The dangerous agitation that gave expression to this state of feeling
was met by the government in the session of November 1819 by the passing
of the famous Six Acts. The first of these deprived the defendant of the
right of traversing, but directed that he should be brought to trial
within a year; the second increased the penalties for seditious libel;
the third imposed the newspaper stamp duty on all pamphlets and the like
containing news; the fourth (Seditious Meetings Act) once more greatly
curtailed the liberty of public meetings; the fifth forbade the training
of persons in the use of arms; the sixth empowered magistrates to search
for and seize arms.
Accession of George IV.
The apparent necessity for the passing of these exceptional measures was
increased by the imminent death of the old king, the tragic close of
whose long reign had won for him a measure of popular sympathy which was
wholly lacking in the case of the prince regent. On the 23rd of February
1820 George III. died, and the regent became king as George IV. This was
the signal for an outburst of popular discontent with the existing order
of a far more ominous character than any that had preceded it. The king
was generally loathed, not so much for his vices--which would have been,
in this case as in others, condoned in a more popular monarch--but for
the notorious meanness and selfishness of his character. Of these
qualities he took the occasion of his accession to make a fresh display.
He had long been separated from his wife, Caroline of Brunswick; he now
refused her the title of queen consort, forbade the mention of her name
in the liturgy, and persuaded the government to promote an inquiry in
parliament into her conduct, with a view to a divorce. Whatever grounds
there may have been for this action, popular sympathy was wholly with
Queen Caroline, who became the centre round which all the forces of
discontent rallied. The failure of the Bill of Pains and Penalties
against the queen, which was dropped after it had passed its third
reading in the Lords by a majority of only seven, was greeted as a great
popular triumph. The part played by the government in this unsavoury
affair had discredited them even in the eyes of the classes whose fear
of revolution had hitherto made them supporters of the established
system; and the movement for reform received a new stimulus.
Beginnings of reform.
The Tory government itself realized the necessity for some concessions
to the growing public sentiment. In 1821 a small advance was made. The
reform bill (equal electoral districts) introduced by Lambton
(afterwards Lord Durham) was thrown out; but the corrupt borough of
Grampound in Cornwall was disfranchised and the seats transferred to the
county of York. Even more significant was the change in the cabinet,
which was strengthened by the admission of some of the more conservative
section of the Opposition, Lord Sidmouth retiring and Robert Peel
becoming home secretary. A bill for the removal of Catholic
disabilities, too, was carried in the Commons, though rejected in the
Lords; and the appointment of Lord Wellesley, an advocate of the
Catholic claims, to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland marked yet another
stage in the settlement of a question which, more than anything else at
that time, kept Ireland and Irishmen in a state of chronic discontent
and agitation.
George Canning.
It is not without significance that this modification of the policy of
the Tory government at home coincided with a modification of its
relations with the European powers. The tendency of Metternich's system
had long been growing distasteful to Castlereagh, who had consistently
protested against the attempt to constitute the Grand Alliance general
police of Europe and had specially protested against the Carlsbad
Decrees (q.v.). The first steps towards the inevitable breach with the
reactionary powers had already been taken before Castlereagh's tragic
death on the eve of the congress of Verona brought George Canning into
office as the executor of his policy. With Canning, foe of the
Revolution and all its works though he was, the old liberal Toryism of
Pitt's younger days seemed once more to emerge. It might have emerged in
any case; but Canning, with his brilliant popular gifts and his frank
appeal to popular support, gave it a revivifying stimulus which it would
never have received from an aristocrat of the type of Castlereagh.
Changed tendency of British policy.
The new spirit was most conspicuous in foreign affairs; in the protest
of Great Britain against the action of the continental powers at Verona
(see VERONA, CONGRESS OF), in the recognition of the South American
republics, and later in the sympathetic attitude of the government
towards the insurrection in Greece. This policy had been foreshadowed in
the instructions drawn up by Castlereagh for his own guidance at Verona;
but Canning succeeded in giving it a popular and national colour and
thus removing from the government all suspicion of sympathy with the
reactionary spirit of the "Holy Alliance." In home affairs, too, the
government made tentative advances in a Liberal direction. In January
1823 Vansittart was succeeded as chancellor of the exchequer by Robinson
(afterwards Lord Goderich), and Huskisson became president of the Board
of Trade. The term of office of the latter was marked by the first
tentative efforts to modify the high protective system by which British
trade was hampered, especially by the Reciprocity of Duties Act (1823),
a modification of the Navigation Acts, by which British and foreign
shipping were placed on an equal footing, while the right to impose
restrictive duties on ships of powers refusing to reciprocate was
retained. In spite, however, of the improvement in trade that ultimately
resulted from these measures, there was great depression; in 1825 there
was a financial crisis that caused widespread ruin, and in 1826 the
misery of the labouring poor led to renewed riots and machinery
smashing. It became increasingly clear that a drastic alteration in the
existing system was absolutely inevitable. As to this necessity,
however, the ministry was in fact hopelessly divided. The government was
one of compromise, in which even so burning a question as Catholic
emancipation had been left open. Among its members were some--like the
lord chancellor Eldon, the duke of Wellington, and the premier, Lord
Liverpool, himself--whose Toryism was of the type crystallized under the
influence of the Revolution, adamant against change. Such progressive
measures as it had passed had been passed in the teeth of its own
nominal supporters, even of its own members. In 1826 Lord Palmerston,
himself a member of the government, wrote: "On the Catholic question, on
the principles of commerce, on the corn laws, on the settlement of the
currency, on the laws relating to trade in money, on colonial slavery,
on the game laws...; on all these questions, and everything like them,
the government will find support from the Whigs and resistance from
their self-denominated friends." It was, in fact, only the personal
influence of Liverpool that held the ministry together, and when, on the
17th of February 1827, he was seized with an apoplectic fit, a crisis
was inevitable.
