Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography Part 10

On the 9th of March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield announced that he had "advised the Queen to recur to the sense of her people." His opponents remarked that the nonsense of her people was likely to serve his turn a good deal better; and to the task of exposing and correcting that nonsense we vigorously applied ourselves during the remaining weeks of Lent. It is true that the same statesman had once declared himself "on the side of the Angels" in order to rea.s.sure the clergy, and had once dated a letter on "Maundy Thursday" in order to secure the High Church vote. Encouraged by these signs of grace, some of his followers mildly remonstrated against a Lenten dissolution and an Easter poll. But counsels which might have weighed with Mr. Disraeli, M.P. for Bucks (who had clerical const.i.tuents), were thrown away on Lord Beaconsfield, who had the Crown, Lords, and Commons on his side; and on the 24th of March the Parliament which he had dominated for six years was scattered to the winds.

Electioneering in rural districts was pure joy. It was a delicious spring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns were in early leaf.a.ge.

"There is a rapturous movement, a green growing, Among the hills and valleys once again, And silent rivers of delight are flowing Into the hearts of men.

"There is a purple weaving on the heather, Night drops down starry gold upon the furze; Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together, Dead Nature breathes and stirs."[30]

In the spring of 1880, Nature had no monopoly of seasonable life.

Humanity was up and doing. Calm people were roused to pa.s.sion, and lethargic people to activity. There was hurrying and rus.h.i.+ng and plotting and planning, and all the fierce but fascinating bustle of a great campaign. One hurried across the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary, where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the "Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapel or a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberal candidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past the village green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the Parish Church, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week.

The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen who took his citizens.h.i.+p seriously, the meeting was an even more imperative duty than the service. Hostilities were suspended for Good Friday, Easter Even, and Easter Day, but on Easter Monday they broke out again with redoubled vigour; and, before the week was over, the Paschal Alleluias were blending strangely with paeans of victory over conquered foes. When even so grave and spiritually-minded a man as Dean Church wrote to a triumphant Gladstonian, "I don't wonder at your remembering the Song of Miriam," it is manifest that political fervour had reached a very unusual point.

On the 2nd of April I was returned to Parliament, as colleague of Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild, in the representation of Aylesbury. We were the last Members for that ancient Borough, for, before the next General Election came round, it had been merged, by Redistribution, in Mid Bucks. The Liberal victory was overwhelming. Lord Beaconsfield, who had expected a very different result, resigned on the 18th of April, and Gladstone became Prime Minister for the second time. Truly his enemies had been made his footstool. On the 30th of April I took the oath and my seat in the House of Commons, and a fresh stage of life began.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] I must except from this general indictment the Rev. A. T. Lloyd, Vicar of Aylesbury in 1880, and afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. A strong Conservative, but eminently a Christian gentleman.

[30] Archbishop Alexander.

X

PARLIAMENT

"Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack, It is not genius;--call old giants back, And men now living might as tall appear; Judged by our sons, not us--_we_ stand too near.

Ne'er of the living can the living judge-- Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge."

BULWER-LYTTON, _St. Stephen's_.

"In old days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commons was an essentially 'queer place,' which no one could understand until he was a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhat mysterious quality still altogether attaches to that a.s.sembly. 'Our own Reporter' has invaded it in all its purlieus. No longer content with giving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfied unless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristic mannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wines and dishes which they favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of their smoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a certain fine sense of the feelings, and opinions, and humours of this a.s.sembly which cannot be acquired by hasty notions and necessarily superficial remarks, but must be the result of long and patient observation, and of that quick sympathy with human sentiment, in all its cla.s.ses, which is involved in the possession of that inestimable quality styled tact.

"When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, it still fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. For himself, Endymion entered the Chamber with a certain degree of awe, which, with use, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene was one over which his boyhood even had long mused, and it was a.s.sociated with all those traditions of genius, eloquence, and power that charm and inspire youth. His acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House was of great advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerously accompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life of such deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions."[31]

I quote these words from a statesman who knew the House of Commons more thoroughly than anyone else has ever known it; and, though Lord Beaconsfield was describing the Parliament which a.s.sembled in August, 1841, his description would fit, with scarcely the alteration of a word, the Parliament in which I took my seat in April, 1880.[32]

The "acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House," which Lord Beaconsfield attributes to his favourite Endymion, was also mine; from my earliest years I had been familiar with every nook and corner of the Palace of Westminster. My father's official residence in Speaker's Court communicated by a private door with the corridors of the Palace, and my father's privilege as Sergeant-at-Arms enabled him to place me in, or under, the Gallery whenever there was a debate or a scene of special interest. I was early initiated into all the forms and ceremonies of the House; the manoeuvres of the mace, the obeisances to the Chair, the rap of "Black Rod" on the locked door, the daily procession of Mr.

Speaker and his attendants (which Sir Henry Irving p.r.o.nounced the most theatrically effective thing of its kind in our public life).

