WINNING HIS SPURS
1826-1830
Defeated and out of harness--Journey to Italy--Back in
Parliament--Canning's accession to power--Bribery and
corruption--The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts--The
struggle between the Court and the Cabinet over Catholic
Emancipation--Defeat of Wellington at the polls--Lord John
appointed Paymaster-General.
WHIG optimists in the newspapers at the General Election of 1826
declared that the future welfare of the country would depend much on the
intelligence and independence of the new Parliament. Ordinary men
accustomed to look facts in the face were not, however, so sanguine, and
Albany Fonblanque expressed the more common view amongst Radicals when
he asserted that if the national welfare turned on the exhibition in an
unreformed House of Commons of such unparliamentary qualities as
intelligence and independence, there would be ground not for hope but
for despair. He added that he saw no shadow of a reason for supposing
that one Parliament under the existing system would differ in any
essential degree from another. He maintained that, while the sources of
corruption continued to flow, legislation would roll on in the same
course.
Self-improvement was, in truth, the last thing to be expected from a
House of Commons which represented vested rights, and the interests and
even the caprices of a few individuals, rather than the convictions or
needs of the nation. The Tory party was stubborn and defiant even when
the end of the Liverpool Administration was in sight. The Test Acts were
unrepealed, prejudice and suspicion shut out the Catholics from the
Legislature, and the sacred rights of property triumphed over the
terrible wrongs of the slave. The barbarous enactments of the Criminal
Code had not yet been entirely swept away, and the municipal
corporations, even to contemporary eyes, appeared as nothing less than
sinks of corruption.
Lord John was defeated in Huntingdonshire, and, to his disappointment,
found himself out of harness. He had hoped to bring in his Bribery Bill
early in the session, and under the altered circumstances he persuaded
Lord Althorp to press the measure forward. In a letter to that statesman
which was afterwards printed, he states clearly the evils which he
wished to remedy. A sentence or two will show the need of redress: 'A
gentleman from London goes down to a borough of which he scarcely before
knew the existence. The electors do not ask his political opinions; they
do not inquire into his private character; they only require to be
satisfied of the impurity of his intentions. If he is elected, no one,
in all probability, contests the validity of his return. His opponents
are as guilty as he is, and no other person will incur the expense of a
petition for the sake of a public benefit. Fifteen days after the
meeting of Parliament (this being the limit for the presentation of a
petition), a handsome reward is distributed to each of the worthy and
independent electors.'
[Sidenote: A SARCASTIC APPEAL]
In the early autumn Lord John quitted England, with the intention of
passing the winter in Italy. The Duke of Bedford felt that his son had
struck the nail on the head with his pithy and outspoken letter to Lord
Althorp on political bribery, and he was not alone in thinking that Lord
John ought not to throw away such an advantage by a prolonged absence on
the Continent. Lord William accordingly wrote to his brother to urge a
speedy return, and the letter is worth quoting, since incidentally it
throws light on another aspect of Lord John's character: 'If you feel
any ambition--which you have not; if you give up the charms of
Genoa--which you cannot; if you could renounce the dinners and
tea-tables and gossips of Rome--which you cannot; if you would cease to
care about attending balls and assemblies, and dangling after
ladies--which you cannot, there is a noble field of ambition and utility
opened to a statesman. It is Ireland, suffering, ill-used Ireland! The
gratitude of millions, the applause of the world, would attend the man
who would rescue the poor country. The place is open, and must soon be
filled up. Ireland cannot remain as she is. The Ministers feel it, and
would gladly listen to any man who would point out the way to relieve
her. Undertake the task; it is one of great difficulty, but let that be
your encouragement. See the Pope's minister; have his opinion on the
Catholic question; go to Ireland; find out the causes of her suffering;
make yourself master of the subject. Set to work, as you did about
Reform, by curing small evils at first.... I am pointing to the way for
you to make your name immortal, by doing good to millions and to your
country. But you will yawn over this, and go to some good dinner to be
agreeable, the height of ambition with the present generation.'
