by Edward Cline
The ending toast was not sedate. It was radical, and risky. “Long live Lady Liberty” was not the same as “Long live the king” or “Long live His Majesty.” The average magistrate, or high court justice, or army officer, had he overheard the toast unaccompanied by a toast to the king, would have instantly concluded that here was a conspiracy to overthrow the government and evict the throne. A toast that consciously omitted esteem for the sovereign was a toast uttered by men who did not esteem him, by men moved by another, insubordinate allegiance. To not wish the sovereign well, even as an afterthought or by rote, was to wish him ill. To neglect wishing liberty and the king well in the same breath was to sire a schism.
To the vessels of the “nomic” wisdom of the time, such a schism was imaginable only in terms of chaos, anarchy, civil war, unchecked rioting, universal destruction, and the reign of Satan. All good things, even liberty, emanated from the sovereign, with Parliament serving as a grand ombudsman. The sovereign was the lynchpin of existence, balancing church and state in both his hands; remove him, and society would crumble. The fate of the Commonwealth in the last century had proven that; was not Oliver Cromwell merely a king without a crown? The average Englishman, regardless of the power of his mind, could no more imagine a polity without a sovereign than he could a world without a God. A sovereign—whether he was elected, an heir, or a conqueror—was both a metaphysical and psychological necessity to him, the head of the body politic that ensured order and tranquility, even though, more often than not, the literal head was a criminal, wastrel, or functioning idiot. A sovereign was the keystone of society, an icon bathed in an aurora of sanctity and near-divinity, unapproachable except by his leave, even though he might be a dullard who despised Englishmen, as George II at this time was. The king could do no wrong; he was above judgment and prosecution, and so were his emissaries and any institution officially connected with his name. Parliament could do wrong, but was immune from criticism and accountability by all but its members for its multitude of wrongs. Virtually the only redress acknowledged by Parliament was a riot.
It was only the non-royal, non-elected, unenfranchised, unconnected, non-patronage-seeking Englishman who could do wrong and be punished, and there was an abundance of opportunity for him in this respect; the more than one hundred and fifty hanging offences and the swelling number of regulatory, commercial, and tax laws were designed with him in mind, not the sovereign or Parliament. For all that, however, his battle cry, his slogan, his chant, when he took to the streets in riot or immersed himself in a campaign against a new tax or law, remained “Life, Liberty, and Property.”
The omission of a toast to the king, therefore, was not lost on Hugh. Up until then, though he was fascinated with the Society’s members, except for Glorious Swain, he could not say whether or not he liked any of the men. But that omission, the ritual of words that were not said, was more impressive, and carried more weight, than anything else the men had said that evening. He felt a profound admiration for them. They could live for their own purposes, their own reasons, their own ends, without their heads needing to be anointed by the oily fingers of royalty. He shook hands with these men, and watched them leave the room, one by one, his eyes wide with happy esteem for them.
Hugh shook Swain’s hand last. They were alone in the room. “You dared me to mention Hyperborea,” said Hugh.
“It was a test,” acknowledged Swain.
“Have they all read it?”
“Yes. Though not all own a copy, and not all prize it to the same degree.”
Hugh sat down in a chair and gazed into the fireplace, lost in thought. The sounds of the tavern were as loud as ever, though still far in the background of his consciousness. He said, “I would say that your ritual—the aliases, the initiation, the secrecy, and all that—is an exercise in vanity, busy silliness meant to fabricate for yourselves some measure of importance, but I know that they are all men of strong convictions.”
Swain found an extra glass and poured himself another draught of port, then sat down near Hugh. “The dangers are real enough, Mr. Kenrick. Men who risk such dangers are, I believe, entitled to some ritual, silly or no.”
“Yes. I realize that now.” Hugh looked at the pensive countenance of his friend. “Please don’t take offence at what I am about to tell you.”
Swain frowned. “I can’t take offence at what I have not heard.”