The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all the doorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my father was Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusively composed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends'

families. This circ.u.mstance was vividly brought home to me on the day on which I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted by a venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shook hands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, when I think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmother into their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you."

The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and on the 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards Lord Hampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr. Brand was a short man, but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked what he was, and what the traditions of the House required--a country gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker has borne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint." Whereupon the train-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it's the Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'igh colour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin."

The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and the Members sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meet for the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for a brief recapitulation of recent events.

Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of Devons.h.i.+re) had been, ever since the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party.

But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost a.s.sailant of Lord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his party was sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he was brushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of the Liberal Party were sworn to Gladstone's standard.

When the General Election of 1880 reached its close, everyone felt that Gladstone was now the real, though not the t.i.tular, leader of the Liberal Party, and the inevitable Prime Minister. Lord Beaconsfield did not wait for an adverse vote in the new House, but resigned on the 18th of April. We do not at present know, but no doubt we shall know when Mr.

Monypenny's "Life" is completed, whether Queen Victoria consulted Lord Beaconsfield as to his successor. A friend of mine once asked the Queen this plain question: "When a Prime Minister goes out, does he recommend a successor?" And the Queen replied, with equal plainness, "Not unless I ask him to do so." There can, I think, be little doubt that Her Majesty, in April, 1880, asked Lord Beaconsfield's advice in this delicate matter, and we may presume that the advice was that Her Majesty should follow the const.i.tutional practice, and send for Lord Hartington, as being the leader of the victorious party. This was done, and on the 22nd of April Lord Hartington waited on Her Majesty at Windsor, and was invited to form an Administration. Feeling in the Liberal Party ran very high. It was not for this that we had fought and won. If Gladstone did not become Prime Minister, our victory would be robbed of half its joy; and great was our jubilation when we learned that the task had been declined. As the precise nature of the transaction has often been misrepresented, it is as well to give it in Lord Hartington's own words--

"The advice which Lord Hartington gave to the Queen from first to last was that Her Majesty should send for Mr. Gladstone, and consult him as to the formation of a Government; and that, if he should be willing to undertake the task, she should call upon him to form an Administration.

"Lord Hartington had up to that time had no communication with Mr.

Gladstone on the subject, and did not know what his views as to returning to office might be. With the Queen's permission, Lord Hartington, on his return from Windsor, informed Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville, but no other person, of what had pa.s.sed between Her Majesty and himself."

The result of that interview was a foregone conclusion. If Lord Hartington consented to form an Administration, Gladstone would not take a place in it. If he was not to be Prime Minister, he must remain outside. Having put this point beyond the reach of doubt, Lord Hartington returned next day to Windsor, accompanied by Lord Granville, who led the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. They both a.s.sured the Queen that the victory was Gladstone's, and that the Liberal Party would be satisfied with no other Prime Minister. The two statesmen returned to London in the afternoon, and called on Gladstone. He was expecting them and the message which they brought. He went down to Windsor without an hour's delay, and that evening "kissed hands" as Prime Minister for the second time.

This was the climax of his career. He had dethroned Lord Beaconsfield.

He had vindicated the cause of humanity and freedom all over the world; and he had been recalled, by unanimous acclamation, to the task of governing the British Empire. On the 20th of May he met his twelfth Parliament, and the second in which he had been Chief Minister of the Crown. "At 4.15," he wrote in his diary, "I went down to the House with Herbert.[33] There was a great and fervent crowd in Palace Yard, and much feeling in the House. It almost overpowered me, as I thought by what deep and hidden agencies I have been brought into the midst of the vortex of political action and contention.... Looking calmly on the course of experience, I do believe that the Almighty has employed me for His purposes in a manner larger or more special than before, and has strengthened me and led me on accordingly, though I must not forget the admirable saying of Hooker, that even ministers of good things are like torches--a light to others, waste and destruction to themselves."

The conviction so solemnly expressed by Gladstone was entertained by not a few of his followers. We felt that, _Deo adjuvante_, we had won a famous victory for the cause of Right; and, as a Party, we "stood on the top of golden hours." An overwhelming triumph after a desperate fight; an immense majority, in which internecine jealousies were, at least for the moment, happily composed; a leader of extraordinary powers and popularity; an administration of All the Talents; an attractive and practicable programme of Ministerial measures--these were some of the elements in a condition unusually prosperous and promising. But trained observers of political phenomena laid even greater stress on Gladstone's personal ascendancy over the House of Commons. Old and experienced Members of Parliament instructed the newcomer to watch carefully the methods of his leaders.h.i.+p, because it was remarkable for its completeness, its dexterity, and the willing submission with which it was received.

The pre-eminence of the Premier was, indeed, the most noteworthy feature which the new House presented to the student of Parliamentary life.