Meanwhile, through the influence of the Duke of Devonshire, Lord John
was elected in November for the Irish borough of Bandon Bridge, and in
February, fresh from prologue-writing for the private theatricals which
Lord Normanby was giving that winter in Florence, he took his seat in
the House of Commons. Lord Liverpool was struck down with paralysis on
February 18, and it quickly became apparent that his case was hopeless.
After a few weeks of suspense, which were filled with Cabinet intrigues,
Mr. Canning received the King's commands to reconstruct the Ministry;
but this was more easily said than done. 'Lord Liverpool's disappearance
from the political scene,' says Lord Russell, 'gave rise to a great
_debacle_. The fragments of the old system rushed against each other,
and for a time all was confusion.' Six of Canning's colleagues flatly
refused to serve under him in the new Cabinet--Peel, Wellington, Eldon,
Westmoreland, Bathurst, and Bexley--though the latter afterwards took
advantage of his second thoughts and returned to the fold. Although an
opponent of Parliamentary reform and of the removal of Nonconformist
disabilities, Canning gave his support to Catholic emancipation, to the
demand for free trade, and the abolition of slavery. Canning's accession
to power threw the Tory ranks into confusion. 'The Tory party,' states
Lord Russell, 'which had survived the follies and disasters of the
American war, which had borne the defeats and achieved the final glories
of the French war, was broken by its separation from Mr. Canning into
fragments, which could not easily be reunited.'
[Sidenote: CANNING IN POWER]
Sydney Smith--who, by the way, had no love for Canning, and failed to a
quite noteworthy extent to understand him--like the rest, took a gloomy
view of the situation, which he summed up in his own inimitable fashion.
'Politics, domestic and foreign, are very discouraging; Jesuits abroad,
Turks in Greece, "No Poperists" in England! A panting to burn B; B
fuming to roast C; C miserable that he can't reduce D to ashes; and D
consigning to eternal perdition the first three letters of the
alphabet.' Canning's tenure of power was brief and uneasy. His opponents
were many, his difficulties were great, and, to add to all, his health
was failing. 'My position,' was his own confession, 'is not that of
gratified ambition.' His Administration only lasted five months, for at
the end of that period death cut short the brilliant though erratic and
disappointed career of a statesman of courage and capacity, who entered
public life as a follower of Pitt, and refused in after years to pin his
faith blindly to either political party, and so incurred the suspicions
alike of uncompromising Whigs and unbending Tories.
During the Canning Administration, Lord John's influence in the House
made itself felt, and always along progressive lines. When the annual
Indemnity Bill for Dissenters came up for discussion, he, in answer to a
taunt that the Whigs were making political capital out of the Catholic
question, and at the same time neglecting the claims of the
Nonconformists, declared that he was ready to move the repeal of
restrictions upon the Dissenters as soon as they themselves were of
opinion that the moment was ripe for action. This virtual challenge, as
will be presently seen, was recognised by the Nonconformists as a call
to arms. Meanwhile cases of flagrant bribery at East Retford and
Penryn--two notoriously corrupt boroughs--came before the House, and it
was proposed to disenfranchise the former and to give in its place two
members to Birmingham. The bill, however, did not get beyond its second
reading. Lord John, nothing daunted, proposed in the session of 1828
that Penryn should suffer disenfranchisement, and that Manchester should
take its place. This was ultimately carried in the House of Commons;
but the Peers fought shy of Manchester, and preferred to 'amend' the
bill by widening the right of voting at Penryn to the adjacent Hundred.
This refusal to take occasion by the hand and to gratify the political
aspirations of the most important unrepresented town in the kingdom, did
much to hasten the introduction of a wider scheme of reform.
