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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
ROYAL PAUPERS
A Radical’s Contribution
TO
THE
JUBILEE.
SHOWING
What Royalty does for the People
AND
What the People do for Royalty.
BY
G. W. FOOTE.
-------- ---------------
PRICE
TWOPENCE.
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■•
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4
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LONDON:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1887.
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�ROYAL PAUPERS.
-----------♦-----------
“ Our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Vic
toria,” as the Prayer Book styles her, has occupied
the throne for nearly half a century, and as she is
blessed with good health and a sound constitution,
she may enjoy that exalted position for another
fifteen or twenty years, and perhaps prevent her
bald-headed eldest son from acceding to the illus
trious dignity of King of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, and Emperor of India.
Whether she does or does not linger on this mortal
stage, and whether the Prince of Wales will or will
not live long enough to succeed her, is a matter of
trifling importance to anyone but themselves and
their families. The nation will have to support “ the
honor and dignity of the throne,” whoever fills it,
without the least abatement of expense; unless,
indeed, the democratic spirit of the age should ques
tion the utility of all “ the pride, pomp, and circum
stance ” of royalty, and either abolish it altogether or
seriously diminish its cost.
This being the fiftieth year of Her Majesty's reign,
the hearts of all the flunkeys in the nation are stirred
to their depths. There is quite an epidemic of
loyalty. Preparations are being made on all sides
�4
to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. Busybodies
are meeting, discussing, and projecting. All
sorts of schemes are mooted, but the vital essence of
every one is—Cash ! The arts of beggary are devel
oped on the most magnificent scale, without regard
to the Vagrancy Act; and titled ladies, parsons’
wives, and Primrose Dames, condescend to solicit
pennies from sempstresses and charwomen. The
Prince of Wales, meanwhile, is devoting his genius
and energies to floating the Imperial Institute, which
promises to be a signal failure, unless the Chancellor
of the Exchequer comes to its assistance, because the
royal whim of fixing it in a fashionable quarter, in
stead of in the commercial centre of London, is a
barrier to its success.
How much of the money drained from British
pockets by such means will be spent on really useful
objects ? It may be safely predicted that a consider
able portion will flow into the pockets of the wire
pullers, but will any appreciable amount go to benefit
all classes of the community ? Will there, in parti
cular, be any advantage to the masses of the working
people, whose laborious lives contribute more to the
greatness and prosperity of the state than all the
titled idlers, whether scions of royalty or members of
the aristocracy, who live like gilded flies “basking in
the sunshine of a Court ” ? Time will prove, but
unless we are very much mistaken, the Jubilee will
be just as advantageous to the people as loyal move
ments have ever been.
It is a sign of the wholesome democratic spirit
which is beginning1 to animate the nation, that a few
�5
towns have absolutely refused to trouble their heads,
and still less to tax their pockets, with regard to the
Jubilee. But the most cheerful indication comes
from Wexford. The municipal council of that his
toric Irish city has ventured to make the following
sensible suggestion:
“ If the ministers of the Crown wanted to govern this
country in a quiet and peaceable manner, and not by fire and
sword, they would advise her Majesty to send to the starving
poor of this country, to relieve their distress, the half of that
eight millions which she has lying in the Funds, and which she
has received from the ratepayers. By this means they would
require no Coercion measure, but would make this one of the
most happy, peaceable, and law-abiding countries in the
world.”
This spirited though courteous suggestion implies
that Royalty has done less for the People than the
People have done for Royalty, that the balance of
profit is not on the national side of the account, and
that gratitude is not due by those who confer bene
fits, but by those who receive them.
During the present reign, the Royal family has
obtained from the nation nearly twenty-four million
pounds. What has the nation received in exchange
for that enormous sum ? I do not propose to reckon
in this place the value of the normal functions of
Royalty, as I intend to estimate it when I have calcu
lated the annual cost of the institution. I simply
inquire, at present, what special advantage has
accrued to us from her Majesty, and not another per
son, having worn the crown for the last fifty years.
Ireland may be dismissed from the inquiry at
once. She has no opportunity of gazing on the
Queen’s classical features, or even of being splashed
�6
with the mud of her carriage wheels; and, on the
other hand, the statistics of Ireland’s fifty years’ his
tory show that 1,225,000 of her children have died of
famine, while 3,650,000 have been evicted by the
landlords, and 4,186,000 have emigrated to foreign
lands.
There has, however, been considerable progress in
Great Britain. Our national wealth has immensely
increased, but Royalty has only assisted in spending
it. Science has advanced by gigantic strides, but
Royalty has not enriched it by any brilliant disco
veries ; for since George the Fourth devised a shoe
buckle, the inventive genius of the House of Bruns
wick has lain exhausted and fallow. Our commerce
has extended to every coast, and our ships cover
every sea; but the Prince of Wales’s trip to India,
at our expense, is the only nautical achievement of
his distinguished family, unless we reckon the Duke
of Edinburgh’s quarter-deck performances, and Prince
Lieningen’s exploit in sinking the Mistletoe. Our
people are better educated, but Royalty has not
instructed them. Our newspapers have multiplied
tenfold, but Royalty is only concerned with the Oourt
Circular. The development of the printing press has
placed cheap books in the poorest hands, and our
literature may hold its own against the world. But
what contributions do we owe to Royalty ? Her
Majesty has published two volumes of Leaves from
her j ournal, which had an immense sale, and are now
forgotten. They chronicle the smallest talk, and
express the most commonplace sentiments, the prin
cipal objects on which the Royal author loved to
�7
expatiate being the greatness and goodness of Prince
Albert and the legs and fidelity of John Brown.
Thousands of ladies, and probably thousands of
school-girls, could have turned out a better book.
And when we recollect that the Queers diary was
prepared for the press by the skilful hand of Sir
Arthur Helps, we may be pardoned for wondering
into what depths of inanity he cast his lines to fish
up such miraculous dulness. The only son her
Majesty has lost, and whose expenses the nation has
saved, was “ studious,” as that word is understood
in royal circles; but his speeches, although they were
furbished up by older and abler hands, will never
figure in any collections of eloquence, and it is
doubtful whether a lengthy life would have enabled
him to shine at Penny Readings without the advan
tage of his name. The Prince of Wales’s sons have
also put two big volumes on Mudie’s shelves (it
would be too much to say into circulation), yet their
travelling tutor acted as their literary showman; and
what parts of the exhibition were his and what theirs,
God alone knoweth except themselves.
It is not one of the stipulated functions of a
Queen, but it is reasonably expected, that she should
produce an heir to the throne. Her Majesty, in
obedience to the primal commandment, “Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth,” which is
seldom neglected in royal families, has borne the
desired heir, and many other children to take his
place if he or his offspring should come to an untimely
end. Her progeny is, indeed, remarkably numerous,
if we reckon all the branches, and if they breed like
�8
wise it will ultimately become a serious question
whether they or we shall inhabit England. As it is,
everyone of them is kept by the nation, for Her
Majesty, although fabulously rich, or as Johnson said,
“ wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice,” is never
theless too poor to maintain her own children. We
support them, and in the most extravagant fashion.
