His most onerous work as patron was that concerned with ecclesiastical appointments. The Church of England was entering upon one of the most strenuous and turmoiled phases of its history. Like other traditional English institutions, it had woken from the placid summer afternoon slumber of the eighteenth century to find itself in a strange and disturbing world. The rise of liberalism, political and intellectual, appeared to be threatening its very existence: on every side the air re-echoed with the menacing cries of atheist radicals, now demanding its disestablishment, now questioning the very foundations of the Christian faith. However, the Church herself was susceptible to the spirit of the new age; romantic mysticism and the moral earnestness of the nineteenth century middle class flowed together into her veins to reinvigorate her with a fresh vitality; and she energetically rallied all her forces to resist her enemies. Unluckily, these forces could not agree as to how best this was to be done. There was the Liberal school who wanted to bring religion up to date; to strip its creed of what it considered its Medieval anachronisms and re-edit it on progressive “rational” lines. The new High Church party, the Puseyites of Oxford, on the contrary, were out to make the Church much more Medieval; surely she was strongest when she was mysterious and supernatural and authoritarian, as she had been in the great Age of Faith! Meanwhile, the Evangelical party, longer established than its rivals, stuck to its old prescription of philanthropy, puritan morals, and strict adherence to the literal words of the Scripture. All three parties regarded each other with righteous abhorrence. When an important position in the Church fell vacant, each loudly clamoured for it to be given to a candidate of its own persuasion. The unfortunate Prime Minister, in whose gift lay most important church appointments, had to decide between the claims of these vociferous and intolerant clerics.
Melbourne cut an odd figure in such a role. In one sense, he was better equipped for it than many statesmen; for theology had always been a hobby of his. But this very fact brought out in sharper relief how unlike his attitude to the subject was to that of the people with whom he was dealing. What were Dr. Pusey and the rest of them to think of a man who treated the most awful and momentous preoccupations of the human soul as matter for a hobby—and a whimsical hobby at that? These stiff, grave, conscience-ridden divines were disconcerted indeed to find themselves being tackled as to their views on the Virgin Birth or the Apostolic Succession in the cheerful man-of-the-world accents of a dinner party at Holland House. In 1840, for instance, we find Melbourne interviewing Dr. Thirlwall, a candidate for a bishopric, who had rendered himself a little suspect at Cambridge because he had translated from the German a doubtfully orthodox book on St. Luke’s Gospel. Dr. Thirlwall found Melbourne in bed surrounded by heaps of patristic folios. “Very glad to see you,” said Melbourne. “Sit down, sit down; hope you are come to say you accept. I only wish you to understand that I don’t intend if I know it to make a heterodox bishop. I don’t like heterodox bishops. As men they may be very good anywhere else, but I think they have no business on the Bench. I take great interest in theological questions, and I have read a good deal of those old fellows”—pointing to the folio editions of the Fathers—“They are excellent reading and very amusing; sometime or other we must have a talk about them. I sent your edition of Schleiermacher to Lambeth, and asked the Primate to tell me candidly what he thought of it; and look, here are his notes in the margin; pretty copious, you see. He does not concur in all your opinions; but he says there is nothing heterodox in your book.”
Dr. Thirlwall was a liberal theologian. Melbourne tended to favour these most. The evangelicals, he thought, were a set of bigoted, uneducated spoil-sports; and as often as not, hypocrites as well. “One good thing,” he writes to John Russell after reading Wilberforce’s life, “is that it shows the great philanthropist Thomas Clarkson to be a sad fellow.” The Puseyites were less objectionable—there was an agreeable odour of antique learning about them—but their mode of thought was so remote from his as to be unintelligible. “I hardly make out what Puseyism is,” he told Lord Holland. “Either I am dull or its apostles are very obscure. I have got one of their chief Newman’s publications with an appendix of four hundred and forty-four pages. I have read fifty-seven and cannot say I understand a sentence, or any idea whatever.” Melbourne certainly had survived into an age remote from that of his youth. It is comically incongruous to think of him in his armchair at South Street, puzzling over the sublime hair-splittings of Newman.
