Peel

“ The most triumphant portion of Sir Robert Peel’s political career was indeed that which followed his exclusion from official life. I know of no statesman who ever occupied so proud a position as that in which a greater commoner than even the first William Pitt stood from 1846 to July, 1850, when an unhappy accident filled with patriotic sorrow every heart in England. ”

“ The House of Commons, bored with dulness, delights in an unusual stroke of artistic skill. The sarcasm was received with cheers the worse to bear because while the Radicals laughed loud Peel’s [Pg 135] own side did not repress an approving murmur. He was like the bull in the Spanish arena when the chulos plant their darts upon his shoulders. ‘He hoped,’ he said, ‘that the honourable member, having discharged the accumulated virus of the last week, now felt more at his ease;’ but the barb had gone to the quick, and Peel, however proudly he controlled himself, was the most sensitive of men. ”

“ Cavour had the cast of mind which admires in others its own qualities. As he revered Pitt's "vast and puissant intelligence," so he sympathised with Peel's logic and courage. Peel was his favourite among his contemporaries; he called him "the statesman who more than any other had the instinct of the necessity of the moment." He foretold Peel's abolition of the Corn Laws at a time when no one else anticipated it. ”

“ No doubt Peel felt the mocking laughter that he left behind him, but, as Shame said to Faithful, the tenderness of the young statesman’s conscience compelled him to do as he did. But we are not all Peels. And there are plenty of workshops and offices and dinner-tables in our own city, where young men who would walk up to the cannon’s mouth without flinching have not had Peel’s courage to protest against indecency or to confess that they belonged to an evangelical church. ”

“ There was a practice common among young people of peeling an apple in an unbroken peel, and throwing the peeled skin over the right shoulder in order to ascertain from the manner in which it fell, first, whether the person who threw it would be married soon, and second, the trade or profession of the person to whom they would be married. ”

“ Peel and Graves were planning a hunting expedition one evening in the parlour of the inn at Caldbeck when a casual question from Graves's daughter as to the words sung to an old Cumberland rant (tune) , ‘Bonnie Annie,’ caused Graves to write impromptu ‘D'ye ken John Peel,’ the five verses of which he sang to the ancient air. Graves jokingly prophesied that Peel would ‘be sung when we've both run to earth.’ Few songs of modern date have so firmly established themselves in popular estimation. ”

“ Sir Robert Peel had the talents for giving a prosperous issue to a popular cause, Mr. Canning the genius that makes a cause popular. The one had the courage to advocate an opinion before it was ripe for realization. The other, the fortitude when the advantage and the possibility of a measure became apparent, to make unhesitatingly every personal sacrifice for the public welfare. If we praise the one for his prescience as a statesman, we bend with admiration before the other as a patriot. ”

“ PEEL, JONATHAN (1799–1879) , politician and patron of the turf, fifth son of Sir Robert Peel [q. v.] , cotton manufacturer, and brother of Sir Robert Peel [q. v.] , the statesman, was born at Chamber Hall, near Bury, Lancashire, on 12 Oct. 1799. He was sent to Rugby in 1811, and on 15 June 1815, three days before the battle of Waterloo, received a commission as second lieutenant in the rifle brigade. ”

“ For ourselves, we hope nothing from Sir ROBERT PEEL. His flourish on the warming and ventilation of the new Houses of Parliament, taken in connexion with his opinions on the Corn Laws, reminds us of the benevolence of certain people in the East, who, careless and ignorant of the claims of their fellow-men, yet take every pains to erect comfortable hospitals and temples for dogs and vermin. Old travellers speak of these places, and of men being hired that the sacred fleas might feed upon their blood. ”

“ Hemans in the service of the Crown,—Sir Robert Peel, the man and the minister who could thus recognise the claims of Literature, [1] and not, like ministers of old, stipulate for a return in the political support of those whom he so distinguished, was surely a person whose memory the men of letters in this country should not be slow to honour.
[1] We have confined our remarks to Sir Robert Peel's patronage of Literature; but that patronage was as liberally bestowed upon Science and Art. ”