Yet they have absolutely no public duties to perform.
The Queen's duties are not onerous, and still less
necessary, but they are real however light. Her
offspring and relatives, however, do nothing for their
pensions. They never did anything, and never expect
to do anything. They are the recipients of public
charity, which does not change its essence because it
is administered by special Acts of Parliament. Dr.
Findlater defines a pauper as “ a poor person : one
supported by charity or some public provision.” Does
not this exactly apply to all our Royal pensioners ? Am
I not strictly justified in calling them Royal Paupers ?
There are paupers in palaces as well as in workhouses,
and in many, if not most cases, the latter are the
more honorable. Thousands of men who have worked
hard in their younger days far scanty wages, hundreds
who have paid rates and taxes to support the state
burdens, have eked out the sombre end of their lives
in the Union, and have been buried in a parish egg
box. They were called paupers, and so they were,
for there is no disputing the fact. But are not they
worse paupers who have never worked at all, who live
on other people from the cradle to the grave, who add
impudence to their dependence, and glory in their
degradation ?
�9
Why should the people fling up their caps and
rend the air with their shouts ? They owe Royalty
nothing, and they have no particular occasion for
gladness. It is, however, perfectly natural that the
Queen and her family should rejoice over her Jubilee.
Fifty years of unearned prosperity is something to
be grateful for, and if the members and dependents
of the House of Brunswick wish to join in a chorus of
thanksgiving, by all means let them do so; but let
them also, out of their well-filled purses, defray the
expenses of the concert.
Let us now estimate the annual cost of these Royal
Paupers, and of the Royal Mother of most of the
brood; in other words, let us reckon the yearly
amount which John Bull pays for the political luxury
of a throne.
When Her Majesty came to the throne, in June,
1837, it was ordered by the House of Commons
ee that the accounts of income and expenditure of the
Civil List from the 1st January to the 31st December,
1836, with an estimate of the probable future charges
of the Civil List of her Majesty, be referred to a
Select Committee of 21 members/'’ Those gentlemen
went to work with great simplicity. They ascer
tained what it cost King William to support “ the
honor and dignity of the Crown” during the last,
year of his reign, and they recommended that Queen
Victoria should be enabled to spend as much money
and a little more, for they put the cost of the various
branches of the Civil List into round figures, and
always to her advantage. One ’of King William/s
bills was £11,381 for “ upholsterers and cabinet-
�1G
makers/'’ but they surely could not have imagined
that her Majesty could require nearly twelve thou
sand pounds* worth of furniture every year. Nor
could they really have thought that she would spend
£3,345 a year on horses, or £4,825 a year on carriages.
Probably they felt that the subject was too sacred for
criticism. At any rate, they speedily produced an
estimate of £385,000 per annum as the amount
necessary “ for the support of her Majesty's house
hold, and of the honor and dignity of the Crown of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The Civil List was settled at this figure by an Act of
Parliament, which received the Royal Assent on
December 23, 1837. No doubt Her Majesty signed
that precious document with the most cordial
satisfaction.
In February, 1840, Her Majesty married. Her
husband, of course, was imported from Germany.
The Queen was anxious that he should be hand
somely supported by Englishmen, Irishmen, and
Scotchmen. A desperate effort was made to procure
him an allowance of £50,000 a-year; but through
the patriotic exertions of a band of Radicals, headed
by Joseph Hume, the sum was reduced to £30,000.
On that paltry income Prince Albert had to live. It
was a severe lesson in economy, but his German
training enabled him to pass through the ordeal, and
in time he increased his scanty income by other
emoluments. He took £6,000 a-year as FieldMarshal; £2,695 a-year as Colonel of the Grenadier
Guards ; £238 a-year as Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifle
Brigade; £1,000 a-year or so in the shape of per-
�11
quisites as Grand Ranger of Windsor Great Park;
£500 a-year or so as Grand Ranger of the Home
Park; and £1,120 a-year as Governor and Constable
of Windsor Castle. Besides these posts, he filled
some which were honorary, and some whose value
was a secret to common mortals. When the lucky
German prince died he left a very large fortune, but
how much he contrived to amass is unknown, for his
will has never been proved.
Returning to the Civil List, we find it divided up
as follows :—Her Majesty's Privy Purse, £60,000;
Household Salaries, £131,260; Tradesmen's Bills,
£172,500; Royal Bounty and Special Services,
£9,000 ; Alms and Charity, £4,200 ; Unappropriated
Money, £8,040—Total, £385,000.
The £60,000 of Privy Purse money the Queen
spends as she pleases. She can say like Shylock,
“'Tis mine, and I will have it." The £8,040 of
Unappropriated Money appears to have been thrown
in to make up a round rum, or perhaps to provide the
Queen with pin-money, so that she might not go abroad
without small change in her pocket. The £13,200
for Bounty and Alms is supposed to be spent on
deserving objects of charity. How much of it is
spent we know not. But the fact that the sum is
voted for that purpose is calculated to lessen our
appreciation of Royal benevolence. When the ladies
get hold of the morning papers, and see by the Daily
Telegraph, or some other loyal newspaper, that Her
Majesty has sent so much to this charity, and so much
to that, they exclaim, “ What a dear good lady the
Queen is to be sure." They never suspect that her
�12
Majesty’s charity is exercised with other people’s
money. The poorest and the most penurious might
be charitable on the same easy conditions.
According to the Civil List Act, the other sums
were to be rigorously spent in maintaining the Royal
dignity; indeed, a clause was inserted to prevent
savings, except of trifling amount, from being carried
from one category to another. Yet it is well-known
that many sinecure offices in the Royal Household
have been abolished, while large reductions have been
made in the Household expenditure. Who benefits
by these savings ? Can any person do so but the
Queen ? Would she allow them to be appropriated
by others ? But if she “ pockets the difference ” it
is in violation of the Act. Whatever reductions are
made, so much less is admitted to be necessary for
the purposes specified by law, and it is the sovereign
who makes the admission.
Surely, then, these
savings, these reductions in the expenditure on
maintaining “ the honor and dignity of the Crown,”
should accrue to the State, and not swell the private
income of a fabulously rich old lady.
We shall peep into the Royal Household presently.
Before doing so, however, we must see the full extent
of the Queen’s resources. Besides what she derives
from the Prince Consort’s will, she has the income
accruing from the Nield legacy. Mr. J. C. Yield
died in 1852, and not knowing a more proper object
of charity, he left his poor Queen the sum of £250,000,
in addition to real estate. Her Majesty is reported
to have invested heavily in the Funds. She has also
private estates in England and Scotland, to say
�13
nothing of her estates in Germany. They are
returned as 37,643 acres, at an annual rental of
£27,995. Finally, there is the splendid revenue of
the Duchy of Lancaster, which, in 1886, amounted
to £45,000.
