History of the Four Georges, and of William IV, Volume 4 — lxxvii. Peel's Forlorn Hope, Part 1

[Sidenote: 1834--Retirement of Lord Grey] Lord Grey was growing tired of the work of that Administration.

It had been incessant work, and its great successes of later years had been checkered by some disappointments, which, although not deep-reaching, were irritating and disturbing.

Some of his most capable colleagues had broken away from him, and he probably began to feel that the reformers all over the country expected more of him than he saw his way to accomplish.

In 1834 he asked to be relieved from the duties of his office, and the King consented, probably with greater good-will than he had felt in acceding to some of Lord Grey's previous requests, and accordingly Lord Grey ceased to be Prime Minister.

With his resignation of office Lord Grey passes out of this history and takes an abiding place in the Parliamentary history of his country.

He can hardly be called a great statesman, for he had been mainly instrumental in bringing to success and putting into legislative form the ideas of greater men, but his must be regarded as a distinguished and noble figure among England's Parliamentary leaders.

He was especially suited for the work which it was his proud fortune to accomplish at the zenith of his power, for no one could be better fitted than he for the task of discountenancing the wild alarms which were felt by so many belonging to what were called the privileged classes at the thought of any measures of reform which might disturb the existing order of things, and lead to red ruin and the breaking-up of laws.

On Lord Grey's retirement he was succeeded as Prime Minister by Lord Melbourne, who had previously been Home Secretary.

Lord Melbourne might have been thought just the sort of {234} person with whom King William could easily get on, because such a Prime Minister was not likely to vex his sovereign's unwilling ear by too many demands for rapid and far-reaching reform.

Melbourne was a thoroughly easy, not to say lazy, man.

He was certainly not wanting in intellect, he had some culture, he was a great reader of books and a great lover of books, and he was often only too glad to escape into literary talk and literary gossip from discussions on political questions and measures to be introduced into Parliament.

He was fond of society, made himself generally agreeable to women, and was usually well acquainted with the passing scandals of high social life.

[Sidenote: 1834--Peel to be Premier] One might, indeed, have thought that such a man was just the minister in whom King William would find a congenial companion and adviser.

But the truth was that the King had grown tired of the Whig statesmen, and had long been looking out for an opportunity to get rid of them on easy terms.

Perhaps he did not quite like the idea of telling a man of Lord Grey's stately demeanor that he wished to dispense with his services and saw in Lord Melbourne a minister who could be approached on any subject without much sensation of awe.

However that may be, the King soon found what seemed to him a satisfactory opportunity for ridding himself of the presence of his Whig advisers.

Lord Althorp was suddenly raised to the House of Lords by the death of his father.

Earl Spencer, and of course some rearrangement of the Ministry became necessary, as it would not be possible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have a ministerial place anywhere but in the House which has the levying of the taxes and the spending of the money.

When Lord Melbourne came to advise with his sovereign on the subject the King informed him, in the most direct and off-hand manner, that he contemplated a much more complete rearrangement than Lord Melbourne had suggested, and, in fact, that he had made up his mind to get rid of the present Government altogether.

Lord Melbourne, of course, bowed to the will of his master, and, indeed, was not the sort of man to take a {235} dismissal from office greatly to heart, believing it, no doubt, quite likely that some restoration to office might await him, and possibly feeling that life had some enjoyments left for him even though he were never again to be Prime Minister.

The King determined to send for Sir Robert Peel and intrust him with the task of forming an Administration.

William had, as might naturally be expected of him, consulted in the first instance with the Duke of Wellington.

Wellington, with the practical good sense which was a part of his character, had told the sovereign that at such a time it was futile to think of calling upon any one to become Prime Minister who had not a seat in the House of Commons.

As the King was resolved to have a new Administration, Peel was obviously the man to be intrusted with the task of forming it, and therefore the King sent for him at once.

But Peel was not in England; he had gone with his wife to Italy, and, as we know from his own published letters, he had not entered into any communication, even with the Duke of Wellington, as to the probable movements of political affairs in his absence, not supposing for a moment that any emergency could arise at home which might make it necessary for him to cut short his holiday and return to the working ground of Westminster.

A special messenger had to be sent off at once to convey to Peel the wishes of his sovereign, and one has to stop and think over things a little before he can quite realize what it meant in those days, which seem so near our own, to send a special message from London to the heart of Italy.

Peel was at Rome, and had just returned with his wife one night from a great ball given by a celebrated Italian Princess, when he received the letter which urged him to come back and become for the first time Prime Minister of England.

