A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV

by Justin McCarthy; Justin H. McCarthy

CHAPTER LXVII.

"THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC."

[Sidenote: 1827—Lord Goderich]

During the closing days of Canning's life he was speaking to Sir William Knighton of the approaching end, and he said, quietly: "This may be hard upon me, but it is still harder upon the King." There was something characteristic in the saying. Canning had been greatly touched by the manner in which the King had, at last, come round to him and stood by him against all who endeavored to interpose between him and his sovereign; and to a man of Canning's half-poetic temperament the sovereign typified the State and the people, to whom the Prime Minister was but a devoted servant. It was certainly hard upon the King, at least for the time. George must have had moments of better feelings and better inspirations than those which governed the ordinary course of his life, and he had lately come to realize the value of the services which Canning had rendered to England. We shall see, before long, that a secession of Canning's followers from the party in power took place, and that the seceding men were called, and called themselves, the "Canningites." George already appears to have become a Canningite.

The King had a good deal of trouble in forming an Administration. Lord Goderich became Prime Minister, with Lyndhurst again as Lord Chancellor, and Huskisson in Goderich's former place at the War and Colonial Office. Lord Goderich, as we have seen, had been sent into the House of Lords when Canning became Prime Minister. Up to that time he was Mr. Frederick John Robinson, generally known by the nickname of "Prosperity Robinson." This satirical designation he obtained from the fact that while he was President of the Board of Trade, and {66} still later when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had always made it his business in each session to describe the country as in a condition of unparalleled prosperity. More than that, he always insisted on declaring that the particular schemes of taxation that he brought forward were destined, beyond all possibility of doubt, to increase still further that hitherto unexampled prosperity. It had been his fortune, in his early official career, to propose and carry some schemes of taxation which met with such passionate opposition in some parts of the country as to lead to serious rioting and even to loss of life. But all the time he saw only prosperity as the result of his financial enterprises, and hence the nickname, which is still remembered in England's Parliamentary history.

[Sidenote: 1828—The struggle for religious equality]

Lord Goderich was not a man of remarkable political capacity, and he was a poor, ineffective, and even uninteresting speaker, except when the audacity of his statements, and his prophecies, and the tumult of interruptions and laughter that they created, lent a certain Parliamentary interest to his orations. He had an immense amount of that sort of courage which, in the colloquial language of our times, would probably be described as bumptiousness. He had an unlimited faith in his own capacity, and he saw nothing but success, personal and national, where observers in general could discern only failure. He was one of a class of men who are to be found at all times of Parliamentary history, and who manage somehow, nobody quite knows how, to make themselves appear indispensable to their political party. He was not, however, without any faculty for improvement, and of late years he had derived some instruction from Canning's teaching and example in politics and in finance. Such as he was, his appointment as Prime Minister in succession to Canning seemed about the safest compromise the King could make under all the existing conditions. His position as a stop-gap was maintained but a very short time. During his Administration, or perhaps it ought rather to be called his nominal Administration, the substantial result of Canning's recent foreign policy was seen in the destruction {67} of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at the battle of Navarino, which led almost immediately to the Sultan's acknowledgment of the independence of Greece.

Some differences of opinion on financial questions soon broke out in the Cabinet, and Huskisson and certain of his colleagues threatened to resign; and Lord Goderich, seeing little or no chance of maintaining himself long in his position, got out of the difficulty by tendering his own resignation. The King accepted the resignation, and there was then really only one man, the Duke of Wellington, to whom George could look for the construction of a Government. Accordingly, the Duke became First Lord of the Treasury, and Huskisson retained, for the time, his former position. During this Administration Lord John Russell brought forward his motion for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; the object of the motion being to abolish all the conditions which rendered it impossible for the members of any Protestant dissenting denomination to hold State or municipal office, unless they were willing to accept a test-oath, which acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the Church of England. Lord John Russell's motion was carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 237 to 193, and a Bill founded on the principle of the motion was passed through both Houses of Parliament. This may be described as the first of the great measures accepted by Parliament for the purpose of establishing the principle of religious equality, in admission to the rights of citizenship, among the inhabitants of these countries. Of course, the establishment of religious equality was yet a good long way off, and it is a curious fact that the measure that was founded on Lord John Russell's motion did something very distinct in itself to make new battle-grounds for those who advocated the full recognition of the principle.

The new measure proposed to admit the members of all recognized Protestant denominations, whether inside or outside the Church of England, to the rights of citizenship, but it took good care to affirm that it had no intention of admitting any one else. The Act provided that all {68} persons presenting themselves as candidates for election to political or municipal office should subscribe a declaration "on the true faith of a Christian." This, of course, excluded Jews and Freethinkers, while the Roman Catholics were shut out by a special oath, directed exclusively against themselves, and to which it was impossible that any professing Catholic could subscribe. Lord John Russell, however, had begun his great career well when he carried the Legislature with him, even thus far, on the way to religious equality, although he was not himself destined to see the last fight which had to be fought before the principle had been completely established. It is almost needless to say that the new form of pledge introduced by the measure was no part of Lord John Russell's plan, but he accepted the Bill as amended in the House of Lords rather than sacrifice, for the time, the whole purpose of his motion. The motion, it may be added, was strongly opposed in the House of Commons, not only by Robert Peel, but by Huskisson. Peel's opposition is easily to be understood, because up to this time he had not risen above the convictions with which he started in public life in favor of the general practice of making the political and civic rights of citizenship conditional upon what he believed to be religious orthodoxy. In the case of Huskisson, who was a strong supporter of the admission of Roman Catholics to full equality of political and civic rights with the members of the State Church, the explanation probably was that he feared if the Dissenters received their rights in advance they might become less zealous than many of them had been for the full recognition of the Catholic claims. Some of the archbishops and bishops in the House of Lords were liberal enough to give their support to the Bill, much to the consternation of Lord Eldon, who could not understand how any prelate of the State Church could be so far led away from the sacred duties of his position as to lend any countenance to a measure admitting the unorthodox to the place in society which ought to be the right only of orthodox believers.

[Sidenote: 1828—The Catholic Association]