J. Franck Bright

“ The reign of Richard II., with its strange and rapid revolutions, had been the beginning of that great faction fight which was concluded a century afterwards by the accession of Henry VII. After pursuing during that reign a policy of inconsistent, and even treacherous, self-seeking, the Duke of Lancaster now came forward as the champion of order. The coup d’état by which he put himself on the throne is another of those instances which history has so abundantly furnished, of the willing acceptance by a nation, after a period of long discomfort, of any one who would bring it rest. ”

“ The threatening news from Austria which checked Napoleon in his pursuit of Moore proved true. The cruelty and injustice of the attack upon Spain, and the spectacle of a people in revolt, had strongly excited the feelings of Germany. Earnest men of all ranks had enrolled themselves in the secret society known as the Tugendbund, which was shortly to show its strength. The same feeling of hostility to France had shown itself in irresistible force in Austria, smarting under its repeated disgraces. ”

“ It is possible to say now, guided by the light of subsequent events, and led by the spirit of freedom and nationality which has made such vast strides of late years, that the Government of England, the home of free institutions and avowedly the champion of national liberty, should have come forward even then in that capacity, should have rejoiced at the reconstitution of Poland, and have sought the unification of Germany by supporting the power of Prussia, and should have objected to the establishment of Austria in Italy, a country where her rule was certain to be disliked by the population. ”

“ The Church, indeed, threw all its influence on the side of the Crown, but it was in the consciousness of the insecurity of its position in the hearts of the people that it did so. The King and his Commons stood face to face, with no intermediate class to check their mutual action, but the Commons were already free, and headed by a rapidly rising body of wealthy secondary landowners or merchants. Nevertheless, the immediate effect of the destruction of the nobility was completely to check constitutional growth, and to establish a government which was little short of arbitrary. ”

“ It soon became evident that the late attempts at compromise between the two parties in England were hollow. The question had to be tried by an appeal to arms. Nothing could induce the King to get rid of his favourites, nor the opposition to act in common with them. It was a little private quarrel, and no great question, which at length blew the smouldering discontent to a flame. The marriage of young Hugh Despenser with the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, who had died at Bannockburn, had introduced a new and objectionable power into the midst of the Welsh Marches. ”

“ Invasion and assassination are the two forms of conspiracy which the English people cannot bear; and the full discovery of these schemes, with the proved certainty that both Louis and James were fully conscious of all their atrocious details, roused the nation for an instant to an unusual unanimity of enthusiasm, and enabled Parliament to set on foot a great association, signed by hundreds of thousands, who pledged themselves to stand by the King, to support the war, and to pursue with vengeance any attempt upon his life. ”

“ Observing only the obvious fact, that the possession of money enabled a man to purchase whatever he wanted, early traders conceived the idea that money was wealth, and that nothing else was. And as the wealth of the nation was of the last importance, both to the governor and to the governed, and as trade was the chief method by which money could be supplied, and by which money might be drawn from the country, the regulation of trade became one of the most important duties of the King and the Parliament. ”

“ Large-hearted, with great warmth of personal affection, and general love of the human race, he had uniformly opposed war, had constantly declared that either the mismanagement or ill-will of the ministers had been the main obstacle to peace: he had believed devoutly in the excellence of the Revolution, traced its excesses to the wanton opposition of the crowned heads of Europe, and still persisted in believing that straightforward and friendly negotiations would bring about a right understanding with Napoleon. ”

“ There were signs that the people at large were already growing weary of the influence of a few great nobles, of the squabbles of aristocratic parties for their own personal aggrandizement, and of the secresy in which the conduct of their nominal representatives was veiled. It is thus that the Opposition could generally rouse an almost irresistible expression of feeling by appealing from the overwhelming majority of Parliament to the passions of the nation. ”

“ The facts of the reign are few and in themselves unimportant. To the growth of the constitution it added nothing. It is nevertheless interesting as exhibiting the effects of unbridled feudalism, and as preparing the way for the great work of consolidation perfected by Henry II.; on the one hand by the misery and disgust excited by the lawless outrages of the barons; on the other by the overwhelming power thrown into the hands of the Church, which could not co-exist with any true national monarchy. ”

“ For some years the great war in the Peninsula was starved, while money was lavished upon useless and isolated efforts in other parts of the Continent; it was only slowly and by degrees that the genius, the steadfastness, the success, of Wellington taught England the necessity of large and well-continued efforts in one direction. The Asturian envoys were received with enthusiasm not only by the Opposition but by the Government. ”

“ Henry IV., with disputed title, and in the midst of excited passions of faction, in which he had himself taken a prominent share, had to work out for himself the establishment of his dynasty and the restoration of political order. His son entered into the fruits of his labour. He had but to continue his father’s policy. The dynasty seemed secure, the apparatus of government was in good working order, and the new King, already practised in the work of government, brought with him that popularity which brilliant qualities, a handsome person, and the vigour of youth, are sure to secure. ”

