Sybil, Or, The Two Nations
Page 46
Book 4 Chapter 14.
Two and even three days had rolled over since Mr Tadpole had reportedSir Robert on his way to the palace, and marvellously little hadtranspired. It was of course known that a cabinet was in formation, andthe daily papers reported to the public the diurnal visits of certainnoble lords and right honourable gentlemen to the new first minister.But the world of high politics had suddenly become so cautious thatnothing leaked out. Even gossip was at fault. Lord Marney had notreceived the Buckhounds, though he never quitted his house for ride orlounge without leaving precise instructions with Captain Grouse as tothe identical time he should return home, so that his acceptanceshould not be delayed. Ireland was not yet governed by the Duke ofFitz-Aquitaine, and the Earl de Mowbray was still ungartered. Thesethree distinguished noblemen were all of them anxious--a littlefidgetty; but at the same time it was not even whispered that LordRambrooke or any other lord had received the post which Lord Marneyhad appropriated to himself; nor had Lord Killcroppy had a suspiciousinterview with the prime minister, which kept the Duke of Fitz-Aquitainequiet though not easy; while not a shadow of coming events had glancedover the vacant stall of Lord Ribbonville in St George's Chapel, andthis made Lord de Mowbray tranquil, though scarcely content. In themeantime, daily and hourly they all pumped Mr Tadpole, who did notfind it difficult to keep up his reputation for discretion for knowingnothing, and beginning himself to be perplexed at the protractedsilence, he took refuge in oracular mystery, and delivered himself ofcertain Delphic sentences which adroitly satisfied those who consultedhim while they never committed himself.
At length one morning there was an odd whisper in the circle of firstinitiation. The blood mantled on the cheek of Lady St Julians; LadyDeloraine turned pale. Lady Firebrace wrote confidential notes with thesame pen to Mr Tadpole and Lord Masque. Lord Marney called early in themorning on the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, and already found Lord de Mowbraythere. The clubs were crowded even at noon. Everywhere a mysteriousbustle and an awful stir.
What could be the matter? What has happened?
"It is true," said Mr Egerton to Mr Berners at Brookes'.
"Is it true?" asked Mr Jermyn of Lord Valentine at the Canton.
"I heard it last night at Crockford's," said Mr Ormsby; "one alwayshears things there four-and-twenty hours before other places."
The world was employed the whole of the morning in asking and answeringthis important question "Is it true?" Towards dinner time, it wassettled universally in the affirmative, and then the world went out todine and to ascertain why it was true and how it was true.
And now what really had happened? What had happened was what is commonlycalled a "hitch." There was undoubtedly a hitch somewhere and somehow; ahitch in the construction of the new cabinet. Who could have thought it?The whig ministers it seems had resigned, but somehow or other had notentirely and completely gone out. What a constitutional dilemma?The Houses must evidently meet, address the throne, and impeach itsobstinate counsellors. Clearly the right course, and party feeling ranso high, that it was not impossible that something might be done. At anyrate, it was a capital opportunity for the House of Lords to pluck upa little courage and take what is called, in high political jargon, theinitiative. Lord Marney at the suggestion of Mr Tadpole was quite readyto do this; and so was the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, and almost the Earlde Mowbray.
But then when all seemed ripe and ready, and there appeared aprobability of the "Independence of the House of Lords" being again thefavourite toast of conservative dinners, the oddest rumour in the worldgot about, which threw such a ridicule on these great constitutionalmovements in petto, that even with the Buckhounds in the distance andTadpole at his elbow, Lord Marney hesitated. It seemed, though of courseno one could for a moment credit it, that these wrong-headed, rebelliousministers who would not go out, wore--petticoats!
And the great Jamaica debate that had been cooked so long, andthe anxiously expected, yet almost despaired of, defection of theindependent radical section, and the full-dressed visit to the palacethat had gladdened the heart of Tadpole--were they all to end in this?Was Conservatism, that mighty mystery of the nineteenth century--was itafter all to be brained by a fan!
Since the farce of the "Invincibles" nothing had ever been soludicrously successful.