Being so enormously wealthy, her Majesty might,
taste the luxury of contributing, however slightly,
to the expenses of government. She voluntarily
undertook to do so in 1842, but never appears to
have kept her word. When Sir Robert Peel intro
duced his Income Tax Bill, in August of that year,
he made the following announcement:
“ I may take this opportunity of making a communication
which, I am confident, will be received by the House with
great satisfaction. When in an interview with her Majesty,
a short time since, I intimated that her Majesty’s servants
thought that the financial difficulties of the country were
such that it was desirable, for the public interest, to submit,
all the income of this country to a charge of £3 per cent.,
her Majesty, prompted by those feelings of deep and affec
tionate interest which she has always shown for the welfare
and happiness of her people, observed to me that if the
necessities of the country were such that, in time of peace,
it was necessary to impose a charge of £3 per cent, on income,
it was her own voluntary determination that her own
income should be subject to a similar deduction.”
There is no positive proof, but there is negative
proof, that this “ voluntary determination” was not
carried out. Mr. C. E. Macqueen, secretary of the
Financial Reform Association, wrote to Mr. J.
Wilson, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on
December 1, 1855, inquiring “ whether her Majesty
and the Royal Consort contribute their respective
quotas to the income and property tax.’'’ Mr. Wilson
replied that it was contrary to practice to answer
�14
such inquiries. He was technically right, but his
official reserve would scarcely have prevented his
making the statement, if it could be made, that Her
Majesty had paid the tax in accordance with her
promise. So much for the Queen’s “ deep and affec
tionate interest in the welfare and happiness of her
people.”
It should be added that the Royal estates escape
all Probate Duty, and that none of the Royal Family
have to pay Legacy and Succession Duties. Every
thing is arranged by a loyal nation for their comfort
and profit.
But, strange as it may sound, we have not yet done
with the cost of a Queen. There is a long list of
further expenses which, for the sake of convenience,
and that the reader may get a bird’s-eye view of
them, I print in a tabular form. The figures given
are for the year 1884-5.
Pensions granted by hei’ Majesty
.............. £24,072
Royal Palaces, occupied wholly or partially by
her Majesty ..............................................
15,466
Royal Palaces, not occupied by her Majesty ...
19,783
Royal Yachts, etc.................................................
39,732
Royal Escort (Household Troops, etc.)..............
31,150
£130,203
Here we have £130,203 expended by or on the
Sovereign, in addition to the Civil List of £385,000
and the revenue of £45,000 from the Duchy of Lan
caster. This makes a grand total of £560,203.
What a sum to lavish on the pride and luxury of
one person ! The President of the United States
only receives £10,000 a year. It is evident, there
�15
fore, unless there is no truth in Cocker, that the
people of this old country fancy a Queen is worth
fifty-six Presidents. The Yankees, however, have
a very different opinion: they laugh at John Bull for
lavishing so much wealth on a single human being,
and facetiously ask him why he complains of bad
trade and hard times when he can afford to fool away
his money in that fashion.
Now, let us turn our profane gaze into the sacred
arcana of the Boyal Household, ft is a pity that
such a glorious Flunkey's Paradise cannot be accu
rately and graphically described by a master hand.
What a wonderful picture of sinecure sloth and
corruption it would be to posterity ! Some writer,
with the pen of a Dickens steeped in the gall of a
Carlyle, should have a carte blanche commission for
the task. He should have unlimited opportunity to
study the ins and outs of the establishment, and the
lives of its officers and servants; and he should be
free to write exactly what he saw and heard, as well
as his own reflections on the matter. Were that
done, there would be at least one imperishable
monument of “ low ambition and the pride of kings."
There is no accessible account of the detailed ex
penditure in this Flunkey's Paradise at present, but
we have a full account of the expenditure in 1836,
on which the amount necessary for Tradesmen's
Bills was calculated. In the Lord Chamberlain's
department there is a bill of £11,381 for “uphols
terers and cabinetmakers," and another of £4,119
for “ locksmiths, ironmongers, and armorers." £284
is paid to sempstresses, so there must be a deal of
�16
shirt-making and mending. The washing bill is
£3,014, and £479 is paid for soap. Doctors and
chemists receive £1,951 for attending and physicing
the flunkeys. Turning to the Lord Steward’s De
partment, we find £2,050 worth of bread consumed,
and £4,976 worth of butter, bacon, eggs, and cheese.
The butcher’s bill comes to £9,472, and the amount
is so great that one wonders there is not a royal
slaughter-house. The flunkeys and the cats con
sumed £1,478 worth of milk and cream, and perhaps
the cats helped the flunkeys to devour the £1,979
Worth of fish. Groceries come to £4,644, fruit and
confectionery to £1,741, wines to £4,850, liqueurs,
etc., to £1,843, and ale and beer to £2,811. Ifthere
is as much boozing now in the Royal Household, it
is high time that Sir Wilfrid Lawson turned his
attention to the subject. The New River Water
Company would supply Buckingham Palace, at least,
with a sufficiency of guzzle at a much cheaper rate.
The nation would gain by the change, and if the
superior flunkeys’ noses were compulsorily toned
down, it might not be very much to their disadvan
tage either.
The Household Salaries are allotted to hundreds
of flunkeys, from the Lord Chamberlain to the
lowest groom or porter. All the chief officials are
lords and ladies. These have to be in immediate
attendance, and Royalty could not tolerate the con
tiguity of plebeians. Pah I an ounce of civet, good
apothecary !
Chief of the flunkeys is the Lord Chamberlain.
This nobleman’s salary is £2,000 a year. He is the
�17
master of the ceremonies, and has to be perfect in
the punctilios of etiquette. Besides looking after
the other flunkeys, he oversees the removal of beds
and wardrobes, and superintends the revels, corona
tions, marriages, and funerals. Lest these onerous
duties should impair his health, he has a Vice
Chamberlain, who is also a nobleman, to assist him at
a salary of £924 a year. Undei’ these gentlemen
there is an Examiner of Plays. This person is paid
£400 a year, besides fees, to decide what plays shall
be placed on the stage. He is also authorised to
strike out from the plays he condescends to license
everything likely to contaminate the public morals,
or bring the Church and State into disrespect. This
official is almighty and irresponsible. There is no
appeal against his fiat. Thirty-five millions of people
have to be satisfied with what he permits them. He
is the despot of the drama; they are his slaves; and
they pay him "several hundreds a year by way of gild
ing their fetters. The result is precisely what might
be expected. While the most vulgar farces and the
most suggestive opera, bouffe are licensed for the pub
lic delectation, some of the noblest masterpieces of
continental dramatic literature are tabooed, because
they deal with profound problems of life and thought
in a manner that might affront the susceptibilities of
Bumble and Mrs. Grundy. Even Shelley's Cenci was
prohibited, and the Shelley Society was obliged to
circumvent the Examiner of Plays by resorting to a
“ private performance." No matter that the loftiest
names in current English literature were associated
with the production of this magnificent play; the
�18
authority of Robert Browning and Algernon Swin
burne was overshadowed by that of the autocrat of
the Lord Chamberlain’s office, who has no standing
in the republic of letters, whose very name is un
known to the multitude of playgoers, who belongs to
the ranks of what Shelley called “ the illustrious
obscure.”