Peel's mind was at once made up.

That sense of duty which always guided his movements dictated his reply.

There was for him no question of personal pride or ambition to be gratified, or of any graceful effort to affect the ways of one who modestly shrinks from a task beyond his power.

He saw that his sovereign needed {236} his immediate services, and that was enough for him.

He and his wife were just on the eve of what had promised to be a delightful visit to Naples, but the visit to Naples was put off without a second thought to the indefinite future, and the statesman and his wife set out at once on their journey to London.

The preparations for such a journey at that time were such as might give pause even to an experienced explorer in our own easy-going and luxurious age.

Sir Robert Peel, of course, had to travel by private carriage.

He had to traverse more than one State in order to reach the sea at Calais.

The roads were dangerous in many places, and Peel had to take some well-armed servants with him.

He had to go well provided with the most elaborate official passports.

He had even to obtain a special passport for himself, lest, in the event of his wife finding the constant travel too much for her, she might have to take rest at some town on the way, and Peel, if he attempted to continue his journey, might be stopped somewhere until he had satisfactorily accounted for the disappearance of the lady who was described in the original passports as his travelling companion and his wife.

The journey was interrupted by unforeseen obstacles in several places.

At one spot the rising of a river relentlessly barricaded the progress of the travellers for many hours.

At another point a bridge was broken down.

In France, Peel and his wife were brought to a stand at the city of Lyons because that city happened just then to be in a state of siege, and the travellers had to furnish satisfactory evidence that they were not emissaries of some revolutionary propaganda.

It took twelve days to cover the distance from Rome to Dover, and, except for such delays as have just been mentioned, our travellers had gone on night and day without stopping.

Even when they arrived at Dover, Peel took no thought about rest, but journeyed on all night until he reached London.

[Sidenote: 1834--The difficulties that beset Peel] Peel himself tells us in his memoirs that the long travel had at least the advantage of giving him time enough to think out his course of action and the best way of serving his sovereign and his country.

The journey, he says, {237} allowed him to do this coolly and without interruption.

He certainly had time enough for the purpose, but it must have needed all Peel's strength of character to enable him to give his mind up to such considerations during a course so toilsome, so rugged, so dangerous, and often so rudely interrupted.

He arrived in London at an early hour on the morning of December 9, 1834, and he set off at once to present himself to the King, by whom, it need hardly be said, he was very cordially welcomed.

The welcome became all the more warm because he was willing to accept the important task which the King desired to intrust to him, and would enter without delay on the work of endeavoring to form a Ministry.

Now, in order to do justice to Peel's patriotic purpose in undertaking this difficult task, we have to bear in mind that he did not personally approve of the King's action in breaking up the Melbourne Administration, or even of the manner in which it had been broken up.

He knew well enough that the King had grown tired of the Whig Ministry, but he did not think the King's personal feelings were a complete justification for William's dismissal of a set of men whom he had consented to place in power.

Peel did not regard the mere necessity for a rearrangement consequent on Lord Althorp's removal to the House of Lords as anything like a fitting excuse for the break-up of the whole Government.

More than that, Peel had no confidence in the chances of a new Conservative Administration just then.

It was not encouraging to a statesman about to form his first Cabinet to have to believe, as Peel did, that such a Government would be left very much at the mercy of the Opposition, and in more than one important or even impending question might at any time be outvoted in the House of Commons.

None the less, however, was Peel resolved to stand by his sovereign, who appeared to be in a difficulty.

The same sense of public duty, according to his conception of public duty, which guided him at every great crisis of his political career decided his action in this instance.

He set himself to the work of forming an Administration in which he proposed to take under his own charge the functions of {238} Prime Minister and the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He knew that he could count on the support of the Duke of Wellington, and to Wellington he offered the post of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which was at once accepted.

Then he wrote to Sir James Graham and to Lord Stanley.

Both refused.

Sir James Graham, although he declined to accept office, promised Peel all the support he could give consistently with his own judgment and his own political views.

Lord Stanley wrote a letter to Peel which has even still both historical and personal interest.

Its historical interest consists in the clear exposition it contains of the various questions which then divided the two great parties in the State.

Its personal interest is found in the fact that it shows Lord Stanley as the convinced reformer, who sees no possibility of his joining an Administration about to be created by a statesman whose whole career has been antagonistic to political reform.

