Beacon Lights of History, Vol 9: European Statesmen — George IV, Part 1

TORYISM.

Where an intelligent and cultivated though superficial traveller to recount his impressions of England in 1815, when the Prince of Wales was regent of the kingdom and Lord Liverpool was prime minister, he probably would note his having been struck with the splendid life of the nobility (all great landed proprietors) in their palaces at London, and in their still more magnificent residences on their principal estates.

He would have seen a lavish if not an unbounded expenditure, emblazoned and costly equipages, liveried servants without number, and all that wealth could purchase in the adornment of their homes.

He would have seen a perpetual round of banquets, balls, concerts, receptions, and garden parties, to which only the _élite_ of society were invited, all dressed in the extreme of fashion, blazing with jewels, and radiant with the smiles of prosperity.

Among the lions of this gorgeous society he would have seen the most distinguished statesmen of the day, chiefly peers of the realm, with the blue ribbon across their shoulders, the diamond garter below their knees, and the heraldic star upon their breasts.

Perhaps he might have met some rising orator, like Canning or Perceval, whose speeches were in every mouth,--men destined to the highest political honors, pets of highborn ladies for the brilliancy of their genius, the silvery tones of their voices, and the courtly elegance of their manners; Tories in their politics, and aristocrats in their sympathies.

The traveller, if admitted as a stranger to these grand assemblages, would have seen but few lawyers, except of the very highest distinction, perhaps here and there a bishop or a dean with the paraphernalia of clerical rank, but no physician, no artist, no man of science, no millionaire banker, no poet, no scholar, unless his fame had gone out to all the world.

The brilliancy of the spectacle would have dazzled him, and he would unhesitatingly have pronounced those titled men and women to be the most fortunate, the most favored, and perhaps the most happy of all people on the face of the globe, since, added to the distinctions of rank and the pride of power, they had the means of purchasing all the pleasures known to civilization, and--more than all--held a secure social position, which no slander could reach and no hatred could affect.

Or if he followed these magnates to their country estates after the "season" had closed and Parliament was prorogued, he would have seen the palaces of these lordly proprietors of innumerable acres filled with a retinue of servants that would have called out the admiration of Cicero or Crassus,--all in imposing liveries, but with cringing manners,--and a crowd of aristocratic visitors, filling perhaps a hundred apartments, spending their time according to their individual inclinations; some in the magnificent library of the palace, some riding in the park, others fox-hunting with the hounds or shooting hares and partridges, others again flirting with ennuied ladies in the walks or boudoirs or gilded drawing-rooms,--but all meeting at dinner, in full dress, in the carved and decorated banqueting-hall, the sideboards of which groaned under the load of gold and silver plate of the rarest patterns and most expensive workmanship.

Everywhere the eye would have rested on priceless pictures, rare tapestries, bronze and marble ornaments, sumptuous sofas and lounges, mirrors of Venetian glass, chandeliers, antique vases, _bric-à-brac_ of every description brought from every corner of the world.

The conversation of these titled aristocrats,--most of them educated at Oxford and Cambridge, cultivated by foreign travel, and versed in the literature of the day,--though full of prejudices, was generally interesting; while their manners, though cold and haughty, were easy, polished, courteous, and dignified.

It is true, most of them would swear, and get drunk at their banquets; but their profanity was conventional rather than blasphemous, and they seldom got drunk till late in the evening, and then on wines older than their children, from the most famous vineyards of Europe.

During the day they were able to attend to business, if they had any, and seldom drank anything stronger than ale and beer.

Their breakfasts were light and their lunches simple.

Living much in the open air, and fond of the pleasures of the chase, they were generally healthy and robust.

The prevailing disease which crippled them was gout; but this was owing to champagne and burgundy rather than to brandy and turtle-soups, for at that time no Englishman of rank dreamed that he could dine without wine.

William Pitt, it is said, found less than three bottles insufficient for his dinner, when he had been working hard.

Among them all there was great outward reverence for the Church, and few missed its services on Sundays, or failed to attend family prayers in their private chapels as conducted by their chaplains, among whom probably not a Dissenter could be found in the whole realm.

Both Catholics and Dissenters were alike held in scornful contempt or indifference, and had inferior social rank.

On the whole, these aristocrats were a decorous class of men, though narrow, bigoted, reserved, and proud, devoted to pleasure, idle, extravagant, and callous to the wrongs and miseries of the poor.

They did not insult the people by arrogance or contumely, like the old Roman nobles; but they were not united to them by any other ties than such as a master would feel for his slaves; and as slaves are obsequious to their masters, and sometimes loyal, so the humbler classes (especially in the country) worshipped the ground on which these magnates walked.

"How courteous the nobles are!"

said a wealthy plebeian manufacturer to me once, at Manchester.

"I was to show my mill to Lord Ducie, and as my carriage drove up I was about to mount the box with the coachman, but my lord most kindly told me to jump in."

So much for the highest class of all in England, about the year 1815. Suppose the attention of the traveller were now turned to the legislative halls, in which public affairs were discussed, particularly to the House of Commons, supposed to represent the nation.