Power slipped for the moment on the death of Canning into the weak hands
of Lord Goderich, who tried ineffectually to keep together a Coalition
Ministry. Lord John's best friends appear to have been apprehensive at
this juncture lest the young statesman, in the general confusion of
parties, should lapse into somewhat of a political Laodicean. 'I feel a
little anxious,' wrote Moore, 'to know exactly the colour of your
politics just now, as from the rumours I hear of some of your brother
"watchmen," Althorp, Milton, and the like, I begin sometimes to
apprehend that you too may be among the fallers off. Lord Lansdowne
tells me, however, you continue quite staunch, and for his sake I hope
so.' But Lord John was not a 'faller off.' His eyes were fully open to
the anomalous position in which he in common with other members of the
party of reform had been placed under Canning and Goderich. Relief,
however, came swiftly. Lord Goderich, after four months of feeble
semblance of authority, resigned, finding it impossible to adjust
differences. As a subaltern, declared one who had narrowly watched his
career, Lord Goderich was respectable, but as a chief he proved himself
to be despicable. The Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, with a
Tory Cabinet at his back, and with Peel as leader in the House of
Commons. Thus the 'great _debacle_,' which commenced with Canning's
accession to power--in spite of the presence in the Cabinet of
Palmerston and Huskisson--drew to an end, and a line of cleavage was
once more apparent between the Whigs and the Tories. With Wellington,
Lord John had of course neither part nor lot, and when the Duke accepted
office he promptly ranged himself in the opposite camp.
[Sidenote: RELIGIOUS EQUALITY]
Ireland was on the verge of rebellion when Wellington and Peel took
office, and in the person of O'Connell it possessed a leader of splendid
eloquence and courage, who pressed the claims of the Roman Catholics for
immediate relief from religious disabilities. Whilst the Government was
deliberating upon the policy which they ought to pursue in presence of
the stormy and menacing agitation which had arisen in Ireland, the
Protestant Dissenters saw their opportunity, and rallied their forces
into a powerful organisation for the total repeal of the Test and
Corporation Acts. Their cause had been quietly making way, through the
Press and the platform, during the dark years for political and
religious liberty which divide 1820 from 1828, and the Protestant
Society had kept the question steadily before the public mind. Meanwhile
that organisation had itself become a distinct force in the State. 'The
leaders of the Whig party now formally identified themselves with it. In
one year the Duke of Sussex took the chair; in another Lord Holland
occupied the same position; Sir James Mackintosh delivered from its
platform a defence of religious liberty, such as had scarcely been given
to the English people since the time of Locke; and Lord John Russell,
boldly identifying himself and his party with the political interests of
Dissenters, came forward as chairman in another year, to advocate the
full civil and religious rights of the three millions who were now
openly connected with one or other of the Free Churches. The period of
the Revolution, when Somers, Halifax, Burnet, and their associates laid
the foundations of constitutional government, seemed to have
returned.'[4] Immediately Parliament assembled, Lord John
Russell--backed by many petitions from the Nonconformists--gave notice
that on February 26 it was his intention to move the repeal of the Test
and Corporation Acts.
