Impressions of England; or, Sketches of English Scenery and Society

by A. Cleveland Coxe

The Papal aggression was still, in spite of the Crystal Palace and its wonders, an absorbing topic, and my second visit to the House of Commons had been set for an evening when a debate upon that exciting subject was to be part of the entertainment. I felt sure that such an evening in the House would be, in some measure, an historical one, and might be useful to me through life, in watching the course of religious and political events. Besides, I wanted to hear a debate that should enable me to compare, by its unity of subject, a Parliament of Victoria, with those of the Plantagenets and Tudors. I had my desire.

It seems impossible for the American mind to appreciate rightly the very grave injury which has been done to the British nation by the attempt of the Papal Court to erect Episcopal Sees, and bestow corresponding titles within the jurisdiction of the British Church, and under the shadow of the British Crown. But when it is considered that the Pope has thus attempted to exercise a power to which he could never have aspired even when England wore his yoke, and which would not now be suffered by any Popish sovereignty in Europe; when, to say nothing of the outrage to the Church of England, the direct attempt upon the allegiance of subjects is considered, and its bearings upon the future are duly weighed: no well-informed mind can hesitate a moment as to the propriety of the feelings which it so generally inflamed, or retain any other astonishment, than a profound one, at the feebleness and utter imbecility of the measures with which the advisers of the greatest Sovereign in existence have allowed her to meet the invasion. It was not a moment for hesitation, or for consulting economics; a demand should have been made upon the Pontiff for an immediate alteration of his attitude towards England, and the least attempt to palter on his part should have been responded to by a British fleet off Civita Vecchia. If France was an obstacle to such a demonstration, and if “the peace of Europe” must be kept at all hazards,—even the hazard of a speedy Armageddon to pay for it—if such be the England of 1850—alas for the extinction of the England of 1588! Is the spirit of Elizabeth past revival?

Since 1830, the whigs, laboring, as Mr. Macaulay now confesses, under a delusion as to the ameliorated spirit of the Papacy, have gradually advanced the Romanists to great power and influence. They had introduced them to parliaments; had flattered them with ecclesiastical titles; and unavailingly tried to propitiate them with gifts. Finally, hoping to secure the Pope’s aid in the management of Ireland, they had advanced, step by step, to a point from which they could not recede, and at which they ventured to go further, and actually invite him to the daring encroachment, which to their horror and amazement, set all England in a blaze. At every step of this infamous and foolish compromise with Rome, true Churchmen had protested, and pleaded, and struggled in vain; but these true men were now confounded in the disgrace of an alarming apostacy, owing to a popular misapprehension, and it was easy to turn the whole fury of the fire upon them. Lord John, detected in the very act of inviting the Pope’s attempt, had the cunning to point at them, and lay it on the “Tractarians.” The trick succeeded: the Romanizers were gratified, for they wished well to any but the friends of a Church which they meant to abandon and destroy; the Evangelicals swelled the outcry, which brought popular gales to their own canvass; and the Ministry chuckled behind their fingers. The Romanists were triumphant, since they had the Ministry in their power; and the only real sufferers by all the tumult and indignation thus aroused, were the very class who alone had contested every inch of ground with Popery and the Whigs, from the “Emancipation” of 1829, to its sequel and direct consequence, the “Aggression,” twenty years afterwards!