Among the female flunkeys, if I may be allowed
the appellation, are the Mistress of the Robes, with
£500 a year, and eight Ladies of the Bedchamber,
with the same salary. They are required to keep
Her Majesty company for a fortnight, three times in
the course of each year, and when in attendance they
dine at the Royal table. There are also eight Bed
chamber women, at £300 a year each, to serve in
rotation; and eight Maids of Honor, at the same
salary, who reside with Her Majesty in couples, for
four weeks at a time. It was remarked, in the days
of Swift, that Maids of Honor was a queer title, as
they were neither the one nor the other. But let us
hope that a great improvement has taken place since
then.
There is a large Ecclesiastical staff attached to
the Royal Household, but it only costs £1,236 a year.
The smallness of the sum does not imply that clergy
men are cheap, but that many will gladly officiate for
little or nothing at Court, as such appointments are
always considered stepping-stones to valuable pre
ferments.
More than twice as much is expended on the
mortal bodies of the Royal Household as on their
immortal souls. £2,700 a year is paid to Court
�19
physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and chiropodists,
some receiving salaries, and others fees when in
attendance.
The salaries of the Kitchen Department amount to
no less than £9,983 a year, enough to excite the
wonder of Lucullus. We have no space to recite the
interminable list of menials. Suffice it to say that
the wine-taster has a salary of £500, the chief con
fectioner £300, the chief cook £700, and three
master cooks £350 each. There are also three
well-paid yeomen in charge of the Royal plate,
the value of which is reckoned at two millions
sterling.
Lowest of all in the scale of payment is the Poet
Laureate. His post is a survival of Feudalism. The
Court used to keep a dwarf and a jester, but these
have been discarded, and only the versifier is retained.
His duty is to grind out loyal odes whenever a
member of the Royal family is born, marries, or dies.
A more wretched office could scarcely be conceived.
Yet it is held by Lord Tennyson, who bestows the ex
crements of his genius on the Court. His latest Jubilee
Ode might have been composed by a printer’s devil,
whose brains were muddled by two poems of Walt
Whitman and Martin Tupper set in alternate lines.
The salary of the Laureateship is £100 a year. Seven
hundred a year to the chief cook, and one hundred a
year to the poet! Such are the respective values of
cooking and poetry in the Royal estimation. When
Gibbon presented the second volume of his immortal
histoiy to George the Third, the farmer-king could
only exclaim, “ What, another big book, Mr.
�20
Gibbon ? ” The House of Brunswick has thus been
consistent in its appreciation of literature.
Having taken a rapid look at the Court Flunkeys,
let us come to the great brood of Royal Paupers.
Such a poverty-stricken woman as the Queen cannot
be expected to maintain her children; they are there
fore supported by the State on a scale commensurate
with the Civil List.
The Princess Royal, who is the wife of the Crown
Prince of Germany, receives £8,000 a year. When
she married the nation voted her a dowry of £40,000,
and £5,000 was devoted to fitting up the Chapel
Royal for the wedding.
The Prince of Wales has a pension of £40,000 a
year. He takes £1,350 for the colonelcy of the Tenth
Hussars, a purely sinecure office. Probably the regi
ment would not recognise him if they saw him in
uniform. He lives rent free in Marlborough House,
on which £2,120 was spent in repairs in 1884-5, and
there is a somewhat similar bill every year. The
revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall swell the Prince’s
income by £64,641. Those were the figures in the
year just referred to. During his minority the
revenues of the Duchy accumulated to the amount of
£601,721. A third of this sum was invested in the
purchase of his Sandringham estate, and the rest in
other ways. Returns show that the Prince has
8,079 acres in Norfolk, and 6,810 in Aberdeenshire,
the rental being given at the extremely low figure of
£9,727.
When the Prince of Wales married, the nation
voted him an extra grant of £23,455, and as he was
�21
too poor to support a wife £10,000 a year was secured
to her from the national purse, with a further pro
mise of its being made £30,000 if she survives her
husband. When the Prince visited India, in 1875,
he was allowed £142,000 for the expenses of the
trip, £60,000 being pocket money, for the exercise of
generosity. The presents he gave we paid for; the
presents he received are his. Evidently the Prince
of Wales has much to be thankful for, and he may
celebrate the Jubilee with the utmost cordiality.
Even if he never becomes king, he will have had a
fine old time, and his appearance shows how well it
agrees with him.
The Duke of Edinburgh was voted £15,000 a-year
on attaining his majority in 1866. When he married,
in 1874, the amount was increased to £25,000,
although a few brave and honest Radicals opposed
the additional grant to the Prince “ for marrying
the richest heiress in Europe
His wife is the Czar’s
daughter; she brought him a private fortune of
£90,000, a marriage portion of £300,000, and a life
annuity of £11,250. Being a royal pauper, the
Duke does nothing for his pension. He takes
£3,102 for his post in the navy. They give him
command of the Mediterranean Fleet in time of
peace, but in time of war his fiddling tunes might
be preferable to his shouting orders. Let us, however,
be fair. There are some who say that he handles a
fleet splendidly; yet there are others who believe
that if the Peers took a trip round the world in one
of our ironclads, under the actual command of the
Duke of Edinburgh, there would be no need to
�22
agitate for their abolition. We may add that the
Duke has a yearly allowance of £1,800 from SaxeCobourg, and on the death of his uncle, the reigning
Duke, he will inherit a fortune of £30,000 a year.
AVhen he comes into that windfall he will, perhaps,
resign the pension of £25,000 a year he draws from
us. It would be a graceful act. But, alas! the House
of Brunswick has never been noted for grace.
The Princess Christian receives £6,000 a year,
and £30,000 was voted to her on her mam'a,go, The
Princess Louise had a similar dowry, and her pension
is also £6,000 a year. The Duchess of Albany,
widow of Prince Leopold, has £6,000, the Princess
Mary £5,000, and the Princess Augusta £3,000.
The Duke of Connaught's pension is £25,000. His
military reputation was achieved in Egypt, where
Lord Wolseley officiated as his wet-nurse. He was
kept out of danger, and specially mentioned in a des
patch from the field of battle. At present he is
Commander-in-Chief in Bombay, a post whose
abolition was recommended by the Military Com
mission. He draws pay at the rate of £6,000 a year.
Sir John Gorst will ask Parliament to pass a Bill
authorising the Duke to come home to celebrate the
Jubilee without forfeiting his office. Of course the .
Bill will pass, but the cream of the joke is that we
shall have to pay the cost of his journey. The move
ments of princes are expensive. The national
exchequer trembles when they blow their noses.