The Test Act compelled all persons holding any office of profit and
trust under the Crown to take the oath of allegiance, to partake of the
Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England, and to
subscribe the declaration against Transubstantiation. It was an evil
legacy from the reign of Charles II., and became law in 1673. The
Corporation Act was also placed on the statute-book in the same reign,
and in point of time twelve years earlier--namely, in 1661. It was a
well-directed blow against the political ascendency of Nonconformists in
the cities and towns. It required all public officials to take the
Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England, within twelve
months of their appointment, and, whilst it excluded conscientious men,
it proved no barrier to unprincipled hypocrites. The repeal of the Test
and Corporation Acts had been mooted from time to time, but the forces
of prejudice and apathy had hitherto proved invincible. Fox espoused the
cause of the Dissenters in 1790, and moved for a committee of the whole
House to deal with the question. He urged that men were to be judged not
by their opinions, but by their actions, and he asserted that no one
could charge the Dissenters with ideas or conduct dangerous to the
State. Parliament, he further contended, had practically admitted the
injustice of such disqualifications by passing annual Acts of
Indemnity. He laid stress on the loyalty which the Dissenters had shown
during the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, when the High Church
party, which now resisted their just demands, had been 'hostile to the
reigning family, and active in exciting tumults, insurrections, and
rebellions.' The authority of Pitt and the eloquence of Burke were put
forth in opposition to the repeal of the Test Acts, and the panic
awakened by the French Revolution threw Parliament into a reactionary
mood, which rendered reform in any direction impossible. The result was
that the question, so far as the House of Commons was concerned, was
shirked from 1790 until 1828, when Lord John Russell took up the
advocacy of a cause in which, nearly forty years earlier, the genius of
Charles James Fox had been unavailingly enlisted.
[Sidenote: THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE]
In moving the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Lord John
recapitulated their history and advanced cogent arguments on behalf of
the rights of conscience. It could not, he contended, be urged that
these laws were necessary for the security of the Church, for they were
not in force either in Scotland or in Ireland. The number and variety of
offices embraced by the Test Act reduced the measure, so far as its
practical working was concerned, to a palpable absurdity, as
non-commissioned officers, as well as commissioned excisemen,
tide-waiters, and even pedlars, were embraced in its provisions. In
theory, at least, the penalties incurred by these different classes of
men were neither few nor slight--forfeiture of the office,
disqualification for any other under Government, incapacity to maintain
a suit at law, to act as guardian or executor, or to inherit a legacy,
and even liability to a pecuniary penalty of 500_l._! Of course, such
ridiculous penalties were in most cases suspended, but the law which
imposed them still disgraced the statute-book, and was acknowledged by
all unprejudiced persons to be indefensible. Besides, the most Holy
Sacrament of the Christian Church was habitually reduced to a mere civil
form imposed by Act of Parliament upon persons who either derided its
solemn meaning or might be spiritually unfit to receive it. Was it
decent, asked Cowper in his famous 'Expostulation,' thus--
To make the symbols of atoning grace
An office-key, a pick-lock to a place?
To such a question, put in such a form, only one answer was possible.
Under circumstances men took the Communion, declared Lord John, for the
purpose of qualifying for office, and with no other intent, and the
least worthy were the most unscrupulous. 'Such are the consequences of
mixing politics with religion. You embitter and aggravate political
dissensions by the venom of theological disputes, and you profane
religion with the vices of political ambition, making it both hateful to
man and offensive to God.'
[Sidenote: THE RARITY OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY]
Peel opposed the motion, and professed to regard the grievances of the
Dissenters as more sentimental than real. Huskisson and Palmerston
followed on the same side, whilst Althorp and Brougham lent their aid to
the demand for religious liberty. The result of the division showed a
majority of forty-four in favour of the motion, and the bill was
accordingly brought in and read a second time without discussion. During
the progress of the measure through the House of Lords, the two
Archbishops--less fearful for the safety of the Established Church than
some of their followers--met Lord John's motion for the repeal of the
Acts in a liberal and enlightened manner. 'Religious tests,' said
Archbishop Harcourt of York, 'imposed for political purposes, must in
themselves be always liable more or less to endanger religious
sincerity.' Such an admission, of course, materially strengthened Lord
John Russell's hands, and prepared the way for a speedy revision of the
law. Many who had hitherto supported the Test Act began to see that such
measures were, after all, a failure and a sham. If their terms were so
lax that any man could subscribe to them with undisturbed conscience,
then they ceased to be any test at all. On the contrary, if they were
hard and rigid, then they forced men to the most odious form of
dissimulation. A declaration, if required by the Crown, was therefore
substituted for the sacramental test, by which a person entering office
pledged himself not to use its influence as a means for subverting the
Established Church. On the motion of the Bishop of Llandaff, the words
'on the true faith of a Christian' were inserted in the declaration--a
clause which, by the way, had the effect, as Lord Holland perceived at
the time, of excluding Jews from Parliament until the year 1858.
