–84. 3. Ibid., 589–96. 4. Ibid., 597–605. 5. Ibid., 821–26. 6. Ibid., 826–32. 7. Ibid., 75: 80. 8. Ibid., 80–83. 9. Ibid., 84.

368

Notes to Chapter 21

10. Ibid., 84–86. 11. Ibid., 135 (misprinted as 145)–39. 12. Ibid., 139–43. 13. Ibid., 143–46. 14. SUL, WP2/120/69, Wellington to Graham, 24 May 1844; ibid., 99–100, Graham to Wellington, 31 May 1844. 15. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 75: 499–500. 16. Ibid., 504. 17. Ibid., 505–7. 18. Ibid., 508–13. 19. Ibid., 515–20. 20. SUL, WP2/121/30, Wellington to Powis, 22 June 1844. 21. Ibid., 31, Wellington to Peel, 22 June 1844; ibid., 29, Powis’s letter requesting the queen’s permission, 21 June 1844. 22. Ibid., 62, Peel to Wellington, n.d. (27 June). 23. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 75: 1247–51. 24. Ibid., 1251–52. 25. Ibid., 1252–56. 26. Ibid., 76: 124–26; Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/5/26/30, 1 July 1844. 27. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 76: 126–32. 28. Ibid., 294, 422. 29. SUL, WP2/121/114, Wellington to Powis, 8 July 1844. 30. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 76: 591–619. 31. SUL, WP2/121/96, Graham to Wellington, 3 July 1844.

22. The Maynooth Grant, 1845 1. BL Add. MS. 40468, Stanley to Peel, 27 July 1844. 2. SUL, WP2/122/54, Wellington to Peel, 28 July 1844. 3. Ibid., 158. 4. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 78: 515–24. 5. Ibid., 524. 6. Ibid., 525–27. 7. Ibid., 527. 8. SUL, WP2/128/139, Wellington to Peel, 26 Mar. 1845. 9. Ibid., 129/23–24. 10. Ibid., 25. 11. Ibid., 36; 35; 39. 12. Ibid., 45. 13. Ibid., 66; Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 79: 931–32. 14. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 79: 1240. 15. Ibid., 91–95. 16. Ibid., 80: 41–52; BL Add. MS. 40565, Howley to Peel, 23 April 1845; Peel to Howley, 30 Apr. 1845. 17. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 80: 72–84. 18. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/5/26/35, 7 May 1845.



Notes to Chapter 22

369

1 9. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 80: 90–93. 20. Ibid., 94–97. 21. SUL, WP2/130/48, Powis to Wellington, 28 May 1845. 22. Ibid., 24. 23. Ibid., 129/10, Redesdale to Wellington, 4 Apr. 1845; ibid., 11, Wellington to Peel, 4 Apr. 1845. 24. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 80: 1160–62. 25. John Fletcher, ed., Where Truth Abides: Extract from the Diaries of Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham-Clinton 4th duke of Newcastle-Under-Lyme (2001), 290. 26. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 80: 1160, 1164–74; 81: 569. 27. Parl. Debs., 81: 1175. 28. Ibid., 1175–98. 29. Ibid., 1199–1206. 30. Ibid., 1209–13. 31. Ibid., 1306–7, 1345 [sic]. 32. Ibid., 81: 116–19. 33. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/26/35, 5 June 1845. 34. Two lists of Conservatives, one Wellington’s, one Redesdale’s, exist for early January 1842. On the principle that any peer listed by the leader and/or the whip deserves to be considered a member of the party, I have drawn up a list based on both. This yields about 250 (several illegible). Both lists are also marked up. But the marking is not always clear. A line drawn through a name can mean dead, or abroad, or that a peer has not yet taken his seat. And a question mark can query any of the above. A line with a “no” means unacceptable. The duke was fond of this kind of banishment. The dukes of Richmond and Portland were permanently in this category, presumably for their whig period in the 1830s, but much to Redesdale’s dismay, the duke kept them there long after they were back giving the government their support (SUL, WP2/114/104, Redesdale to Wellington, 18 Dec. 1843). Lords Guilford, Clancarty, Onslow, and Thurlow were long in the same situation, though all but Guilford were welcomed back into the fold in 1842 (Ibid., 47/171, Redesdale to Wellington, 15 Oct. 1837). In their cases it was their ultra pasts that they had lived down. I have not thought it necessary to take into account Wellington’s banishments. Redesdale did not either and was careful to convey his gratitude for support given. Dead or mad is obviously germane, but temporary absence from the country is not. Having taken account of what has to be deducted and what added, I arrive at the figure of 248 for the Conservative party in the 1840s. This is without bishops. 35. BL, Landsdowne 3/40, Lansdowne to Lord Monteagle, 10 June 1845. 36. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 81: 565–67. 37. Ibid., 591. 38. Ibid., 592.

23. Corn Law Repeal, 1845–1846 1. SUL, WP2/133/60, Peel to Wellington, 15 Oct. 1845. 2. Ibid., 61. 3. Ibid., 135/109–10, Wellington to the marquess of Salisbury, 4 Jan. 1846.

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4. BL Add. MS. 40468, Stanley to Peel, 3 Nov. 1845; ibid., Peel to Stanley, 5 Nov. 1845. 5. John Prest, Lord John Russell (1972), 200–201; BL Lansdowne 3/40, Lansdowne to Monteagle, 1 Dec. 1845. 6. SUL, WP2/134/88, Peel to Wellington, 29 Nov. 1845. 7. BL Add MS. 40468, Stanley to Peel, 2 Dec. 1845; SUL, WP/135/14, Wellington to Redesdale, 21 Dec. 1845. 8. Ibid., 110. 9. BL Lansdowne 3/43, Lansdowne’s memorandum of the 1845 negotiations with the queen and others to form a government; SUL, WP2/134/134–36, Peel to Wellington, 14 Dec. 1845. 10. Ibid., 135/109–10; Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel: the Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972), 557. 11. BL Lansdowne 134/118, the queen to Wellington, 12 Dec. 1845; ibid., 181, Wellington to Redesdale, 16 Dec. 1845. 12. BL Add. MS. 40468, Stanley to Peel, 22 Dec. 1845. 13. SUL, WP/134/113, Redesdale to Wellington, 9 Dec. 1845; ibid., 135/36, Redesdale to Wellington, 25 Dec. 1845. 14. Ibid., 138/41–44, Wellington to Stanley, n.d. (Feb. 1846). 15. Ibid., 135/24–25, Aberdeen to Wellington, and reply, 22 and 27 Dec. 1845. 16. Ibid., 135/35, Wellington to Redesdale, 25 Dec. 1845. 17. Ibid., 17–20. 18. Ibid., 87, 109–10. 19. Ibid., 136/94, Salisbury to Wellington, 28 January 1846. 20. Ibid., 138/15–16, Stanley to Wellington, 18 Feb. 1846. 21. Ibid., 138/41–44; 39. 22. Ibid., 135/108, Redesdale to Wellington, 4 Jan. 1846. 23. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 86: 1401–5; N. Gash, Reaction and Reconstruction in English Politics (1965), 51. 24. Staffs R.O., Hatherton D260/M/F/26/40, 28 May 1846. 25. SUL, WP2/142/36, Wellington to Peel, 19 May 1846. 26. See also I. Maclean, “Wellington and the Corn Laws, 1845–46,” in C. M. Woolgar, ed., Wellington Studies III (1999), 227–56. 27. Parl. Debs., 3d ser., 86: 1405–8. The summary figures given in Hansard are wrong. Among the “Contents,” there are only 137 lords listed as present, not 138; and among the proxies, the last two listed are one and the same individual, Colborne was Lord Seaton’s surname. Minor discrepancies will be found between figures on party membership which I cite in “Wellington, Peel, and the House of Lords in the 1840s,” in Clyve Jones, Philip Salmon and Richard W. Davis, eds., Partisan Politics, Principle and Reform in Parliament and the Constituencies, 1689–1880: Essays in Memory of John A. Phillips (2005), 181. More information has allowed me to correct some misclassifications and to classify others for the first time. Indeed, only Brougham has defied my efforts! 28. Parl. Debs., 87: 478–80. 29. Ibid., 939–59.