Another Royal Paupei’ of the warrior caste is the
Duke of Cambridge, This Prince is the Queen’s
uncle. His pension is £12,000 a year. His salary
�23
and perquisites as Banger of St. James’s, Green, Hyde,
and Richmond Parks are estimated at over £2,000 a
year. As Field Marshal Commander-in-Chief he
takes £4,500 a year. He is also Colonel of the
Grenadier Guards at £2,132 a year. His military /
genius is renowned throughout the world, and
his noble brow is circled with the deathless laurels
he won in the Crimea. His corpulence makes him
a commanding figure, and although his sword is
not famous, his umbrella is the terror of our enemies.
It only remains to add that poverty prevents him
from maintaining a wife. The Duchess of Cambridge,
therefore, enjoys a separate pension of £6,000 a year.
Besides the Royal pensioners, there are a few of
the Queen’s relatives (Germans, of course) who
sponge on the British taxpayer. Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar draws £3,384 a year from the Army,
and his Dublin residence is worth another thousand.
Prince Deiningen takes £593 a year as a half-pay
Vice-Admiral. Count Gleichen receives £740 as a
retired Vice-Admiral, and £1,120 as Governor of
Windsor Castle.
There is always a make-weight, even in accounts.
Accordingly we find a lot of extra expense in the
£4,881 paid in pensions to various surviving friends
and servants of George III., George IV., William IV.,
and Queen Charlotte.
Directly and indirectly the Royal Family costs the
nation the stupendous sum of £808,316 a year. The
vastness of such an amount is difficult for ordinary
minds to realise. Let us, therefore, analyse it, and
see what it makes in detail. It would maintain
�24
10,365 families at £1 10s. a week. It represents
£2,215 every day, £92 an hour, and £1 10s. 6d. every
minute. We frequently hear it said that the payment
of Members of Parliament would be too expensive.
But £300 a year is the outside salary proposed by
Radicals; and the annual cost of the Royal Family
would suffice to pay every member of the House of
Commons that salary four times over.
Thick-and-thin loyalists sometimes urge that we
have no right to grumble at the expense of Royalty.
The sovereign, they say, accepts a Civil List in lieu
of the Royal Revenues, and the nation gains by the
contract. But this argument is unconstitutional.
The Crown Revenues are not private property; they
belong to the monarch, just as the crown does, by
virtue of Acts of Parliament, and all Acts of Parlia
ment can be modified or repealed. If the Crown
Lands, for instance, were personal estate, they could
not be alienated from the present possessor. Should
the Queen, however, turn Roman Catholic, she could
not continue to occupy the throne. The Prince of
Wales would succeed her at once, and if Tie turned
Roman Catholic, the next heir would immediately
succeed him. In each case the Crown Revenues
would change hands. It is obvious, therefore, that
those Revenues are the appanage of the Crown solely
by virtue of law ; and it necessarily follows that the
nation has the legal as well as the moral right to
settle the Civil List as it pleases.
Other Loyalists urge the spendthrift objection that
the cost of the Royal Family- is trifling when distri
buted over the entire population. Why make a fuss,
r
�25
they ask, about fivepence half-penny each ? It is less
than the price of a quart of beer, or two ounces of cheap
tobacco. True, but many mickles make a muckle. The
lavish expenditure on Royalty corrupts our national
'economy. The cost of government, the expenses of the
Army and Navy, rise higher and higher every year.
Since the Queen’s accession, indeed, they have nearly
quadrupled. A nation cannot waste its money on titled
idlers without lavishing it shamefully in other
directions.
There is another way of replying to this foolish
objection.
What good might be done with that
£808,316 a year if it were otherwise expended ! It
would maintain museums, art galleries, and public
libraries throughout the country on the most munifi
cent scale, as the following table very clearly shows.
Towns.
Per Year.
Total.
5 at £20,000 = £100,000
10,000 = 100,000
10 „
5,000 =
20 „
100,000
2,500 =
40 „
100,000
100 „
1,000 =
100,000
616 „
500 =
308,000
£808,000
This is only one illustration. The ingenious reader
will think of many more, and he can work out the
figures himself.
Now let us glance at the functions of Royalty. We
have seen its cost, and we must try to ascertain its
worth.
�26
“ The King reigns but does not govern," and
therefore “the King can do no wrong.’' These
maxims of constitutional monarchy imply that the
sovereign exercises no direct power.
Even Lord
Salisbury, who is a thorough-paced courtier, would
shrink from publicly maintaining “ the right divine
of Kings to govern wrong." The Queen rules through
her Ministers. What they resolve on is executed in
her name. But she herself has no choice in the
matter. She is nominally able to refuse her assent
to an Act which has passed both branches of the
Legislature, but the first time she ventured to exert
that cc right ” the Crown would be brought into^dangerous collision with the people. Nor can* her
Ministers act without the Consent of Parliament. The
monarchy has been gradually shorn of its perogatives,
until it has become a political fiction. We are
really living under a veiled Republic, and the sooner
the mischievous and costly disguise-is flung aside the
better for the welfare and integrity of the nation.
Calling one of her “ subjects ” to form a Ministry
is the Queen’s first function. But this involves no
wisdom or decision, for there is no choice. It is not
Her Majesty,‘but the electorate, that decides who
shall be Premier. The Queen simply summons the
acknowledged leader of whichever party triumphs at
the ballot. If the Conservatives win she calls Lord
Salisbury, if the Liberals win she calls Mr. Gladstone.
Her personal wishes count for less than those of the
humblest ratepayer, for he has a vote and she has none.
Her next business is to open and close Parliament.
This duty, however, is seldom performed. Her
�Majesty rarely emerges from her widowed seclusion,
except to give a fillip to a Tory government. For
many years after Prince Albert’s death she felt
unequal to the exertion, although she had strength
enough to participate in ghillie balls. If a washer
woman complained that she was so cut up by the
death of her husband that it was impossible to work,
and expected regular payment without sending home
any clean linen, she would quickly weary her patrons,
and find it prudent to return to the tub. Yet a
Queen can indulge in the luxury of woe for twenty
years, and her flatterers will account it a virtue.
Thomas Carlyle wrote a significant little sentence on
this subject. Acknowledging a presentation copy of
Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake, which Mrs. Gilchrist
bravely saw through the press after her husband’s
death, Carlyle wrote : “ Your own little Preface is all
that is proper—could but the Queen of these realms
have been as Queen-like in her widowhood I ”
As for the Queen’s Speech, it is a ridiculous farce.
The document is drawn up by the Ministry, and its
sentiments differ with the succession of parties.
Generally, too. it is read by proxy. Her Majesty,
therefore, neither reads it nor writes it.
It is no
more hers than mine.
When Parliament is opened or prorogued in the
Queen’s absence, the royal robes are thrown over the
royal chair, and the Lords bow in passing them,
precisely as though the sovereign sat there. The
garments do as well as the wearer. Why, then, go
to the expense of filling them out ? With all rever
ence, I make the following suggestion. Let half-a-
�dozen of our finest artists be commissioned to carve
and chase a Phidean statue in ivory and gold, tn
occupy the royal chair instead of the Queen. The
expense would be incurred once for all, and we
should know the full extent of our liability. The
present monarchical idol could then be discarded for
the cheaper substitute, which would probably be quite
as useful, and certainly quite as handsome.
