"THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC."
[Sidenote: 1827--Lord Goderich]
During the closing days of Canning's life he was speaking to Sir
William Knighton of the approaching end, and he said, quietly: "This
may be hard upon me, but it is still harder upon the King." There was
something characteristic in the saying. Canning had been greatly
touched by the manner in which the King had, at last, come round to him
and stood by him against all who endeavored to interpose between him
and his sovereign; and to a man of Canning's half-poetic temperament
the sovereign typified the State and the people, to whom the Prime
Minister was but a devoted servant. It was certainly hard upon the
King, at least for the time. George must have had moments of better
feelings and better inspirations than those which governed the ordinary
course of his life, and he had lately come to realize the value of the
services which Canning had rendered to England. We shall see, before
long, that a secession of Canning's followers from the party in power
took place, and that the seceding men were called, and called
themselves, the "Canningites." George already appears to have become a
Canningite.
The King had a good deal of trouble in forming an Administration. Lord
Goderich became Prime Minister, with Lyndhurst again as Lord
Chancellor, and Huskisson in Goderich's former place at the War and
Colonial Office. Lord Goderich, as we have seen, had been sent into
the House of Lords when Canning became Prime Minister. Up to that time
he was Mr. Frederick John Robinson, generally known by the nickname of
"Prosperity Robinson." This satirical designation he obtained from the
fact that while he was President of the Board of Trade, and {66} still
later when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had always made it
his business in each session to describe the country as in a condition
of unparalleled prosperity. More than that, he always insisted on
declaring that the particular schemes of taxation that he brought
forward were destined, beyond all possibility of doubt, to increase
still further that hitherto unexampled prosperity. It had been his
fortune, in his early official career, to propose and carry some
schemes of taxation which met with such passionate opposition in some
parts of the country as to lead to serious rioting and even to loss of
life. But all the time he saw only prosperity as the result of his
financial enterprises, and hence the nickname, which is still
remembered in England's Parliamentary history.
[Sidenote: 1828--The struggle for religious equality]
Lord Goderich was not a man of remarkable political capacity, and he
was a poor, ineffective, and even uninteresting speaker, except when
the audacity of his statements, and his prophecies, and the tumult of
interruptions and laughter that they created, lent a certain
Parliamentary interest to his orations. He had an immense amount of
that sort of courage which, in the colloquial language of our times,
would probably be described as bumptiousness. He had an unlimited
faith in his own capacity, and he saw nothing but success, personal and
national, where observers in general could discern only failure. He
was one of a class of men who are to be found at all times of
Parliamentary history, and who manage somehow, nobody quite knows how,
to make themselves appear indispensable to their political party. He
was not, however, without any faculty for improvement, and of late
years he had derived some instruction from Canning's teaching and
example in politics and in finance. Such as he was, his appointment as
Prime Minister in succession to Canning seemed about the safest
compromise the King could make under all the existing conditions. His
position as a stop-gap was maintained but a very short time. During
his Administration, or perhaps it ought rather to be called his nominal
Administration, the substantial result of Canning's recent foreign
policy was seen in the destruction {67} of the Turkish and Egyptian
fleets at the battle of Navarino, which led almost immediately to the
Sultan's acknowledgment of the independence of Greece.
Some differences of opinion on financial questions soon broke out in
the Cabinet, and Huskisson and certain of his colleagues threatened to
resign; and Lord Goderich, seeing little or no chance of maintaining
himself long in his position, got out of the difficulty by tendering
his own resignation. The King accepted the resignation, and there was
then really only one man, the Duke of Wellington, to whom George could
look for the construction of a Government. Accordingly, the Duke
became First Lord of the Treasury, and Huskisson retained, for the
time, his former position. During this Administration Lord John
Russell brought forward his motion for the repeal of the Test and
Corporation Acts; the object of the motion being to abolish all the
conditions which rendered it impossible for the members of any
Protestant dissenting denomination to hold State or municipal office,
unless they were willing to accept a test-oath, which acknowledged the
spiritual supremacy of the Church of England. Lord John Russell's
motion was carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 237 to 193,
and a Bill founded on the principle of the motion was passed through
both Houses of Parliament. This may be described as the first of the
great measures accepted by Parliament for the purpose of establishing
the principle of religious equality, in admission to the rights of
citizenship, among the inhabitants of these countries. Of course, the
establishment of religious equality was yet a good long way off, and it
is a curious fact that the measure that was founded on Lord John
Russell's motion did something very distinct in itself to make new
battle-grounds for those who advocated the full recognition of the
principle.