“Soon after we met, I wrote my father and asked him if our family owned shares in the Royal African Company, or the South Sea Company.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because I had learned some time ago that these enterprises are intimately engaged in the slave trade.” Hugh paused. “I did not want our friendship to accommodate or overlook a wrong.”
Swain let a moment pass before he asked, “And what was your father’s answer?”
Hugh shook his head. “The family does not own such shares.”
“And now your conscience is eased?”
Hugh looked perplexed. “I do not believe in a conscience, Mr. Swain. It’s just that…I don’t wish you to think that I am making an exception for you.” He paused again, and struggled to find the words. “I no more patronize you, than you me.”
Swain looked away from Hugh, then faced him again. His eyes were hard with anger, and the anger tinged his words. “You ought to some time journey to Bristol, young sir, or Liverpool, and contemplate the cargo ships sitting at anchor in their harbors, and listen for the wails and moans and cries coming from below their stinking decks, and then question your rejection of conscience. I have, many times, and asked myself what great power is required to eradicate the evil. They are kin, in a manner of speaking, suffering and dying on those ships, as fully capable of being what I am, yet so distant in everything that matters to me. Although they are strangers in my realm, I know that should I raise a finger in protest, I should soon join them, and I would shortly perish, if not from the misery, then by my own hand, like the Jews of York on the occasion of Richard the First’s coronation.” Swain paused and shook his head. “Do not think that because I am virtually free, the matter does not roast on the turning spit of my mind. But—I have yet no answer, no solution, no argument that would make the blind see. If I were to sacrifice myself by protesting on their behalf, I would sacrifice a reproach to the institution. ‘The Scotsman, the Jew, the Irishman, the Spaniard, the Frenchman, and even the Chinaman, have all exploded our venomous presumptions about them,’ the defenders of slavery could say. ‘But where is the Negro who contradicts our belief that his race is a base, witless, soulless breed?’” Swain slapped a hand over his heart. “Well, here he is, sirs, and I am he.” Swain sighed. “Beyond that, well, it is the only matter in which I confess helplessness.”
“Can nothing be done for those people?” asked Hugh.
Swain shrugged. “No. Not until all England becomes a chapter of our Society. And that would leave Spain and France.” He shook his head again, and smiled a little. “How can anything be done for them, sir, when we Englishmen are ‘rudely stamped, unfinished, and scarce half made up,’ in regard to our own liberty? We are a nation of piecemeal bondsmen, who have not yet espied perfect freedom.” He noticed a fleeting grin on Hugh’s face. “What amuses you?”
Hugh briefly explained his own quotation from Richard the Third to Hulton. Swain’s dour expression made room for a chuckle. “We have much in common, my friend, even in the style of our thinking.”
After a moment, Hugh asked, “And if my family had shares…would you still speak to me?”
Swain shook his head. “As you do not believe in a conscience, I do not charge sons with the sins of their fathers. I know that your family would not own those shares for long, once you had a say in the matter.” He paused. “Thank you for being honest with me, Mr. Kenrick.” He gestured to the table. “I will tell you what decided me to accept the invitation of the Society—more than their esteem for me, more than the prospect of enjoying the company of my equals.”
/> “What?”
“Rum.”
“Rum?”
“The Society has, from its earliest days, abstained from it. Rum, whether of English or French origin, comes from the sugar islands of the Indies, whose plantations employ slaves almost exclusively, except for convicts sentenced there for servitude, which they usually do not survive. Jamaica and Barbados are our courts’ first choice of slow execution. The places have such a bad reputation that prisoners are known to have begged to be hanged instead, or have killed themselves, rather than be transported to the Indies. The slaves do not fare much better. The weather and the work consume them like a glutton eating fistfuls of black currants. Of course, there are many other things of slave origin that the Society could abstain from—sugar itself, and tobacco, coffee, the meanest cloths, and perhaps even tea—but then we should starve ourselves. So the symbol of protest became rum, the warmest, sweetest beverage we know.”
“I have finished the play, milord.”
Hugh and Glorious Swain turned in their chairs to see Hulton standing at the entrance to the room. Hugh rose. “I must go now, Mr. Swain. But we should meet again, before I leave for the holidays.”