Those of us who remember the brilliant orator Lord Derby, by whom the office of Prime Minister was three times held, find it hard to think of him as anything but a steady-going Conservative at heart, and may be excused a shock of surprise when they are bidden to remember that in 1834 the same man, then Lord Stanley, declared that he could not serve under Peel because Peel was not reformer enough all round to secure his co-operation.

Lord Stanley pointed out, in his letter, that between Peel and himself there had been a complete difference of opinion on almost every great public question except that which concerned the State Church, and he reminded Peel that so lately as on the occasion of Lord Grey's retirement from office the Duke of Wellington had seized the opportunity of publicly condemning the whole policy of the Whig Administration.

Under these circumstances Lord Stanley declared that, in his opinion, it would be injurious to his own character and injurious to the new Government as well if he were to accept the offer of a place in such an Administration.

He had left Lord Grey's Government because he differed with Lord Grey on one question alone, which then had to be dealt with, and he could not join a Government of which {239} Peel and Wellington were to be the leaders, from whom he had differed on almost every great political question that had engaged the attention of the country during his time.

[Sidenote: 1834--Peel forms his Ministry] Peel had nothing for it but to go on with his task and form the best Administration he could.

Lord Lyndhurst was once again to be Lord Chancellor, and in such a man Peel certainly found a colleague who had no superior either as a lawyer or a debater in the House of Lords.

Some of us who can still remember having heard Lord Lyndhurst deliver long and powerful speeches in the House of Lords, compelling the attention and the admiration of every listener when the orator himself had long left his eightieth year behind him, will feel sure that Sir Robert Peel's first Administration was adequately represented in the hereditary chamber.

It is not necessary to introduce here a full list of the new Ministry, but there are three names which call for special mention.

These are the names of three young men who then entered ministerial office for the first time, and with whom the world afterwards became well acquainted, each according to his different way.

One was William Ewart Gladstone, who became Junior Lord of the Treasury, and whom the world has long since recognized as the greatest statesman and the greatest master of the House of Commons known to the reign of Queen Victoria.

The second was Sidney Herbert, who was for many years one of the most ready, accomplished, and brilliant debaters in that House, and whose premature death cut short a career that had seemed to be steadily rising from day to day.

The third was a man whose political life has long since been forgotten, but whose name is well remembered because of his success in quite a different field--Winthrop Mackworth Praed, the charming author of delightful verses, the founder of that English school of minstrelsy which sings for the drawing-room and the club-room, the feasts and the fashions, the joys and the well-ordered troubles of the West-End.

Sidney Herbert and Praed were made joint Secretaries to the Board of Control, the department established by Pitt for directing the Government of India.

{240} The new Prime Minister believed that it would be in every way more suitable to the convenience of the country that he and his colleagues should submit their political claims and purposes to the judgment of the constituencies by means of a general election.

A dissolution accordingly took place, and Peel issued an address to the electors of Tamworth, which will always be regarded as an important political document.

Although Peel had been an opponent of the principles embodied in the Reform Bill, no reformer in the country understood better than he did the impossibility, at such a time, of carrying on the work of the Government without a thorough understanding between the Ministry and the Parliament, between the Parliament and the public out-of-doors.

No one knew better than Peel that the time had gone by, never to return, when an English minister could rule as an English minister even so lately as in the days of Pitt had done, merely by the approval and the support of a monarch without the approval and support of a majority of the electors.

When, therefore, Peel prepared his address to his Tamworth constituents he knew perfectly well that his words were meant, not merely for the friendly ears of the little constituency, but for the consideration of the whole country.

The same feeling actuated the great statesman during the entire course of his subsequent career, and the constituency of Tamworth had therefore the advantage of being favored from time to time with election addresses which form chapters of the highest interest and importance in the historical literature of the country.

The address which he issued to his constituents before the general election in December, 1834, proclaimed, in fact, the opening of a new political era in England.

[Sidenote: 1834-34--Peel's Tamworth address] Peel made frank announcement that, so far as he and his friends were concerned, the controversy about Parliamentary reform had come to an end.

By him and by them the decision of Parliament, which sanctioned the introduction of the Reform Bill of 1832, was accepted as a final settlement of the question.

Peel declared that he regarded it as "a settlement which no friend to the peace {241} of the country would attempt to disturb, either by direct or by insidious means."

Of course it was not to be understood that Peel had any intention of describing the Reform Act of 1832 as the last word of the Reformers' creed, and the close of all possible controversy with regard to the construction of the whole Parliamentary system.