The new measure proposed to admit the members of all recognized
Protestant denominations, whether inside or outside the Church of
England, to the rights of citizenship, but it took good care to affirm
that it had no intention of admitting any one else. The Act provided
that all {68} persons presenting themselves as candidates for election
to political or municipal office should subscribe a declaration "on the
true faith of a Christian." This, of course, excluded Jews and
Freethinkers, while the Roman Catholics were shut out by a special
oath, directed exclusively against themselves, and to which it was
impossible that any professing Catholic could subscribe. Lord John
Russell, however, had begun his great career well when he carried the
Legislature with him, even thus far, on the way to religious equality,
although he was not himself destined to see the last fight which had to
be fought before the principle had been completely established. It is
almost needless to say that the new form of pledge introduced by the
measure was no part of Lord John Russell's plan, but he accepted the
Bill as amended in the House of Lords rather than sacrifice, for the
time, the whole purpose of his motion. The motion, it may be added,
was strongly opposed in the House of Commons, not only by Robert Peel,
but by Huskisson. Peel's opposition is easily to be understood,
because up to this time he had not risen above the convictions with
which he started in public life in favor of the general practice of
making the political and civic rights of citizenship conditional upon
what he believed to be religious orthodoxy. In the case of Huskisson,
who was a strong supporter of the admission of Roman Catholics to full
equality of political and civic rights with the members of the State
Church, the explanation probably was that he feared if the Dissenters
received their rights in advance they might become less zealous than
many of them had been for the full recognition of the Catholic claims.
Some of the archbishops and bishops in the House of Lords were liberal
enough to give their support to the Bill, much to the consternation of
Lord Eldon, who could not understand how any prelate of the State
Church could be so far led away from the sacred duties of his position
as to lend any countenance to a measure admitting the unorthodox to the
place in society which ought to be the right only of orthodox believers.
[Sidenote: 1828--The Catholic Association]
It is interesting to notice that a protest was entered {69} against the
introduction of the words "on the true faith of a Christian" by Lord
Holland, who represented the principles of Charles James Fox. The
peers, it should be said, enjoy the privilege, which is not allowed to
members of the representative chamber, of recording their formal
protest on the books of their House against any motion or measure which
has been carried in spite of their opposition, and of setting forth
reasons on which their objection is founded. Many of the protests thus
recorded form important contributions to political history. Lord
Holland vindicates his protest in words which are well worth quoting:
"Because the introduction of the words 'upon the true faith of a
Christian' implies an opinion in which I cannot conscientiously concur,
namely, that a particular faith in matters of religion is necessary to
the proper discharge of duties purely political or temporal." Lord
Eldon strongly condemned the action of the prelates who had voted in
favor of the measure, and he used some words which showed that, however
obtuse his bigotry may have been, he clearly saw what must inevitably
come from the concession to religious liberty which was made by the
passing of such a measure. "Sooner or later," he said, "perhaps in
this very year, almost certainly in the next, the concessions to the
Dissenters must be followed by the like concessions to the Roman
Catholics." The Roman Catholic claims were already asserting
themselves with a force which appealed irresistibly to the minds of all
enlightened men.
The Catholic Association had been formed in Ireland for the purpose of
advocating the claims of the vast majority of the Irish people, and it
had found for its leader a man who must have made a great figure in the
political life of any era, and who was especially qualified to take a
leading place in such an agitation. Daniel O'Connell was one of the
most remarkable men of his time. He was the first Irish political
leader of modern days who professed the faith which may be called the
national creed of his people. The leaders of great Irish movements
just before his time--the Fitzgeralds, the Tones, and the Emmets--had
{70} had been, like Grattan himself, members of the Established Church.
