I have not often felt more heartily ashamed than when you left the committee at Haworth; but I did not like to speak on the subject then, and I trusted that you would make that allowance which you have perhaps often ere now had to do, for gothic ignorance and ill breeding; and one or two of the persons present, afterwards felt that they had left by no means an enviable impression on your mind.
Branwell was commissioned to draw up the inscription for the monument: ‘It is not such an one as would have best pleased myself,’ he told Leyland, ‘but I was compelled to frame it so as to please others; as to whose taste and judgement you will some time since have formed a tolerably correct opinion.’50
Leyland returned in July with the sculpted marble tablet which John Brown, under his watchful eye, then lettered. The inscription, which catalogued Andrew’s career, ended with a generous tribute: ‘This Tablet was erected by those who knew his worth, & who feel that, while in his death the neighbourhood has lost an honourable & upright man, the poor have lost an able adviser in their calamities, & a generous friend in their need.’51
As if the problems in the township were not already overwhelming Patrick had also to face an outright battle with the vicar of Bradford. In a further effort to enforce a church rate in Haworth, which the chapelry still refused to pay, the churchwardens of Bradford applied to the Court of Queen’s Bench for a writ against their fellow officers in Haworth. Fortunately, after a cliff-hanging adjournment, the judges at last decided that they could not issue the writ and the case was dropped.52 The first stage in an important battle of principle had been won.
The Reverend John Winterbotham’s moment of triumph was marred by the fact that his congregation could no longer afford to pay his salary. Like many of the poor in the township, he decided to emigrate to the more promising New World, tendered his resignation and accepted a post in a Baptist chapel in Upper Canada. As a grand finale, he orchestrated the opposition at his last church rate meeting in Bradford at the beginning of July and then, laden with gifts from grateful Dissenters in the area, he, his wife and five children and two other families from Haworth set sail for Canada on the appropriately named Nemesis.53 Though their relations had been more cordial of late, it must still have been a relief to Patrick to see the last of this belligerent and often unpleasant man who had done so much to stir up hostility to his church.
Branwell, in the meantime, had soon bounced back from the misery into which he had been cast by his dismissal from the Leeds and Manchester Railway. By the middle of May he was cheerful enough to write to J. B. Leyland enclosing a sketch of a half-buried tombstone bearing the legend ‘Resurgam’, ‘I will rise again’.54 A week later, on 22 May, he wrote along the same lines to Francis Grundy, exaggerating his situation as usual.
I cannot avoid the temptation to cheer my spirits by scribbling a few lines to you while I sit here alone – all the household being at church – the sole occupant of an ancient parsonage among lonely hills, which probably will never hear the whistle of an engine till I am in my grave.
After experiencing, since my return home, extreme pain and illness, with mental depression worse than either, I have at length acquired health and strength and soundness of mind, far superior, I trust, to anything shown by that miserable wreck you used to know under my name. I can now speak cheerfully and enjoy the company of another without the stimulus of six glasses of whisky; I can write, think, and act with some apparent approach to resolution, and I only want a motive for exertion to be happier than I have been for years. But I feel my recovery from almost insanity to be retarded by having nothing to listen to except the wind moaning among old chimneys and older ash trees, nothing to look at except heathery hills walked over when life had all to hope for and nothing to regret with me – no one to speak to except crabbed old Greeks and Romans who have been dust the last five thousand years.55
The letter was clearly intended to win Grundy’s sympathy, but it was far from the truth. Branwell may have been ill on his return home – from anxiety as to his father and aunt’s reaction as much as anything else – but he had been fully occupied since then. He had been deeply involved in the memorial committee and had seen Leyland and two of his friends only two days before he wrote this letter. Though his sisters were all away from home, he had not lacked company. Indeed, without them, he was in a position to enjoy the undivided attention of ‘one of my dearest friends’, William Weightman. His sister Anne, too, was due home shortly for her annual summer holiday before going on to Scarborough where she would spend six weeks at No. 15, The Cliff, with the Robinsons.56
An even more telling argument against Branwell’s supposed depression of spirits was the fact that, since his dismissal from Luddenden Foot, he had enjoyed his greatest ever literary success. Before a month had passed, he had seen his first poem published in the newly established Tory newspaper, the Bradford Herald. The poem was an entirely new one, a sonnet inspired by Landseer’s painting ‘The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner’, which he had written at Luddenden Foot. A week later he had a second sonnet, ‘On the Callousness produced by Cares’, published simultaneously in the Bradford Herald and the Halifax Guardian. This was a revision of a poem first written in 1837. On the same day it appeared in the Halifax Guardian, Branwell had another new poem published in yet another paper, the Leeds Intelligencer. ‘The Afghan War’, which Branwell seems to have written only twelve days before its publication, was on the entirely topical subject of the disastrous British retreat from Kabul a few months before.57 A week later again and another sonnet, ‘On Peaceful Death and Painful Life’, appeared in both the Bradford Herald and the Halifax Guardian. This was also originally written in 1837 but substantially revised and improved.58 The sheer volume of his material appearing in the local press throughout the month of May suggests that Branwell’s mood must have been more optimistic than his letter to Grundy suggests. He must also have been kept extremely busy, writing, revising and sending the poems off for publication.
