Part 9 (1/2)
”Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at athan be absolutely excluded Mr Grenville, advancing towards ree of cordiality that was extreenteel, and handsome, and the town seems to be much at his service”
_W Cowper_, 1784
Gladstone's first adloriously in 1868, ended rather ignominiously at the General Election of 1874 Matthew Arnold wrote to his friend, Lady de Rothschild, ”What a beating it is!
You know that Liberalis it does to the Liberal party in general, and I arowth should commence, and that the party should be driven to examine itself, and to see how much real stuff it has in its mind, and how much claptrap”
That wholesoreatly assisted by the progress of events England was now subjected to the personal rule of Disraeli In 1868 he had been for ten months Prime Minister on sufferance, but now for the first tiues were serfs or cyphers He had acquired an influence at Court such as no other Minister ever possessed He had conciliated the House of Lords, which in old days had looked askance at the picturesque adventurer He was supported by a strong, compact, and determined majority in the House of Commons He was the idol of Society, of the Clubs, and of the London Press He was, in short, as nearly a dictator as the forenius, which for forty years had been hale, could now for the first tinificance Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessant blunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like Matthew Arnold, had welcoan to see that they had exchanged as merely fatuous and foolish for as actively mischievous They were forced to ask themselves how much of the political faith which they had professed was ”real stuff,” and how ht them that, even when all ”claptrap” was laid aside, the ”real stuff” of Liberalism--its vital and essential part--was utterly incompatible with Disraelitish ideals
The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbance proceeded frolish Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson
Both were masterful men Both hated Ritualism; and both worshi+pped the Man in the Street The Man in the Street was supposed to be an anti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design of enlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, with their own unaided resources, they had failed to crush Bishop Wilberforce, ould not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied, had been killed in the previous summer Gladstone, notoriously not unfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easy for a policy of persecution On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Tait introduced his ”Public Worshi+p Regulation Bill” into the House of Lords; and, in explanation of this raphers say that itin a practical shape the _forum domesticum_ of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seeed circumstances of modern times” I have always loved this sentence _Foruood, and so is ”coercive force” The _forum domesticum_ has quite a comfortable sound, and, as to the ”coercive force” which lurks in the background, Ritualists must not enquire too curiously The Bishops were to have it all their oay, and everyone was to be happy Such was the Bill as introduced; but in Committee it was le lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops, was to hear and deterularities in Public Worshi+p
When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed by Gladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt, who, six uished himself by the truculence hich he assailed the Ritualists On the 5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: ”An able but yet frantic tirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimed at poor me I have really treated hied to let out a little to-day”
Meanwhile, Disraeli, seeing his opportunity, had seized it with characteristic skill He adopted the Bill with great cordiality He rejected all the glozing euphemisms which had lulled the House of Lords
He uttered no pribbles and prabbles about _foruuidance, and the authoritative interpretation of auous formularies ”This,” he said, ”is a Bill to put down Ritualism” So the naked truth, carefully veiled from view in episcopal aprons and lawn-sleeves, was now displayed in all its native char passed unanimously; and the Archbishops' -stock The instrued it, and its frag in the lumber-room of archiepiscopal failures
But in the meantime the debates on the Bill had produced some political effects which its authors certainly had not desired Gladstone's vehe triumph over the recalcitrant Harcourt, showed the Liberal party that their chief, though temporarily withdrawn froetic as ever, as formidable in debate, and as unquestionably supreme in his party whenever he chose to assert his power Another important result of the controversy was that Gladstone was now the delight and glory of the Ritualists The Coy of St Alban's, Holborn, against the _forum domesticum_ and ”coercive force” of Bishop Jackson, ratitude for Gladstone's ”noble and unsupported defence of the rights of the Church of England” Cultivated and earnest Churchmen, even when they had little sympathy with Ritualishteous disgust from the perpetrator of clumsy witticisms about ”Mass in hton, the Church is powerful, the effect of these desertions was unmistakably felt at the General Election of 1880