O'Connell had, moreover, no sympathy whatever with the sentiments of
the French Revolution. He had passed a few of his early years in
France, he had seen some of the later excesses of the revolutionary
period, and he had been inspired with a horror as great as that felt by
Edmund Burke for the extravagances of the revolutionary era. He
belonged to the landlord class, but his sympathies had always been with
the popular and national movements of his countrymen. He had practised
at the Irish bar, and had become the greatest advocate in the Irish law
courts, and was thus enabled to combine with all the fire and energy of
a born popular leader the subtlety and craft of a trained and practised
lawyer. O'Connell was one of the greatest orators of a day when
political oratory could display some of its most splendid
illustrations. He had a commanding presence, indeed a colossal form,
and a voice which was marvellous alike for the strength and the music
of its varied intonations. Such men as Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton have
borne enthusiastic tribute to the magic of that voice, and have
declared it to be unrivalled in the political eloquence of the time.
O'Connell made his voice heard at many great public meetings in England
and in Scotland, as well as in Ireland, and his political views had,
indeed, much in common with those of English and Scottish advanced
Liberals.
[Sidenote: O'Connell and the Parliamentary Oath]
The Catholic Association was made, at one period of its career, the
subject of an Act of Parliament which declared it to be, for a certain
time, an illegal organization, and the period was now approaching when
the prohibitory Act would have to be renewed or allowed to drop out of
existence. In consequence of some ministerial rearrangements a vacancy
had arisen in the Parliamentary representation of the county of Clare
in Ireland, and O'Connell resolved on taking a bold and what then
seemed to many a positively desperate step. He announced himself as a
candidate for the vacancy in opposition to its former occupant, who,
having been appointed to ministerial office, was compelled to resign
his place in the House of {71} Commons and offer himself to his former
constituents for re-election. O'Connell was not disqualified by
positive enactment from becoming a candidate for a seat in Parliament;
that is to say, there was no law actually declaring that a Roman
Catholic, as such, could not enter the House of Commons. But, as we
have explained already, it was the law of the land that no man could
take his seat in that House until he had subscribed an oath which it
was perfectly impossible for any Roman Catholic to accept, an oath
disavowing and denouncing the very opinions which are an essential part
of the Roman Catholic's faith. O'Connell, therefore, could not be
prevented from becoming a candidate for the representation of Clare,
and when the contest came on it ended in his being triumphantly
returned by an overwhelming majority. O'Connell presented himself at
the table of the House of Commons, and was called upon to subscribe the
usual oath, which, of course, he absolutely refused to do. He was then
ordered to withdraw, and he did withdraw, and the seat was declared
vacant. O'Connell returned to Clare, again offered himself as
candidate, and was again elected by a triumphant majority. Then,
indeed, men like Lord Eldon must have begun to think that the old world
was really coming to an end. King George and the Government found
themselves face to face with a crisis to which there had been no
parallel in the memory of living statesmen.
The progress of events was, meanwhile, making a deep impression on the
receptive mind of Sir Robert Peel, now Home Secretary, and by far the
most rising and powerful member of the Administration. Huskisson, it
should be said, had by this time ceased to belong to the Duke of
Wellington's Government. There had been some misunderstanding between
him and the Duke, arising out of a speech made by Huskisson in
Liverpool, which was understood to contain a declaration that Huskisson
had only accepted office on the express understanding that the policy
of the Duke's Government was to be the policy of Canning. The Duke
took exception to this, and declared that he had entered into no
understanding as to his general {72} policy, but that what Huskisson
probably had said was that he had accepted the composition of the
Government as a guarantee in itself that a sound national policy was to
be carried out.