Next, her Majesty signs Acts of Parliament. I
would undertake to sign them all for £50 a year, and
my handwriting is as good as the Queen’s. As a
matter of fact, it is not the Royal signature that gives
validity to statutes. During one of George the Third’s,
fits of insanity, it is said that Lord Eldon used acounterfeit of the King’s signature, which was
engraved for the purpose; yet the Acts of Parliament
thus ratified were no less operative than those which
bore the King’s autograph. Under the Common
wealth the Great Seal was broken up, and a new one
substituted. On one side was a map of England
and Ireland; on the other, the device, “ In the first
year of freedom, by God’s blessing restored.” AIL
resolutions and orders of the House were signed by
the Speaker as nominal Chief of the State. “ Mr..
Speaker ” is still the First Commoner, and why can
not his signature be attached to Acts of Parliament
instead of an hereditary official’s ? The laws of a freecountry are the expression of the people’s will, and
they depend on no individual’s concurrence for theirvalidity and force.
These are absolutely all the“ functions” of Royalty,,
though there are other reasons adduced in its favor..
�29
While we retain a throne, filled by hereditary right,
it is urged that we avoid an undignified scramble for
the highest position in the State. But what scramble
is there for the Presidency in France ? Or what
particular scramble is there for it in the United
States, where the President is elected by a kind of
plebiscite ? Whatever scramble there is, some very
good men manage to win. From Washington to
Cleveland there have been many illustrious names.
Have we had a single sovereign who could be men
tioned in the same breath with the best of them ?'
What is our boast ? George the Third, the madman
George the Fourth, the profligate; William the
Fourth, the ninny; and Victoria, whose loftiest virtue
is that, being a Queen, she has lived like an honest
woman. The single name of Lincoln outweighs a
thousand such; nay, compared with his greatness,
they are but dust in the balance.
We are further told that Society (with a capital S)
must have a head. But what' is this Society ? Does
it include the great thinkers and workers, th ez poets,
artists, philosophers, and scientists ? No; it com
prises the lazy, pampered classes, whose wealth and
titles are their only passports to esteem, whose highest
ambition is to be presented at Court and invited to
royal levees. These people are not a sign of national
health, but a sign of national disease. Let them, if
they must, pursue their idle round of foolish pleasure,
but let them elect and support their own “ head ”
without expecting the nation to countenance their
frivolity by maintaining the Head of the State as the
master or mista\ ss of their foppish ceremonies.
�Lastly, the monarchy is defended on the ground
that a State must have a figure-head. But this is a
fatal plea. When monarchy was a reality the King
stood at the helm. If the sovereign is to be an orna
mental figure under the bowsprit, why should he cost
us an admiral’s salary for painting and gilding ?
Besides, figure-heads become very expensive when
they beget little figure-heads, whose maintenance in
a proper state of decoration is a first charge on the
freightage.
There is one function which her Majesty, ever
since Prince Albert’s death, has been unconsciously
performing. She has been teaching the people that
the monarchy is not indispensable. By habituating
them to dispense with its forms and pageants, she
has shown them how unessential it is to our political
life. Without the least intention, she has been pre
paring the way for a Republic. A few timid Radi
cals, and many Liberals, may stand aghast at the
prospect, but they cannot escape the result of cen
turies of historic tendency. From the day when the
Long Parliament condemned to death ie the man
Charles Stuart,” and established a Commonwealth,
“without King or House of Lords,” the fire of
Republicanism has never been extinguished in the
heart of England. It was allayed by Cromwell, and
it almost expired under Charles the Second, but it
faintly revived under his successor, and it has
gradually strengthened ever since. It gleamed
in many an epigram of Pope, it shone in the
eloquence of Bolingbroke, it quivered in many a
line of Cowper, it kindled the young muse of Words-
�31
worth, it glowed in the songs of Burns, it coruscated
in the satire .of Byron, it flamed in the lyrics of
Shelley, it burned with a steady light in the prose of
Thomas Paine. Nor was the noble tradition lost in
the reaction after the French Revolution. For two
generations it survived in the genius of Landor, and
since his death it has inspired the genius of Swinburne.
Royalty is now moribund, and democracy is striding
to the throne. After centuries of slumber the
People are at length awake, and the noble words
of John Milton may be re-echoed in a later age.
“ Methinks 1 see in my mind a noble and puissant
nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep,
and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I
see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth,
and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full
midday beam, purging and unsealing her longabused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly
radiance/'’ While she was asleep the privileged
classes, from the monarch to the meanest aristocrat,
battened upon her like vampires. But their night is
over. They lurk and wait in vain for her relapse.
They fancy the daylight an illusion, yet they are~
deceived. Democracy is like the grave, it yields
nothing back; and a nation once awakened does not
sleep again until she dies. The day of her freedom
is the day of her life. For as';the dull sense of the
brute grows into full consciousness in man, s® the
rude instincts of the multitude grow into the con
scious life of a people, widening and clearing for
evermore.
�THE
Shadow of the Sword.
SECOND EDITION,
REVISED
AND
ENLARGED.
BY
Gm Wm FOOTE.
PRICE
TWOPKWOE.
PRESS OPINIONS.
“ An ably-written pamphlet, exposing the horrors of war and
the burdens imposed upon the people by the war systems of
Europe. . . . The author deserves thanks for this timely publi
cation.”—Echo.
“ A trenchant exposure of the folly of war, which everyone
should read.”—Weekly Times.
“ A wonderfully eloquent denunciation of the war fever.”—
Birmingham Owl.
“ This pamphlet presents us with some startling truths that are
well worth preserving.”—The People (Wexford).
“ Should be in the hands of all advocates of peace.”—Our
Corner.
Progressive Publishing Co., 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.C.
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Royal paupers : a radical's contribution to the Jubilee, showing what royalty does for the people and what the people do for royalty
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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Monarchy
Republicanism
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
GOD SAVE THE KING
AND OTHER
Coronation Articles
AN
ENGLISH
REPUBLICAN
( G. W. FOOTE)
“ God save the King ! ” It is a large economy
In God to save the like ; but if he will
Be saving, all the better ; for not one am I
Of those who think damnation better still.
Byron, Vision of Judgment.
PBIGE
TWOPENCE
London:
THE PIONEER PRESS,
2
Newcastle Street, Farringdon Street, E,C,
1903
�PRINTED BY THE PIONEER PRESS
AT
3 NEWCASTLE-STREET, FARRINGDON-STREET, LONDON, E.C,
�And, when you hear historians talk of thrones,
And those that sate upon them, let it be
As we now gaze upon the mammoth’s bones,
And wonder what old world such things could see,
Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones,
The pleasant riddles of futurity—
Guessing at what shall happily be hid,
As the real purpose of a pyramid.
—Byron, Don Juan.