“ The next phase of our history, the complement to that part of the Revolution which we have now passed, is the struggle of the people to get possession of their own House. At the time of which we are speaking the House of Commons was so filled with nominees of great lords, the electoral body was so limited, and the distribution of seats so arbitrary, that the House of Commons could in no way be regarded as a fair representation of the people, and the great Whig majority rested not on the liberal feeling of the nation, but upon an oligarchy of great Whig nobles. ”

“ The period occupied by what we speak of as English history is that, speaking broadly, during which the great mediæval systems—feudalism and the Church—have by degrees given place to modern society, of which the moving-springs are freedom of the individual, government in accordance with the popular will, and freedom of thought. The object of a History of England is therefore to trace that change as it worked itself out amid all the various influences which affected it in our own nation. ”

“ But although the change effected by the Reform Bill at first sight appears to have been political, it was in fact social. It was the introduction of a wholly new class of society into the duties of Government. The aristocratic classes, which had hitherto had the monopoly of power, were forced to admit to an equality with themselves the middle class, which the progress of society, and the wonderful advance of material improvement during the last half century, had raised to a position so important that its claims could no longer be withstood. Its victory had been secured by a twofold alliance. ”

“ Free labour for wages had become general, and land was largely held by payment of money rents. Thus far there was improvement. But the change from slavery to personal freedom is always purchased at a somewhat heavy price—that price is the existence of poverty; it is no longer incumbent on employers to look after the wellbeing of free labourers; in time of want they are thrown upon their own resources. The new possessors of the soil too were inclined to work it to better profit than their predecessors had done; grazing became more common and employment proportionately scarcer. ”

“ The people of Paris, under the Provost of the Merchants, Stephen Marcel, enacted those scenes of revolution with which that city has been too often familiar. Wearing the red cap of liberty, the mob burst into the palace, killed two of the Dauphin’s most trusted counsellors before his eyes, and drove that Prince to Compiègne. Charles of Navarre, grandson of Louis X., who was surnamed the Bad, broke from the prison in which he had been confined, made common cause with the Parisian mob, roused his tenants in Normandy, where he had much property, to insurrection, and called in the English King. ”

“ The effect was a crushing blow to the trade of America. And, as if to render the position of the colonists still more distressing, in 1764 a series of enactments were made, laying duties upon various articles for the benefit of England,—at the same time declaring for the first time the right of England to raise a revenue from her colonies; and while the quantity of money in America had been considerably diminished by the stoppage of the free trade, the present Act was rendered more irksome by ordering all the duties imposed to be paid in hard cash into the English Exchequer. ”

“ The English no longer felt themselves a conquered people. Their oppressors, the feudal nobility, were destroyed or kept in restraint. The new nobles were chiefly ministers of the crown, and all sections of the people looked to the King as the national representative. The importance of Henry’s reign abroad was scarcely less striking. His immense continental dominions made him one of the great powers of Europe. His close contact with France, and the difficulties which it produced, began the hereditary policy of opposition to that country which has characterized the whole of English history. ”

“ The sinking fund indeed had, in the hands of the present Government, almost lost its original object, and was openly declared both by Vansittart and Castlereagh to be chiefly useful for supplying the ministry with an easy means of getting money to meet emergencies, instead of a sacred deposit to be used only for the extinction of debt. The ease with which all money demands of Government were granted during the war had also engendered a spirit of extravagance, and economy had been one of the earliest cries of the Opposition on the resumption of peace. ”

“ It was not till the feudal barons of England had had their fill of anarchy in the Wars of the Roses, and had destroyed themselves, that constitutional government, in our sense of the word, had a chance of existence, and our sympathies are constantly divided between the Church and barons, whose efforts alone promised freedom, and the power of the encroaching ruler, who alone ensured order. For the weakling who could secure neither one nor the other we can feel no sympathy. In the reign of Edward II. we feel as if we had [198] fallen back again to the time of his grandfather. ”

“ Austria, though it had lost Silesia, had learnt the strength to be derived from the military resources of its eastern provinces. Prussia had proved itself a predominant power in Europe. England had secured its maritime supremacy. France had exhibited its growing weakness, had lost its best opportunity of re-establishing itself upon the sea, and under a show of magnanimous generosity had made plain to the world its total absence of good government, of good administration, or good diplomacy. ”

“ The chief interest in the Conquest is the change that it is always said to have exercised in the character of the institutions of England. It used to be asserted that the feudal system was introduced, and completed as a wholly new system to the English, after the Conquest; and Hume speaks of the division of the kingdom into so many knights’ fiefs, into so many baronies, as if there were complete reorganization of the whole constitution. ”