Catholic Emancipation and Corn Laws.
The crisis, indeed, arose before the nominal expiration of the Liverpool
administration. Two questions were, in the view of Canning and his
supporters, of supreme importance--Catholic emancipation and the reform
of the Corn Laws. The first of these had assumed a new urgency since the
formation in 1823 of the Catholic Association, which under the brilliant
leadership of Daniel O'Connell established in Ireland a national
organization that threatened the very basis of the government. In March
1826 Sir Francis Burdett had brought in a Catholic Relief Bill, which,
passed in the Commons, was thrown out by the Lords. A year later
Burdett's motion that the affairs of Ireland required immediate
attention, though supported by Canning, was rejected in the Commons. A
bill modifying the Corn Laws, introduced by Canning and Huskisson,
passed the House of Commons on the 12th of April 1827, but was rejected
by the Lords.
Canning ministry.
Wellington ministry.
Catholic emancipation passed. Revolution of 1830.
Meanwhile (April 10) Canning had become prime minister, his appointment
being followed by the resignation of all the most conspicuous members of
the Liverpool administration: Wellington, Eldon, Melville, Bathurst,
Westmorland and Peel, the latter of whom resigned on account of his
opposition to Catholic emancipation. The new government had perforce to
rely on the Whigs, who took their seats on the government side of the
House, Lord Lansdowne being included in the cabinet. Before this
coalition could be completed, however, Canning died (August 8). The
short-lived Goderich administration followed; and in January 1828 the
king, weary of the effort to arrange a coalition, summoned the duke of
Wellington to office as head of a purely Tory cabinet. Yet the logic of
facts was too strong even for the stubborn spirit of the Iron Duke. In
May 1828, on the initiative of Lord John Russell, the Test and
Corporation Acts were repealed; in the same session a Corn Bill,
differing but little from those that Wellington had hitherto opposed,
was passed; and finally, after a strenuous agitation which culminated in
the election of O'Connell for Clare, and in spite of the obstinate
resistance of King George IV., the Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed
(April 10, 1829) by a large majority. On the 26th of June 1830 the king
died, exactly a month before the outbreak of the revolution in Paris
that hurled Charles X. from the throne and led to the establishment of
the Liberal Monarchy under Louis Philippe; a revolution that was to
exert a strong influence on the movement for reform in England.
William IV.
Whig ministry under Lord Grey.
The great Reform Bill.
King William IV. ascended the throne at a critical moment in the history
of the English constitution. Everywhere misery and discontent were
apparent, manifesting themselves in riots against machinery, in
rick-burning on a large scale, and in the formation of trades unions
which tended to develop into organized armies of sedition. All the
elements of violent revolution were present. Nor was there anything in
the character of the new king greatly calculated to restore the damaged
prestige of the crown; for, if he lacked the evil qualities that had
caused George IV. to be loathed as well as despised, he lacked also the
sense of personal dignity that had been the saving grace of George,
while he shared the conservative and Protestant prejudices of his
predecessors. Reform was now inevitable. The Wellington ministry, hated
by the Liberals, denounced even by the Tories as traitorous for the few
concessions made, resigned on the 16th of November; and the Whigs at
last came into office under Lord Grey, the ministry also including a few
of the more Liberal Tories. Lord Durham, perhaps the most influential
leader of the reform movement, became privy seal, Althorp chancellor of
the exchequer, Palmerston foreign secretary, Melbourne home secretary,
Goderich colonial secretary. Lord John Russell, as paymaster-general,
and Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), as secretary for Ireland, held
office outside the cabinet. With the actual House of Commons, however,
the government was powerless to effect its purpose. Though it succeeded
in carrying the second reading of the Reform Bill (March 21, 1831), it
was defeated in committee, and appealed to the country. The result was a
great governmental majority, and the bill passed the Commons in
September. Its rejection by the Lords on the 8th of October was the
signal for dangerous rioting; and in spite of the opposition of the
king, the bill was once more passed by the Commons (December 12). A
violent agitation marked the recess. On the 14th of April 1832 the bill
was read a second time in the Lords, but on the 7th of May was again
rejected, whereupon the government resigned. The attempt of Wellington,
at the king's instance, to form a ministry failed; of all the Tory
obstructionists he alone had the courage to face the popular rage. On
the 15th Lord Grey was in office again; the demand was made for a
sufficient creation of peers to swamp the House of Lords; the king, now
thoroughly alarmed, used his influence to persuade the peers to yield,
and on the 4th of June the great Reform Bill became law. Thus was
England spared the crisis of a bloody revolution, and proof given to the
world that her ancient constitution was sufficiently elastic to expand
with the needs of the times.
