It was in 1870 that Mr Bradlaugh began that close scrutiny of the history of our reigning family which resulted in the publication of his "Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," a little book which created some considerable stir both when it was first published in 1871,[134] and when an edition partly revised by Mr Bradlaugh was brought out after his death. The "Impeachment" has been widely read both here and in America, where it was reprinted. Besides writing upon the Brunswick family, Mr Bradlaugh used to take the history of one or more of the members of it as a subject for his lecture, and taught many a good Republican lesson whilst discoursing upon the exceptional virtues of "George, Prince of Wales," or "the four Georges." A friend has told me an amusing story concerning one of these lectures. My father had promised to speak one Saturday evening at Sowerby Bridge on "George, Prince of Wales." By some curious blunder the friends who were making the arrangements placarded the town with the subject announced as "Albert Edward, Prince of Wales." The effect of this was to cause a large number of police to be drafted into the town, and a Government shorthand reporter was sent down from London, travelling by the same train as my father. The hall was, of course, crowded, but whether the audience were disappointed when my father explained the mistake in the subject of the lecture, my informant did not say. In any case I expect that the officials who had been so busy in preparing for treason and riot, and found only history and order, felt that the proceedings had turned out rather flat. At Stourbridge, where Mr Bradlaugh was invited[135] by some "gentlemen of Republican tendencies" to discourse upon the "House of Brunswick," Lord Lyttleton, as Lord Lieutenant of the county, tried to induce the Stourbridge Town Commissioners to withdraw from their agreement to let the Corn Exchange for the lectures, but his efforts were in vain. His Lordship seems to have been a little angry, and it was even rumoured that he went so far as to tell the magistrates that he would have Mr Bradlaugh arrested for treason. He succeeded in raising such a scare that a large extra body of police were drafted into the town under the order of the Chief Constable of the county. There were two lectures, and Colonel Carmichael, the Chief Constable, was present at both, but, as I gather from the printed reports, the meetings were large, the audiences delighted, and of both the end "was peace."

In the summer of 1871 Mr Bradlaugh went one Monday evening to Newton Abbot to address a meeting in the New Vegetable Market, used then for a public gathering for the first time. The subject on which he was to speak was "The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle." Very few of the tradesmen in the town would consent to expose bills of the lecture, and several who did display them at first took them from their windows at the advice of the "respectable and pious," and in the end only two showed the announcements. Two gentlemen who were present at the meeting—one as a reporter for the local paper, the other, one of the five Radicals who invited Mr Bradlaugh to Newton—have given a vivid account of a little incident which enlivened the evening's proceedings. It appears that in 1871 a certain Mr John George Stuart was the High Bailiff of the town. "This gentleman," I am told, "was a Methodist, and had at that time two sons who were studying for the ministry. He was also a distinguished boxer, and he had the reputation of being the most formidable wielder of the gloves in England." Mr Stuart, supported by two friends, "attended the meeting with the avowed intention of obstructing Mr Bradlaugh. As soon as Mr Bradlaugh began to speak, Mr Stuart commenced to disturb the meeting. Mr Bradlaugh repeatedly requested him to reserve his criticisms until the close of the lecture, when an opportunity would be offered him of speaking from the platform. But Mr Stuart continued to shout his opinions upon Mr Bradlaugh's Atheism, although the lecture was on a purely political question. At last Mr Bradlaugh said that unless the interruptions ceased, he should be compelled to act as his own chairman, and to request Mr Stuart to leave the building. As Mr Stuart and his friends would not desist from shouting, Mr Bradlaugh stepped from the platform, walked up to the athlete, and carried him to the door with ease. At the doorway Mr Stuart spread his arms and held the jambs, but Mr White, who was acting as doorkeeper pushed one of his hands aside, and Mr Bradlaugh set the disturber down in the street. None of Mr Stuart's friends offered the least resistance, and the crowd, which was made up of hostile as well as friendly hearers, loudly cheered Mr Bradlaugh's unceremonious ejectment of the local hero of the 'noble art.'" The friends to whom I am indebted for the foregoing say further that Mr Stuart's pride was brought very low by this episode, and that he rarely appeared afterwards among the former admirers of his prowess.

In the course of my father's lecturing experiences, he several times met with local "champions," as defenders of the faith. A few months later, at Sowerby Bridge, a local champion wrestler entered the room during the delivery of his lecture and commenced abusing him loudly. The man was spoken to several times, but he would neither remain quiet, nor quit the place. Mr Bradlaugh was at length obliged to leave the platform and put him out vi et armis. Put out at one door, he reappeared at another; but this time the audience took the matter into their own hands, and kept him out. Another "champion" conducted a serious disturbance at Congleton, but of that later.

