A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume IV Part 3

The omen soon made good its warning. Canning gradually sank under the influence of his fatal illness. He said to a friend that during three days he had suffered more pain than all that had been compressed into his life up to that time, and we know that his was a frame which was always liable to acute pain. He sank and sank, and on August 7 he talked for the last time coherently and composedly to those who were around him. Then he met his approaching death with a resigned and cheerful spirit, and his latest words showed that he knew where to repose his trust for the great change which was so near. Shortly before four o'clock on the morning of August 8, 1827, the struggle was over and the great statesman was at rest. Even at that early hour the villa was surrounded by a large crowd of anxious watchers, who could not leave the grounds until they heard the last tidings that were to come from the sick-chamber. The funeral of Canning in Westminster Abbey, although it was in name a private ceremonial, was followed by a throng of sorrowing admirers, among whom were princes and n.o.bles, statesmen and prelates, politicians of all orders, and men and women of all ranks down to the very poorest, who thus bore their spontaneous tribute to the services and the memory of the great Prime Minister, and expressed in the only way left to them their sense of the loss which his country and the cause of peace and freedom had sustained by his death.

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[Sidenote: 1827--Canning and the English ministers]

Canning had only just completed his fifty-seventh year when his career came to a close. He died before his old friend and colleague whose sudden illness had left open to him the place of Prime Minister, for Lord Liverpool did not die until December 4 of the following year. The place of Canning in English history is more clear to us now than it was to the world even when the anxious crowd was watching round the villa at Chiswick and when the throng followed his remains to Westminster Abbey. He was, as we have already said, the founder of that system of foreign policy which English statesmans.h.i.+p has professed ever since his time. His was that doctrine of conditional non-intervention for which, in later days, men like John Stuart Mill contended as the doctrine which ought to be the governing principle of a great council of European States, if such could be established. Canning's idea was not that England should proclaim such a principle of non-intervention as that which Cobden and Bright, and other men equally sincere and patriotic, endeavored to impress on public opinion at a later day.

Canning's principle was that England should not intervene even on the right side of any Continental struggle in which she had no direct concern, unless some other State equally free from any direct share in the controversy were making preparation to intervene on the wrong side.

Then, according to his doctrine, England was bound to say to the interposing State: "If you, an outsider to this controversy, are making up your mind to intervene on what we believe to be the wrong side, then it may become our duty to intervene on what we believe to be the right side." It was in accordance with this principle that Canning prevailed upon the Governments of France and Russia to enter into that engagement with England which secured the independence of Greece, as it was in accordance with this principle that he had made the proclamation of policy which secured the independence of the Spanish-American colonies, and thus called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old.

Canning must, on the whole, be ranked among great Liberal statesmen, although there were some pa.s.sages in {63} his career which showed that he had not advanced quite so far in Liberal principles as some of the statesmen of his own day. It is hard now to understand how such a man could have stood out against the principle of Parliamentary reform and popular suffrage, and could have resisted the efforts to give full rights of citizens.h.i.+p to the members of dissenting denominations. It is especially hard to understand why a man who was in favor of abolis.h.i.+ng religious disqualifications in the case of Roman Catholics should have thought it right to maintain them in the case of Protestant Dissenters. The explanation of this latter inconsistency may be found, perhaps, in the a.s.sumption that when Canning thought of the grievance to Roman Catholics he had in his mind the grievances to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, a separate country with a nationality and traditions of her own, and a country in which the vast majority of the population belonged to the one religious faith. He may have thought that the English Protestant Dissenters who did not see their way to cla.s.s themselves with the Protestants of the English State Church had not so distinct a claim to the recognition of their grievance. It may seem strange that a mind like Canning's could have been beguiled from the acceptance of a great principle by a curious distinction of this kind, but it must be remembered that down to a much later day many of the professed supporters of religious equality contended for some limitation of the principle where political privileges were concerned, and that only in our own time has admission to the House of Commons been left open to the professors of every religious faith, and even to those who profess no religious faith at all. So far as Parliamentary reform in the ordinary sense of the words is concerned, we may feel quite sure that if Canning had lived a few years longer his mind would have accepted the growth of public opinion and the evidences which justified that growth, and he would not have been found among the unteachable opponents of popular suffrage and a well-adjusted Parliamentary representation.