Index

 In this index an “f ” after a number indicates a separate reference on the next page, and an “ff ” indicates separate references on the next two pages. A continuous discussion over two or more pages is indicated by a span of page numbers, e.g., “57–59.” Passim is used for a cluster of references in close but not consecutive sequence. Abercromby, James, 137 Aberdeen, Earl (George Hamilton-Gordon), 42, 48, 53, 256, 266; on Irish issues, 183f, 198, 215; and Municipal Corporations bill, 204, 211; on Wellington’s actions, 232, 257; on Scottish Benefices bill, 286–88; on Corn Laws, 327–28 Abolition, 189–90, 245 Act of Union, 6, 42, 103, 119f, 181 Adams, John Quincy, 118 Addington, Henry, see Sidmouth, Viscount Adultery, Queen Caroline and George IV’s, 93–94, 95, 339 Agitation: Anti-Corn Law League, 2f; whig response to, 338–39 Agriculture, 296, 329; barley-sugar trade, 36–37; protecting British, 71f, 133, 269–70; Irish, 272, 322 Ailesbury, marquess of, 219f Ailsa, marquess of (earl of Cassilis), 173 Albemarle, earl of (George Thomas Keppel), 18, 36, 55, 137 Albert, Prince, 267 “All the Talents,” ministry of, 6 Althorp, Viscount, see Spencer, 3rd Earl Alvanley, Lord, 191f Anglesey, marquess of, 148, 158; on Catholic Emancipation, 53, 128f, 151–52, 153 Anson, Viscount, 124, 137

Anti-Catholic meetings, 153 Anti-Corn Law League, 2f, 243, 268, 280f Apprenticeship: and abolition of slavery, 189–90 Arbuthnot, Charles, 96, 148, 233, 257 Arbuthnot, Mrs., 150 Arden, Lord, 94 Army, 99, 142, 282, 288; Irish Catholics in, 7–8; French, 117f “Army of Observation,” 118 Ashburton, Lord, 24 Ashley, Lord (earl of Shaftesbury), 269, 274–75, 276 Assemblies, unlawful, 42–43 Association Act, 104, 107, 115 Attwood, Thomas, 166 Auckland, Lord, 21, 24, 39, 53, 66, 326 Average bill, 135 Bangor bishopric, 282, 298, 304, 309, 311f Barley, 36–37 Bastardy: and poor laws, 192–93, 194 Bath, marquess of, 96 Bathurst, Bishop, 101 Bathurst, Earl, 36, 60; on Irish government, 119–20; and Wellington government, 145, 147 Beaufort, duke of, 192, 328, 330, 333 Beaumont, Lord, 274, 280 Bedford, duke of, 9, 35, 57, 77, 137, 158, 244, 326;

372

Index

on Irish civil and religious liberty, 41–42, 45; on State of the Nation, 51–52, 74 Belhaven, Lord, 98, 137, 173, 353n1 Belmore, earl of, 189 Beresford, Viscount, 181 Berlin Decree, 19 Bernadotte, Prince, 65f Bessborough, earl of, 173 Bexley, Lord, 129, 172, 187 Bill of pains and penalties: against Queen Caroline, 91–92, 93 Bill of Rights: Catholic Emancipation and, 48 Binning (Melros), Lord (earl of Haddington), 144 Birmingham, 306 Birmingham Political Union, 86, 166 Bishoprics: Irish, 341–42; Welsh, 279, 282–86, 298–304, 307–14 Bishops, 101, 103, 134, 144; on Catholic Emancipation, 150f, 153; in House of Lords, 283, 285–86 Blockades: of Norway, 66; in War of 1812, 59f Blomfield, Charles James (Bishop of London), 168, 293, 198, 221, 251, 294f, 307f, 319; on Jewish Emancipation, 265, 306–7; on Welsh bishoprics, 285f, 299, 304, 308; on Welsh bishoprics, 299, 314 Bolton, Lord, 92–93, 121 Borough corporations: legislation on, 200–205 Bourne, Sturges, 124, 138f Bradford, earl of, 45, 48 Braybrooke, Lord, 79f Breadalbane, marquess of, 137, 173, 287–88 Bristol, 284 Bristol, marquess of, 79 British and Foreign School Society, 247 Brougham, Lady, 266 Brougham, Lord, 137, 153, 195f, 202, 231, 247, 282, 294, 303, 316, 338; leadership of, 18f, 53; on Jewish Emancipation, 189, 307; on poor laws, 190f; Reform Act, 206f; on Irish issues, 235, 237f, 243; on Corn Laws, 244, 269, 271, 281; factory bill, 296ff Bruce, Earl (later marquess of Ailesbury), 219f Brunswick Societies, 152 Buccleuch, duke of, 160, 183, 275 Buckingham, 200, 229 Buckingham, 1st marquess of (George NugentTemple-Grenville), on regency cabinet, 32–33 Buckingham, 2nd marquess and 1st duke (Rich­ard Temple-Nugent-BridgesChandos-Grenville), 75, 78ff, 175, 183, 200, 211; on Corn Laws, 73, 134, 136; Catholic

Emancipation, 100, 102–3, 104, 109–10, 142– 43; and whigs, 121–22 Buckingham, 2nd duke of (Richard Plantaganet T. H. B. C. Grenville), 243, 269, 336 Buckinghamshire, earl of, 37, 74 Bulkeley, Viscount, 68 Burghersh, Lady, 160 Bute, marquess of (John Stuart), 80, 202, 264 Byron, Lord (George Gordon), 47, 57 Caledon, earl of, 119 Calthorpe, Lord, 244 Cambridge, duke of, 254, 318 Cambridge University, 194, 200, 221, 312 Camden, marquess of, 53, 144, 154 Campbell, John Lord, 294, 297, 301, 303, 307 Canada, 59, 133, 264, 267; rebellion in, 229, 231–32, 233; debate on division of, 254–58, 259; Wellington on, 288–89 Canning, George, 37, 54, 63, 66f, 78, 88, 110f, 121, 134, 340; Catholic Emancipation and, 55f, 104, 113, 115, 122, 126–27, 133, 138–39, 340; government under, 117–18, 125–26, 129–30, 131–32, 147, 149; whigs and, 127–28, 136–37 Canningites, 145, 158, 340 Canterbury, archbishop of, see MannersSutton, Charles (and after 1828, Howley, William) Canterbury, Viscount, 269 Carbery, Lord, 107, 183, 238 Carlisle, 5th earl of (Frederick Howard), 71f, 80, 129f, 137 Carlisle, 6th earl of (George William Frederick Howard), 160, 165, 173, 244 Carlyle, Thomas, 247 Carnarvon, 2nd earl of (Henry George Herbert), 83, 87, 121, 195, 202 Carnarvon, 3rd earl of (Henry John George Herbert), 319 Caroline, Queen, 51, 358n41; support for, 63, 79–80, 116, 339; George IV and, 87–97 Carrick, earl of, 92 Carrington, Lord, 79 Carysfort, Lord, 79f, 110 Cassilis, earl of, 70 Castlereagh, Viscount, see Londonderry, 2nd marquess of Catholic Association, 104f, 115, 155, 340 Catholic Church: in Ireland, 143, 146–47, 155 Catholic Emancipation, 3, 42, 50, 79, 103, 147, 150, 217, 230, 258, 337, 339; Ireland and, 5–6, 7, 104–5, 120; whigs and, 8–11, 18–19, 44–45, 53, 54–57, 64, 111–16, 119, 340; George IV and, 13, 14–15, 39–40, 49, 62, 113, 125, 129; House of



