CLERICAL TORYISM

29

chairman, which had certainly been violent; and he described Lambton as playing with the torch of sedition and wantonly tossing it about amidst the combustible matter which surrounds him."1

In December 1819 the Government replied to its critics by the repressive legislation known as the Six Acts. A few weeks later the Prince Regent succeeded to the Crown as George IV, and proceeded at once to make a martyr of his unhappy consort, Queen Caroline-who at least was less guilty than himself-by attempting to procure from Parliament a dissolution of his marriage. The effect of this was to alienate a section of the Tories and to create a new bond of sympathy between the Radicals and the Whigs. On December 13, 1820, the nobles, gentry, clergy, and freeholders held another meeting at Durham and voted an address to the King, in which they complained that the just complaints of the people had been met with "repulsive harshness"; that "force and coercion " had been substituted for the ordinary law; and that the discontent produced by such a policy had been aggravated by the treatment of the Queen. Feeling that no mere "Declaration" would be sufficient to redeem them from "disgrace," the clergy had a meeting and an address of their own. What alarmed them was not the measures of a Prince ever watchful for the best and highest interests of his people,' but "the successful attempts of evil-minded men, by reviling and misrepresenting all those measures, to seduce the lower orders from their allegiance." Nor had “the evil spirit of the time" been confined to the populace. With feelings which they forbore to express, they had seen men of exalted rank and distinguished talents fostering and stimulating the discontents of the multitude"; and as Christian pastors they were determined to impress upon their flocks" the solemn duty of obedience

1 Letter to Freeholders, 1819, pp. 7, 9, 20, 31.

"

to Government." Lord Grey had taken part in the second Durham demonstration. At a subsequent meeting in Northumberland he commented on "the patience with which the people have borne their recent sufferings and the insults offered them by such meetings as that of the clergy of Durham"; and he referred to the latter as "these animals" and stigmatised their address as "most contemptible and abusive.” 1

The controversy which had been excited by the prosecution of the Queen was revived by her death in 1822. The event was announced in most places by the tolling of bells; but the cathedral and six churches of Durham were silent; and the omission of this tribute of respect was denounced in the local newspaper as conduct which renders the very name of our established clergy odious till it stinks in the nostrils." An ecclesiastical system so unworthy of its principles could not, it was said, long survive; and "the beetles who crawl about its holes and crevices were acting in a manner which must hasten its doom. The "animals " of Lord Grey's speech had left their vindication to the pen of Phillpotts; but the "beetles " of the Durham Chronicle invoked the protection of the law, and were so far successful that Williams, the proprietor of the paper, was indicted for libel at Durham under an order which had been procured by the bishop from the Court of King's Bench. Nominally they were again successful; for the jury, after deliberating for nearly six hours, returned a verdict of guilty, but a verdict of such a kind that it did not admit of sentence. Williams's counsel was Brougham, who had gained immense popularity by his defence of the Queen; and his speech on this occasion has been pronounced "by far the best he ever delivered at the bar or in Parliament." It was published by the convicted but triumphant journalist

1 Phillpotts's Letter to Earl Grey, 1821, pp. 12, 15, 23. Both addresses are prefixed to this pamphlet. Ibid.

CLERGY AND REPRESSION

31 in his account of the trial; and its effect was intensified by a furious assault on "Clerical Abuses" in the Edinburgh Review, to which Phillpotts and at least six other Churchmen replied.1

The partisan spirit shown by the clergy of Durham was no doubt exceptional; but we read elsewhere of clergymen throwing their weight as individuals into the Government scale; and the cumulative effect of their utterances must be borne in mind if we wish to understand the extreme unpopularity of the Church which developed after the Peace and culminated in 1832. One of the arguments for church-building adduced by a clergyman whose pamphlet was quoted with approval in Parliament was that it would check "daily increasing insubordination" and might thus forestall an "assault upon the enviable possessions of those now distinguished by wealth and power." 2 "2 Equally characteristic, though in better taste, was an assize sermon published in 1820 by William Otter, afterwards Bishop of Chichester. Otter was the friend of Malthus, and so moderate a High Churchman that he had defended the Bible Society against Marsh; but his sermon must have been unpleasant reading for the Radicals, whom he described as "a desperate indeed but a baffled and degraded faction,' and as "sunk irremediably in the public estimation by immoralities and enormities extrinsical to their general pursuits." Parliament in passing the Six Acts had, he believed, proceeded on the sound principle that "the constitutional privileges of the people are not consistent with their limited knowledge and virtue"; but many were blaming the Church for having contributed to the late disturbances by its zeal for education; and Otter