Lord Winchilsea endeavoured by an amendment to shut out Unitarians from
the relief thus afforded to conscience, but, happily, such an intolerant
proceeding, even in an unreformed Parliament, met with no success. Lord
Eldon fiercely attacked the measure--'like a lion,' as he said, 'but
with his talons cut off'--but met with little support. It was felt that
the great weight of authority as well as argument was in favour of the
liberal policy which Lord John Russell advocated, and hence, after a
protracted debate, the cause of religious freedom triumphed, and on May
9, 1828, the Test and Corporation Acts were finally repealed. A great
and forward impulse was thus given to the cause of religious equality,
and under the same energetic leadership the party of progress set
themselves with fresh hope to invade other citadels of privilege.
The victory came as a surprise not merely to Lord John but also to the
Nonconformists. The fact that a Tory Government was in power was
responsible for the widespread anticipation of a bitter and protracted
struggle. Amongst the congratulations which Lord John received, none
perhaps was more significant than Lord Grey's generous admission that
'he had done more than any man now living' on behalf of liberty. 'I am a
little anxious,' wrote Moore, 'to know that your glory has done you no
harm in the way of health, as I see you are a pretty constant attendant
on the House. There is nothing, I fear, worse for a man's constitution
than to trouble himself too much about the constitution of Church and
State. So pray let me have one line to say how you are.' 'My
constitution,' wrote back Lord John, 'is not quite so much improved as
the Constitution of the country by late events, but the joy of it will
soon revive me. It is really a gratifying thing to force the enemy to
give up his first line--that none but Churchmen are worthy to serve the
State; I trust we shall soon make him give up the second, that none but
Protestants are.'
[Sidenote: CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION]
Lord Eldon had predicted that Catholic Emancipation would follow on the
heels of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the event
proved that he was right. The election of Daniel O'Connell for Clare had
suddenly raised the question in an acute form. Although the followers of
Canning had already left the Ministry, the Duke of Wellington and Peel
found themselves powerless to quell the agitation which O'Connell and
the Catholic Association had raised in Ireland by any means short of
civil war. 'What our Ministry will do,' wrote Lord John, 'Heaven only
knows, but I cannot blame O'Connell for being a little impatient, after
twenty-seven years of just expectation disappointed.' The allusion was,
of course, to Pitt's scheme at the beginning of the century to enable
Catholics to sit in Parliament and so to reconcile the Irish people to
the Union--a generous project which was brought to nought by the
obstinate attitude of George III. Lord John was meditating introducing a
measure for Catholic Emancipation, when Peel took the wind from his
sails. George IV., however, supported by a majority of the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, was as stoutly opposed to concession as George
III. Lord John Russell's words on this point are significant 'George
III.'s religious scruples, and even his personal prejudices, were
respected by the nation, and formed real barriers so long as he did not
himself waive them; the religious scruples of George IV. did not meet
with ready belief, nor did his personal dislikes inspire national
respect nor obtain national acquiescence.' The struggle between the
Court and the Cabinet was, however, of brief duration, and Wellington
bore down the opposition of the Lords, and on April 13, 1829, the Roman
Catholic Emancipation Bill became law.