As a financial reformer he was distinctly in advance of {64} his time, and even such men as Sir Robert Peel only followed slowly in the path which Canning and Huskisson had opened. Canning's fame as a Parliamentary orator is now well a.s.sured. He has been unduly praised, and he has been unduly disparaged. He has been described as the greatest Parliamentary orator since the days of Bolingbroke, and he has been described as a brilliant and theatric declaimer who never rose to the height of genuine political oratory. The common judgment of educated men now regards him as only inferior, if inferior at all, to the two Pitts and Fox among great Parliamentary orators, and the rival of any others belonging to his own, or an earlier, or a later day in the history of the English Parliament. Of him it may fairly be said that his career made an era in England's political life, and that the great principles which he a.s.serted are still guiding the country even at this hour.

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CHAPTER LXVII.

"THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC."

[Sidenote: 1827--Lord G.o.derich]

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 G.o.derich became Prime Minister, with Lyndhurst again as Lord Chancellor, and Huskisson in G.o.derich's former place at the War and Colonial Office. Lord G.o.derich, 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 pa.s.sionate 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 G.o.derich 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 b.u.mptiousness. 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 cla.s.s of men who are to be found at all times of Parliamentary history, and who manage somehow, n.o.body 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 G.o.derich, 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 munic.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sed through both Houses of Parliament. This may be described as the first of the great measures accepted by Parliament for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng the principle of religious equality, in admission to the rights of citizens.h.i.+p, 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 citizens.h.i.+p, 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 munic.i.p.al 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 citizens.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociation]

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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.serting themselves with a force which appealed irresistibly to the minds of all enlightened men.

The Catholic a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s, 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 ill.u.s.trations. 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 a.s.sociation 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 const.i.tuents 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 emanc.i.p.ation]

Huskisson accepted the explanation, and explained that this was what he really had said, and no doubt this was really the purpose of that pa.s.sage 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 emanc.i.p.ation. Lord Anglesey, too, became satisfied during his time of office in Ireland that there was no alternative between emanc.i.p.ation 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 cla.s.ses 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 statesmans.h.i.+p 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 Emanc.i.p.ation had already made.

[Sidenote: 1828--Peel and Catholic emanc.i.p.ation]

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 const.i.tuency 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 grat.i.tude, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 citizens.h.i.+p. 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Emanc.i.p.ation. 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Emanc.i.p.ation the business of their Government. But then the King had to be won over, and n.o.body 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 a.s.sent 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 Emanc.i.p.ation. 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Emanc.i.p.ation. 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 Emanc.i.p.ation.

[Sidenote: 1829--The Forty-s.h.i.+lling 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 pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tuents 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 pa.s.sed disfranchising the cla.s.s of voters in Ireland who were called the Forty-s.h.i.+lling Freeholders, who formed a large proportion of O'Connell's const.i.tuents. 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 n.i.g.g.ardly 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.

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CHAPTER LXVIII.

THE LAST OF THE GEORGES.

[Sidenote: 1829--Wellington fights Lord Winchilsea]

One incident connected more or less directly with the Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation question deserves historical record, if only for the curious light it throws upon the contrast between the manners of that day and the manners of more recent times. Shortly before the pa.s.sing of the Catholic Relief Bill, the Earl of Winchilsea wrote a letter which was published in one of the newspapers strongly denouncing the conduct of the Duke of Wellington, and declaring him guilty of having joined in a conspiracy to overthrow the Church and the Const.i.tution of England under false pretences. This letter was addressed to the secretary of a committee formed for the establishment of King's College in London, and Lord Winchilsea had apparently a.s.sumed that the subject under consideration warranted him in expressing his views with regard to the conduct of the Prime Minister on the Catholic relief question. In more recent times, of course, such a letter might have been written by anybody, whether peer or commoner, and published in all the newspapers of the country without calling for the slightest notice on the part of a Prime Minister. The Duke of Wellington, however, lived at a time when a different code of honor and etiquette prevailed. He wrote to Lord Winchilsea a letter, the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sage of which is worth quoting to ill.u.s.trate the peculiar sense of duty which could, at the time, direct the conduct of a man like the Duke of Wellington. "The question for me now to decide is this: Is a gentleman who happens to be the King's Minister to submit to be insulted by any gentleman who thinks proper to attribute to him disgraceful or criminal motives for his conduct as an individual? I cannot {81} doubt of the decision which I ought to make on this question. Your Lords.h.i.+p is alone responsible for the consequences." This was, of course, a challenge to Lord Winchilsea to withdraw his accusation or to fight a duel forthwith.