BOOK X. 1820-1900. INTRODUCTION. THE two strongest political forces of the nineteenth century are Nationality and Democracy. After 1815 the Holy Alliance was formed by the restored despots of Europe, to protect themselves against these two great principles upheld by the Liberals of the Continent. The chief event of the history of the century is the gradual triumph of the national and popular cause. At first Nationality and Democracy were closely bound together, and suspected of leading to revolution, infidelity, and anarchy. The Liberal movements of 1830 and 1848 failed because of this combination. Sensible men gradually came to see that the first principle to be asserted was that of Nationality. When the national cause was no longer revolutionary, strong kings were found to put themselves at the head of it. The house of Savoy now set up a united Italy, and the house of Brandenburg a united Germany. England, France, and Russia were already nations as well as states. At last the house of Austria did what it could in this direction, by giving selfgovernment to some of the many nations of which its empire is composed. The national principle has even spread to the Balkan Peninsula as the only way of solving the problems presented by the decay of Turkey. But the new national states became for the most part strong centralised monarchies, though with enough of a popular and constitutional element about them to show their origin. But the settlement of the form of government now became a home question for each. In England there was little need to vindicate the national principle; and from the time of Canning England's general sympathy and influence has been with the national cause on the Continent. England was therefore free for the other great principle to work itself out. The history of England since 1820 has been the history of the growth of popular power, of the growth of democracy. The movement began with the establishment of religious and commercial freedom by the liberal Tories under George IV. The next step was the Reform Bill of 1832, and the long train of measures which followed it. The popular movement hardly stopped when the Whigs lost power, through their inability to govern. The new Conservatism of Peel established free trade and cheapened the food of the people; but in its struggle with vested interests his party split itself up (1846). For the next twenty years there is a perceptible slackening in the growth of the popular cause, though much was done to improve the people's condition and make it fit to exercise the power it was soon to enjoy. The death of Lord Palmerston (1865) marks the beginning of a new forward movement. Under the leadership of Gladstone a whole series of sweeping reforms was brought about by the Liberals. The Conservatives, reorganised and inspired with new ideals by Disraeli, were now hardly less democratic than their rivals. The Reform Bill of 1867 was passed by Disraeli. The Reform Bill of 1885, which made England a democracy, was carried by an agreement between both the great parties. Political changes were not enough now. Men began to expect more from the State, and to desire great economical and social changes as well. These were just beginning to be accomplished, when the old parties were broken up by the adoption in 1886 by the Liberal leader of the Irish programme. The first act of power of the enfranchised democracy was to vindicate the unity of the empire, which, rightly or wrongly, it believed to be in danger. But this marks a new starting-point, and history must cease where present controversy rages. England's progress in the nineteenth century has not been merely political. Her wealth, commerce, and manufactures have grown enormously. Her command of the world's trade has become more complete, though now somewhat threatened. England's moral progress has even been greater than her material growth. Men have ceased to be satisfied with the complacent contemplation of material prosperity, and earnest efforts have been made to make England better, wiser, and happier. There has been progress, though not perhaps uninterrupted progress, in religion, morality, earnestness, and intelligence. A new way of looking at things has grown up which is sympathetic of the past, though not neglectful of the present. But much still remains to be done before we can feel real satisfaction. CHAPTER I. George IV., 1820-1830. Cato Street 1820. 1. The Regent became King George IV., and the Tory Government went on as before. On 23d February 1820 the ministers dined together at Lord Harrowby's, in Grosvenor Square. Arthur Thistlewood urged some desperate Radicals, who met in a loft in Cato Conspiracy, Street, Edgware Road, to plot their destruction. "There will be," said he, "fourteen or sixteen there, and it will be a rare haul to murder them all together." But a comrade laid bare their plans to Lord Sidmouth. The leaders were seized and brought to trial. Thistlewood and five others were executed. In April a Radical riot was attempted at Glasgow, but failed, though a regular fight broke out between a cavalry troop and some armed revolutionists at Bonnymuir. Both attempts showed the hopelessness of really putting down agitation and the unpopularity of the new king and his ministers. 2. In 1795 George IV. had married Caroline of Brunswick, to please his father and to get his debts paid. They soon quarrelled and were separated. Since 1814 Trial of Queen she had lived abroad; but now she came back Caroline, 1820. to England and demanded to be acknowledged as queen. The ministers, prompted by Wilberforce, tried to treat with her and failed. George would not let her be prayed for in church, and forced Lord Liverpool to bring forward in the Lords a bill to dissolve the marriage on the ground of her misconduct. The evidence showed that she had certainly been giddy and foolish, and very likely wicked. But public feeling rose high that so bad a husband as George should complain of his wife's conduct. The Opposition took up her cause. Canning went out of office rather than act against her. Brougham, the most prominent Whig lawyer, became her attorney-general. Even Wilberforce, who feared she had been very profligate, could not help admiring her spirit." Her house was always surrounded by a "most shabby assemblage," that cheered the "stout lady in a large hat and feathers," who bowed from the window. So strong was the feeling that the ministers dropped their bill after it had passed its third reading in the Lords by a majority of only nine. The queen's popularity now waned. People began to see how unworthy she was. She failed in an undignified attempt to get admission to George's gorgeous and wasteful coronation ceremonies. The mob hissed her, and, wearied with the struggle, she went home to die. A last wave of enthusiasm for her caused a bloody riot when her body was being conveyed through London on its way to its burial-place in Germany. On her coffin she had ordered to be written: "Here lies Caroline, the injured Queen of England." George was delighted at his wife's death, which he learnt when on his way to Dublin, "eating goose-pie, and drinking whisky so abundantly that when he arrived he was in the last stage of intoxication." He made in that state a mad speech in which he said "rank, station, and honours were nothing, but to feel that I live in the hearts of my Irish subjects is exalted happiness." He was wonderfully well received, and the port from which he sailed was called Kingstown in his honour. He was equally welcomed in Hanover, and next year was even more successful in a visit to Scotland, Sir Walter Scott taking a leading share in his reception. But his behaviour, "like a popular candidate on an electioneering trip," disgusted right-thinking men. He soon shut himself up in "the Cottage," or in his favourite Brighton Pavilion, a peevish, whimsical, prematurely old, thoroughly selfish recluse, with failing health, and few friends save his favourite Lady Conyngham and her greedy family, and his Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir William Knighton, of whom he was afraid. 1820-22. 66 3. "The Government," complained Lord Sidmouth, “is in a very strange and precarious state." "Never," says an State of Parties, enemy, was anything so low and wretched as the Treasury Bench. It can only go on from the determination there is not to take the Whigs." But many of the abler Tories were also outside the ministry, which represented only the reactionary elements of the party, such as Castlereagh (now Lord Londonderry, by his |