“ I continue to hear great complaints of Peel—of his coldness, incommunicativeness, and deficiency in all the qualities requisite for a leader, particularly at such a time. There is nobody else, or he would be deserted for any man who had talents enough to take a prominent part, so much does he disgust his adherents. ”

“ Late in life Peel's neighbours and friends, including Sir Wilfrid Lawson and George Moore the philanthropist, presented him with a sum of money in acknowledgment of his long services. Besides his patrimonial estate at Caldbeck, Peel acquired, through his wife, a property at Ruthwaite, on which his last years were spent. ”

“ Of Sir Robert Peel he always spoke with a special respect, and it was, I think, a matter of peculiar pleasure to him that in his old age his family was closely connected by marriage with that of his illustrious rival. His friendship with Lord Derby, which began when they were colleagues, was unbroken by many contests. ”

“ This remarkable man, one of the many emanations of the Johnsonian mind which contrived [505] to make the most narrow-minded prejudices palatable to the most comprehensive intellect, exercised great influence over the King, over the older peers and members of the House of Commons, and over that large mass of uncertains that rallies round a man who entertains no scruples and doubts. Mr. Peel took care, however, not to pass for a mere follower of Lord Eldon, nor a mere bigot of the ultra-Protestant party. ”

“ After he had taken his degree his father bought him the seat of Cashel in Tipperary, and he entered the House of Commons in April 1809, at the age of twenty-one. A tory ministry, with the Duke of Portland as prime minister, was in power, and the whigs, utterly wrecked since the death of Fox, were in opposition. Peel, fresh from a tory home and a tory university, naturally gave his support to the government. ”

“ Perhaps the best description to show how personally he impressed his contemporaries at this time is given by Lord Dalling and Bulwer in his memoir. Sir Robert Peel, he tells us, was 'tall and powerfully built, his body somewhat bulky for his limbs, his head small and well-formed, his features regular. His countenance was not what would be generally called expressive, but it was capable of taking the expression he wished to give it, humour, sarcasm, persuasion, and command, being its alternate characteristics. The character of the man was seen more... in the whole person than in the face. ”

“ From 31 Oct. to 5 Dec. a series of cabinet councils were held, at which Peel endeavoured to impress three things on his colleagues: that the crisis was urgent, that an order in council should at once be issued to suspend the duties on grain, and, that once those duties were suspended, they could never be reimposed. But the cabinet shrank from the vista of policy thus opened before them. No decision was taken. At last on 2 Dec. Peel clenched the question by stating that he himself was willing to introduce a measure ‘involving the ultimate repeal of the corn laws’ (ib. p. 221) . ”

“ He owned that Peel’s conduct was very fair as well as prudent, and said that if his father was to resign, he himself, and he believed many others, would be willing to support a Government headed by Peel. It is remarkable how men’s minds are gradually turning to Peel. I was amused yesterday [75] ADMISSION OF DISSENTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. with Poulett Thomson, who told me that Peel had been very courteous to him, and that they had some important points of coincidence of opinion; that Peel did not like Graham, Palmerston, or Grant, but to the rest of the Government he was remarkably civil. ”

“ Peel resigned. Lord John Russell, who, by a letter dated from Edinburgh on 22 Nov., had declared for total repeal, tried to form a government, but failed owing to a dissension between Lords Grey and Palmerston. On 20 Dec. Peel resumed office, feeling, in his own words, ‘like a man restored to life.’ All his former colleagues stood by him, with the exception of Stanley.
Parliament met in January 1846, and the government introduced a protection of life (Ireland) bill in the lords, and a corn bill and customs bill in the commons. ”

“ Hence the references to his own views and feelings which recur in his speeches, and which his enemies affected to ascribe to egoism, are more rightly attributable to an opposite cause—the open terms on which he stood with the House of Commons. Not that there was no trace of the art whereby an orator invests the dry details of business with the attraction of personal feeling, for no one was a more refined master of persuasion than Sir Robert Peel. ”