Lady Deloraine consoled herself for the "Bedchamber Plot" by declaringthat Lady St Julians was indirectly the cause of it, and that had itnot been for the anticipation of her official entrance into the royalapartments the conspiracy would not have been more real than theMeal-tub plot or any other of the many imaginary machinations that stillhaunt the page of history, and occasionally flit about the prejudicedmemory of nations. Lady St Julians on the contrary wrung her hands overthe unhappy fate of her enthralled sovereign, deprived of her faithfulpresence and obliged to put up with the society of personages of whomshe knew nothing and who called themselves the friends of her youth.The ministers who had missed, especially those who had received theirappointments, looked as all men do when they are jilted--embarrassedand affecting an awkward ease; as if they knew something which, if theytold, would free them from the supreme ridicule of their situation, butwhich, as men of delicacy and honour, they refrained from revealing.All those who had been in fluttering hopes, however faint, of receivingpreferment, took courage now that the occasion had passed, and loudlycomplained of their cruel and undeniable deprivation. The constitutionwas wounded in their persons. Some fifty gentlemen who had not beenappointed under secretaries of state, moaned over the martyrdom of youngambition.
"Peel ought to have taken office," said Lord Marney. "What are the womento us?"
"Peel ought to have taken office," said the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine. "Heshould have remembered how much he owed to Ireland."
"Peel ought to have taken office," said Lord de Mowbray. "The garterwill become now a mere party badge."
Perhaps it may be allowed to the impartial pen that traces thesememoirs of our times to agree, though for a different reason, with thesedistinguished followers of Sir Robert Peel. One may be permitted tothink that, under all circumstances, he should have taken office in1839. His withdrawal seems to have been a mistake. In the great heatof parliamentary faction which had prevailed since 1831, the royalprerogative, which, unfortunately for the rights and libertiesand social welfare of the people, had since 1688 been more or lessoppressed, had waned fainter and fainter. A youthful princess on thethrone, whose appearance touched the imagination, and to whom herpeople were generally inclined to ascribe something of that decisionof character which becomes those born to command, offered a favourableopportunity to restore the exercise of that regal authority, theusurpation of whose functions has entailed on the people of England somuch suffering and so much degradation. It was unfortunate that onewho, if any, should have occupied the proud and national position of theleader of the tory party, the chief of the people and the champion ofthe throne, should have commenced his career as minister under Victoriaby an unseemly contrariety to the personal wishes of the Queen. Thereaction of public opinion, disgusted with years of parliamentary tumultand the incoherence of party legislation, the balanced state in thekingdom of political parties themselves, the personal character of thesovereign--these were all causes which intimated that a movement infavour of prerogative was at hand. The leader of the tory party shouldhave vindicated his natural position, and availed himself of thegracious occasion: he missed it; and as the occasion was inevitable, thewhigs enjoyed its occurrence. And thus England witnessed for the firsttime the portentous anomaly of the oligarchical or Venetian party, whichhad in the old days destroyed the free monarchy of England, retainingpower merely by the favour of the Court.
But we forget, Sir Robert Peel is not the leader of the Tory party: theparty that resisted the ruinous mystification that metamorphosed directtaxation by the Crown into indirect taxation by the Commons; thatdenounced the system that mortgaged industry to protect property; theparty that ruled Ireland by a scheme which reconciled both churc
hes, andby a series of parliaments which counted among them lords and commonsof both religions; that has maintained at all times the territorialconstitution of England as the only basis and security for localgovernment, and which nevertheless once laid on the table of the Houseof Commons a commercial tariff negociated at Utrecht, which is the mostrational that was ever devised by statesmen; a party that has preventedthe Church from being the salaried agent of the state, and has supportedthrough many struggles the parochial polity of the country which securesto every labourer a home.
In a parliamentary sense, that great party has ceased to exist; but Iwill believe it still lives in the thought and sentiment and consecratedmemory of the English nation. It has its origin in great principles andin noble instincts; it sympathises with the lowly, it looks up to theMost High; it can count its heroes and its martyrs; they have met in itsbehalf plunder, proscription, and death. Nor when it finally yieldedto the iron progress of oligarchical supremacy, was its catastropheinglorious. Its genius was vindicated in golden sentences and withfervent arguments of impassioned logic by St John; and breathed in theintrepid eloquence and patriot soul of William Wyndham. Even now itis not dead, but sleepeth; and in an age of political materialism,of confused purposes and perplexed intelligence, that aspires only towealth because it has faith in no other accomplishment, as men riflecargoes on the verge of shipwreck, Toryism will yet rise from the tombover which Bolingbroke shed his last tear, to bring back strength to theCrown, liberty to the Subject, and to announce that power has only oneduty--to secure the social welfare of the PEOPLE.