[Sidenote: 1828--Demand for Catholic emancipation]
Huskisson accepted the explanation, and explained that this was what he
really had said, and no doubt this was really the purpose of that
passage in his speech; but the incident led to some friction between
the two men, and was the beginning of other misunderstandings. Some
difference of opinion afterwards arose on minor questions of policy,
and Huskisson sent to the Duke a somewhat hasty letter announcing his
resignation. The letter was intended to be only a conditional
intimation of his purpose, but the Duke took it as positive and final,
and announced it as such to the King. There was no course left open to
Huskisson but to resign. The incident created much talk at the time,
and gave rise to a good deal of satirical comment. Several other
members of the Government, among whom was Lord Palmerston, resigned
along with Huskisson, and they formed themselves into an independent
party, bearing the name of the Canningites. It is curious to notice
that the reconstructions caused in the Government by these
resignations, and the new appointments which had to be made, led to
that vacancy in the county of Clare which gave O'Connell an opportunity
of coming forward as a candidate for the seat and being elected.
Peel saw that the Duke of Wellington's Government had lost some of its
most influential members. Other events, too, had been turning his
attention towards the growth of the agitation in Ireland. The Marquis
of Wellesley, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, had been Viceroy
of Ireland. Wellesley had been a distinguished statesman, and as
Viceroy of India had conducted to a successful issue, with the help of
his younger brother, the great Mahratta war. When he became Viceroy of
Ireland he had gone over to that country as a strong opponent of the
Catholic claims, but his experience there soon convinced him that it
would be impossible to resist those claims much longer, and at the same
time {73} to keep Ireland in tranquillity. Therefore, when the Duke of
Wellington, on coming into office as Prime Minister, refused to
recognize the Catholic claims, Lord Wellesley resigned his place. He
was succeeded by the Marquis of Anglesey, a soldier who had done
brilliant service in the wars against Napoleon, and was well known as a
determined opponent of the demands made by the advocates of Catholic
emancipation. Lord Anglesey, too, became satisfied during his time of
office in Ireland that there was no alternative between emancipation
and an armed rebellion among the Irish Catholics, a large number of
whom were actually serving in the ranks of the army. His opinions were
again and again impressed on the Government, and the course he took
only led to his recall from the Viceroyalty.
In the House of Commons an event took place which had a great effect on
the mind of Peel. Early in 1828 Sir Francis Burdett, who held a very
prominent place among the more advanced reformers of the time, and who
represented Westminster in the House of Commons, brought forward a
resolution inviting the House to consider the state of the laws
affecting the Roman Catholics of the two islands, "with a view to such
a final and conciliatory settlement as may be conducive to the peace
and strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant
Establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all
classes of his Majesty's subjects." The resolution was supported by a
powerful speech from Brougham, in which he dwelt on the fact that not
one of those who opposed the motion had expressed any conviction that
the existing state of things could long continue, and that it was
impossible to overlook or deny the great advance which the movement for
Catholic Emancipation had been making in and out of Parliament. Peel
was greatly impressed by this argument, and also by the fact that the
men who supported Burdett and Brougham in the House of Commons
represented the best part of the intellect and statesmanship of that
House. The resolution was carried by 272 votes against 266 on the
other side, a small majority, {74} indeed, but a majority that at such
a time was large enough to show a man of Peel's intellect the practical
progress which the demand for Catholic Emancipation had already made.
[Sidenote: 1828--Peel and Catholic emancipation]
We find in Peel's own correspondence the most interesting evidences of
the influence which all these events were making on his clear and
thoughtful mind. The man whom O'Connell had defeated in Clare, Mr.
Vesey Fitzgerald, had represented the constituency for many years, had
always supported by speeches and votes the claims of the Catholics, and
was the son of one who had stood by the side of Grattan and Sir John
Parnell in resisting the Act of Union. No one could have been more
popular up to that time among Irishmen, and the election of O'Connell
was obviously due to the fact that O'Connell had made himself the
leader of a movement which had for its object to bring about a great
crisis, and to compel the Parliament and the Government to surrender at
once or encounter a civil war. Peel asked himself--we quote his own
words--"whether it may not be possible that the fever of political and
religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and fluttering the
bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had inspired the serf of
Clare with the resolution and the energy of a free man--which had in
the twinkling of an eye made all considerations of personal gratitude,
ancient family connections, local preferences, the fear of worldly
injury, the hope of worldly advantage subordinate to the one absorbing
sense of religious obligation and public duty--whether, I say, it might
not be possible that the contagion of that feverish excitement might
spread beyond the barriers which under ordinary circumstances the
habits of military obedience and the strictness of military discipline
opposed to all such external influences?"
