Perilous Question Read online

  Over mountain, over plain

  Echoing wide from sea to sea,

  Peals, and shall not peal in vain

  The trumpet call of liberty!

  Britain’s guardian spirit cries –

  Britons, awake! Arise, arise.

  The penultimate verse made allusion to previous heroes of liberty such as the chiefs of glorious Runnymede (who were in fact barons – but 600 years later, what of it?) and John Hampden. The last verse, with reference to these heroes, was momentous – if it were to prove true:

  But not to war or blood they call,

  They bid us lift not sword or gun,

  Peaceful but firm, join one and all

  To claim your rights, and they are won.

  The British Lion’s voice alone

  Shall gain for Britain all her own!

  The answering song was equally emphatic:

  We kindle not war’s fatal fires,

  By union, justice, reason, law

  We claim the birthright of our sires.

  Then Thomas Clutton stepped forward and, taking off his hat, invited all those present to join him in a vow: ‘with unbroken faith, through every peril and privation, we here devote ourselves and our children to our country’s cause’. Many people wept.11

  Fortunately for the guardians of public order, the military were not unprepared. There was to be no repetition of Bristol and Colonel Brereton’s solicitude for the locals, considered unbecoming in a military man, and ending in personal tragedy. The order went out to ‘rough-sharpen’ the soldiers’ swords. The purpose of this was to make the swords inflict a ‘ragged’ – that is, more lethal – wound. The swords of the Greys had not been submitted to this process since before Waterloo; now the old soldiers told the young ones anecdotes about it as the latter silently worked on their swords. Alexander Somerville, then serving in the Greys, described how they were ‘daily and nightly booted and saddled’ with enough cartridges in their possession for three days.12

  In fact there was nothing aggressive about this huge assembly, according to the deepest conviction of Thomas Attwood that it was peaceful protest not violence which would lead to progress. As The Times put it in a somewhat breathless early report once the news of this vast demonstration had begun to filter in: ‘The utmost harmony prevailed.’ Later, having received fuller reports, the newspaper saw no reason to revise this judgement; the most magnificent meeting for its numbers and strength ‘that was ever seen in England or the world’ was also the most impressive for its ‘order, discipline and resolution’.13

  Otherwise the atmosphere was one of almost rural enjoyment, with the whole occasion treated as a gala outing. Then there was the music: ‘the tunes of a thousand musical instruments thrilled through their hearts,’ wrote Joseph Parkes of the spectators. In view of the crowds, silence for speeches had to be secured by the sound of a bugle above their heads. The meeting also had a religious connotation. Once silence had been secured with a bugle call, the Reverend Hutton took over with prayers. A native of Belfast, Hutton had graduated from Glasgow University, and acted as a Quaker minister; he was described by Haydon, who drew him, as ‘highly powerful and intellectual’ and confided to the artist how he had paced up and down his garden deciding whether to fight for Reform.14

  Attwood’s speech was an inspiring one even by his high standards of demagogic oratory. ‘We have had but to stamp upon the earth . . .,’ he said, ‘and constantly from above the ground and from beneath the ground one hundred thousand brave men, besides the thousands of beautiful women I see before me, determined to see their country righted, present themselves at our call. . . .’ He continued by confronting the dilemma of popular demonstration: ‘If we hold no meetings, they say we are indifferent – if we hold small meetings, they say we are insignificant – if we hold large meetings they say we wish to intimidate them.’ And Attwood made his own position completely clear: ‘I would rather die than see the great Bill of Reform rejected or mutilated in any of its great parts or provisions.’15

  As for the King, Attwood continued to lavish the praise upon him which had always been his custom, using what he considered to be appropriate naval terms. William IV, he said, ‘has stood on the quarter deck with the waves of the political storm heaving around him; he has stood firm at the helm of the vessel of State; he has boarded the enemy when the occasion demanded’. Would he now throw himself from the topgallant mast of the vessel into the depths of the raging ocean? ‘Oh no! my countrymen,’ declared Attwood staunchly – with a confidence that those in London were no longer feeling quite so strongly. But perhaps his last declaration was the most important of all from the point of view of the political watchers. Attwood predicted a ‘violent Revolution’ if the Bill was not passed.