Peel no more meant to convey any idea of this kind than did Lord John Russell, when he used the word finality in connection with the Reform Act, mean to convey the idea that, according to his conviction, Parliament was never again to be invited to extend the electoral franchise or to modify the conditions under which the votes of the electors were to be given.

The announcement which Peel made to the electors of Tamworth, and to the world in general, was that he and his friends recognized the establishment of the representative principle in English political life, accepted the new order of things as a result of a lawful decree, and separated themselves altogether from the antiquated Toryism which enshrined the old ideas of government as a religious faith, and revered the memory of the nomination boroughs, as the Jacobites revered the memory of the Stuarts.

With the issue of Peel's Tamworth address in the December of 1834, the antique Tory, the Tory who made Toryism of the ante-reform days a creed and a cult, may be said to disappear altogether from the ranks of practical English politicians.

The Tory of the old school appears, no doubt, here and there through all Parliamentary days down to our own time.

We saw him in both Houses of Parliament as a heroic, unteachable opponent of Peel himself, of Bright and Cobden, of Gladstone, and sometimes even of Lord Derby and of Lord Salisbury, but he was merely a living protest against the succession of new ideas, and was no longer to be counted as a practical politician.

Sir Robert Peel soon saw that he had not gained much by his appeal to the constituencies.

The results of the general election showed that the Conservatives had made a considerable addition to their numbers in the House of Commons, but showed also that they were still in a disheartening minority.

The return of the first Reform {242} Parliament had, indeed, exhibited them for the time as completely down in the dust, for there was a majority of more than three hundred against them, and now the Liberal majority was hardly more than one hundred.

A very hopeful Conservative, or a Conservative who had a profound faith in the principles of antique Toryism, might fill himself with the fond belief that this increase in the Conservative vote foretold a gradual return to the good old days.

But Peel was too practical a statesman to be touched for a moment by any such illusion.

He had fully expected some increase in the Tory vote.

He knew, as well as anybody could know, that there had been some disappointment among the more advanced and impatient reformers all over the country with the achievements of the first reformed Parliament, and, indeed, with the Act of Reform itself.

After victory in a long-contested political battle there comes, almost as a matter of course, a season of relaxed effort among the ranks of the victors, for which allowance would have to be made in the mind of such a statesman as Peel, and, in this instance, allowance also had to be made for a falling off in the enthusiasm of those who had helped to carry the Reform movement to success, and found themselves in the end left out of all its direct advantages.

[Sidenote: 1835--The Office of Speaker] Peel saw at once that his Government must be absolutely at the mercy of the Opposition when any question arose on which it suited the purposes of the Opposition leaders to rally their whole forces around them and take a party division.

So far as the ordinary business of the session was concerned, the Ministry might get on well enough, for there must have been a considerable amount of routine work which would not provoke the Opposition to a trial of strength; but if chance or hostile strategy should bring about at any moment a controversy which called for a strictly party division, then the Government must go down.

Nothing can be more trying to a proud-spirited statesman in office than the knowledge that he can only maintain his Government, from day to day, because, for one reason or another, it does not suit the convenience of the Opposition to press some vote which must leave him and his colleagues {243} in a distinct minority.

Peel had not long to wait before he found substantial evidence to justify his most gloomy forebodings.

The new Parliament met on February 19, 1835. The first trial of strength was on the election of a new Speaker.

The former occupant of the office having been put forward for re-election, the Government were beaten by a majority of ten.

Now this was a very damaging event for the ministers, and also an event somewhat unusual in the House of Commons.

There is generally a sort of understanding, more or less distinctly expressed, that the candidate put forward by the Government for the office of Speaker is to be a man on whom both sides of the House can agree.

It is obviously undesirable that there should be a party struggle over the appointment of the official who is assumed to hold an absolutely impartial position and is not supposed to be the mere favorite of either side of the House.

In later years there has often been a distinct arrangement, or, at all events, a clear understanding, between the Government and the Opposition on this subject, and a candidate is not put forward unless there is good reason to assume that he will be acceptable to the two great political parties.

In this instance no such understanding existed, or had been sought for.

The Opposition set up a candidate of their own, and the nominee of the Government was defeated.

There was, however, one condition in this defeat which, although it did not take away from the ominous character of the event, might, to a certain extent, have relieved Peel from the necessity of regarding it as an absolute party defeat.