He found the thoughts of the liberal theologians easier to follow. Learned, sensible persons of a kind he expected to meet in academic circles, they were at least commendably open-minded about the mysterious subjects of their cogitations. He was also disposed in their favour by the fact that they were generally on the Whig side politically. This was a fact that the Prime Minister had to consider: the Government’s position was so precarious, and bishops had votes in the House of Lords. Indeed, in these days, most important Church appointments carried political implications with them. The realistic Melbourne was the last man to forget this. “I feel myself bound to recommend for promotion clergymen whose general views on political matters coincide with my own,” he told the Archbishop of Canterbury firmly. He added, however, that he did not want to advance any man whose views were heterodox, or who, for whatever reason, was unpopular with the main body of the clergy. Peace and quiet, as always, were the things he cared most about; and any sympathy he might personally feel with a man or with his opinions was kept strictly in check by his overriding determination to avoid a fuss. For this reason, he refused to make either Sidney Smith or Dr. Arnold a bishop. In delightful Sidney’s case, this was with regret and a certain feeling of guilt. “We shall not be forgiven for not having made Sidney Smith a bishop,” he exclaimed in his old age. No such qualms troubled him about Arnold. Humourless, busy and progressive, Arnold represented those aspects of the new age which Melbourne found most uncongenial. Besides, Arnold’s manner of preaching struck him as unpleasantly vehement, and he thought that he had very crotchety ideas about education. Alas, all Melbourne’s care did not save him from sometimes causing a storm by his ecclesiastical appointments. “I have always had much sympathy with Saul,” he once remarked. “He was bullied by the prophets just as I have been by the bishops who would, if they could, have tied me to the horns of the altar and slain me incontinently.”11 Such being his experience, it is not odd that he flinched at the prospect of adding to their number. “Damn it! Another bishop dead!” he would sigh, “I believe they die to vex me.”
In point of fact, the biggest row he got into over a matter of this kind was not concerned with a bishopric. In 1836, the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford fell vacant. After much consideration, Melbourne offered it to Dr. Hampden, a man eminent for his learning, and a Whig. Unluckily, he had also acquired distinction by delivering a course of lectures in which he had betrayed himself as a little dubious about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. In consequence, his appointment roused a storm of protest. William IV, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Pusey himself, all wrote agitatedly remonstrating with Melbourne; and some pious peers made angry speeches on the matter in the House of Lords. Dr. Hampden, whose temperament seems to have been less bold than his theological speculations, offered nervously to retire from the field. Melbourne, however, was not the man to let himself be bullied once he had made up his mind. Besides, he was determined to do nothing which looked like a surrender to the spirit of intolerance. Genially he soothed Dr. Hampden’s anxieties. “Be easy,” he said laying a hand on his arm. “I like an easy man.” Himself, he used his usual pacifying tactics with King and Archbishop and wrote a letter to Dr. Pusey suavely putting him in his place. “I entirely concur with you in the necessity of agreement,” he said, “if it can be created consistently with other more important objects, upon the greater points between those who fill the theological chairs in the same university. It is hardly necessary to go to Germany to learn so plain and so obvious a
truth; and the theological colloquy and religious belief which prevails in the universities of that country is, if it be such as it is popularly represented, no very favourable testimony to the results of those institutions and to the manner in which they are conducted. Uniformity of opinion, however desirable, may be purchased at too high a price. We must not sacrifice everything to it; soundness of opinion, reasonableness of opinion, extent of knowledge, powers, intellectual and physical, must also be taken into account . . . I do not myself dread bold enquiry and speculation. I have seen too many new theories spring up and die away to feel much alarm upon such a subject. If they are founded on truth, they establish themselves and become part of the established belief. If they are erroneous, they decay and perish . . . I return you my thanks for calling my attention to the general state of religious feeling in the country, and to the deep interest which is taken in religious questions and ecclesiastical appointments. Be assured that I am neither unaware of its extent nor of its fervour, and that I have not been a careless observer of its progress. I doubt not that it is working for good, but the best and most holy aspirations are liable to be affected by the weakness of our nature and to be corrupted by our spirit of ill will, hatred and malice, of intolerance and persecution, which in its own warmth and sincerity it is apt to engender; a spirit to which, in whatever form or place it may show itself, I have a decided antipathy, and will oppose at all hazards all the resistance in my power.”