In the month of March (1871) Dr Magee, then Bishop of Peterborough, delivered three discourses in the Norwich Cathedral in "vindication and establishment of the Christian faith," and "directed against modern forms of infidelity." The Freethinkers of Norwich, anxious to give these discourses the attention which the high position and high reputation of the speaker demanded, had asked Mr Bradlaugh to come to Norwich to represent them on the occasion of the Bishop's discourses. This he consented to do, and attended all the lectures, but—as perhaps it is superfluous to say—he was not allowed to make any remark upon them. It was however desired that he should make some reply in the town where the lectures had been delivered, at least, if not in the Cathedral to Dr Magee himself, but it was not easy to obtain the use of a hall for the purpose. A circuit of the town was made in the vain endeavour to hire a building, and it was only after considerable difficulty that the Free Library Hall was at last procured. As my father truly said, "the approved mode of encountering modern infidelity seemed to be that of free speech for the Church advocate, and gagged mouth for the pleader on behalf of heresy."[136] In the Norwich Free Library Hall he delivered three lectures in reply to Dr Magee. These he afterwards published, together with the Bishop's discourses; and as a statement of the cases for and against Christianity and for and against Freethought, coming from such representative men as the late learned and eloquent Archbishop of York and Mr Bradlaugh, they cannot fail to be of special interest.

During the autumn my father gave a lecture on behalf of the London Republican Club, and upon this speech all sorts of rumours were founded, not indeed upon what my father actually did say, but upon what his detractors chose to believe he said. Mr Disraeli had recently stated at an agricultural meeting at Hughenden[137] that it could not be concealed that Her Majesty was "physically and morally incapacitated from performing her duties," and my father took these words as the text of his lecture for the Republican Club in London. His speech, which was unusually long, occupying close upon an hour and a half, was a most careful recital of the duties of the Monarch and the rights and duties of the people, with special reference to the course pursued during the periods when George III. was officially declared incapable of performing the royal functions. Shorthand writers were present, and this address, or parts of it, was telegraphed all over the United Kingdom, to America and to the Continent. Much of it appeared in the American and Continental press of the next day or so, and after a short interval distorted accounts of it were to be heard of in most parts of England. There was one passage in particular upon which a whole mountain of misrepresentation and worse[138] was afterwards based. In the course of his address Mr Bradlaugh had said: "Many of you are aware that I have lately repeatedly declared my most earnest desire that the present Prince of Wales should never dishonour this country by becoming its King. My opinion is that if four or five years of political education are allowed to continue in this land, that worthy representative of an unworthy race will never be King of England. My thorough conviction is that neither his intelligence, nor his virtues, nor his political ability, nor his military capacity—great as all these are for a member of his family—can entitle him to occupy the throne of Great Britain. I am equally opposed to his ever being Regent of England. I trust that he may never sit on the throne or lounge under its shadow."

Of course my father showed himself much too sanguine as to the time necessary for the political education of this country towards a Republican form of Government; but those who recall the seeming vigour of the Republican movement in England during the early seventies will know that he was not without excuse for his hopeful views. In any case, one would have thought that his expression in regard to the Prince of Wales was strong enough to have been dealt with by English Monarchists as he made it; but instead, it was perverted into an "impudent and disloyal announcement that he and a certain number of his friends would take care that the Prince should never come to the throne."[139] A very different thing indeed to the "desire" my father had uttered. The effect of all this was to raise such a tremendous journalistic storm against him, that a few weeks later he wrote: "As to the hostile attacks, they are during the past fortnight so numerous that I have not space even to catalogue them. Many journals call for my prosecution." One paper, a century or so behind the times, recommended a pillory and flogging.

A curious little incident which occurred ten or twelve days after Mr Bradlaugh's lecture helped to strengthen the outcry against him, especially on the part of Conservative speakers and the Conservative press. On the 28th of October Mr Gladstone addressed a vast meeting of his constituents on Blackheath. He spoke for two hours, defending the conduct of his colleagues and himself since they had taken office three years ago. During this important speech he quoted, from what he called a "questionable book," these lines, which he said contained "much good sense"—

"People throughout the land,
Join in one social band,
And save yourselves;
If you would happy be,
Free from all slavery,
Banish all knavery,
And save yourselves."

This sentiment was greeted with deafening applause by the thousands listening with eager ears to every word that fell from the Prime Minister. But the epithet bestowed upon the book whence he drew this example of the "good sense" it contained, roused a perfect frenzy of curiosity. Literary Conservatives imagined that Mr A. C. Swinburne was the author, and the dismay exhibited was almost beyond description when it was discovered—by the horrified Scotsman, I believe—that Mr Gladstone's "questionable book" was the "Secularists' Manual of Songs and Ceremonies," edited by Austin Holyoake and Charles Watts, with a preface by Charles Bradlaugh. The press comments upon the discovery are amusing to read, especially as Mr Bradlaugh was often made in some way responsible, not merely for the verse, but for Mr Gladstone's quoting it on Blackheath. Mr Giffard, Q.C., was amongst those who thought it "an outrage" that such a book should have been so quoted by the Prime Minister of England. The publisher was indictable, said he wrathfully, and the writer would have been sent to prison in the good old days when the Christian religion was more thought of.[140] But neither he nor any one else moved to prefer the indictment.