Such was the very just review of the existing question, which in different ways was brought before the House on the evening of the ninth of May, 1851. The debate was on a motion of Mr. Urquhart, to the effect that “the act of the Pope had been encouraged by the conduct and declarations of her Majesty’s Government; and that large expectations of remedy had been stimulated by Lord John’s letter to the Bishop of Durham, which his measures had entirely disappointed.” The member pressed his resolution (offered as an amendment to the proposed bill) by a reference to the history at which we have glanced, and by calling to mind some former passages in the political life of the Prime Minister, which it could scarcely have been comfortable for him to hear just at that moment. Sir George Grey, in a very feeble speech, replied in behalf of his friend, from the Treasury bench, and amused himself at some length, at the expense of Mr. Urquhart, without really affecting his argument. Lord John Manners retorted with not a little force, at least in his matter. He declared the proposed amendment a mere truism, and yet one of practical utility. Lord John had successfully thrown dust in the eyes of the people. Lord Powis and Mr. Dudley Perceval had in vain endeavored to place the facts before the country. Then followed a passage of pungency and truth. “The Prime Minister,” he said, “had twice encouraged the acts against which his puny and delusive legislation was now directed; had twice defeated the modest attempt of the Church of England to place Bishops of her own in the great towns now occupied by the Pope; had granted to Popish Bishops, in all the Colonies, precedence over Anglican Bishops; had yielded similar favors to the Romish titularies in Ireland; had pertinaciously resisted the fair demands of the Irish Church for Scriptural Education; and yet—after a public policy which had been one unvaried monotone of insult and wrong to the Church of England—had contrived, by one magic stroke of the pen, to place himself before the country as the champion of English Protestantism, and as the only effectual antagonist of the encroachments of the Church of Rome.” A Romish member now rose, and, while opposing the amendment, paid a singular tribute to its truth. “He was not the man to blame the noble Lord for encouraging the Pope’s measures; but he blamed him for now attempting to contend with the direct consequences of his own flattering policy.” After a rambling and incoherent speech, of tiresome length, from a Mr. Stanford, who supported the amendment, Sir Robert Inglis rose and opposed it with characteristic dignity, and with that grave and sober earnestness which, under the manifest control of taste and judgment, seems always uppermost in all his utterances. He showed that, if the amendment were passed, it would defeat the bill. However true, therefore, he must oppose it, because the bill was all that the Government had offered to do, and something must be done. He had no objection to calling on the Government to do more; he thought that Lord John might fairly be asked to meet, in full, the expectations he had excited; but he could not vote for an amendment which would effectually prevent the doing of anything to carry out the just wishes of the country.

Sir Robert, during his remarks, dropped an expression, for the first time, if I am not mistaken, which soon became familiar. He spoke of the opposition of the Irish Brigade, referring to the Romish members then sitting, and voting together, with an appearance of complete drill, and of absolute obedience to one command. The expression was repeated as a quotation by another member, and raised a laugh, as something freshly caught up, and this seemed to mark it as a hit. Finally, Mr. Reynolds, the apparent leader of the Brigade, gave it complete success by replying to it. Sir Robert, after quietly delivering his remarks, had walked round from his seat, and was conversing with a friend, (while he twirled in his hand a rose, that he had taken from his button-hole,) when Mr. Reynolds stepped into his place, with a sort of bog-trotting movement, and facetiously remarked that, it might seem strange to see him standing, as it were, in the shoes of the venerable baronet, who had just called him and his countrymen, “the Irish Brigade.” He then acknowledged that they were banded together against the bill, and “against every other, good or bad, which its author might propose.” He thus avowed their purpose, to throw their entire force against the Government, until Lord John should be driven out of power. He then went on with Irish volubility, and the no less characteristic accent of the Patlander, to belabor Lord John’s bill. He told not a little truth: called it “sham legislation;” stuck out his finger towards the Minister, and said, “If ye pass it, ye dare not put it into execution.” Here, however, he gave it the praise of being quite the thing for its purpose—“a cruel and persecuting measure—which, as such, had received the approbation of the Protestant watchdog of Oxford University.” By this epithet, significant of high fidelity, but not intended to be particularly respectful, he gave Sir Robert a Rowland for his Oliver.

The residue of this gentleman’s speech was amusing enough, as coming from a Papist. He was for liberty of conscience; couldn’t bear to think of religious persecution; and, as for the Queen, she had no subjects in the world that could compare with her Irish subjects, for the devoted affection with which they regarded her. One would think it a pity that such homage as he professed for a heretic sovereign, had not been as fashionable among his co-religionists in the days of Guido Fawkes, or of the Spanish Armada.