In June the question of Parliamentary reform was brought before
Parliament by Lord Blandford, but his resolutions--which were the
outcome of Tory panic concerning the probable result of Roman Catholic
Emancipation--met with little favour, either then or when they were
renewed at the commencement of the session of 1830. Lord Blandford had
in truth made himself conspicuous by his opposition to the Catholic
claims, and the nation distrusted the sudden zeal of the heir to
Blenheim in such a cause. On February 23, 1830, Lord John Russell sought
leave to bring in a bill for conferring the franchise upon Manchester,
Birmingham, and Leeds, on the plea that they were the three largest
unrepresented towns in the country. The moderate proposal was, however,
rejected in a House of three hundred and twenty-eight members by a
majority of forty-eight. Three months later Mr. O'Connell brought
forward a motion for Triennial Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, and the
adoption of the Ballot; but this was rejected. But in a House of three
hundred and thirty-two members, only thirteen were in favour of it,
whilst an amendment by Lord John stating that it was 'expedient to
extend the basis of the representation of the people' was also rejected
by a majority of ninety-six. On June 26 George IV. died, and a few weeks
later Parliament was dissolved. At the General Election, Lord John stood
for Bedford, and, much to his chagrin, was defeated by a single vote.
After the declaration of the poll in August, he crossed over to Paris,
where he prolonged his stay till November. The unconstitutional
ordinances of July 25, 1830, had brought about a revolution, and Lord
John Russell, who was intimate with the chief statesman concerned, was
wishful to study the crisis on the spot, and in the recital of its
dramatic incidents to find relief from his own political disappointment.
During this visit he used his influence with General Lafayette for the
life of Prince de Polignac, who was connected by marriage with a noble
English family, and was about to be put on his trial. Lord John was
intimately acquainted, not only with Lafayette, but with other leaders
in the French political world, and his intercession, on which his
friends in England placed much reliance, seems to have carried effectual
weight, for the Prince's life was spared.
[Sidenote: WELLINGTON'S PROTEST AGAINST REFORM]
With distress at home and revolution abroad, signs of the coming change
made themselves felt at the General Election. Outside the pocket
boroughs, the Ministerialists went almost everywhere to the wall, and
'not a single member of the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet obtained a seat
in the new Parliament by anything approaching to free and open
election.'[5] The first Parliament of William IV. met on October 26, and
two or three days later, in the debate on the King's Speech, Wellington
made his now historic statement in answer to Earl Grey, who resented the
lack of reference to Reform: 'I am not prepared to bring forward any
measure of the description alluded to by the noble lord. I am not only
not prepared to bring forward any measure of this nature, but I will at
once declare that, as far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any
station in the government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty
to resist such measures when proposed by others.'
This statement produced a feeling of dismay even in the calm atmosphere
of the House of Lords, and the Duke, noticing the scarcely suppressed
excitement, turned to one of his colleagues and whispered: 'What can I
have said which seems to have made so great a disturbance?' Quick came
the dry retort of the candid friend: 'You have announced the fall of
your Government, that is all.' The consternation was almost comic.
'Never was there an act of more egregious folly, or one so universally
condemned,' says Charles Greville. 'I came to town last night (five days
after the Duke's speech), and found the town ringing with his
imprudence and everybody expecting that a few days would produce his
resignation.' Within a fortnight the general expectation was fulfilled,
for on November 16 the Duke, making a pretext of an unexpected defeat
over Sir H. Parnell's motion regarding the Civil List, threw up the
sponge, and Lord Grey was sent for by the King and entrusted with the
new Administration. The irony of the situation became complete when Lord
Grey made it a stipulation to his acceptance of office that
Parliamentary Reform should be a Cabinet measure.
Lord John, meanwhile, was a candidate for Tavistock, and when the
election was still in progress the new Premier offered him the
comparatively unimportant post of Paymaster-General, and, though he
might reasonably have expected higher rank in the Government, he
accepted the appointment. He was accustomed to assert that the actual
duties of the Paymaster were performed by cashiers; and he has left it
on record that the only official act of any importance that he performed
was the pleasant task of allotting garden-plots at Chelsea to seventy
old soldiers, a boon which the pensioners highly appreciated.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] _History of the Free Churches of England_, pp. 457-458, by H. S.
Skeats and C. S. Miall.
[5] _The Three Reforms of Parliament_, by William Heaton, chap. ii. p.
38.