Peel became gradually convinced that the Marquis of Anglesey was right
in his views, and that there was no choice between a recognition of the
Catholic claims and the outbreak of a civil war in Ireland. The more
he thought over the question, the more he became convinced that it
would not be possible to rely on the loyalty of all {75} the Catholic
soldiers in the ranks of the army in Ireland if they were called upon
to join in shooting down their own brothers and friends because these
had risen in rebellion against the oppressive laws which excluded a
Catholic from the full rights of citizenship. Peel was not a
philosopher or a dreamer, but above all things a practical statesman,
and when he had to choose between civil war and the concession of a
claim which was admitted to be right and just by some of the most
enlightened Englishmen and Scotchmen who sat near him on the benches of
the House of Commons, and by some of the most enlightened Englishmen
and Scotchmen outside the House, he could not bring himself to believe
that claims thus advocated could be so essentially unjust or
unreasonable as to make their continued refusal worth the cost of so
terrible a struggle.
Peel made up his mind to the fact that Catholic Emancipation must, as
soon as possible, become the work of Parliament. But he did not yet
believe that he was the right man to undertake the task. It seemed to
him that one who had always been regarded as the determined opponent of
Emancipation would not be likely to win over many supporters among his
Tory friends for such a sudden change of policy. He did not think
himself well suited, and he was not inclined, to conduct the
negotiations which would be necessary between any Government attempting
such a task and the Irish advocates of Emancipation. His idea was that
Lord Grey, as the head of the reforming party, would be the statesman
best qualified to undertake such an enterprise and most likely to carry
it to an early success. His first business, however, would clearly be
to convince the Duke of Wellington that Catholic Emancipation was
inevitable, and this work he at once set himself to accomplish. He had
some trouble in bringing the Duke over to his own opinions, but the
Duke became convinced in the end, and, indeed, both at that time and
after, the Duke was always inclined to follow Peel's guidance, on the
plain, practical, soldierly principle that Peel understood political
affairs much better than he did, {76} and that Peel's advice was always
sure to be sound and safe. So the Duke, too, became convinced that
Catholic Emancipation must be accepted as inevitable, and that the
sooner it was carried through the better. But Wellington was strongly
opposed to the idea of handing over the work to Lord Grey. He showed
that it would be hardly possible to induce King George to accept the
services of Lord Grey for such a purpose. The King was known to
dislike Lord Grey, whose stern, unbending manners could not be welcome
to a sovereign unaccustomed to the dictation of so uncourtierlike an
adviser as the leader of the Whig party.
[Sidenote: 1828--The Oath of Supremacy]
Wellington's idea was that, as the thing had to be done, it had better
be done by Peel and himself, and he almost implored Peel not to desert
him at such a crisis. Peel could not resist the personal and brotherly
appeal thus made to him by one for whom he had so profound a respect,
and the result was that the two agreed to work together as they had
been doing, and to make Catholic Emancipation the business of their
Government. But then the King had to be won over, and nobody knew
better than Wellington did how difficult this task must be. Yet he did
not despair. He had had some experience of the King's resistance and
the only means by which it could be got over. Again and again he had
had occasion to urge on the sovereign the adoption of some course to
which George, at first, was obstinately opposed, and he knew that quiet
persistence was the only way of carrying his point. His plan was to
avoid argument as much as possible, to state his case concisely to the
King, and allow the King to take his full time in pouring forth his
protestations that he never could and never would consent to such a
policy. The King was very fond of hearing himself talk, and loved on
such occasions to display all that eloquence which he fully believed
himself to possess, and which he had no opportunity of letting out on
any Parliamentary or public platform. Then, when the King had
exhausted himself in repeating over and over again his reasons for
refusing the demands made upon him, Wellington would quietly return to
the fact that there was no practical way out of the difficulty but to
assent to {77} the proposition. The King usually gave way, and the
interview had a satisfactory close. The King was appeased by the sound
of his own eloquence, and the taciturn minister had his way.