Swain stood up. “Yes, my friend. Leave word with Mrs. Petty, and we can arrange a rendezvous. I stop by here several times a week.”
“Good night, my friend,” said Hugh, shaking Swain’s hand again. “And thank you for your sponsorship.” He paused to grin at the man. “When you were admitted, surely it could not have been Agnes Petty who completed your tripos!”
“No,” laughed Swain, “it was Mrs. Petty herself. She was pried from my lap only with great difficulty by my brothers! Never again!”
And they parted.
On their way back to Windridge Court, Hugh and Hulton were silent for a while. The light of Hulton’s lantern revealed some solitary snowflakes whirling in the air before them. Then Hugh said, “It’s a wonderful thing, Hulton, to feel this way about some fellow men. It allows one to move ahead with one’s life without the brake of a cloying, melancholy disgust for the others.”
“Yes, milord,” replied Hulton. “I saw your friends leave by way of the tavern. They seemed like thoughtful gentlemen.”
“They are. How did you find the play?”
“Illuminating, milord. Richard the Third was a right bastard, and seemed to have the best lines, which were instructive. I would not have wanted to be in service in his household. I might not have survived the employment.”
Hugh laughed, and slapped the butler on the back.
Hulton seemed to remember what he had said, and added, in a near-whisper, “Is it permitted to refer to a late king as a bastard, milord?”
“Hulton, it is right to call a late or living king anything—or nothing at all!”
“Yes, milord,” replied Hulton, who felt the tingling, dangerous thrill of being willing to lie for his master at any time, for any reason.
Chapter 22: The Peerage
HUGH REPEATED THE LIE IN ANSWER TO HIS UNCLE’S CASUAL QUERY over breakfast the next morning. His personal affairs, he reasoned, should be of no concern to his uncle, especially if they concerned the Society of the Pippin; he knew that his honesty would be used by his uncle as a weapon against him. He did not feel morally bound to tell the Earl that particular truth. So he lied as casually as his uncle had pried, and listened with indifference to the mild rebuke the Earl had voiced over the insult to Sir Henoch Pannell.
His indifference to his uncle’s concern allowed him to reply: “I don’t think that anyone raised to the petit peerage—such as Sir Henoch—ought to be permitted to sit in the Commons. He ought to be made to sit with his alleged peers, or with the non-voting peers, and to endure their solicitous sneers and cold courtesy.”
Basil Kenrick blinked in surprise at the reply. He could not decide whether it was Sir Henoch who was the object of his nephew’s contempt, or Lords, or him. He found himself in the paradoxical position of agreeing with the boy. The little twinge of hope he felt in his breast that he was winning Hugh over to his perspective vied with the sharp dread that the boy actually despised the very notion of the peerage. He recovered enough, after that moment, to say, “He is a man of parts, nephew, and deserves some respect. He is chief of a party of members in his House that can greatly assist Lords in preserving the strength of this country and advancing its interests. I have convinced him that he should divert his warlike oratory from inveighing against the colonies to chastising Newcastle, so that this likely war can be speedily prosecuted and brought to a quick end.”
“So, he has been allied with Mr. Hillier in the Commons?”
“That is true. And it is no impropriety. There are peers who control a dozen or more seats in the Commons. Our family is fortunate to have controlled merely one all these years. The squires of Dorset are quite independent, and will not be encroached upon, or bought. Likewise, we resist their encroachments.”
Hugh merely frowned at this remark.
The Earl felt obliged to add, “The politics of the Crown is rich in inconsistencies and anomalies, nephew. Intrigue is the spice of a life of political action. You should not begrudge Sir Henoch’s political fortune. He was made a baronet at the king’s pleasure and by his assent, and there is no arguing against that, once the deed is done. It is exempt from examination.” The Earl seemed to smile. He was feeling wise and superior. He was reciting facts that he knew his nephew could not alter with his Whiggish sentiments. “And—it is not strictly a peerage, petit or grand,” he continued. “Someday, Sir Henoch may even be rewarded with a life peerage—a baronage, earldom, what have you—for whatever other services he may render to win the esteem of a ministry and the king. You should know that it is not uncommon for a mere member of the Commons to desert that House for Lords, though the late Earl of Orford, Mr. Walpole, early in his career, declined a title so that he might retain his influence in the Commons.”