He would have seen five or six hundred men, in plain attire, with their hats on, listless and inattentive, except when one of their leaders was making a telling speech against some measure proposed by the opposite party,--and nearly all measures were party measures.

Who were these favored representatives?

Nearly all of them were the sons or brothers or cousins or political friends of the class to which I have just alluded, with here and there a baronet or powerful county squire or eminent lawyer or wealthy manufacturer or princely banker, but all with aristocratic sympathies,--nearly all conservative, with a preponderance of Tories;

scarcely a man without independent means, indifferent to all questions except such as affected party interests, and generally opposed to all movements which had in view the welfare of the middle classes, to which they could not be said to belong.

They did not represent manufacturing towns nor the shopkeepers, still less the people in their rugged toils,--ignorant even when they could read and write.

They represented the great landed interests of the country for the most part, and legislated for the interests of landlords and the gentry, the Established Church and the aristocratic universities,--indeed, for the wealthy and the great, not for the nation as a whole, except when great public dangers were imminent.

At that time, however, the traveller would have heard the most magnificent bursts of eloquence ever heard in Parliament,--speeches which are immortal, classical, beautiful, and electrifying.

On the front benches was Canning, scarcely inferior to Pitt or Fox as an orator;

stately, sarcastic, witty, rhetorical, musical, as full of genius as an egg is full of meat.

There was Castlereagh,--not eloquent, but gifted, the honored plenipotentiary and negotiator at the Congress of Vienna;

the friend of Metternich and the Czar Alexander; at that time perhaps the most influential of the ministers of state, the incarnation of aristocratic manners and ultra conservative principles.

There was Peel, just rising to fame and power; wealthy, proud, and aristocratic, as conservative as Wellington himself, a Tory of the Tories.

There were Perceval, the future prime minister, great both as lawyer and statesman;

and Lord Palmerston, secretary of state for war.

On the opposite benches sat Lord John Russell, timidly maturing schemes for parliamentary reform, lucid of thought, and in utterance clear as a bell.

There, too, sat Henry Brougham, not yet famous, but a giant in debate, and overwhelming in his impetuous invectives.

There were Romilly, the law reformer, and Tierney, Plunkett, and Huskisson (all great orators), and other eminent men whose names were on every tongue.

The traveller, entranced by the power and eloquence of these leaders, could scarcely have failed to feel that the House of Commons was the most glorious assembly on earth, the incarnation of the highest political wisdom, the theatre and school of the noblest energies, worthy to instruct and guide the English nation, or any other nation in the world.

From the legislature we follow our traveller to the Church,--the Established Church of course, for non-conformist ministers, whatever their learning and oratorical gifts, ranked scarcely above shopkeepers and farmers, and were viewed by the aristocracy as leaders of sedition rather than preachers of righteousness.

The higher dignitaries of the only church recognized by fashion and rank were peers of the realm, presidents of colleges, dons in the universities, bishops with an income of £10,000 a year or more, deans of cathedrals, prebendaries and archdeacons, who wore a distinctive dress from the other clergy.

I need not say that they were the most aristocratic, cynical, bigoted, and intolerant of all the upper ranks in the social scale, though it must be confessed that they were generally men of learning and respectability, more versed, however, in the classics of Greece and Rome than in Saint Paul's epistles, and with greater sympathy for the rich than for the poor, to whom the gospel was originally preached.

The untitled clergy of the Church in their rural homes,--for the country and not the city was the paradise of rectors and curates, as of squires and men of leisure,--were also for the most part classical scholars and gentlemen, though some thought more of hunting and fishing than of the sermons they were to preach on Sundays.

Nothing to the eye of a cultivated traveller was more fascinating than the homes of these country clergymen, rectories and parsonages as they were called,--concealed amid shrubberies, groves, and gardens, where flowers bloomed by the side of the ivy and myrtle, ever green and flourishing.

They were not large but comfortable, abodes of plenty if not of luxury, freeholds which could not be taken away, suggestive of rest and repose; for the favored occupant of such a holding, supported by tithes, could neither be ejected nor turned out of his "living," which he held for life, whether he preached well or poorly, whether he visited his flock or buried himself amid his books, whether he dined out with the squire or went up to town for amusement, whether he played lawn tennis in the afternoon with aristocratic ladies, or cards in the evening with gentlemen none too sober.

He had an average stipend of £200 a year, equal to £400 in these times,--moderate, but sufficient for his own wants, if not for those of his wife and daughters, who pined of course for a more exciting life, and for richer dresses than he could afford to give them.

His sermons, it must be confessed, were not very instructive, suggestive, or eloquent,--were, in fact, without point, delivered in a drawling monotone; but then his hearers were not used to oratorical displays or learned treatises in the pulpit, and were quite satisfied with the glorious liturgy, if well intoned, and pious chants from surpliced boys, if it happened to be a church rich and venerable in which they worshipped.

Not less imposing and impressive than the Church would the traveller have found the courts of law.

The House of Lords was indeed, in a general sense, a legislative assembly, where the peers deliberated on the same subjects that occupied the attention of the Commons; but it was also the supreme judicial tribunal of the realm,--a great court of appeals of which only the law lords, ex-chancellors and judges, who were peers, were the real members, presided over by the lord chancellor, who also held court alone for the final decision of important equity questions.