Index

Lords and, 15, 47–48; tories and, 20–21, 121– 22; Grenville and Grey on, 41, 48, 78; ultras, 97, 230; debates on, 98–101, 105–8; Test and Corporation Acts, 101–2; duke of York on, 108–9; whigs and tories, 109–10; Canning government and, 126–28, 131, 138–39; Grey on, 132–33; House of Lords and, 142–44; Wellington government, 149, 152f, 154–55 Cawdor, Lord, 80 Cess: Irish Church, 182–84; grand juries and, 260–61 Cattle production, 272 Chalmers, Thomas, 193 Chandos, Lord, 243. See also Buckingham, 2nd duke of Charles II, 141 Charlotte, Princess, 87–89 Chartism, 268, 279 Chester, bishop of, 97, 107 Chichester, bishop of, 188 Children: as factory labor, 280, 296–98 China, 266 Christian Constitution, 186; and Jewish Emancipation, 188–89 Church Commissioners, 221 Churches: property of, 293–94 Church of England, 46, 103, 141, 146, 185, 188, 200, 223, 264, 283, 293, 300, 341; Dissenters and, 194–95; education, 248ff, 278 Church of Scotland, 278, 286; secession from, 287–88 Church of Wales: bishoprics, 282–83 Church Rate bill, 195, 221, 228 Civil and religious liberties/rights, 3, 5, 81, 339; Grenville’s government and, 6–7; whigs on, 8–12, 339; Ireland, 41–43, 56; Committee of the Whole debate on, 45–48; Roman Catholics and, 50, 56–57, 102–3; Informations ex officio, 57–58; Grey on, 81–82 Civil liberties/rights, 3, 5, 264; suspension of, 76–77; meetings and, 86–87 Clancarty, earl of, 53, 369n34 Clanricarde, marquess of, 144, 158, 218, 272; on Irish Poor Law bill, 235f; Income Tax bill, 273–74 Clare, earl of, 121 Clarendon, earl of, 270f, 326 Clark, Kitson, 202, 224, 253, 258 Clergymen, 197; licensing, 155–56; taxation on, 182–83 Cleveland, duke of, 270, 281 Cleveland, marquess of (previously earl of Darlington) 158f Clifden, Viscount, 119

373

Cloncurry, Lord, 238 Clubs, 85 Cobbett, William, 181 Cobden, Richard, 3, 330 Coercion bill, 119 Colchester, Lord, 104–5, 106, 134 Colonies, colonialism, 245f; slavery in, 189–90; Canadian, 229, 231–32, 233 Commissions, military, 99 Committee of the Whole, 41; regency establishment, 22f, 24–25; on civil and religious liberty, 45–48; on State of the Nation, 51–52; on Corn Laws, 271–72 Committee on the State of Ireland: call for, 119–21 Committee on the State of the Nation, 27 Conservative party (tories), 2–3, 4, 79f, 131, 141f, 177, 194, 203–4, 220, 228, 266, 273, 307, 336, 337–38, 343, 369n34; formation of, 15– 16; Catholic Emancipation, 20–21, 56, 104, 109–10, 155; Catholic, 121–22; Test and Corporation Acts, 143–45; Wellington and, 155, 161, 233–34, 258–59; government formation, 199–200; Municipal Corporations Act, 208– 9, 211–12; Irish town government, 217, 219; internal politics of, 221–23, 229–31, 232–33, 256–57; Irish Municipal Corporations bill, 226–27, 261–63; Irish Poor Law bill, 235–36; Ireland and, 242–43; on Maynooth bill, 319–20 Constitution, 141, 247; as Christian, 186, 188–89 Constitution (USS), 59 Convention Act, 35, 42–43 Convocation: Church of England, 283, 304 Conyngham, Lady, 95, 116 Conyngham, marquess of, 95, 237 Cork, 295 Corn Law (1815), 52, 87 Corn Law (1846), 3–4 Corn Laws, 63, 110, 117, 122f, 142, 258, 338, 344, 358n41; repeal of, 2, 243, 280f, 323–36, 337, 343; debates over, 67–73, 131, 133, 244, 267–73; support of, 134–35; and Irish famine, 322–23 Cornwall, duke of (Edward VII), 267 Coronation Oath, 108–9, 116 Corporations, 261; borough, 200–205; Irish, 215ff, 226, 238–39 Cottenham, Lord chancellor, 238, 294, 303 Councilors: qualifications for, 206 Councils, 207, 209 Court of queen’s bench, 254 Cowley, Lord, 219 Creevey, Thomas, 123, 353n1 Crime, 58, 240

374

Index

Cumberland, Ernest Augustus, duke of (King Ernest of Hanover), 158, 203, 226, 230 Curtis, Archbishop, 153 Dacre, Lord, 137 Darlington, earl of (marquess of Cleveland), 132 Darnley, earl of, 37, 68, 95, 119; on Catholic Emancipation, 55, 107; on War of 1812, 58f Dartmouth, earl of, 53 De Grey, Earl (Thomas Philip Robinson), 290–91 Delicate Investigation, 88 Denman, Thomas Lord Chief Justice, 209–10, 244 Denmark: cession of Norway, 65 Depression, 81–82 Devon, earl of, 235, 275; Municipal Corporations bill, 204, 208, 211 Devonshire, duke of, 110, 119f, 358n41 Disenfranchisement, 171–72, 174 Disraeli, Benjamin, 202, 231 Dissenters, 1, 46, 102, 141, 208, 338; civil and religious rights, 3, 5, 7, 45, 47, 87, 102, 339; Mutiny Bill, 8f; and Catholic Emancipation bill, 55f, 98–99; support for, 57, 195–96, 221; tithe system, 120–21; Test and Corporation Acts repeal, 143–45; and Church of England, 194–95; support for, 195–96; education for, 248, 278; politics and, 249–51; properties of, 293–95 Dissenters Chapels bill, 293–95 Disturbances (demonstrations), 279 Divorce: Queen Caroline and George IV, 93ff, 96–97 Donoughmore, earl of, 19, 87; on Catholic rights, 44f, 47f, 53, 99ff, 104, 108 Dorset, duke of, 96 Downshire, marquess of, 42, 47 Doyle, James: Catholic Emancipation, 105–6, 107 Dublin University Act, 314 Dudley, Viscount, see Ward, John William Duncannon, Viscount, 165, 219 Dundas, Lord, 57 Durham, earl of (John George Lambton), 158, 168, 243f, 254 East Retford, 160 Ecclesiastical Commission: and Welsh bishoprics, 279, 284f, 299, 301, 308, 311f, 313–14 Economy, 123, 340; manufacturing centers, 81– 82; political, 84–85. See also Free trade; Trade

