Subject: "A Peerage for the People"
Date: 21 Oct 1998 15:03:47 -0500
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I was in the university library here, looking up some info about the
heraldic arms of Jane Austen, when by chance I happened to notice a
book on a neighboring shelf, "A Peerage for the People" by William
Carpenter -- apparently first published in 1835, but this edition
published 1841 with updates.  It's an account of each noble family
from the point of view of reforming/"radical" politics, pointing out
how much money each peer (or his relatives) got from public money in
the form of honorary offices and sinecures, church offices, state
pensions, and various (mis)appropriations of public property; it also
includes accounts of scandals and malfeasances involving noble
families (though Carpenter claims not to repeat "private" scandal
merely for the sake of scandal, when this has no bearing on the
"public character" of a politically-active nobleman), and notes on
which peers are "ultra-Tory" (i.e. hard-line reactionaries) or voted
against the parliamentary Reform bill of 1832, against the later
municipal reform bill, against the abolition of slavery, against the
admission of non-Church-of-England Protestants to the Universities,
against Irish/Catholic reform (the Orange Order comes in for some very
severe comments), etc. etc.

If you want a trenchant comment about almost any nobleman represented
in the House of Lords during the second fifth of the 19th century
(including representative Irish and Scottish peers), this book can
supply it.


  Some quotes:

"The history of the Peerage is a history of intrigue, profligacy,
corruption, jobbing, and peculation.  Repulsive as the Spirit of
Aristocracy has ever been, it is not to be doubted that it has, in
many features, largely degenerated over the last two hundred years.
It did at one time exhibit qualities, which, if they could not command
respect or esteem, did not fail to excite wonder and admiration.  But
its high chivalry has degenerated into pure chicanery; its lofty
courage has degenerated into low cunning; its disregard of _mere_
wealth has given way to a grinding and huckstering spirit of
money-getting and money keeping; its ambition for personal prowess has
been transmuted into a peddling and pettifogging appetite for the
vulgar means and materials to maintain its mischievous eminence.
Toland (`Life of Milton', p. 2) has justly observed that ``those
distinctions which the brave and the wise have justly obtained from
their country, descend indifferently to cowards, traitors, or fools,
and spoil the better souls from endeavouring to equal or exceed the
merits of their ancestors.''  The Peerage furnishes abundant
illustrations of the truth of this remark; and so long as human nature
remains what it now is, _hereditary_ honours must be prolific with
mischief."

"Irish Peerages, says The Spectator, have proved a most pernicious
instrument in the hands of the _packers_ of the House of Lords.  An
Irish Peerage is a step to the British; a man is created an Irish
Peer for servility, oppression, and bigotry in his own country; and
then he is ready for transplanting to this, whenever his services
shall be wanted.  The misgovernment of Ireland has been a grand means
of ruining England.  When a man is made a Peer by corruption in
Ireland, by corruption he is glad to take the next step in England."


  Some comments on specific peers:

Baron Dynevor -- "This Peer is descended from Adam on the mother's
side, and from the Lord knows who on his father's!"

Campbell, Marquis of Breadalbane -- "Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy
being the creditor of George, sixth Earl of Caithness, obtained a
disposition from that nobleman of his whole estate and earldom, with
the hereditary jurisdictions and titles; and upon the demise of his
Lordship, he was created by patent (1677) Earl of Caithness; but in a
few years afterwards, that dignity being allowed by Parliament to be
vested in George Sinclair of Keif, Sir John Campbell obtained a new
patent (1681), creating him Earl of Breadalbane and Holland.  This
Peerage, therefore, has obviously been obtained in the way of trade --
it is solely the purchase of money or money's worth.  Other Peerages
have been conferred for political profligacy or subserviency to the
minister of the day; but we are not at present aware of any other case
in which a Peerage has been notoriously a matter of bargain and sale,
like any other commodity or description of transferable property."

Earl Poulett -- "His Lordship's character may be summed up in three
words -- he is a fox-hunting Tory."

Duke of Dorset -- "He is an ultra-Tory, and was made Master of the
Horse under Lord Liverpool's Administration, and again under the
Wellington-Peel government in 1834.  Wherever mischief is intended
against the people, there is he to be found."