  Although the reformers were in the main concentrated on their own domestic ‘perilous question’, they were not indifferent to events elsewhere in Europe, as witness the production at the meeting by Attwood of a striking foreigner he called – phonetically – Chopski. This was in fact the man born Count Joseph Kazimierz Czapski, a Pole who had taken the extra name Napoleon at his confirmation. The son of a general, Czapski was now in his mid-thirties; after a dispute with his uncle over the estates, he had dropped ‘Count’ and deliberately termed himself Joseph Napoleon Czapski, a peasant. Already a patriotic activist, believed by the governing Russians to be a dangerous revolutionary, Czapski was actually in Paris at the time of the Polish insurrection in November 1830; he called for French aid for the Polish patriots. He then returned to the Prussian sector of Poland in January 1831, using a false French name while the Prussians attempted to capture him. Finally Czapski escaped on a British ship from Danzig and in January 1832 reached Ireland. Here he made speeches in favour of Polish independence, sometimes alongside O’Connell, which were widely reported in the English press, including the Birmingham Journal.

  Czapski was actually on his way to London to present a petition of 5,000 names in favour of Polish freedom, when he was persuaded to step aside and visit Birmingham as part of the Wolverhampton Union’s delegation. A banner reading ‘A Tear for Poland’ was presented to him: Czapski was visibly affected but admitted that he did not know what the word ‘Tear’ meant. He said later that his heart was more sensible than his head, for he had wept instinctively at the sight of it. Czapski, greeted with great acclaim by the crowds, instantly became a devoted adherent of the Birmingham Political Union. As the July Revolution, so frequently invoked, had been a political inspiration, so Polish Czapski became a symbol of outspoken political challenge, regardless of consequences.16

  Tuesday 8 May was a day of ferment in political circles. After the voting there had been a hasty meeting late at night in the Lord Chancellor’s room: a provisional decision was reached to resign unless creation was agreed. The full Cabinet met at the Foreign Office at eleven o’clock the next morning to discuss a minute to be submitted to the King. Following the defeat of the night before, the Government tendered their resignations ‘as a natural consequence’. However, in view of ‘the peculiar circumstances of the Country’, the Government felt it their duty to state that the alternative of creating peers was one that His Majesty might consider, as it would enable the Bill to be passed without a change of government. In that case, the Government was willing to undertake the task. But it was thought ‘prudent’ that Lord Grey and Lord Brougham should go together to Windsor that afternoon to present the minute to the King; their task was to convey to him not only their determination to resign unless he consent to create, but also that such a creation – it should not be concealed – would have to number fifty or sixty new peers.17

  So down to Windsor travelled the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor. These were positions they had held since November 1830, although it was not quite clear how long they would continue to do so. Grey and Brougham travelled in such haste, in fact, that, departing from Hounslow, they nearly upset the carriage of the unfortunate Lady Glengall, an Irish widow of a certain age. ‘A
s it was they broke the pole of her ladyship’s carriage and frightened her proportionately.’ When they eventually arrived, it was not an agreeable meeting of Sovereign and his middle-aged Ministers. As Creevey wrote, the King did not care to preserve his usual civility: ‘he did not even offer the poor fellows any victuals’.18 It was not hard to gauge what the King’s reaction was from all this, although what he actually promised Grey and Brougham was a letter on the day following.

  Grey and Brougham returned together in a coach from Windsor. What happened next became the stuff of satirists. Starving, and no doubt needing a drink after all this, the two gentlemen stopped off en route at a public house in Hounslow. Here they dined on mutton chops. In Brougham’s account: ‘I insisted on a broiled kidney being added to the poor repast.’ Grey laughed at him and declared that ‘he cared not for kidneys’. Nevertheless he ate them when they came. As Brougham put it: ‘And we were all in the print-shops in a few days.’19 One cartoon was captioned ‘Late Scene at Hounslow at the Sign of the Red Lion’. Brougham is depicted chomping away with the words: ‘My Lord you don’t eat your chops, I have already placed six in Schedule A and am about to discuss a seventh, while you have scarcely got through one.’