Where kings first leagued against the rights of men,
And priests first traded with the name of God.
—Shelley, Queen Mab.
And thou, whom sea-walls sever
From lands unwalled with seas,
Wilt thou endure for ever,
O Milton’s England, these?
Thou that wast his Republic, wilt thou clasp their knees ?
These royalties rust eaten,
These worm-corroded lies,
That keep thine head stornubeaten
And sunlike strength of eyes
From the open heaven and air of intercepted skies ;
These princelets with gauze winglets
That buzz in the air unfurled,
These summer-swarming kinglets,
These thin worms crowned and curled,
That bask and blink and warm themselves about the world.
—Swinburne, A Marehing Song (“ Songs Before Sunrise ”/
�INTRODUCTION.
The articles in this little collection were all written between
June and October, 1902, and were published in a journal which
I have the honor and pleasure to edit. They all relate in some
way or other to the illness and Coronation of Edward VII.
Whatever else they lack, there is one merit I am sure they
possess. They are honest. Probably these are the only honest
articles that were penned and printed on their subject matter.
For that reason alone, if for no other, it is well that they should
be republished in a more permanent form. Generations or ages
hence—for who knows what will float down the stream of time ?
—this little pamphlet may assure the historian that all did not
bend the knee to the Baal of monarchy in England at the
beginning of the twentieth century ; that one voice, at any rate,
was raised, not only in protest, but in mockery, against a most
contemptible superstition.
When I call this superstition “contemptible” I am not speaking
in temper or haste, but calmly and deliberately. There is some
thing to be said for the worship of Mumbo Jumbo; he is
supposed to be able to make it very hot for those who offend him.
There is something to be said for the worship of the Sun; it is
an undoubted benefactor. But what is to be said for the worship
of the “ hereditary nothing ” who happens at any time to sit upon
the constitutional throne of Great Britain and Ireland ? A passion
for genius, for moral excellence,or personal beauty, is intelligible ;
but how is one to explain a passion for the incarnation of
mediocrity to which this nation has long been accustomed in its
sovereigns ? It is not merely a case of inherited folly, for the
loyal fever was less acute in the early years of Queen Victoria.
It seems, in truth, that loyalism is a form of religion ; and it has
all the common characteristics of religion—blind faith, headlong
zeal, and a hatred of heresy.
�V,
When I walked home after the Jubilee procession in London
in 1897, I remarked to a friend who was with me that 'we had
not seen the last of that incomparable circus-show. It was
designed to dazzle the multitude, and it succeeded. It was a
huge “imperialism” advertisement. It appealed to the fighting
and dominating instincts of the people. It was an evocation of
barbaric sentiment. And as the plain little stout old ladybrought up the rear the shouts that acclaimed her had a peculiar
ring. It was the applause of deification. . What the mob saw in
that royal carriage was not the real person who occupied it, but
a fictitious creature of their own imaginations.
On the death of Queen Victoria, Albert Edward Prince of
Wales became King Edward VII. He was just the same man as
before, but the mob (of all classes) felt there was a change.
Jocularities at his expense had been common; from that moment
they became blasphemies. It was another case of deification.
One saw a new divinity created under one’s very nose. And
now when the King speaks “ it is the voice of a god I ”
There is no need to blame the King for the superstition of
which he is the symbol. He probably smiles at it in private.
He was born to his lot like the rest of us ; and one may feel
contempt for the institution without ill-will for the man. One
may even be pleased to see from his jolly countenance that he
does not take his absurd position too seriously.
Having, avowed myself a Republican, I have also to warn the
reader that I am an Atheist. He must expect to find both earthly
and celestial superstitions laughed at in the following pages. My
ideal includes Reason and Humanity; it has no room for the
Ridiculous and the Barbaric.
April, 1903.
�God Save the King.
Believers in Special Providence—and there is no other
kind of Providence either honest or really conceivable—are
naturally concerned about the King’s illness and the post
ponement of the Coronation. What does it all mean ? What
is God particularly angry about ? What lesson does he intend
to convey ? Surely there is something more than meets the
eye in this startling calamity. See how Providence worked
up to it, like a cunning and well-practised dramatist. For a
long time it was feared that the cold damp weather would
be prolonged, and the Coronation be spoiled in that manner.
But the weather improved just in the nick of time. The
three Coronation days—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—
were simply splendid. The sun shone gloriously in a grand
blue sky, yet the sudden great heat was tempered by a
delicious breeze. Yes, the weather was all right, but the
King was all wrong. Only a few hours (so to speak) before
the great event which all his life led up to, he was cast down
on a bed of sickness, the doctors were cutting him open and
operating on his internals, his very existence was imperilled,
and his subjects dreaded that the next bulletin would sound
the sad note of preparation, not for his crowning, but for his
funeral.
Fortunately the King seems likely to weather this worst
storm of his life. To use an American phrase, we take no
�7
stock in kings; but as Edward the Seventh is a man, and
we happen to know of his illness, we hope he will recover.
We extend the same sympathy to every sick person in this
metropolis. As the Queen is a wife and a mother, we respect
her sorrow, and wish her a happy issue out of this affliction.
Death is so great a fact that when it comes it dwarfs all
surroundings into insignificance. Whether it be in a cottage
or in a palace, the first cry of a widow’s grief has the same
tragic note, and the anguish of bereavement scorns the com
forts that money can purchase. But afterwards how much
harder it is for the poor widow 1 To the grief of the wife is
added the grief of the mother as the children pine for the
lack of bread, and a nameless horror broods on every day’shorizon, and the dear young faces lose their gladness, and
the dear little feet go wearily, as though walking to th’eir
graves.
But to return to the King. One would think that, as he is
the principal sufferer in this visitation of Providence, he is
also the principal offender. Has the Lord heard the voice
of the Nonconformist! Conscience protesting against King Edward’s visit to Epsom racecourse ? Have all the sins of
his younger days made so big a heap that the Lord cannot
overlook it ? Has he gazed too much upon the wine when
it was red? Have pretty women thrown themselves too
much in his way ? Has he smoked too many cigars ?—for
even smoking is a sin with the Salvation Army. Anyhow,
this illness seems a direct challenge to his Majesty; and,
indeed, the pious folk who got up the first big prayer-meeting
at St. Paul’s Cathedral were pretty much of that opinion, for
they hoped the King would be spared, and that the residue
of his life might be devoted to the Lord’s service—which was
a plain hint that so much of his life as had already expired
had been devoted to the service of some other personage.
Cardinal Vaughan is too much of a courtier to point in the
Lord’s name at the King. Still, he sees in this calamity the
finger of God. He should have said the hand of God. The
finger of God is an unfortunate expression. It is associated
�8
with the most disgusting miracle in the annals of supersti
tion. When the magicians of Egypt saw all the dust of their
country turned into lice, they declined to compete any further
with Moses and Aaron. They felt that one miracle of that
sort was quite sufficient. “ This,” they said, “ is the finger
of God.”