At last, Lord John himself rose to reply. I thought of the history of the house of Bedford, from the back-stairs of Henry VIII., when, as Burke expresses it, “the lion having gorged his share of the Ecclesiastical carcase, flung the offal to his jackal,” down to the council-chamber of Victoria, where the jackal still waits on the lion, in the shape of this insatiable devourer of the Church’s bread, and not less insatiable thirster for her blood. How should he dare lift up his voice to apologize for the brand of infamy which this evening’s debate had stamped upon his career as a Minister, or rather which it merely showed to have been already set by his own hands! Forth he stepped, like himself alone, and with the same pomposity to which I have already adverted, went through a few incantations, which ended in a fresh transformation of the diminutive conjurer before us, into a most earnest “deviser of securities for the crown and the nation.” He called the opposition “mean and shabby”—for such courtesies seem to be the seven locks of a rhetorical Samson, in his conception—and with a front of brass, only equalled by the audacity of his imputations upon true sons of the Church of England, declared “there had been nothing in the conduct of the Government which had a tendency to provoke the aggression.” He sat down, in his littleness, and was instantly pounced upon by Disraeli, from the opposite side of the table, as it were by a hungry terrier. “Is it a fact,” then, said he, “or is it not, that the First Minister of the Crown has himself in this House expressed an opinion, that he saw no harm in Romish Bishops assuming territorial titles in this realm of England? Is it a fact, or is it not, in the recollection of this House, and in the burning memory of this country? Is it a fact, or is it not, that a Secretary of State, in another place, has expressed his hope that Romish Bishops would soon take seats as Peers of Parliament in the House of Lords? Is it a fact, or is it not, that a member of the Cabinet has been sent as Plenipotentiary to Italy, and held frequent and encouraging conversations with the Pope? Is it a fact, or is it not, that the Pope condescended to intimate to said Ambassador his gracious purposes to do something that might affect England; and is it a fact, or is it not, that the Plenipotentiary thought it unnecessary to inquire what it might be?”

Lord John here rallied, and interrupted the speaker, by saying that “he had admitted the fact of a report that the Pope said so, but had also stated that Lord Minto denied having heard it.” Thus terrier seemed to have rat in his fangs, but rat could still show his teeth to terrier. It was the first impeachment to which he had ventured any reply; and, by replying to this, he convicted himself of the more grave charges, which he was obliged to hear in silence, with his hat slouched down over his criminal features. Who can feel any respect for an English patrician, caught in such a felony, and proved as truly a moral delinquent, on a gigantic scale, as ever a petty thief at the Old Bailey on a small one? Oh! for a conscience in mankind to save their sympathy for the poor wretch in the bail-dock, and to consign to merited infamy the titled and decorated offender, whose crime is unfaithful stewardship in the State, and treason to the Crown Imperial of the Most High God! I have no abstract prejudice against a peerage. For my own country only do I deprecate the idea of an aristocracy; but what are patricians worth, if they cannot present to the State, in which they are an organic part, a high and wholesome example of integrity and honour? In my heart, therefore, as I looked at this scion of the house of Bedford in his moral degradation, I felt—would that he might know the unaffected pity with which a republican looks at him from this gallery, as a man, in this great crisis of history, false to his rank, false to his sovereign, false to his country, and false to his Redeemer.

Mr. Disraeli paid no attention to his disclaimers, but, as it were, buffeted him smartly with another hit—“Is it a fact, or is it not, that the Vice-Royalty of Ireland was in indirect communication with the Pope, and expressed affection for his person, and reverence for his character?” This brought out enthusiastic cheers; and Lord John tried to emerge from beneath his hat, to look contemptuous. Ministers had a small majority. But Lord John must have felt that his time was coming, while, no doubt, Mr. Disraeli began to draw as near in fancy, to the envied bench on which he sat so little at ease. The latter had done decidedly better than when I heard him before; but, when the division was taken, I could not but say to myself—is this all that England’s Senators have to say in such a matter? I felt that there were few of them alive to the importance of the thing in hand; and that no one seemed equal to the support of old England in consistency with herself. Was this, indeed, the Senate in which Burke had uttered his voice? Was it the hall in which Chatham had rescued from the last disgrace the honour of his country? And were there to be no words, like his—burning words—living words—immortal words—to prove forever that England took not her shame in abject submission! At least no such words were spoken. There was not even a John of Gaunt there, to bewail the disgrace of “the dear, dear isle,”

“Dear for her reputation through the world;”