Education, 120, 250, 278, 292, 297, 317, 342; British, 247–48 Education bill, 228–29 Egremont, earl of, 96 Eldon, Lord (John Scott), 18, 23, 35, 58, 141f, 158, 294; on proxy votes, 26, 27–28; on Convention Act, 42–43; on Catholic Emancipation, 48, 99–100, 101f, 112, 124, 139; on Queen Caroline, 93–94; Test and Corporation Acts repeal, 144, 146; Wellington government, 164f, 184 Elections, 98, 163, 339; 1812, 53–54, 61–62; 1826, 123–24; of town councils, 207, 209; 1837, 228, 341 Ellenborough, Lord (Edward Law), 57, 137, 149, 157, 159, 175, 182f, 197, 218, 258, 330, 358n41, 360n1; on George IV’s affair, 95–96; on Spanish policy, 117ff; parliamentary reform, 164, 174, 177; Municipal Corporations bill, 204, 207, 209 Ellesmere, earl of (Francis Leveson-Gower), 110 Ellice, Edward, 325 Emigration: Irish, 235 Employment: Irish poor, 235, 322–23 Enfranchisement, 171–72 Erastianism, 279, 283 Ernest, King, 230. See also Cumberland, Ernest Augustus, duke of Erskine, Lord Chancellor, 18, 25, 57, 86, 91, 339; on proxy votes, 26f; on Peterloo, 82, 84 Established Church, see Church of England Europe, 65, 117; wars in, 73–74, 118–19 Evangelicals, 93, 343 Exeter, bishop of: on poor law, 192f; on corporations, 261, 263; on Welsh bishopric, 283, 285, 299, 312–13; on church properties, 293f Factories: protection of labor in, 279–80, 295–98 Factory bill, 278, 295; debate of, 296–98 Falmouth, Viscount, 177, 202f, 205; and Queen Caroline, 94–95 Famine: in Ireland, 322–23 Ferdinand VII, 117 Fingall, Lord, 237 First Fruits, 182–83 Fitzgerald, Lord, 203, 216, 274; Municipal Corporations bill, 204, 211–12, 213; Irish corporations, 215, 217 Fitzherbert, Maria, 88 Fitzwilliam, 2nd Earl (William Wentworth Fitzwilliam), 110, 137; on Irish problems, 41ff



Index

Fitzwilliam, 3rd Earl (Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam), 286, 295; Irish Poor Law bill, 234–35, 237f, 243; on Corn Laws, 244, 269; on factory bill, 296, 298 Foley, Lord, 57 Food supply: Corn Laws and, 67–68, 69, 72, 123, 133; in Ireland, 322–23 Foreign affairs, 65, 117; Wellington on, 266–67 Fortescue, Earl, 72 Fox, Charles James, 5f, 12f France, 13, 19, 68, 76; and Ireland, 5–6; Napoleon and, 73–74; Grenville’s position on, 74–75, 77; and occupation of Spain, 117–19 Franchise: for Ireland, 174–75, 239, 262f Franchise Act (1793), 41 Free trade, 267–268, 269, 270f, 279, 340; Russell on, 272–73; Corn Laws and, 280, 324f Fremantle, W. H., 136; on Roman Catholic support, 39–40; on Catholic Emancipation, 102–3 French Revolution, 14, 77, 161 Gage, Lord, 137 Galloway, 8th earl of (George Stewart) 60 Galloway, 9th earl of (Randolph Stewart), 265 George I, 89 George II, 101 George III, 5, 14f, 20, 35, 39, 126, 337; Mutiny Bill, 8–11; personality of, 12–13; and House of Lords, 16–17; and Perceval government, 24–25, 44; death of, 87, 100 George IV, 76f, 81, 129, 130–31, 146, 159, 339; regency of, 12, 13–14, 20, 21–22, 31, 34–35, 39– 40, 43–44, 49, 62, 64, 337; political power of, 14–15; and Queen Caroline, 79, 87–97; and Parliament, 113, 121; and Canning government, 125, 127, 134, 136; on Catholic Emancipation, 126, 138–39, 154, 156; and Goderich government, 138, 139–40, 340; and Wellington, 142, 149–52; and cabinet actions, 147–48 Gladstone, William Ewart, 178 Glasgow: depression in, 81, 84 Glastonbury, Lord, 79f Glenelg, Lord, 231, 233, 241, 246–47 Glengall, earl of, 238 Glorious Revolution, 45, 100f Gloucester, 284 Gloucester, bishop of, 97, 308 Gloucester, duke of, 58, 195 Goderich, Viscount, see Ripon, earl of Gosford, earl of, 119 Goulburn, Henry, 128 Government of Jamaica bill, 246

375

Grafton, duke of, 244 Graham, Sir James, 196, 256, 267, 274, 278, 288f, 298, 304f, 325; Conservative party politics, 223ff; on Wellington’s leadership, 263–64; on mine safety, 275f; on Irish issues, 290f Grain production: prices, 67–68; importation, 71, 117, 271; warehousing system, 133–34 Grand Jury Cess bill, 260–61 Grant, Charles, 140, 357n18 Granville, Viscount (Granville LevesonGower), 62f, 97, 158f Grattan, Henry, 55f Great Reform bill, 2 Grenville, Lord (William Wyndham Grenville), 5, 21, 43, 58, 64, 85, 92, 108, 114, 121, 144, 154, 179, 338f, 344; civil and religious liberty, 6–7, 9–10, 12, 45, 48, 87; and George III, 11, 347n8; and George IV, 13, 32, 34f, 39f, 43f, 89; whigs, 17, 62f; on Catholic Emancipation, 18–19, 48, 55ff, 100–109 passim, 113, 116, 122; and regency, 22–24, 25, 28ff; on barley-sugar trade, 36ff; on Ireland, 40–41; Corn Laws debates of, 52, 68–69, 70, 72–73; on War of 1812, 60f, 66; and Earl Grey, 66–67, 77–78; on Napoleonic wars, 73–74; on France, 74–75; on suspension of Habeas Corpus, 76–77; political alliances of, 78–80 Grenville, Thomas, 23, 33, 36, 39, 49 Greville, Charles, 253 Grey, Earl (Charles, Lord Howick), 5f, 16, 18, 21, 41, 53, 60, 76, 121f, 175, 185, 190, 194, 196, 199, 220, 223, 325, 330, 338–39, 340, 344; civil and religious liberty, 9ff, 44–45, 81–82; and George III, 11, 15; whigs, 17, 54, 63; on regen­ cy, 28–29, 33; and George IV, 32, 34f, 39f, 43; on Convention Act, 42–43; on Catholic Emancipation, 44–45, 54–55, 56, 57, 98–108 passim, 113, 132–33, 155; Corn Laws debates, 52, 67, 70; and Lord Grenville, 61, 64, 66–67, 77–78; on Napoleonic wars, 73–74; on Peter­ loo, 85–86; on Queen Caroline, 90f, 94, 96f; on Spanish policy, 118f; and Canning govern­ ment, 131f; importance of support of, 137–38; on Wellington government, 149, 153, 158f, 160f, 165–66; on Reform, 162, 166–69, 174, 178, 180; on peerage formation, 163, 168f, 170f Grosvenor, Earl (marquess of Westminster), 87, 94, 124 Gwydyr, Lord, 137 Habeas Corpus: suspension of, 76–77 Haddington, earl of, 158, 184, 209, 238 Hampden, Lord, 96