Whether considered morally or intellectually, he seemed to tower a head and shoulders above his colleagues, and above the Front Opposition Bench. The leader of the Opposition was the amiable and accomplished Sir Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, a

"scrupulous, good man, Who would not, with a peremptory tone, a.s.sert the nose upon his face his own."

In his youth he had been Gladstone's Private Secretary, and he still seemed to tremble at his old chief's glance.

But, when everything looked so fair and smiling, Speaker Brand quietly noted in his diary, that the Liberal Party "were not only strong, but determined to have their way in spite of Mr. Gladstone." And this determination to "have their way" was soon and startlingly manifested, and challenged the personal ascendancy of which we had heard so much.

Charles Bradlaugh, a defiant Atheist, and the teacher of a social doctrine which decent people abhor, had been returned as one of the Members for Northampton. When the other Members were sworn, he claimed a right to affirm, which was disallowed on legal grounds. He thereupon proposed to take the oath in the ordinary way; the Tories objected, and the Speaker weakly gave way. The House, on a division, decided that Bradlaugh must neither affirm nor swear. In effect, it decreed that a duly elected Member was not to take his seat. On the 23rd of June, Bradlaugh came to the table of the House, and again claimed his right to take the oath. The Speaker read the Resolution of the House forbidding it. Thereupon Bradlaugh asked to be heard, and addressed the House from the Bar. I happened to be dining that night with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone in Downing Street. Gladstone came in full of excitement, and p.r.o.nounced Bradlaugh's speech "consummate." However, it availed nothing. Bradlaugh was ordered to withdraw from the House; refused, and was committed to a farcical imprisonment of two days in the Clock Tower; and so, as Lord Morley says, there "opened a series of incidents that went on as long as the Parliament, clouded the radiance of the Party triumph, threw the new Government at once into a minority, dimmed the ascendancy of the great Minister, and showed human nature at its worst." From the day when Bradlaugh's case was first mooted, it became apparent that the Liberal Party contained a good many men who had only the frailest hold on the primary principles of Liberalism, and who, under the pressure of social and theological prejudice, were quite ready to join the Tories in a tyrannical negation of Religious Liberty. Gladstone, though deserted and defeated by his own followers, maintained the righteous cause with a signal consistency and courage. There was no one in the world to whom Bradlaugh's special opinions could have been more abhorrent; but he felt--and we who followed him felt the same--that the cause of G.o.d and morality can never be served by the insolent refusal of a civil right.

There is no need to recapitulate the story in all its stages, but one incident deserves commemoration. In April, 1883, Gladstone brought in an Affirmation Bill, permitting Members of Parliament (as witnesses in Law-Courts were already permitted) to affirm their allegiance instead of swearing it. On the 26th of April he moved the Second Reading of the Bill in the finest speech which I have ever heard. Under the existing system (which admitted Jews to Parliament, but excluded Atheists), to deny the existence of G.o.d was a fatal bar, but to deny the Christian Creed was no bar at all. This, as Gladstone contended, was a formal disparagement of Christianity, which was thereby relegated to a place of secondary importance. And then, on the general question of attaching civil penalties to religious misbelief, he uttered a pa.s.sage which no one who heard it can forget. "Truth is the expression of the Divine Mind; and, however little our feeble vision may be able to discern the means by which G.o.d may provide for its preservation, we may leave the matter in His hands, and we may be sure that a firm and courageous application of every principle of equity and of justice is the best method we can adopt for the preservation and influence of Truth."

The Bill was lost by a majority of three, recreant Liberals again helping to defeat the just claim of a man whom they disliked; and Bradlaugh did not take his seat until the new Parliament in 1886 admitted, without a division, the right which the old Parliament had denied. Meanwhile, a few of us, actuated by the desperate hope of bringing the clergy to a right view of the controversy, printed Gladstone's speech as a pamphlet, and sent a copy, with a covering letter, to every beneficed clergyman in England, Scotland, and Ireland.

One of the clergy thus addressed sent me the following reply, which has ever since been h.o.a.rded among my choicest treasures:

June 16th, 1883.

MY DEAR SIR,

I have received your recommendation to read carefully the speech of Mr. Gladstone in favour of admitting the infidel Bradlaugh into Parliament. I did so, when it was delivered, and I must say that the strength of argument rests with the Opposition. I fully expect, in the event of a dissolution, the Government will lose between 50 and 60 seats.

Any conclusion can be arrived at, according to the premises laid down. Mr. G. avoided the Scriptural lines and followed his own. All parties knew the feeling of the country on the subject, and, notwithstanding the bullying and majority of Gladstone, he was defeated.

Before the Irish Church was robbed, I was nominated to the Deanery of Tuam; but, Mr. Disraeli resigning, I was defrauded of my just right by Mr. Gladstone, and my wife, Lady ---- ----, the only surviving child of an Earl, was sadly disappointed, but there is a just Judge above. The letter of nomination is still in my possession.

I am, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, ---- ----, D.D. and LL.D.