Earl of Mount-Edgecumbe -- "He was one of the large borough-mongers
under the old system of representation, and is a strenuous
anti-reformer.  His Lordship ranks among the few author-Peers, by the
publication of a book comprising his recollection of all the prima
donnas that had appeared at the Opera in his time."

Viscount Canning (born 1812) -- "His lordship is identified with the
Tory party, and was at one time thought to give some indication of
ability."

Earl of Leicester (Coke of Norfolk) -- Nothing whatever about his
Europe-wide reputation as the great agriculturalist, but quite a bit
about an archaic hereditary light-house lease granted to his family,
which gave the right to levy a tax on shipping, and which had yielded
his family £6,000 pounds a year of arguably dubious legality, and
£3,000 pounds a year after being legitimized in an 1828 "reform".

Earl Spencer -- "Lord Spencer is one of those indifferently good sort
of people of whom it is very difficult to speak.  When we remember the
anecdote of the Earl of Arundel's reply to one of the noble Earl's
ancestors, who had been speaking of Magna Charta, &c, -- ``My lord, my
lord, when these things were doing, your ancestors were keeping
sheep!'' -- we look at Lord Spencer, and sigh that they ever left so
innocent an employment."

Earl of Jersey -- "He is a man of but feeble abilities, but what he
lacks in power, his lady makes up for in intrigue.  The Countess of
Jersey has long been before the public as a leader either in fashion
or politics."

Earl of Clanwilliam -- "This Tory Peer was a hanger-on of the late
Lord Castlereagh of execrable memory, and was made a British Peer by
the especial favor of George IV in order that he might vote against
the Catholic question.  Having thus obtained his Peerage, the noble
Lord, according to true lordly morality, voted in favor of the
Emancipation Bill, in order to please the Duke of Wellington, and
serve himself."

Lord Albert, brother of Marquis of Conyngham -- "This young gentleman,
who is married to a sister of Lord Forrester, is what is denominated a
_blood_.  He is well known in the saloons of the theatres, and in many
other places which we may as well not mention."

Earl of Clancarty -- "His claims to public notice rest altogether upon
political subserviency, diplomatic finesse, and an uniform opposition
to everything tending to improve the institutions of the country."

The Duke of Cumberland -- "It was the misfortune of his Royal Highness
to reside for many years of his life in foreign countries, where the
doctrines of despotism were sedulously inculcated, and where his mind
was familiarised with opinions and principles wholly at variance with
the British Constitution.  He is one of those statesmen who maintain
that the people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them --
that the few are born to rule, and the many to submit without question
or complaint.  He is never absent from his place in Parliament when
the bigotted and intolerant faction to which he belongs meditate any
agression on liberty either at home or abroad; and he has evinced
similar zeal and activity in availing himself of his proximity to the
throne, and of the confidential intercourse which that position gives
him, to influence the state-policy in favor of everything anti-popular
and illiberal."

Earl Delawarr -- "Wherever the mouldering carcass of exploded
legitimacy is there, there is he; labouring most zealously, though
feebly, to foster the corruptions in the State, and perpetuate the
abuses on which the oligarchy has so long battened."

Earl De Grey -- "He is ever to be found in the anti-popular ranks,
impeding and thwarting the progress of liberal and wholesome
legislation."

Nicholas Vansittart, Baron Bexley -- The poem below was written in
response to this remark from _Lord Bexley's Letter to the Freeholders
of Kent_: "We are told that the bigots are growing old and fast
wearing out.  If it be so, why not let us die in peace?"

                     Stop, Intellect, in mercy stop,
                       Ye curst Improvements cease:
                     And let poor Nick Vansittart drop
                       Into his grave in peace.

                     Hide, Knowledge, hide thy rising sun --
                       Young Freedom, veil thy head;
                     Let nothing good be thought or done
                       Till Nick Vansittart's dead.

                     Take pity on a dotard's fears,
                       Who much light doth detest;
                     And let his last few drivelling years
                       Be dark as were the rest.

                     Ye Liberals, whate'er your plan,
                       Be all reforms suspended;
                     In compliment to dear old Van,
                       Let nothing bad be mended.

                     Ye Papists, whom oppression wrings,
                       Your cry politely cease,
                     And fret your hearts to fiddle-strings,
                       That Van may "die in peace".


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