376

Index

Hanover, King of, 230 Hardinge, Sir Henry, 161, 210 Hardwicke, 3rd earl of (Philip Yorke), 42, 44, 57, 68; West Indies sugar production, 36–37, 38; whig politics, 63f Hardwicke, 4th earl of (Charles Philip Yorke), Corn Laws, 269, 273; division of Canada, 256–57, 258 Harewood, earl of, 172, 247 Harrington, earl of, 53 Harrowby, earl of, 118, 144; on Catholic Emancipation, 53, 100, 104, 107f; on Queen Caroline, 91f, 95; divorce clause debate, 96–97; Reform bill, 166ff, 172, 176, 205, 341 Hatherton, Lord, 205, 221, 233, 242, 245–46, 253, 258, 267, 271, 273, 278, 292; on Irish Poor Law bill, 235, 238; on protection in mines, 274f; and Lansdowne, 281–82; and Welsh bishoprics, 300, 302, 312–13; on Corn Laws, 335–36 Hawarden, Viscount, 330 Hawke, Lord, 137, 155 Hawkesbury, see Liverpool, earl of Hereford, Viscount, 79 Herries, J. C., 139f Hertford, the countess of, 13, 88 Hewley’s Trust, Lady, 294 Hilton, Boyd, 192 Hobhouse, Henry, 111 Holland, Lord, 17f, 35, 37, 41, 117, 120, 122, 139, 169, 179, 189, 194, 196, 221, 244f, 254, 339f; regency and, 22f, 25, 31; on Catholic Emancipation, 48, 53, 55ff, 58, 104, 108, 116, 128; and whig politics, 63, 121; and Canning government, 137f; and Wellington government, 160, 165, 242; on Canadian question, 231–32 Holstein, 65 Horner, Francis, 55 Hornet (USS), 59 Household question, 32 House of Commons, 2, 9, 12, 15, 17, 31, 54, 121, 123, 140, 167, 182, 221–22, 250, 254; regency and, 22, 31–32; Catholic civil and religious rights, 44–45; Catholic Emancipation bills, 55, 100, 104, 153–54; George Canning and, 125ff, 131; Test and Corporation Acts, 143ff; Reform Act, 177–79; public opinion, 179f, 341; Municipal Corporations Act, 212–13; Irish Tithe bill, 216, 218; Irish legislation, 224–25 House of Lords, 1–2, 15, 54, 191, 214, 369n34; Reform Act of, 1832, 12, 177–79, 180; and George III, 16–17; and regency, 22, 28–30,

31–32; proxy votes, 26–28; Catholic civil and religious rights, 44–45; Catholic Emancipation, 55, 142–44; makeup of, 219–20; bishops in, 283, 285–86 Howick, Lord, see Grey, Earl Howley, William (bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury), 13, 48, 125, 195, 221, 319; on Jewish Emancipation, 187, 264; on education, 248–49; on Welsh bishoprics, 284–85, 298, 304, 308, 311 Hunt, Henry, 83 Huskisson, William, 122, 124, 140, 142, 148, 160, 357n18; Test and Corporation Acts repeal, 143–44, 145 Huskissonites, 160 Hutchinson, Lord, 96 Income Tax bill: debate over, 273–74 Indemnity Act, 99 Informations ex officio, 57–58 Insecure majority: Whigs in 1830, 178–79 Intervention: in Spanish revolt, 117f Ireland, 3, 15, 35, 39, 149, 152, 223, 229, 252, 267f, 272, 278, 282; and Catholic Emancipation, 5– 6, 56, 102, 104–5, 106f, 143, 155, 340; religious and civil liberty in, 7, 40–43, 46, 47–48, 62; military service and, 7–8, 9; whigs and, 18, 40; George IV and, 43–44; Corn Laws, 67f, 71f, 133, 271; Protestantism in, 100, 295; government of, 119–21; Protestant government and, 125f; Catholic government in, 128–29, 130; Catholic Church in, 146, 185; tithe payments, 180–81, 194, 197–98; church property in, 181–82; taxation on clergy in, 182–83; poverty in, 191, 236; municipal reform, 215, 238–39, 263; town government in, 217–18; law enforcement in, 240, 242–43, 289–91; governance of, 241–42; voting rights in, 262f; Maynooth bill and, 318–19; food supply in, 322–23 Irish Church, 103, 341; property of, 181–82, 261; bishoprics, 341–42 Irish Church Bill, 180, 230; on Church property, 181–82; on cess, 182–84 Irish Corporations bill, 220 Irish Established Church: tithe system, 119, 120–21, 182–84 Irish Home Rule bill, 178 Irish Municipal Corporations bill, 221, 224, 238, 251, 260, 264; in House of Commons, 222, 225; and Conservative party politics, 223, 226–27, 261–63 Irish Parliament, 41, 119–20



Index

Irish Poor Law, 282, 289 Irish Poor Law bill, 224, 226f; debate over, 234–38 Irish Tithe bill and act, 196, 197–98, 221, 224, 226f, 238–39, 261; amendments to, 215, 217– 18; Wellington and, 216–17, 260 Jails: Irish, 242 Jamaica, 189, 245ff Jersey, Earl, 57, 137 Jersey, Lady, 88 Jewish Disabilities bill, 306–7, 314, 316, 343 Jewish Emancipation, 186, 194; debate on, 187– 90, 264–65, 304, 306–7 Jews, 102, 264 Jocelyn, Lord, 282 Juries, 41f Keble, John, 342 Kenyon, Lord, 92–93, 96, 193–94, 220, 295 Kildare, bishop of, 105 King, Lord, 55, 68, 91 Kinnaird, Lord, 296f Knighton, Sir William, 130–31, 139 Labor, 278; price of, 71–72; protection of, 279– 80, 295–98; regulating, 295–96 Laboring classes, 67, 69, 280 Lake, Viscount, 43 Lamb, Frederick, 160 Lamb, William, see Melbourne, Lord Landlords: absentee, 107, 119 Lansdowne, marquess of, 27, 42, 80, 86, 110, 119, 121, 140, 157, 161, 193, 196, 307, 338f, 356n29; regency creation, 23–24, 25, 29–30, 32; on Orders in Council, 52–53; on Catholic Emancipation, 54, 101f, 104, 106f, 116–17, 122, 128, 139, 146; Canning and, 63, 127, 130, 137f; State of the Nation debates, 75, 84; on Test and Corporation Acts, 129–30; and Wellington government, 158ff, 227; on education, 228–29, 249; on Irish Poor Law bill, 235, 238; on Corn Laws, 244, 271f, 325f; on Dissenters, 249–50; on municipal corporations, 262–63; leadership of, 281–82; on Welsh bishoprics, 313–14; and John Russell, 323–24 Lauderdale, earl of, 23, 25, 36, 57, 87, 104; on barley-sugar trade, 37f; Corn Laws, 68, 70 Law enforcement, 288; in Ireland, 289–90 Lay appropriations clause, 196, 215, 221 Leather: tax on, 57 Leinster, duke of, 91 Letters Patent, 27

377

Leveson-Gower, Francis (earl of Ellesmere), 110 Liberalism, 300 Liberal party, 178, 228, 252, 266f, 273, 297, 319; in House of Lords, 219–20; government control, 246, 265; leadership of, 281–82. See also Whigs Liberation Society, 250 Lilford, Lord, 155 Limerick, earl of: on Corn Laws, 68, 107, 123, 235 Lincoln, bishop of, 308 Littleton, Edward (Lord Hatherton), 110, 124, 161, 198, 205 Liverpool, earl of (Robert Banks Jenkinson), 14, 16, 52, 78, 87, 111, 124, 130, 137, 344; regency and, 22, 24f, 29; on proxy votes 26f; on barley-sugar trade, 37f; on Catholic Emancipation, 43, 46–47, 98, 101ff, 106, 107–8, 109, 114f, 143, 147, 150; as prime minister, 49–50, 53; War of 1812, 60, 66; on Corn Laws, 67, 69f, 71–72, 123, 332, 338; on Peterloo, 83, 85–86; on Queen Caroline, 90, 91–92, 94; on Spanish policy, 118–19; on Ireland, 120–21; and Canning government, 127f; and Wellington, 135–36, 142 Llandaff, bishop of, 103, 107, 264 London, 265 London, bishop of, see Howley, William, and Blomfield, Charles James Londonderry, 1st marquess of (Robert Stewart); on Catholic Emancipation, 53 Londonderry, 2nd marquess of (Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh), 11, 25, 49, 55f, 66, 114; on Catholic Emancipation, 110, 113,126 Londonderry, 3rd marquess of (Charles William Vane), 198, 203, 235, 274; on Municipal Corporations bill, 200–201, 202, 203–4, 211; Conservative party politics, 229f, 233; Irish Municipal Corporations bill, 261–62 London University, 196, 221 Lonsdale, earl of, 177 Lucan, earl of, 79 Lyndhurst, Lord (John Singleton Copley), 129, 149f, 171, 216, 230, 251, 260, 271; Reform bill, 172–73, 174f, 180; Municipal Corporations bill, 202–3, 204ff, 207–8, 210, 212–13; Conservative party politics, 203–4; Irish Municipal Corporations bill, 224f, 226–27, 261, 262–63; Irish Poor Law bill, 235–36, 237; colonial issues, 246–47; on Dissenters Chapels bill, 293–94, 295; on Jewish Emancipation, 306f Lyttleton, Lord, 265, 278, 286, 303–4