The majority had been obtained for the Opposition by the support of the Irish members who followed the leadership of Daniel O'Connell, and thus Sir Robert Peel saw himself outvoted by a combination of two parties, one of them regarded with peculiar disfavor by the majority of the English public on both sides of the political field.

It was something for the followers of the Government to be able to say that their Liberal opponents had only been able to score a success by the help of the unpopular Irish vote, and it became, in fact, a new accusation against the {244} Liberals that they had traded on the favor of O'Connell and his Irish followers.

From about this time the Irish vote has always played an important part in all the struggles of parties in the House of Commons; and it will be observed that the English Party, whether Liberal or Tory, against which that vote is directed is always ready with epithets of scorn and anger for the English Party for whom that vote has been given.

[Sidenote: 1835--Peel and the Opposition] Several other humiliations awaited Peel as the session went on.

Sometimes he was saved from defeat on a question of finance by the help of the more advanced Liberals, who came to his assistance when certain of his own Tory followers were prepared to desert him because his views on some question of taxation were much too new-fashioned for their own old-fashioned notions.

Every one who has paid any attention to Parliamentary history can understand how distressing is the position of a minister who has no absolute majority at his command, and how more distressing still is the position of a minister who can only look to chance disruptions and combinations of parties for any possible majority.

Peel bore himself throughout all the trials of that most trying time with indomitable courage and with unfailing skill.

Never during his whole career did he prove himself more brilliant and more full of resource than as the leader of what might be called an utterly hopeless struggle.

The highest tribute has been paid to his never-failing tact and temper during that trying ordeal by his principal opponent in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell.

Russell was now the leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons, and the struggle of parties was once again illustrated by a sort of continuous Parliamentary duel between two rival leaders.

The same phenomenon had been seen, from time to time, in the days of Queen Anne and in the days of the Georges; and it was seen again, at intervals, during some of the most vivid and fascinating passages of Parliamentary history in the reign of Queen Victoria.

The crisis, however, came soon to this first Ministry of Sir Robert Peel.

Peel had announced, in a reasonable and {245} manful spirit, considering how the task of holding together a Ministry had been imposed on him and the temptation which it afforded for the attacks of irresponsible enemies, that he would not resign office on any side issue or question of purely factitious importance, and that he would hold his place unless defeated by a vote of want of confidence or a vote of censure.

He challenged the leader of the Opposition to test the feeling of the House by a division on a question of that nature.

Lord John Russell refused to take any such course, declaring that he believed it his duty to wait and see what might be the nature of the measures of reform which the Government had promised to introduce before inviting the House to say whether the Government deserved or did not deserve its confidence.

Some of the measures announced by the Government had to do with the reform of the ecclesiastical courts and the maintenance of Church discipline, and Sir Robert Peel had himself given notice of a measure to deal with the Irish tithe system, the principal object of which was understood to be the transfer of the liability of the payment of tithes from the shoulders of the tenant to the shoulders of the landlord.

It was not unreasonable that the Opposition should proclaim it their policy to wait and see what the Tory ministers really proposed to do before assailing them with a direct and general vote of want of confidence.

Even, however, if the Opposition had been inclined to linger before inviting a real trial of strength, there was a feeling growing up all over the country which seemed impatient of mere episodical encounters leading to nothing in particular.

The leaders of the Opposition had a very distinct policy in their minds, and on March 30, 1835, it found its formal expression.

Lord John Russell moved a resolution which called upon the House to resolve itself into a committee "in order to consider the present state of the Church established in Ireland, with the view of applying any surplus of revenues not required for the spiritual care of its members to the general education of all classes of the people without distinction of religious persuasion."

Now here, it will be seen, {246} was the battle-ground distinctly marked out on which the two political parties must come, sooner or later, to a decisive struggle.

About the collection of tithes, about the imposition of tithes, about the class of the community on whom the direct responsibility for the payment of tithes ought to fall, there might possibly be a basis of agreement found between Tories and Whigs.

But when there arose a question as to the appropriation of the Church revenues, there the old doctrines and the new, the old Tories and the new Reformers, came into irreconcilable antagonism.

The creed of the Tories was that the revenues of the Church belonged to the Church itself, and that if the Church had a surplus of funds here or there for any one particular purpose that surplus could be applied by it to some of its other purposes, but that no legislature had any right to say to the Church, "You have more money here than is needed for your own rights, and we have a right to take part of it away from you and apply it for the uses of the general public."

The Government, therefore, accepted Lord John Russell's resolution as a distinct challenge to a trial of strength on an essential question of policy.