It has been truly said that alishmen is Slavery ”No public ed by having even 'fanaticism' in his hatred of slavery imputed to him” In July, 1875, the Admiralty issued to Captains of Her Majesty's shi+ps a Circular of Instructions which roused feelings of anger and of shame This circular ran counter alike to the jealousy of patriots and to the sentiitive slave should not be received on board a British vessel unless his life was in danger, and that, if she were in territorial waters, he should be surrendered on legal proof of his condition If the shi+p were at sea, he should only be received and protected until she reached the country to which he belonged These strange and startling orders were not in harland They infringed the invaluable rule which prescribes that a man-of-war is British territory, wherever she e the famous decision of Lord Mansfield, that a slave who enters British jurisdiction becomes free for ever Parliament had risen for the recess just before the circular appeared, so it could not be challenged in the House of Conation out of doors which astonished its authors Disraeli wrote ”The incident is grave;” and, though in the subsequent session the Government tried to whittle down the enorraver than even the Preain that Toryism is by instinct hostile to freedom
But events were now at hand before which the Public Worshi+p Regulation Act and the Slave Circular paled into insignificance
In the autuaria, and the Turkish Governe force to repress it This was done, and repression was followed by a hideous orgy of land, and public indignation spontaneously awoke Disraeli, with a strange frankness of cynical brutality, sneered at the rumour as ”Coffee-house babble,” andland was not to be pacified with these Asiatic pleasantries, and in the autuainst ere known as ”the Bulgarian Atrocities”
Preaching in St Paul's Cathedral, Liddonpolitics in the pulpit, and gave splendid utterance to the passion which was burning in his heart ”Day by day we English are learning that this year of grace 1876 has been signalized by a public tragedy which, I firmly believe, is without a parallel in irls and babes, counted by hundreds, counted by thousands, subjected to the nities, have been the victination ”That which h whatever , the Government which is immediately responsible for acts like these has turned for syement, not to any of the historical homes of despotism or oppression, not to any other European Power, but alas! to England--to free, huether without reason, believed hi on our country's arm, to be sure of her shtier voice than even Liddon's was added to the chorus of righteous indignation Gladstone had resigned the leadershi+p of the Liberal Party at the beginning of 1875, and for sixteen months he remained buried in his library at Hawarden But now he suddenly reappeared, and flung hiainst Turkey with a zeal which in his prime he had never excelled, if, indeed, he had equalled it On Christmas Day, 1876, he wrote in his diary--”The ; I see that eastward sky of storht!” When Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready with all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argureat indictainst the Turkish Government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become Lord Beaconsfield For three arduous years he sustained the strife with a versatility, a courage, and a resourcefulness, which raised the enthusiasonists with a rage akin to frenzy I well remember that in July, 1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, a lady asked ot the Gladstones coe, but true
1878 was perhaps the most critical year of the Eastern question Russia and Turkey were at death-grips, and Lord Beaconsfield seemed determined to commit this country to a war in defence of the Mahomedan Pohich for centuries has persecuted the worshi+ppers of Christ in the East of Europe By frustrating the sinister design Gladstone saved England frorace of a second Crimea But it was not only in Eastern Europe that he played the hero's part In Africa, and India, and wherever British arms were exercised and British honour was involved, he dealt his resounding blows at that odious systeht, on which the Priues bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialis the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield,”
and all that was ardent and enthusiastic and adventurous in Liberalism flocked to his standard
”Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven”
One could not stand aloof--the call to arle-handed with ”the obscene eed to be at his side in the thick of the fight
To a man born and circumstanced as I was the call came with peculiar power I had the love of Freedom in my blood I had been trained to believe in and to serve the Liberal cause I was incessantly reminded of the verse, which, sixty years before, Moore had addressed to hs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree Set apart for the Fane and its service divine, So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine”
In 1841 that same uncle wrote thus to his eldest brother: ”Whatever ht to retire from active exertion In all times of popular movement, the Russells have been on the 'forward' side At the Reformation, the first Earl of Bedford; in Charles the First's days, Francis, the Great Earl; in Charles the Second's, William, Lord Russell; in later times, Francis, Duke of Bedford; our father; you; and lastly myself in the Refor, but there were influences which were stronger A kind of rolamour, such as one had never before connected with politics, seeholds of Anti-Christ The can became a crusade
Towards the end of 1879 I accepted an invitation to contest ”the Borough and Hundreds of Aylesbury” at the next General Election The ”Borough”
was a co town, and the ”Hundreds” which surrounded it covered an area nearly coextensive with the present division of Mid Bucks Close by was Hampden House, unaltered since the day when four thousand freeholders of Buckinghamshi+re rode up to Westminster to defend their impeached member, John Hampden All around were those beech-clad recesses of the Chiltern Hills, in which, according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Great Rebellion was hatched I do not vouch for that fact, but I can affiro those recesses sheltered some of the stoutest Liberals whos were, for parliah, and, as all householders in Boroughs had been enfranchised by the Reforricultural Labourers of the district were already voters