The effect of the Reform Bill, which abolished fifty-six "rotten"
boroughs, and by reducing the representation of others set free 143
seats, which were in part conferred on the new industrial centres, was
to transfer a large share of political power from the landed aristocracy
to the middle classes. Yet the opposition of the Tories had not been
wholly inspired by the desire to maintain the political predominance of
a class. Canning, who had the best reason for knowing, defended the
unreformed system on the ground that its very anomalies opened a variety
of paths by which talent could make its way into parliament, and thus
produced an assembly far more widely representative than could be
expected from a more uniform and logical system. This argument, which
the effect of progressive extensions of the franchise on the
intellectual level of parliament has certainly not tended to weaken, was
however far outweighed--as Canning himself would have come to see--by
the advantage of reconciling with the old constitution the new forces
which were destined during the century to transform the social
organization of the country. Nor, in spite of the drastic character of
the Reform Bill, did it in effect constitute a revolution. The 143 seats
set free were divided equally between the towns and the counties; and in
the counties the landowning aristocracy was still supreme. In the towns
the new L10 household franchise secured a democratic constituency; in
the counties the inclusion of tenants at will (of L50 annual rent), as
well as of copyholders and lease-holders, only tended to increase the
influence of the landlords. There was as yet no secret ballot to set the
voter free.
The result was apparent in the course of the next few years. The first
reformed parliament, which met on the 29th of January 1833, consisted in
the main of Whigs, with a sprinkling of Radicals and a compact body of
Liberal Tories under Sir Robert Peel. Its great work was the act
emancipating the slaves in the British colonies (August 30). Other
burning questions were the condition of Ireland, the scandal of the
established church there, the misery of the poor in England. In all
these matters the House showed little enough of the revolutionary
temper; so little, indeed, that in March Lord Durham resigned. To the
Whig leaders the church was all but as sacrosanct as to the Tories, the
very foundation of the constitution, not to be touched save at imminent
risk to the state; the most they would adventure was to remedy a few of
the more glaring abuses of an establishment imposed on an unwilling
population. As for O'Connell's agitation for the repeal of the Union,
that met with but scant sympathy in parliament; on the 27th of May 1834
his repeal motion was rejected by a large majority.
Melbourne ministry.
The "Conservative" party.
In July the Grey ministry resigned, and on the 16th Lord Melbourne
became prime minister. His short tenure of office is memorable for the
passing of the bill for the reform of the Poor Law (August). The
reckless system of outdoor relief, which had pauperized whole
neighbourhoods, was abolished, and the system of unions and workhouses
established (see POOR LAW). An attempt to divert some of the revenues of
the Irish Church led in the autumn to serious differences of opinion in
the cabinet; the king, as tenacious as his father of the exact
obligations of his coronation oath, dismissed the ministry, and called
the Tories to office under Sir Robert Peel and the duke of Wellington.
Thus, within three years of the passing of the Reform Bill, the party
which had most strenuously opposed it was again in office. Scarcely less
striking testimony to the constitutional temper of the English was given
by the new attitude of the party under the new conditions. In the
"Tamworth manifesto" of January 1835 Peel proclaimed the principles
which were henceforth to guide the party, no longer Tory, but
"Conservative." The Reform Bill and its consequences were frankly
accepted; further reforms were promised, especially in the matter of the
municipal corporations and of the disabilities of the dissenters. The
new parliament, however, which met on the 19th of February, was not
favourable to the ministry, which fell on the 8th of April. Lord
Melbourne once more came into office, and the Municipal Corporations Act
of the 7th of September was the work of a Liberal government. This was
the last measure of first-rate importance passed before the death of
King William, which occurred on the 20th of June 1837.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance, not only for England but
for the world at large, of the epoch which culminated in the passing of
the Reform Bill of 1832. All Europe, whether Liberal or reactionary, was
watching the constitutional struggle with strained attention; the
principles of monarchy and of constitutional liberty were alike at
stake. To foreign observers it seemed impossible that the British
monarchy could survive. Baron Brunnow, the Russian ambassador in London,
sent home to the emperor Nicholas I. the most pessimistic reports.
According to Brunnow, King William, by using his influence to secure the
passage of the Reform Bill, had "cast his crown into the gutter"; the
throne might endure for his lifetime, but the next heir was a young and
inexperienced girl, and, even were the princess Victoria ever to mount
the throne--which was unlikely--she would be speedily swept off it again
by the rising tide of republicanism. The course of the next reign was
destined speedily to convince even Nicholas I. of the baselessness of
these fears, and to present to all Europe the exemplar of a progressive
state, in which the principles of traditional authority and democratic
liberty combined for the common good. (W. A. P.)