1 Edinburgh Review, xxxvii. 350-379; Campbell's Lyndhurst and Brougham, pp. 330-337. The "libel" is printed in Phillpotts's Letter to Francis Jeffrey, p. 30. To a barrister who encroached on his solitude the night before the trial, Brougham exclaimed in a hollow voice, Avaunt, depart! I am distilling venom for the Durham clergy.'" * Yates, The Basis of National Welfare.

had no difficulty in showing this to be a mistake. The National Society was quite alive to the necessity of excluding from the instruction of the poor "everything which may give them a taste for the occupations or a relish for the pleasures of the higher ranks"; and it was mainly with a view to introducing them to the Bible and the formularies of the Church that it undertook "to furnish them with the first rudiments of what is called the trivial literature of the country in which they live." In concluding his discourse the preacher was careful to explain that there were higher elements in Christian instruction than that which "teaches every man to be contented with his station "; but it was a signal instance of divine wisdom that "the revelation of the gospel harmonises with all that is lovely and valuable in the institutions of mankind, and that the best Christian is the most loyal subject." 1

Some years later, when Mechanics' Institutes were being formed, the British Critic 2 commended the design of this movement, but objected to its inclusion of debating societies and said that, if not wisely guided, it might foster "most mischievous ideas of grandeur and selfimportance." Dr. Birkbeck, in opening the London Institute, was said to have spoken with horror of "immortal man counterpoising a coal-basket." If so, he was deservedly ridiculed; but Brougham, who spoke on the

1 Reasons for Continuing the Education of the Poor at the Present Crisis, pp. 3-6, 34, 44. The same desire to exploit religion as a support for what the upper classes thought most lovely and valuable " in existing institutions is evident in the otherwise admirable Charge (p. 24) of Archdeacon Lyall, 1833: "If we can only bring our people to be really in earnest about the great business of their eternal salvation-can only imbue their minds with a deep conviction that this world is not their continuing city-accustom them to measure the good or ill that befalls them solely by a reference to their eternal happiness-all the wretched sophisms of revolutionary philosophy will at once vanish from their minds, like clouds before the sun."

2 Organ of the High Church party, founded by Jones and Stevens, and recently purchased, on account of some slackening of principle, by Watson and his friend Norris.

CLERGY AND SECULAR KNOWLEDGE 33 same occasion, had identified himself with the members, speaking of "our president," and even of " my fellow mechanics"; and "this idle and spurious condescension' was also objected to, because the workmen might “ think that they are raised or intended to be raised almost to the level of persons who move in the same sphere of life with Mr. Brougham." 1

The Church, having outridden the social and political storms which were the aftermath of war, was to enjoy a period of calm-welcome, but delusive; for, though Radicalism had been crushed and the return of prosperity had removed its chief stimulus, there were many indications that the intelligence of the people was outgrowing the constraints of oligarchical rule. This was admitted as early as 1820 by Peel, who asked a correspondent whether he did not agree with him that the tone of public opinion had become more liberal than the policy of the Government. In 1822 Lord John Russell stated in Parliament that the number of newspapers had doubled within the life of a generation, and that in fifty years the London circulating libraries had increased from four to a hundred, whilst throughout the country there were nine hundred such libraries and nearly two thousand book clubs. About 1824 literary and technical institutions were springing up " as if by magic." A year later the Useful Knowledge Society was founded; and its first series of cheap publications had an immediate sale of 10,000 copies. Most significant of all was the establishment in 1828 of the University of London, which confined itself to secular knowledge and thus deprived the clergy of their monopoly of academic education.2

Intellectual activity, when not pursued under a religious sanction, was viewed with jealousy, if not disfavour, by the Church; and the clerical battalions had no idea of falling into step with the pageant which

1 British Critic (1827), i. 179–183.

2 England in Transition, 1789-1832, pp. 184, 202, 205-207.

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