  During this time of exceptional nervosity, Lord Althorp calmed himself – and perhaps showed where his real heart lay – by going to a nursery garden to buy flowers and shrubs. He brought home five enormous packages, and set about writing instructions where they were to be planted. He also cleaned and oiled his fowling-pieces for rough shooting on his estate, which he had neglected during the prolonged crisis.20

  The promised letter from the King duly arrived the next day, Wednesday 9 May. William IV declined to make ‘so large an addition to the Peerage ’ and in consequence he accepted the resignation of the Ministry. The King did however ask his present Ministers to continue ‘in discharge of their official functions’ until a new government was formed.21 It was now Grey’s duty to go back to the House of Lords.

  Rising to his feet, the former Prime Minister made the announcement which everyone was awaiting. ‘And now, my Lords,’ he said, ‘after the proceedings of Monday last, and after the result of that night’s debate and decision, your Lordships are probably prepared for the information which I feel it to be my duty to communicate with you.’22 After such a defeat, there were two courses: to resign at once or go to the King and ask him to create peerages. Then Grey made his dramatic announcement. After much consideration, he had taken the second course. And now: the King ‘was graciously pleased to accept our resignation’. Grey and his Government were therefore holding office only until their successors were appointed. In the House of Commons, in contrast to the sullen Lords, Althorp was received with such a round of cheering as ‘I never before heard’, wrote Edward Littleton, as a result of which Le Marchant thought Althorp was on the verge of weeping.23

  It was on 9 May that King William asked the Duke of Wellington, using the intermediary of Lord Lyndhurst, to form a new administration. If it was a chalice, it was certainly a poisoned one; for in the same breath it was made clear that the Duke was expected to bring sufficient measures of Reform to satisfy the country. Out of optimism – or political naïveté – the King did not seem to understand the extraordinary difficulties, both moral and practical, inherent in this demand. A courtier commented: ‘The King appeared to think all this day, that he was done with the Whigs . . . for the next forty years.’ William IV also hoped that Brougham and the Duke of Richmond might continue in office.24

  Officially, while Wellington struggled with his paradoxical task, Britain was without a government; although the previous incumbents would continue to administrate, for what that was worth, Earl Grey still residing in Downing Street. The country was in a state of uproar. The Times on 10 May referred to ‘the awful crisis in which the British empire is now placed . . . Every man without exception of age or calling, asks his neighbour the question: “What is to be done?”’ William Cobbett put it more crudely: ‘Every man you met seemed to be convulsed with rage.’25

  As to that, the centre of attention was now well and truly focused on William IV. Here was a monarch, a man of sixty-seven, who, after a very different career, had reigned for one year and ten months – a period in which political crisis had become the norm. Rumours were rife, and none of them in Whig circles particularly favourable to the King (even if Attwood had maintained his position of loyalty at Newhall Hill). Creevey believed that he had been influenced by the defeat on Monday; as a result, ‘Our beloved Billy cuts a damnable figure in this business.’ He actually allowed the Duke of Cumberland to tell his friends that he would not create peers ‘and then the rats were in their old ranks again at once’. This rumour was on a par with one Le Marchant heard concerning the fatal vote and the bishops: they had been swayed by the Archbishop of Canterbury who assured them that the King had no intention of creating peers.26

  Then there was a levée or reception at Court, which might have been a grisly affair, given there was no government at the time, only some administrative caretakers. On this occasion, however, ‘our perfidious Billy was the outside of graciosity’ to Lord Grey. The King said that George II could not have felt more bitterly at parting with Walpole nor George III at parting with Lord North, than he did under the present circumstances.27 But of course for a final parting it was necessary to secure the acceptance of office by a fresh lot of Ministers, and that was where the intrigues were now centred.