Branwell kept up this extraordinary momentum throughout the year. ‘Caroline’s Prayer: on the change from childhood to womanhood’ appeared in the Bradford Herald and the Halifax Guardian at the beginning of June 1842; the same papers both published his ‘Song’ a week later, his ‘An Epicurean’s Song’ the next month and ‘On Caroline’ a week after that. All were revisions of earlier Angrian poems.59
Branwell was clearly contemplating a literary career once again. He appears to have sent some of these poems to James Montgomery, a poet based in Sheffield, whose works were widely published in the provincial papers. Branwell told Grundy that Montgomery
and another literary gentleman, who have lately seen some thing of my ‘head work’, wish me to turn some attention to literature, sending me, along with their advice, plenty of puff and praise; and this may be all very well; but I have little conceit of myself, and great desire for activity.60
In pursuit of greater ‘activity’, Branwell had sought Grundy’s advice about obtaining another post on the railways, which is surely an indication that he had actually enjoyed his job at Sowerby Bridge and Luddenden Foot. Grundy had answered discouragingly, causing Branwell to reply:
I should have been a fool to entertain, under present circumstances, any very sanguine hopes respecting situations connected with Railways; since I could not but be aware of the great glut in that market.
Branwell’s ambitions did not extend simply to gaining a similar post to his previous one. Evidently jealous of his sisters’ adventures in Belgium, he had decided that he too should enjoy the benefit of working on the Continent.
I had only
hoped that, from the few who are generally found willing to take them,/ and from so many Railways being contemplated, in France &c., situations abroad would be more attainable.
You ask me, Sir; why I don’t turn my attention in another direction? and so I would but that most of my relations, and more immediate connections, are Clergymen, or, by a private life, somewhat removed from this busy world – And,
as for the Church, I have not one mental quality – except perhaps hypocrisy – whi[c]h would make me
cut a figure in its pulpits.61
His enquiries through Grundy having failed, and nothing else suitable appearing on the horizon, Branwell applied himself to his poetry with renewed zeal. Not all his output was simply reworkings of earlier poems. In the summer of 1842, he responded to a challenge from William Dearden:
Bronté and I agreed that each should write a drama or a poem, the principal character in which was to have a real or imaginary existence before the Deluge; and that, in a month’s time, we should meet at the Cross Roads Inn, which is about half-way between Keighley and Haworth, and produce the result of our lucubrations.62
Dearden produced his ‘Demon Queen’, Branwell a long poem in several parts entitled ‘Azrael, or the Eve of Destruction’. Dearden, who was not a totally partial critic, believed that if the poem had been published, as Branwell intended, it would ‘fully bear out my opinion, and prove to the world that Branwell was not inferior in genius and power to the gifted Currer Bell’.63 Though the claim was exaggerated, the poem was one of Branwell’s best, a dramatic depiction of the confrontation over Methuselah’s grave between Noah, the patriarch prophesying God’s anger and the flood, and Azrael, the Jewish and Islamic angel of death, who denies God’s existence and urges defiance. ‘I know’, Azrael tells the crowds,
That Human life revolts to think
It ever stands on nothing’s brink,
That Human pride recoils to see
The Heap of dust tis doomed to be! – …
So when the shadow of TO COME
Surrounds the Heart with boding gloom
Nature abhorrs to look at naught
And frames for ease a world of thought. –
So – when the Sickman lies to die
He gasps for Hope in Agony
And as the Earth yeilds none to save
He makes a Hope beyond the grave! –
Thus Heaven is but an
Tis Man makes God – not God makes him! –
Azrael’s eventual overthrow is presaged in his dying wife’s dream in which she sees God on his eternal throne and is called to die before the flood, ‘The last on earth who may to heaven attain!’64
Though not all the poem was published – and indeed only the first part may have been written – Branwell rewrote the first forty-eight lines and submitted them as ‘Noah’s Warning over Methuselah’s Grave. (From an unpublished poem)’ to the Bradford Herald, where they appeared on 25 August.65 Twelve days later, Branwell wrote modestly and diplomatically to Blackwood’s Magazine, offering them his latest revision of ‘Sir Henry Tunstall’. The letter is a model of its kind and eloquently reveals how Branwell’s earlier arrogance had been crushed out of him by his repeated failure to achieve a hearing.
Sir,
I beg most respectfully to offer the accompanying lines, for insertion in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine.
They endeavour – feebly enough, I fear – to describe the harsh contrast between a mind, changed by long absence from home, and the feelings still alive in those who have never wandered; and who
The kind advice and encouragement of Mrs Southey has alone emboldened me to make this offering, and, if you should cast a favourable eye upon it, I shall remain with more of thankfulness than vanity,
Your most obdt Servt,
Patrick. B. Brontë66
The lessons learnt from his circle of Halifax friends had also made their mark. Branwell had drafted the letter first before making a fair copy of it to send to the editor; consequently it was neatly written and to the point unlike his previous efforts. The fact that Branwell had sent the lines to Robert Southey’s wife, Caroline Bowles, a poet in her own right, was again an indication of his yearning for approval and his desperation to achieve some sort of opening into the larger world of publishing beyond the provincial press. Despite his newly acquired maturity and the quality of his lines – better than many of the outpourings of more famous authors appearing in Blackwood’s Magazine at the time – Branwell failed once more to win a response.