The House of Lords had less claim to be treated respectfully in these matters. Melbourne made this clear in a speech. “Very few of your Lordships,” he said bluntly, “have the means of forming any sound opinion on such extremely difficult and abstruse points as these . . . I know very little of the subject and yet I believe I know more than those who have opposed the Doctor’s nomination.”
Melbourne’s dealings with ecclesiastical affairs were not confined to the question of patronage. The spirit of reform was out to make itself felt in every established institution. A great many of these institutions were connected in some way or other with the National Church. Accordingly, during the period of Melbourne’s Government, progressive reformers were always coming forward with schemes that affected it; schemes for reforming tithe and church-rate and the constitution of cathedral churches; for legalizing civil marriage and abolishing religious tests at universities. In order to please his colleagues, Melbourne reluctantly agreed to support some of these projects. But he disliked them all. He was a liberal only in matters of thought: so far as practical Church reforms were concerned, he was as conservative as Dr. Pusey himself. He was against schemes for equalizing clerical incomes; “I am all for inequality and rich clergy,” he remarked gaily to a committee of the House of Lords. And how could anyone be so sure of anything, he would wonder, as to have conscientious scruples against being married in church, as their fathers and grandfathers had been before them? The same conservatism appeared in his dealings with the Church of Scotland. In 1835, it was proposed that the Government grant to the Scottish Church should be increased. Scottish divines were divided as to whether this would be a good thing. Some held that the cause of religion required financial support: others, that to accept State aid of any kind, was sinful and erastian. After listening to their arguments, Melbourne made, his comment in a letter to the celebrated Dr. Chalmers. “The one party looks to nothing less than a general change in the state of human nature and human society by means of increased pastoral exertion; and the other is dreaming upon the pure and prosperous state of the Christian Church in the first centuries, and the evil and degradation which it has incurred ever since the unfortunate conversion of the Emperor Constantine. You will excuse the plainness of my phrase, but to persons so influenced by heat and enthusiasm, to use no stronger terms, it is vain to expect that any arrangement can be satisfactory.” He was opposed, he concluded, to any alteration in the financial arrangements of the Church of Scotland.
So far as established Churches were concerned, Melbourne’s method did not work badly. Established institutions need, first of all, to be kept running smoothly. Melbourne’s spirit of civilized moderation helped him to do this. It was not so appropriate when he came into contact with independent and extreme religious bodies. One day a deputation of Dissenters came to see him. “Now, sir,” he said after listening to one of them, “you talk like a man of sense. It’s these damned Anabaptists who do all the mischief.” Another member of the deputation felt impelled to testify to his faith. “I am an Anabaptist,” he announced gravely. “The devil you are!” replied Melbourne, laughing and rubbing his hands, “well you’ve all done a great deal of mischief—and I should like to hear whether you are wiser than the rest!”