The other courts of justice were held by twenty-four judges, in different departments of the law, who presided in their scarlet robes in Westminster Hall, and who also held assizes in the different counties for the trial of criminals,--all men of great learning and personal dignity, who were held in awe, since they were the representatives of the king himself to decree judgments and punish offenders against the law.

Even those barristers who pleaded at these tribunals quailed before the searching glance of these judges, who were the picked men of their great profession, whom no sophistry could deceive and no rhetoric could win,--men held in supreme honor for their exalted station as well as for their force of character and acknowledged abilities.

In no other country were judges so well paid, so independent, so much feared, and so deserving of honors and dignities.

And in no other country were judges armed with more power, nor were they more bland and courteous in their manners and more just in their decisions.

It was something to be a judge in England.

Turning now from peers, legislators, judges, and bishops,--the men who composed the governing class,--all equally aristocratic and exclusive, let us with our traveller survey the middle class, who were neither rich nor poor, living by trade, chiefly shopkeepers, with a sprinkling of dissenting ministers, solicitors, surgeons, and manufacturers.

Among these, the observer is captivated by the richness and splendor of their shops, over which were dark and dingy chambers used as residences by their plebeian occupants, except such as were rented as lodgings to visitors and men of means.

These people of business were rarely ambitious of social distinction, for that was beyond their reach; but they lived comfortably, dined on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sunday, with tolerable sherry or port to wash it down, went to church or chapel regularly in silk or broadcloth, were good citizens, had a horror of bailiffs, could converse on what was going on in trade and even in politics to a limited extent, and generally advocated progressive and liberal sentiments,--unless some of their relatives were employed in some way or other in noble houses, in which case their loyalty to the crown and admiration of rank were excessive and amusing.

They read good books when they read at all, educated their children, some of whom became governesses, travelled a little in the summer, were hospitable to their limited circle of friends, were kind and obliging, put on no airs, and were on the whole useful and worthy people, if we can not call them "respectable members of society."

They were, perhaps, the happiest and most contented of all the various classes, since they were virtuous, frugal, industrious, and thought more of duties than they did of pleasures.

These were the people who were soon to discuss rights rather than duties, and whom the reform movement was to turn into political enthusiasts.

Such was the bright side of the picture which a favored traveller would have seen at the close of the Napoleonic wars,--on the whole, one of external prosperity and grandeur, compared with most Continental countries; an envied civilization, the boast of liberty, for there was no regal despotism.

The monarch could send no one to jail, or exile him, or cut off his head, except in accordance with law; and the laws could deprive no one of personal liberty without sufficient cause, determined by judicial tribunals.

And yet this splendid exterior was deceptive.

The traveller saw only the rich or favored or well-to-do classes; there were toiling and suffering millions whom he did not see.

Although the laws were made to favor the agricultural interests, yet there was distress among agricultural laborers; and the dearer the price of corn,--that is, the worse the harvests,--the more the landlords were enriched, and the more wretched were those who raised the crops.

In times of scarcity, when harvests were poor, the quartern loaf sold sometimes for two shillings, when the laborer could earn on an average only six or seven shillings a week.

Think of a family compelled to live on seven shillings a week, with what the wife and children could additionally earn!

There was rent to pay, and coals and clothing to buy, to say nothing of a proper and varied food supply; yet all that the family could possibly earn would not pay for bread alone.

And the condition of the laboring classes in the mines and the mills was still worse; for not half of them could get work at all, even at a shilling a day.

The disbanding of half a million of soldiers, without any settled occupation, filled every village and hamlet with vagrants and vagabonds demoralized by war.

During the war with France there had been a demand for every sort of manufactures; but the peace cut off this demand, and the factories were either closed or were running on half-time.

Then there was the dreadful burden of taxation, direct and indirect, to pay the interest of a national debt swelled to the enormous amount of £800,000,000, and to meet the current expenses of the government, which were excessive and frequently unnecessary,--such as sinecures, pensions, and grants to the royal family.

This debt pressed upon all classes alike, and prevented the use of all those luxuries which we now regard as necessities,--like sugar, tea, coffee, and even meat.

There were import duties, almost prohibitory, on many articles which few could do without, and worst of all, on corn and all cereals.

Without these it was possible for the laboring class to live, even when they earned only a shilling a day; but when these were retained to swell the income of that upper class whose glories and luxuries I have already mentioned, there was inevitable starvation.

To any kind of popular sorrow and misery, however, the government seemed indifferent; and this was followed of course by discontent and crime, riots and incendiary conflagrations, murders and highway robberies,--an incipient pandemonium, disgusting to see and horrible to think of.

At the best, what dens of misery and filth and disease were the quarters of the poor, in city and country alike, especially in the coal districts and in manufacturing towns.

And when these pallid, half-starved miners and operatives, begrimed with smoke and dirt, issued from their infernal hovels and gathered in crowds, threatening all sorts of violence, and dispersed only at the point of the bayonet, there was something to call out fear as well as compassion from those who lived upon their toils.