378

Index

Macclesfield, earl of, 236 Machinery: protection of labor, 279–80 Mackintosh, Sir James, 140 Malmesbury, earl of, 123, 133 Manchester, 81; political meetings in, 82ff; bishopric for, 283–84, 285f, 299, 301f, 311, 313 Manners-Sutton, Charles (archbishop of Canterbury); on George IV and Caroline, 88– 90, 95, 97, 125 Mansfield, earl of, 158, 197, 201 Manufacturing centers, 81–82, 84, 123 Manvers, Earl, 81 Marie Louise, 73 Mark Lane market, 135 Marriage, 88; Dissenter, 194–95 Maryborough, Lord (Wellesley Pole), 109, 120 Maynard, Viscount, 45 Maynooth bill, 120, 185f, 314, 344; debate on, 315–18; voting on, 319–21 Maynooth College, 120, 185f, 292–93, 317, 343; student disloyalty at, 318–19 Meath, bishop of, 197 Mechanization: and protection of labor, 279– 80 Meetings: legal and illegal, 82–83; civil rights, 86–87 Melbourne, Lord, 62f, 128f, 140, 189, 195f, 201, 228, 245, 247, 254, 267, 273, 279, 281, 292, 341; and Wellington government, 158ff, 166; Irish Tithe system, 197, 215f; government under, 199f; Municipal Corporations bill, 204ff, 207–9, 210f, 214; Irish Municipal Corporations bill, 221, 227; on Canada, 231, 257; Irish Poor Law bill, 234f, 237; on Corn Laws, 243f, 269–70; on Grand Juries Cess bill, 260f Melville, Viscount, 53, 59f, 104, 111, 144 Middlesex, 254 Military, 9, 16, 252; peerages, 23ff; in Ireland, 290–91 Milner, Bishop, 19 Mines: protection of women and children in, 274–76 Ministers: Church of Scotland, 278, 287 Minto, earl of, 155, 295 Moira, earl of, 25f, 27f, 39, 44, 47, 49, 62 Monarchy, 234; political influence of, 12, 14–15; Reform Act of 1832, 177–78 Monteagle, Lord, see Spring-Rice, Thomas Montfort, Lord, 35 Montrose, Duke of, 57 Morley, earl of, 97 Morpeth, see Carlisle, 6th earl of (George William Frederick Howard)

Mountcashel, earl of, 295 Mount Edgecumbe, earl of, 303 Mountjoy, Viscount (earl of Blesington), 68 Mulgrave, Lord, 25, 27, 53–54, 55 Municipal Corporations Act/Bill (1835), 2f, 200, 320; debate on, 201–2; management of, 202–3; Wellington on, 204–5, 210–12, 213–14; amendments, 206–10; in House of Commons, 212–13 Municipalities, 264; reform legislation of, 200– 214; in Ireland, 215, 226, 263 Municipal Reform Acts, 263 Murray, Sir George, 153 Mutiny Bill, 8–10, 347n8 Napoleon Bonaparte, 19, 61, 63–64, 65, 73–74 Napoleonic wars, 7, 13f, 54–55, 61, 73–74, 337 National Society, 247 Nationalism, 66 Navy, 99; and War of 1812, 58ff Netherlands, 61, 66, 68 Newcastle, duke of, 142, 166, 184, 261; and Wellington government, 158, 177; Municipal Corporations bill, 201–2, 205; on Maynooth bill, 316–17, 320–21 New Orleans, battle of, 60 New Poor Law, 190; debate on, 191–92; bastardy clause in, 192–93; Lord Kenyon’s opposition to, 193–94 Norfolk, duke of, 28, 35 Normal school, 248 Normanby, marquess of, 241ff, 296–97 Normanby, Lady, 245–46 Northampton, marquess of, 173, 244 Northesk, earl of, 282 North Staffordshire, 279 North Wales, 284 Norway: cession of, 65–66 Norwich, bishop of, 97, 164 Nottingham, 166 Nugent, Lord, 122 Oath of Supremacy, 46 Oaths: military, 99 Oat production, 272, 322 O’Connell, Daniel, 3, 86, 147, 214, 278, 315; Catholic Association, 104, 340; on corporations, 261f Open question, 113, 115 Orangemen, 119, 158 Orange Society, 104, 115 Orders in Council, 19, 52–53, 338; on War of 1812, 59ff



Index

Ossory, earl of, 63 Oxford Movement, 265, 342 Oxford University, 196, 200, 312; Dissenters’ entry to, 194f, 221 Paisley, 84 Palmerston, Viscount (Henry John Temple), 147, 162f, 326, 357n18; and Wellington government, 160, 167 Parliament: and royal authority, 21–23; regency establishment, 23–24, 31–32; proxy votes in, 26–28; 1812 elections, 53–54; 76f, 162, 164–65, 167, 341; Catholics in, 147, 156; opening of, 280–81 Parnell, Sir Henry, 106 Patronage, 14, 47, 200, 204 Peace of Paris, 73 Peace resolutions: War of 1812, 54 Peacock (HMS), 59 Peel, Sir Robert, 3f, 139, 149, 161, 176, 178, 214, 219, 230, 256, 279, 281, 288, 291, 300, 305f, 322, 337, 341; Catholic Emancipation, 109, 115, 150, 152, 153–54, 156; House of Commons, 159, 221–22, 254; Irish Church bill, 182, 184– 85; Irish Tithe bill, 198, 215, 216–17; government under, 199–200; on Municipal Corporations bill, 201, 204, 210f, 212–13; Conservative party politics, 221–22, 223, 230f, 234, 252–53, 258–59; on Irish issues, 224–25, 240–41, 242f, 260, 292; and Wellington, 225–26, 232f, 266–67, 276f, 342–43; government formation, 245f; personal characteristics of, 259–60; Maynooth plan, 292–93, 315; on Welsh bishoprics, 298, 308–9, 310, 311–12, 314; on repeal of Corn Law, 323f, 325–27, 328ff, 331f Peerages, peers, 98, 116, 286, 369n34; military, 23ff; creation of, 30, 103, 163, 165, 170–71, 219– 20; Irish, 240–41, 282 Perceval, Spencer, 20f, 42, 49, 112–13; and regency, 24–25, 31, 34–35, 39, 44 Pergami, Bartolomeo, and Queen Caroline, 93–94. Perpetuity fund, 197f Peterborough, bishop of, 97 Peterloo, 82–83, 84, 339; parliamentary speeches on, 85–86 Petitions, petitioning, 35, 67f, 87 Phillpotts, Henry (Bishop of Exeter), 143, 164, 250, 261, 294f, 299, 313 Pitt, William, 5f, 77, 20f Plunket, William, 104, 108f Pole, Wellesley (Lord Maryborough), 35