“ It had become plain by this time that the strength of England, at all events under the present management, lay in two directions—in its enormous resources and capacity for paying money, and in its fleet. Though such troops as had been employed had exhibited their usual bravery, though when well led, as in India, their efforts had met with great success, it was evident that the present ministry, hampered by their political relations and by the incessant interference of the King himself in the army, was unable to make any real show in the European war. ”

“ Sudden visit to England and displacement of ministry.
Edward’s position was most irritating; his allies were deserting him; in spite of his stringent exactions, his finances were exhausted; he was so deeply in debt that the Flemings, who regarded his presence as a security against France, kept him as it were in pledge. He could not bring himself to believe in such complete failure of his hopes. He was easily led to listen to evil counsellors, who whispered to him that his ministers at home were defrauding him in the matter of the taxes. ”

“ In fact, as has more than once happened in our history, the disturbance of a few reckless men, which our free constitution permits to show itself without repression, was construed to mean what it might mean in less free countries. Misinformed by their emissary Chauvelin who saw but one party, willing to believe what they liked to believe, and ignorant of the character of the English nation, the French had persuaded themselves that there was a real division between the Government and the people of England, and were eager for the war. ”

“ When the late King died in the neighbourhood of Carlisle, he believed that the war with Scotland would have been carried on by his son, of whom he was very fond; while he thought he had secured him from that danger which he had already foreseen would beset his reign, by insisting on the dismissal of his favourite, Piers Gaveston. Gaveston was a young man of Gascon or Basque origin, of greater refinement apparently than the rough barons of England, their equal, if not their superior, in martial exercises, and possessing those courtly tastes for music and the arts which marked the young King. ”

“ The joy of England was very great, although Walpole was full of gloomy forebodings, for, as he himself said, "no man can prudently give his advice for declaring war without knowing the whole system of the affairs of Europe as they stand at present.... It is not the power of Spain and the [983] power of this nation only that we ought in such a case to know and to compare. We ought also to know what allies our enemies may have, and what assistance we may expect from our friends." ”

“ The struggle to harmonize the relations which should exist between the Crown and the subject occupies the second period of our history. It assumes several forms; sometimes the dislike of foreigners, sometimes a desire for self-taxation, sometimes it seems little more than an outbreak of an over-strong nobility. But whatever its form, the fruits of the struggle were lasting. The rival claims of King and nation, acknowledged and regulated by the wisdom of Edward I., gave rise to that balanced constitution which in its latest development still exists among us. ”

“ Although there had been a comparative cessation of the troubles in America, there had been many signs that they were by no means over. The more advanced leaders, indeed, in Massachusetts were too determined in their views and too skilful as managers of agitation to let the friends of the English connection, though doubtless considerably the larger part of the population, carry the day through their inactivity. The discontent of the colonies had been sedulously kept alive by the skill and vigour of the leaders of the Opposition party. ”

“ Bankrupt and impoverished, the Congress was in no condition to support the army in a state of efficiency, and from its factions and intrigues had so lost public confidence, that Washington was earnestly intreated to make himself dictator, and take the management of the country into his own hands. But it was impossible for the Whigs, after the language they had used in Parliament, where they had not scrupled to rejoice at American successes, and to speak of the American armies as our armies, to think of anything but peace at once and on any terms. ”

“ But the change in the balance of Europe involved in the accession to the throne of Spain of a prince of either the imperial house of Germany or the royal house of France was of far graver importance than the mere legal rights to the throne. Both Leopold and the Dauphin, conscious that Europe would not submit to their acquiring Spain for themselves, had handed on their claims to representatives, who might be considered as comparatively harmless. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the Opposition was right in asserting that the war was declared against opinion; the point in which they were wrong was this, that they did not recognize the fact that opinion grown to a religion, a religion become propagandist in its nature, and that propagandist religion in arms was the greatest social danger which could threaten the world. Pitt and Burke saw this; the whole body of Tories and conservative Whigs dimly felt it. But the trammels of ages of diplomacy [1168] were too strong to allow of the fact being openly recognized. ”

“ But,—while those European powers who had suffered most severely from the French arms, and especially Prussia, on which the vengeance of Napoleon had fallen most heavily, were desirous to treat France as a conquered nation, so to curtail its dimensions as to render it harmless for the future, and to lay such burdens upon it as might in some degree recompense them for their losses,—England, which had never felt the sword of the conqueror, and Russia, ruled by a Czar much influenced by notions of chivalry and magnanimity, had already determined upon an opposite course. ”

“ With his accession to the Premiership the unstable character of the Government ceased. Resting on the King, making himself no more than an instrument of the King's will, and thus commanding the support of all royal influence, from whatever source derived, North was able to bid defiance to all enemies, till the ill effects of such a system of government and of the King's policy became so evident, that the clamour for a really responsible minister grew too loud to be disregarded. ”