The Earl droned on about the power of the House of Lords, repeating facts already known to Hugh, and would have for the rest of the morning, but for Hugh’s reminder that he must leave for Dr. Comyn’s school. But his uncle had the last word.
“Both Houses have been sitting to late hours. You will come to Lords directly afterward, and observe how natural gentlemen comport themselves and mediate the Crown’s and the nation’s affairs.”
Hugh dutifully complied. After classes later that afternoon, he deposited his books at Windridge Court, had a bite to eat, then walked reluctantly to the House of Lords. He was admitted to the Peers’ Chamber without trouble by the attendant at the doors, once he had identified himself. As there was no gallery for spectators here, he stood below the bar with other spectators, many of whom were members of the Commons, and observed with little interest a sitting of his uncle’s peers.
The Peers’ Chamber was measurably more impressive than was the Commons, longer by about thirty feet, and more spacious for its more than two hundred legal occupants. There was more light here from great windows that curved with the ceiling thirty feet above, and more warmth coming from an ornate fireplace on the side. Rows of benches for the peers rested below long tapestries on the walls on both sides, depicting the defeat of the Spanish Armada. A magnificent gilded throne, and the canopy of state raised above it, looked to Hugh to be in a decrepit condition; this was the seat of the king, when he deigned to make an appearance. To the throne’s right were seats for the archbishops of York and Canterbury, and further on, beyond the fireplace, seats for the lesser bishops—all peers, the Lords Spiritual.
Facing them from the other side of the chamber were the benches of the Lords Temporal above the rank of baron, for dukes royal and dukes raised, for earls, marquesses, and viscounts. On cross-benches separating the Lords Spiritual and Temporal sat the barons. There had always been more earls than barons, more barons than viscounts, and one or two lonely marquesses. In between the barons and the throne were the tables and woolsacks (cushioned chairs) of the Lord Chancellor or Speaker and his c
lerks, and places for the Lords Chief Justice of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas, the Master of the Rolls, miscellaneous judges, and the Masters in Chancery.
The House of Lords acted, without ever having admitted it, as a senate, and viewed itself as a select body charged with the duty of checking the power of the Commons, though it was a standing question whether it acted on behalf of its members or for the nation. It often exceeded this implicit mandate, as when, in 1747, it reprimanded the editors of London Magazine and its rival Gentleman’s Magazine for having breached the privilege and secrecy of both Houses for publishing accounts of the trial of the Jacobite Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, and of other debates and occasions. Its members could be tried, but never punished, and were exempt from all corporal penalties but execution for a capital crime. A peer could only be judged by his literal peers; like the king, he was considered above the judgment of commoners; this was a political rationale, as well as an aristocratic one. It had been the privilege of Lord Lovat, though his hanging for treason was a public event that brought the city to a halt. The dignity of a peer was otherwise not to be subjected to whippings, brandings of the hand, the pillory, penal servitude, or other standard punishments.
The House of Lords debated the same matters as did the Commons, and its veto and amendment powers could steer the Commons in a direction more favorable to the peers’ sentiments and interests. If the two Houses could not reconcile by established procedures their differences on a resolution or bill, managers of the Houses would arrange a conference between them in the adjoining Painted Chamber, so-called because of the classical themed frescoes on its walls, the appointed lords seated at a long table, the appointed Commons men standing in deference, hats in hand. More private bills were debated in Lords than public; these naturally concerned land and property. Lords was also the “supreme” court of the land, having final authority on cases that had exhausted the wisdom and purview of the law courts. Civil and criminal appeals from England, Ireland, and Scotland were the House’s chief business after the hearing and debating of public and private bills, in addition to adjudicating writs of error involving constitutional issues, impeachments of peers, and the swelling number of divorce cases.