379

Police bill, 120 Political Unions, 2, 86, 166, 180 Pomerania, 65 Ponsonby, George, 55 Poor Law Commission, 191f, 267 Poor laws, 343; debate on, 190–94 Pope, 47 Portland, 3rd duke of (William Henry Cavendish Bentinck), 15 Portland, 4th duke of (William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck), 37, 104, 134, 139, 144, 173, 220 Portugal, 182; the French threat, 117–18 Portsmouth, 306 Potato blight: and Corn Laws, 322, 326, 328 Poverty, 279; in Ireland, 120, 234–35, 236, 237 Powis, 1st earl of (Edward Clive), 177 Powis, 2nd earl of (Edward Herbert) 281; Welsh bishoprics, 282–86, 298–304, 307–14 Presbyterians, 48, 293–94, 295 Priests, 155, 292 Prison Act, 247 Prisons bill, 246 Private property, 236; Municipal Corporations Act, 209–10 Protectionism, 71–72, 186, 269–70 Protestant Constitution, 47, 100; liberties guaranteed in, 45–46; Liverpool’s support for, 49–50 Property: Irish Church, 181–82, 261; Irish Poor Law bill, 236, 238; trinitarians, 293–94 Protestant Dissenters, see Dissenters Protestantism, 19, 100, 146, 223, 341 Protestants, 101, 113, 127; and Irish government, 42, 125f, 217; and Catholic Emancipation, 152, 153–54. See also Church of England; Dissenters; various sects by name Protestant Society, 338 Proxies: House of Lords, 16, 26–28, 37–38, 45, 51; regency, 25–26 Publications: seditious, 84 Public offices: holding, 56, 343 Public opinion, 179f, 341 Quakers, 102 Queensbery, marquess of, 138 Radicalism, 76f, 84, 106 Radicals, 2ff, 233, 244f Radnor, earl of, 159, 181, 195, 244, 281, 297; on poor laws, 191–92, 238 Ratepayers, 209 Redesdale, 1st Lord (John Mitford), 27, 45

380

Index

Redesdale, 2nd Lord (John Thomas Mitford), 232, 308, 328; Maynooth bill, 315–16; Corn Laws, 327, 330, 333 Reform Acts, 82, 232, 284, 341; Parliamentary, 76f, 162, 163–64; bills on, 122, 164–65, 166–69, 179–80, 205–6; goals of, 171–72; Lyndhurst’s plan, 172–73; voting rights, 174–75; debate on, 176–77 Reform Act (1832), 2f, 12, 141, 205f; impacts of, 177–79, 180 Reform Act (1867), 2 Regency: whigs and, 13–14, 30–31, 39–40; royal authority and, 21–23; formation of, 23–24, 26–27, 28–30; and Perceval government, 24–25, 33–34; proxy voting, 25–26; Parliament and, 31–32 Religion: state, 46, 319; and education, 229, 249, 278 Religious liberty, 3, 5, 189; whig legislation, 8–12, 20–21, 339; Ireland and, 40–42, 62; Committee of the Whole on, 45–48; Roman Catholics and, 46–47, 50 Revolts: in Norway and Netherlands, 66 Revolution, 77 Revolution Settlement, 141 Richmond, duke of, 96, 171, 196, 206, 217, 220, 244, 303; and Wellington’s government, 158, 165, 184; on poor laws, 192f Riot Act, 82f Riots, 76, 83, 166 Ripon: bishopric for, 284 Ripon, earl of (Frederick John Robinson), 14, 78, 126, 128, 130, 196, 206, 218, 274, 280; on Corn Laws, 133f, 244, 267–68, 269f, 272, 334f; government under, 138, 139–40, 142, 148f, 340; Wellington government and, 142, 153, 158f; on slavery issues, 189f Rochester, bishop of, 48, 97 Roden, earl of, 183, 236, 241f, 282, 318 Roman Catholic Association, 105 Roman Catholics, 126, 261, 348n23; civil and religious rights, 3, 5, 10, 41–47, 156; in Ireland, 6, 102, 104–5; military service, 7–8; George IV and, 39–40; in Parliament, 113, 147; Irish government, 128–29; tories, 143–45; Maynooth bill, 315–21. See also Catholic Emancipation Romilly, Sir Samuel, 55 Romney, earl of, 92–93 Ros, Lord de, 319 Rosebery, earl of, 98f, 123, 270, 353n1 Rosse, earl of, 41, 58 Rosslyn, earl of, 36, 57, 137; Corn Laws, 133f;

Wellington’s government, 157–58; on Irish Church, 183ff Rothschild, Lionel de, 304 Royal authority: Parliament and, 21–23 Rügen, 65 Russell, Lord John, 129, 141, 196, 199, 212, 221, 239, 241, 251, 254f, 311, 339f; Test and Corporation Acts repeal, 143, 145; on marriage bill, 194–95; on Irish Tithe bill, 215f, 227; on Liberal party, 219f; education bill, 228f; free trade, 272–73; on repeal of Corn Law, 323–24, 325f Russia, 55 Rutland, duke of, 129 St. Asaph bishopric, 282, 298, 304, 309, 310–11, 312 St. David’s, bishop of, 265 St. Germans, earl of, 318 St. John, Lord, 55, 68 St. Peter’s Fields, 83 St. Vincent, Viscount, 247 Salic Law, 230 Salisbury, bishop of, 285; on Welsh bishoprics, 299–300, 304 Salisbury, Lady, 204 Salisbury, marquess of, 154, 183, 193; on Corn Laws, 270, 331, 333 Saye & Sele, Lord, 58 Scarlett, Sir James, 152, 157 Schedule A, 171–72 Schedule B, 171 Scotland, 15, 38, 262; Church in, 278, 286–88 Scottish Benefices bill, 286–88 Securities: Catholic Emancipation, 101, 105f Sedition, 81, 84f Seditious Meetings bills, 86–87 Selkirk, earl of, 45 Shaftesbury, earl of (Lord Ashley), 269, 274–75, 276 Shaw, Frederick, 241–42 Shaw, Sir James, 161 Sherborne, Lord, 138 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 6, 49 Ships in 1813, 60 Shoemakers: leather tax, 57 Shoplifting, 58 Sidmouth, Viscount (Henry Addington), 6, 9, 37, 47, 58, 76, 117; Corn Laws, 68, 70; on Peterloo incident, 82–83; on Seditious Meetings bill, 86–87 Slavery, 13, 245; in colonies, 189–90 Smith, William, 45, 47, 57



Index

Social welfare, 92–93 Societies, 85, 93, 104, 115, 250 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 248 Society for the Promotion of Religious Equality, 250 Somers, Earl, 63–64, 79 Sophia, Princess, 89 South America, 84, 118; British interests in, 117, 122f Southampton, 306 Spa Fields Insurrection, 76f Spain: French occupation of, 117–19 Spanish policy, 117, 118–19 Spence, Thomas, 77 Spencer, 2nd Earl (George John), 9, 21, 23, 36, 57, 68, 70, 199 Spencer 3rd Earl (John Charles Spencer— better known by his courtesy title of Althorp), 168, 171, 195, 199, 229 Spring-Rice, Thomas (Lord Monteagle), 221, 271, 274, 282, 295, 301, 303 Stafford, Lady (countess of Sutherland in her own right), 161 Stafford, marquess of, 63, 79, 97, 124, 161 Staffordshire, 124 Stalwarts, 177 Stanhope, 3rd Earl (Charles Stanhope), 25, 28, 35, 57–58, 60 Stanhope, 4th Earl (Philip Henry Stanhope), 236, 268, 274; on Corn Laws, 269, 272, 281; on protection of labor, 279–80 Stanley, Lord (later 14th earl of Derby), 136, 140, 196, 198, 220, 225, 256, 258f, 323, 337; on Irish Church, 181–82; as colonial secretary, 288f; political role of, 305–6; on Welsh bishopric, 312f; Corn Laws, 327, 331–32, 333f State of the Nation/Country, 51–52, 74f, 84 Statute/Act of Elizabeth, 191f, 237 Strangford, Viscount, 183, 201 Suffield, Lord, 190 Sugar trade, 36f Sutherland, countess of (Lady Stafford), 63 Sutherland, duke of, 297 Sweden: cession of Norway to, 65–66 Talents, 13, 88, 104 Tankerville, earl of, 137 Tariffs: protective, 71 Taxation, 57, 84, 119, 197, 236; grand juries and, 260–61; on income, 273–74; Corn Laws, 325–26, 331 Taylor, Sir Herbert, 167f, 182