This course of policy Wellington resolved to adopt with regard to the
question of Catholic Emancipation. He listened to all the talk about
the coronation oath and the declaration that George would rather retire
to his kingdom of Hanover, abdicate the throne of England, and leave
the English people to find a Catholic--that is, a pro-Catholic--king in
the Duke of Clarence, and then merely pointed out to the sovereign that
something had to be done, and that his Majesty's advisers could think
of nothing else but the course which they proposed for his acceptance.
The King gave way to a certain extent, but he put his foot down, as the
modern phrase goes, on the maintenance of the Oath of Supremacy in its
existing form.
There is an interesting account given of the final interview which the
Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, and Robert Peel had with their
royal master on this subject. Without an alteration in the terms of
the Oath of Supremacy it was absolutely impossible that Roman Catholics
could enter the House of Commons, for the oath contained the very words
no Catholic could possibly consent to utter or subscribe. The King
absolutely and vehemently refused to give his consent to any alteration
of the oath, and he then asked his three ministers what, under the
circumstances, they proposed to do. The ministers informed the
sovereign that they proposed to ask his permission for them to make
announcement in the two Houses of Parliament that they had ceased to
hold office and were no longer responsible for the work of
administration. George took the announcement at first with gracious
composure, and told them he supposed he could not find any fault with
them for their act of resignation. He carried his kindness even
further, for, as we learn on the authority of one of the three
ministers, "the King took leave of us with great composure and great
kindness, gave to each of us a salute on each cheek, and accepted our
resignation of office."
{78} Thackeray, in his lecture on George the Fourth, turned this record
to most amusing account, and delighted his audience by a comical
description of the King's paternal benediction imprinted in kisses on
the cheeks of Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel. But when the kissing
was over and the three statesmen had departed, the King began to find
that he was left practically without a Government. What was to be
done? It would be impossible to form a Government after his own heart
without such men as Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel, and even if he
could have got over his own personal dislike to Lord Grey, it was
impossible to suppose that Lord Grey would become the head of any
Government which did not undertake Catholic Emancipation. The King
found himself in the awkward position of having either to announce to
his subjects that he intended to govern without any ministers, and to
direct the affairs of the State entirely out of his own head, or to
call back to office the men whom he had kissed and sent away. Even
George the Fourth could not hesitate when such a choice was forced upon
him. He wrote to the Duke of Wellington, telling him that he must once
more put himself in the hands of the Duke and his colleagues, and let
them deal as they thought best with Catholic Emancipation.
[Sidenote: 1829--The Forty-shilling Freeholders]
The Catholic Relief Bill was at once brought in, and consisted in
substance of the enactment of a new oath, which admitted Roman
Catholics to Parliament and to all political and civil offices
excepting merely those of Regent, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland. The Bill was passed rapidly through both Houses of
Parliament. The third reading was carried in the House of Commons by
320 votes to 142, and in the House of Lords by 213 to 109, and the
great controversy was happily at an end. The settlement, however, was
not effected with as complete and liberal a spirit as Peel would
certainly have infused into it if he could have had his way.
O'Connell, who had been twice elected for Clare, was not allowed to
take his seat under the new measure until he had returned to his
constituents and submitted himself for {79} re-election--a ceremonial
absolutely unnecessary, and only impressing the civilized world as an
evidence of the ungenerous and ungracious manner in which the
inevitable had been accepted. Then, again, an Act of Parliament was
passed disfranchising the class of voters in Ireland who were called
the Forty-shilling Freeholders, who formed a large proportion of
O'Connell's constituents. This was done no doubt to put some
obstacles, at all events, in the way of the Irish Catholic population
if they should hope ever again to make the representation of any
national claims as effective as they had done in the Clare election.
It may be taken for granted that Peel would not have marred the effect
of an act of mere justice by niggardly qualifications of any kind, but
he knew he had to deal with a Tory House of Lords, and was content to
accept some compromise as long as he could carry the main object of his
policy. The first great chapter in the modern history of political
reform had come to a thrilling close.
{80}