“ I., page 111) , although he declined to pledge himself to its authenticity. The latest historian of Dulwich College [40] has admitted it to his text with too mildly worded a caveat. Often, too, has "G. Peel" emerged more recently from a long-forgotten book or periodical to darken the page of a modern popular magazine. I have met him unabashed during the present century in two literary periodicals of repute—in the Academy (of London) , in the issue of 18th January 1902, and in the Poet Lore (of Boston) in the following April number. Future disinterments may safely be prophesied. ”

“ Pelle marches in the front rank beside the standard-bearer. He sees and hears nothing, but his luminous gaze sweeps over the heads of the crowd. His skin is still blackened by the smoke of the fire; it is peeling off his hands; his hair and moustache seem to have been cropped very strangely; and the skin is drawn round the burn on his cheek. He is conscious of one thing only: the rhythmic tread of fifty thousand men! ”

“ Two great organisations, the anti-corn law league and the chartists, were thundering against established laws. Deficits had become as annual as the harvest. There was intense distress among the working classes. Worst of all, the British government was discredited abroad.
The party that now found itself in power under Peel's guidance contained political talents unparalleled for splendour and promise. It could show seven men who had been or were to be prime ministers—Peel himself, Wellington, Ripon, Stanley, Aberdeen, Gladstone and Disraeli. ”

“ Peele's wanton mode of life involved him in endless anxieties. He may indeed be held innocent of part, or possibly of the whole, of the discreditable escapades detailed in the ‘Merry conceited Jests of George Peele, sometime a Student in Oxford,’ which was entered in the ‘Stationers' Registers’ in 1605, and of which the earliest known edition appeared in 1607, nine years or more after his death. ”

“ A comparison which suggests itself naturally to those who study the history of their times, is one between the practical statesman, the sketch of whose career I am concluding, and his more brilliant contemporary, of whom I have previously spoken. Though for a long period rivals, they both entered political life under the Tory banner, and gained their reputation by adopting Whig principles. In canvassing their separate merits, it is just to say that Sir Robert Peel’s great acts were the development of Mr. Canning’s principles. ”

“ PEEL, Sir ROBERT (1750–1830) , first baronet, manufacturer and member of parliament, was born at Peelfold, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, on 25 April 1750. His family, which has been obscurely traced to a Danish origin, had emigrated early in the seventeenth century from the district of Craven in Yorkshire to the neighbouring town of Blackburn in Lancashire. His father, Robert Peel, had founded the fortunes of the family in 1764, when, having mortgaged his family estates, he established at Blackburn, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Mr. ”

“ George Peele now set spurs to his horse, and rode to the inn, where he was cordially received: the hostess clapped her hands; the ostler laughed; the tapster leaped; the chamberlain ran to the gentleman's house, and told him of the arrival of the doctor. The squire sent for Peele at once, and forced him to accept twenty pounds for having cured him of his consumption. But whether the cure was the result of some herbs that chanced to go into the pot, or was due to the confidence the sick man had in the science of George Peele, none can say. ”

“ From that time till the opening of parliament Peel was engaged in preparing three bills—one for the suppression of the Catholic Association, another for catholic emancipation, and the third for the regulation of the franchise in Ireland. When the first of these bills had been read a third time, Peel placed himself in the hands of his constituents by accepting the Chiltern Hundreds (20 Feb.) . He was defeated on seeking re-election at Oxford by 146 votes, but was elected for Westbury, and took his seat on 3 March. ”

“ Though in her own phrase ‘no politician,’ she became in time the closest or the only companion of the statesman in his inmost thoughts. She survived her husband till 27 Oct. 1859. They had two daughters and five sons. The eldest son, Sir Robert Peel, G.C.B. [q. v.] , the third baronet, and the third son, Sir William Peel, K.C.B. [q. v.] , are separately noticed; the second son, Sir Frederick Peel, K.C.M.G. (1823–1906) , was chief railway commissioner; the fifth son, Arthur Wellesley, was speaker of the House of Commons from 1884 to 1895, and was created Viscount Peel on his retirement. ”