  During these two days, people talked very openly of civil war, according to Edward Littleton. There was a further Newhall Hill meeting on 10 May and on this occasion it was thought seemly that those loyal medals with the words ‘God Save the King’ backing Attwood’s profile should be abandoned. There was even talk of a change of dynasty – ‘I never heard the like before,’ wrote Littleton; it reminded him ruefully of a conversation he had had in Paris during the controversial administration of Joseph de Villèle. Then Littleton had assured a leading French politician: ‘In England no one dreams of the removal of the monarch, one can be at no great distance from such an event when it becomes the subject of general conversation.’28 Such complacency about the English Constitution was coming back to haunt him.

  In this connection, there was a notable increase in attacks on the Queen in the press; an increase also in the degree of viciousness. If it was a question of who was to blame for the King’s behaviour, then a German-born Queen presented an all too convenient scapegoat. Creevey was not the only one to refer to the Austrian-born Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, known sneeringly as l’Autrichienne from her first appearance in her new country at the age of fourteen. Of course the Habsburg Archduchess Marie Antoinette had been high-born, no one questioned that; it was where she was born that was the trouble. Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was not felt to have the same distinction; at a public meeting in Southwark, as reported in The Times, she was described as a tawdry foreigner – ‘a woman raised from obscurity to the highest pitch of glory – raised from a state not so respectable or affluent as the lady of an English squire to be consort of the Monarch of the most enlightened kingdom on the earth’. Was it right, the speaker asked, for such a people to be ruled by the Tory despotism of a female? It was scarcely surprising that in answer to this question there were vehement cries of ‘No, no’.29

  On Wednesday 9 May the Morning Chronicle reported that the Queen and other royal ladies had in fact never ceased tormenting His Majesty with all manner of sinister reports and forebodings as to the evils which would result from Reform. The consequent verdict was even more damning: ‘It is proper that the nation did know, without disguise or reserve, that the Queen has done more injury to the cause of Reform than any person living.’30 William IV himself was no longer exempt from criticism. In line with the removal of the patriotic medals showing the royal visage was the fact that the King actually found himself being driven through a hissing crowd on his return from Windsor on 12 May.

  *

  The atmosphere in
the House of Commons on 10 May was as different to that of Lords as it was possible to be, given that the social class of both Houses was not really very different, the Commons being choc-a-block with heirs to peers. Lord Ebrington MP, he who was considered quite the model of an English nobleman and conscientious to a fault, moved the Address to the King.31 Pointing to the deep feeling in the country, he asked the King ‘to call to his Councils only such persons as will carry into effect, unimpaired in all its essential provisions, that Bill which has already passed this House’. As for the recent Leader of the House, Lord Althorp, now apparently going into retirement, he would have the consolation of thinking how much he had done in ‘the great cause of obtaining for the people a free Representation’.

  The Address was seconded by Edward Strutt, the high-minded young MP for Derby. Strutt’s manufacturing family had gained their fortune from an original partnership with Richard Arkwright, but along the way as successful businessmen had used their wealth, as the poet Thomas Moore put it, on ‘elegancies’ such as literature and music. Strutt began by emphasizing that he had the support of his constituents and then pointed out his own lack of prejudice, since he had had no post in the previous administration. ‘Let this House come forward and place itself in its proper station at the head of the people,’ he declared. After that, the people should not look elsewhere for leaders – a hint to the unionists, let alone the more violent demonstrators. As for the Tories, and the idea that they would now come into office: ‘if indeed, the time shall ever come when we are willing to submit our victorious armies to the command of the officers of the enemy; if we shall ever call the culprits from the bar to the judgement seat,’ then, and not till then, would he consent to entrust Reform to the ‘avowed enemies of the Bill’ or its reluctant and wavering supporters. The next day, in a packed House of Commons, Ebrington’s motion was passed by a majority of 80 votes.