Another poem, begun at Luddenden Foot and revised this autumn, was Branwell’s epic ‘The Triumph of mind over body’, a redrafting of his poem on Lord Nelson.67 Undoubtedly this, too, was intended for publication. It was written up in a fair copy and sent to Francis Grundy – not because he had any literary skills but because he had connections, through his father, with the Martineau family. James Martineau, a Unitarian minister in Liverpool and professor of mental and moral philosophy at Manchester New College since 1840, had been a colleague of Grundy’s father and had taught Grundy himself for a year or two. His sister, Harriet Martineau, whom Grundy had also met, was even more famous as the author of novels and works on political economy. They were not the only eminent literary figures to whom the work was sent: through Grundy, Branwell also approached Leigh Hunt, the essayist and poet who was also editor of The Examiner. According to Grundy, it was at Branwell’s ‘special request’ that he submitted it for criticism to Leigh Hunt, Miss Martineau ‘and others’; All spoke in high terms of it.’68 Of James Martineau’s response, Branwell himself indicated that he intended to write ‘gratefully and sincerely acknowledging the receipt of his most kindly and truthful criticism – at least in advice, though too generous far in praise’.69
While Branwell made an all-out assault on the bastions of contemporary English literature, events in Haworth were moving towards a crisis. In August, the pent-up despair of the famished and fever-stricken unemployed erupted in violence. Led by Chartist activists, thousands of factory workers took up makeshift arms and marched on the northern industrial towns. There they stopped the mills by persuasion or, if necessary, by coercion. There were riots, with violent consequences, in Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford, Todmorden, Bingley, Skipton and Keighley and, on 14 August, it was estimated that 10,000 Chartists were gathered on Lees Moor, within sight and sound of Haworth.70 They were joined by malcontents from Haworth, though Patrick, who had lived through the Luddite riots thirty years before, undoubtedly urged on them the futility of doing so. The military were called out to arrest and, in some instances, shoot the rioters. Some order had been restored by 19 August, when most of the Keighley mills were working again, but there was a scare the following Sunday morning. It appeared that the Chartists were starting to assemble again on Lees Moor and parts of the moor were observed to be on fire. Fearing another attack, the bells of Keighley Parish Church were rung to raise the alarm. A party of the 17th Lancers who were stationed in the town and a troop of Yorkshire Hussars, headed by William Busfeild Ferrand, ‘the Hero of Harden Grange’, as he was dubbed by the local press, set out to encounter them, aided by 300 civilians who were hurriedly gathered from the places of religious worship and armed with staves. By the time the forces had reached Lees Moor, the rioters had dispersed and only a party of Ranters was discovered. Though the outcome had been peaceful there had been genuine cause for alarm in both Keighley and Haworth, where a repetition of events of the previous week had been feared.71
A couple of weeks later there was another serious alarm as disgruntled mill workers sabotaged their employers’ machinery by removing the plugs from the boilers which powered the looms. The magistrates came to the Black Bull in Haworth to swear in special constables to form an ‘Anti-Plug Dragoon Regiment’. Most of the more substantial householders were sworn in, together with servants from the larger establishments. One of them, the son of a manufacturer, reported seeing a light in Matty Wood one evening, the alarm was given and between forty and fifty of the ‘regiment’ assembled. The ‘Plug-Dragoons’ were captured and brought back to the Black Bull, where it was discovered that the prisoners were a fisherman, an idiot and a party of children ‘engaged in the patriotic exploit of storming a wasp’s nest’. Edgy and primed to respond to the serious threat of riot, the Hawort
h special constables had overreacted. One can well imagine that Branwell was one of the volunteer constables; in after years, the landlord of the Black Bull remembered how Branwell had offered to go in during a mill riot and thrash a dozen fellows ‘any one of whom could have put him in his pocket and carried him off at a minute’s notice’.72 Patrick, though too old for such active duty, was no doubt grateful for the pistols he had preserved since the days of the Luddite riots. Certainly, writing to thank John White of Upperwood House for his kind enquiries as to his daughters’ progress in Brussels, Patrick was grateful that the Conservatives were now in government and had the situation under control.
In regard to politics, it must now appear to all rational and unprejudiced men, that, had the poor, unprincipled, temporizing Whigs, remain’d much longer in power, we should have been utterly ruined, as a nation, in respect, to both the worlds –
While the district was caught up in the alarms and dangers of Chartist rioters, Patrick suffered a personal blow which affected him far more deeply than the current political strife. William Weightman, his curate for the last three years, fell ill with cholera, the scourge of the poor, while out visiting the sick. The disease was invariably fatal and despite the best medical and nursing attentions available, there was little anyone could do to relieve his acute sufferings. He seems to have been taken ill during the third week in August and, as he lingered painfully over the next two weeks, he was visited regularly by a distraught Branwell and a more stoical Patrick. ‘During his illness’, Patrick later reported,