381

Tea: taxation of, 84 Test and Corporation Acts, 7, 9, 12, 55, 56, 99, 141, 195, 258; repeal of, 20, 143–45, 306; religious and civil liberties and, 46, 98–99; Catholic Emancipation, 101–2; Lansdowne and, 129–30 Teynham, Lord, 294f, 298 Thanet, earl of, 30–31 Tierney, George, 130, 139 Timber: importing Norwegian, 84 Tithe system, 119, 120–21; in Ireland, 181, 182– 84, 194, 197–98 Tories, see Conservative party Town government, 200; in Ireland, 217–18 Trade, 19, 122, 271, 324; barley and sugar, 36– 38; regulation of, 267–68; free, 269f, 279, 340 Treaties, 65, 73 Treaty of Fontainbleu, 73 Treaty of Kiel, 65 Treaty of Paris, 73 Trial, 92; protection from, 57–58 Trinitarians, 293–94, 343 Tuam, 261 Tuam, archbishop of, 97 Ultras, 142, 172, 188, 200–201, 220, 230, 236, 339, 343; and Queen Caroline, 92–93; on Catholic Emancipation, 97, 106, 152, 153; and Wellington government, 158–59, 187; on Irish Church bill, 183f; Church of England and, 185–86; on New Poor Law, 192, 194 Union, 278, 282 Unitarianism, 293f, 343 Unitarians, 293ff, 306 Unitarian Toleration Act, 293–95 United Committee, 250–51 United States: 1812 war with, 52, 58–60, 65f; and Canada, 267, 288 Universities: Dissenters entry to, 194f, 197 Upper Canada: debate about, 254–58 “Veto” Act, 287f Victoria, 219, 230, 265; and Wellington, 234, 245; and Welsh bishoprics, 300–301, 303, 309, 310–11; Corn Laws, 325, 328 Vivian, Lord, 270 Voting rights, 174–75, 239, 262f Wales: bishoprics in, 279, 282–86, 298–304, 307–14 War: French-Spanish, 118–19; with United States, 52, 54, 58–61, 65, 66–67

382

Index

Ward, John William (Earl Dudley), 63, 103, 124, 357n18 Warehousing system: grain production and, 133–34 Waterford, marquess of: on Reform, 176–77 Waverers, 170; Reform, 167ff, 171, 173 Weavers: protection of, 279 Wellesley, Marquess (Richard Colley), 42, 44, 54, 84, 128, 158; on civil and religious rights, 45–46; on Catholic Emancipation, 53, 104, 115, 146 Wellington, duke of (Arthur Wellesley), 3f, 15, 38, 77, 114, 118, 121, 132, 144, 182, 187, 199, 245, 247, 253f, 273, 282, 344, 360n1; Catholic Emancipation, 55, 100, 105, 111f, 123, 139, 142–43, 147, 156; and War of 1812, 59–60; on Queen Caroline, 91f; on Corn Laws, 133–35, 244, 271, 324, 326–28, 329–30, 331–35; Liverpool’s influence on, 135–36; government under, 145–46, 148, 149–52, 154–55, 157–60, 161–62, 164–65, 220, 328, 340; and George IV, 149–51, 156; whigs and, 152–53; on Reform bills, 163, 166, 174f, 176f, 179–80, 207, 341; on Irish Church bill, 181, 183–85; on Jewish Emancipation, 188–89, 304; on abolition of slavery, 189–90; on poor laws, 192f; at Oxford University, 195f; on Irish Tithe bill, 198, 216–17, 218; on Municipal Corporations bill, 201, 202–3, 204–5, 210–12, 213–14; Conservative party politics, 204, 222–23, 230–31, 233– 34, 252, 257, 258–59; on Irish issues, 224f, 227, 237–38, 240–42, 260; and Peel, 225–26, 233, 342–43; on Canada, 231–32, 288–89; on Canada, 254–56, 257–58, 259; Grand Jury Cess bill, 260–61; leadership of, 263–64, 266–67, 276–77; on mine labor safety, 275–76; opening of Parliament, 280–81; on Welsh bishoprics, 284, 298, 300–301, 302–3, 308, 309–10, 312, 314; on Maynooth bill, 315–16, 317–18, 320; on Irish famine, 322–23 Welsh bishops bill, 320; Powis’s promotion of, 279, 282–86, 298–304, 307–14 Weslyan Methodists, 294 Western, Lord, 269 West Indies, 247; sugar production, 36, 37–38 Westmeath, marquess of, 235, 240 Westminster, marquess of (Earl Grosvenor), 173, 188, 244 Westmorland, earl of, 37, 201 West Riding: depression in, 81–82 Wetherell, Sir Charles, 152 Wharncliffe, Lord, 204, 275, 303, 324; on

Reform bill, 166ff, 171, 207, 341; on factory bill, 296–97, 298 Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, 187–88 Wheat production: in Ireland, 268, 271 Whigs, 2f, 5, 56, 78, 87, 141, 157, 162, 177, 214, 218f, 229; Corn Laws, 4, 67–73; Catholic Emancipation and, 6, 8–11, 44–45, 48, 53, 54–55, 104, 109–10, 112–16, 155; Mutiny Bill, 8–11; on civil and religious liberty, 12, 57–58, 339; George IV’s regency and, 13–14, 21–22, 28–29, 30–31, 32, 40–41, 43–44; as opposition party, 16, 38–39; in House of Lords, 17, 51–52; religious liberty, 20–21; West Indies sugar production, 37–38; regency and, 39– 40; Catholic civil and religious rights, 42–43, 44–45; on War of 1812, 58–59; 1812 elections, 61–62; internal politics, 62–64; and Queen Caroline, 79–80, 92–93, 95, 116; Perceval government and, 112–13; and Catholic tories, 121–22; and Canning government, 127–28, 131–32, 136–37; Wellington government, 152–53, 155; parliamentary reform, 163–64; peerage candidates, 170–71; support for Dissenters, 195–96; as opposition party, 337–38. See also Liberal party Whitbread, Samuel, 6, 33, 54ff, 338 Wicklow, earl of, 227, 236, 265 Wilks, John, 56f Wilberforce, William, 89 William III, 101 William IV, 15, 141, 178, 182, 341; and Grey, 163, 199; on Political Unions, 166, 167–68; government creation, 169–70; death of, 221, 227 Wilton, earl of, 230–31 Winchilsea, earl of, 172, 191, 210, 236, 265, 269, 273, 295; on Welsh bishoprics, 298–99 Women: as factory labor, 279–80, 295–98 Wood, Charles, 169, 171 Worcester, bishop of (Henry Pepys), 313 Worcester, bishop of (Ffolliott H. W. Corne­ wall), 97 Work day: length of, 296, 298 Workhouses, 191, 193, 237 Wrottesley, Sir John, 124 Wynford, Lord, 191, 193, 236–37 Wynn, Charles, 114f, 122, 148 Yeomanry: in Manchester, 83 York, 284 York, archbishop of, 97, 319 York, duke of, 43, 158; Catholic Emancipation bill, 103, 108–9