Towards the Church of Rome his manner was more respectful. No doubt it was superstitious and tyrannical, and Melbourne was extremely glad that England was not under its sway. Moreover, he did not like Roman ritual which struck his gentlemanly and English eye as too theatrical to be consistent with a true spirit of devotion. But the Church of Rome was an ancient and venerable institution that appealed to his historic sense and with which he thought it wise the English Government should be on good terms. Melbourne thought that the Whigs had always underrated the importance of the Church of Rome as a factor influence in public opinion. He regretted that Protestant bigotry made it impossible for him to send an ambassador to the Vatican. As it was, he made efforts to get into good unofficial relations there. These were not very successful as far as practical results were concerned. His tone was not quite right. “The present Pope was very rude to me,” Melbourne complained on one occasion. “I wrote to him asking him to give a Cardinal’s Hat to an Irish bishop who had been of great use to us on the management of the country. But he took no notice of my request.” It would have been odd if he had. The Vicar of Christ should not be addressed as if he was a political colleague to be breezily cajoled into doing a job for a harassed Prime Minister.
Indeed, Melbourne’s attitude to religion in its corporate manifestations was incorrigibly secular. Not in its personal ones though; here he remained paradoxically ambiguous as ever. He could not be called a believer. Yet he felt himself instinctively opposed to all professional unbelievers. He took a mischievous pleasure, when he found himself staying at Holland House with the atheistic Bentham, in beguiling him into attending Divine service at the local church. This was partly due, no doubt, to a dislike for dogmatic prigs of any kind. But not altogether: Melbourne had a positive feeling for religion that no amount of intellectual scepticism could dispel. He might have been expected to sympathize with Henry IV of France for becoming a Roman Catholic in order to keep his country at peace. On the contrary; “I would have died rather than do it!” he exclaimed to Queen Victoria; and he was seriously concerned lest the dying William IV should not see a clergyman. Moreover, Melbourne’s interest in theology, apparently so whimsical, was connected with the deepest movements of his nature. Amid all the distractions of office, his perplexed spirit continued to brood intermittently over the riddle of man’s relation to the universe. One day Haydon called to find him reading the Greek Testament. “Is not the world,” Haydon asked him, “evidence of a perpetual struggle to remedy a defect?” “Certainly!” mused Melbourne. “If as Milton says,” went on Haydon, “we were sufficient to have stood, why then did we fall?” At these words, Melbourne suddenly sat bolt upright. “Ah! That is touching on all our apprehensions,” he exclaimed.
This remark betrays a troubled spirit. Indeed, these were not happy years for Melbourne. His forebodings before becoming Prime Minister had proved justified. For all his growing reputation, for all that he was succeeding better than anyone had expected in staving off his Government’s defeat, he was usually harassed and often depressed. After all, though his policy might be the wisest in the circumstances, it was not a glorious one. It is not satisfying to be continually compromising and conceding, especially when the best that can be hoped from them is to put off the inevitable coming of some more or
less evil day. Even on a short view, their success was precarious: any violent turn of events and the whole careful structure of his diplomatic skill would fall to pieces. Besides, to maintain it was wearing. It meant being constantly watchful, and tactful, and patient and good-tempered. Against considerable temptations to the contrary, too: so many people made themselves a nuisance to him so often. “Damn it! Why can’t they be quiet?” he would sigh to himself. As always, the King was the greatest trial. Soured by his failure to keep the Whigs out, William IV’s temper had become more uncertain than ever. During the first months of the new Government, he refused to speak to his Ministers at all, except on business. “I would rather have the devil than a Whig in the house,” he exclaimed, and sat sulking evening after evening, alone with a bottle of sherry. John Russell and Lord Glenelg, the Colonial Secretary, were his particular aversions. He insulted Glenelg so often and so publicly that Melbourne had to remonstrate with him. With good effect; indeed, Melbourne was admirable in dealing with the King who, under the influence of his mingled tact and firmness, did begin to grow friendlier. But his good humour did not last long. By the following summer, he was once more violently hostile—“Crazier than ever!” said Melbourne gloomily. Every week, he received some long, rambling, grumbling complaint from the Palace; about the Navy, or the Militia or the shocking behaviour of the Duchess of Kent—of whom, as the mother of the heir to the throne, William IV was furiously suspicious.
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