“ The finger of God,” Cardinal Vaughan says to his clergy,
“ has appeared in the midst of national rejoicing, and on the
eve of what promised to be one of the most splendid
pageants in English history. This is in order to call the
thoughts of all men to Himself.” King Edward, therefore,
is a sort of vicarious sacrifice. He is laid low and tortured
in order that careless people might be made to think of the
Lord.
Danton said in the French National Assembly, “ The
coalesced kings threaten us, and as our gage of battle we
fling before them the head of a king.” And poor, stupid
Louis the Sixteenth’s head was cut off by the guillotine.'
Cardinal Vaughan makes the Lord throw the hacked and
bleeding body of a King before the British people as his
(the Lord’s) challenge to their attention.
“ May it not be ?” all the men of God were asking on
Sunday. Every one of them had his “ tip ” with respect to
the Lord’s meaning in the King’s illness. The Bishop of
Winchester came up to London to let out his secret. “ May
it not be,” he said, “ that just because as a people we were
too light-hearted, too superficial, too formal about it all, God
solemnly laid his hand upon us and bade us stop ?” Of course
it may have been, and of course it may have been otherwise.
The Bishop of Winchester is only guessing. He is in the
guessing business.
The Bishop of Stepney gave his “tip” at St Paul’s
Cathedral. His idea was that we were too much excited
by outward show to discern the deeper lessons ; so the Lord
tripped up the King’s heels and set us all thinking. Still
more professional was the view of that burning and shining
Nonconformist light, the Rev. F. B. Meyer. “ God wanted
�9
the British nation to know,” he said, “' that when next he
gives it victory over its enemies, and grants peace from a war
that tried its resources, it should not celebrate it by the blow
ing of fog-horns and whistles, but by thronging the temples
of God and singing his praises.” Dr. Meyer keeps one of
these “temples”—and it keepshim. No wonder he wants
the “ temples ” to be thronged.
Pastor Spurgeon, of the famous Tabernacle, said the
nation had passed through a wonderful week, an awful
week. God’s hand had been stretched out—“ He had made
the nation to understand that he was supreme.” It does not
seem to have occurred to the preacher that this method of
proving the Lord is boss was rather rough on poor King
Edward.
We expected to find Mr. Sims (of the Referee) in fine form
over the Coronation postponement, and we were not dis
appointed. “We are suddenly hurled,” he said, “ from the
highest pinnacle of joy to the deepest abyss of gloom.”
How the great “ Dagonet ” must have thrust his tongue in
his cheek as he penned that sentence! The London crowd
has been enjoying itself as well as looked civil in the circum
stances ; “ Dagonet ” has also been doing the same thing,
judging from the later parts of “ Mustard and Cress.” But
when the royal bulletin is stuck up he says, “ Let us all look
unhappy ”—And as soon as he is round the corner he dances
a jig and makes all the bells ring in his jester’s cap.
“ Perhaps God put it off because the seats were so damp.”
So said a little girl who heard some groWn-up people discuss
ing what Providence meant by arresting the Coronation.
Mr. Sims, who tells the story, does not appear to think that
Providence had anything to do with the matter. “ Yet it is
quite within the bounds of reasonable argument,” he says,
“that the postponement of the Coronation has saved thou
sands of people from the evils that would have resulted from
sitting for many hours on saturated wood.” Probably there
is truth in this. It is as good a justification of the ways of
God to men as we have seen lately. King Edward had to
�10
undergo an operation for appendicitis in order to save crowds
of his subjects from stricture. We understand it now.
A very different explanation is given in a Radical news
paper :—
“It seems as if some calamitous Destiny overhung this
nation since our quarrel with the Boer States. That war
killed the Queen ; its anxieties, no doubt, fostered the illness
of the present monarch. The mills of God grind slowly, but
they grind exceeding small.”
Now if God is angry with this nation for quarrelling with
the Boer States, why did he not give them the victory?
What sense is there in letting us beat them and take away
their independence, and then killing members of our royal
family to punish us for our sin ? How did the war kill
Queen Victoria ? Is it the last straw that breaks the camel’s
back ? Very old people must die of something. And why
should God go for poor King Edward on account of the South
African war ? He had no more to do with it than any infant
in arms. It is commonly reported that he played the part of
a pacificator, and helped to bring about a settlement of that
unhappy quarrel. Thus the God of the Radical journal is no
wiser than the God of the clergy. Instead of going for King
Edward he should have gone for (say) Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. What justice is there in carving the King’s stomach
with operating knives, while the Colonial Secretary wears a
monocle in one eye and a smile in the other ?
And now for a few words on the “ intercession ” business.
When the present King was Prince of Wales he nearly lost
his life by typhoid fever. The nation prayed for his recovery,
and afterwards held a great thanksgiving service in St. Paul’s
Cathedral. God Almighty was publicly thanked for his kind
ness in saving the Prince’s life. But the doctors were not
forgotten ; two of them were knighted, and all were hand
somely rewarded. Now the Prince has become King, and is
again in danger, the doctors are judiciously associated with
the Lord in the work of his recovery. To leave his life in
the hands of the Lord exclusively would be too perilous ; the
doctors are there to supplement his efforts, and see that
�11
nothing is neglected. They keep an eye on Providence; and
everybody, including the King, feels that their vigilance is
requisite. With six doctors and one God all may yet
be well.
The Next Move.
The daily bulletins concerning the King’s health continue to
be so favorable that sanguine persons are already prophe
sying that the Coronation will take place very shortly. But
the case is one of great uncertainty. There is many a slip
twixt the cup and the lip, and there may be yet another slip
twixt the King and the Coronation. Not that we wish for
it; we are only reproving a certain rashness on the part of
the public vaticinators.
Whether the Coronation comes early or late, the clergy
will surely not let it be taken without a preparatory Thanks
giving. That is the next item on the program. King Edward
will have to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral and participate in a
service of thanks to God for his recovery. Nothing will be
said on that occasion about the doctors. They will have
done their work and received their rewards. It will then be
the Lord’s turn, and the clergy will see that he gets all the
credit. For his reputation, like their existence, is parasitical.
He takes all the glory of other persons’ successes. The
failures he leaves to their own account. It is, indeed, on this
very plan that Christianity is constructed. Man is left to
share all his sins with the Devil; but all the good in him is
�12
ascribed to the grace of God. Every time it is heads poor
man loses and tails the Deity wins.
We expect to find the clergy working that Thanksgiving
for all it is worth. It will give a much-needed lift to their
profession. They will receive a certificate of the efficacy of
prayer, signed by the King, and countersigned by the British
nation. And if they cannot trade profitably for a good while
on that basis, they must be very degenerate representatives
of the clerical interest.
Religion is worship, and worship is prayer. Piety is a
lively sense of favors to come. All over the world, and under
every form of faith, this is the everlasting verity. The old
story fold by Dr. Tylor goes to the root of the matter. A
missionary in Africa set up a little iron chapel, with a little
bell on the top. One day he was ringing the bell for the
morning service, and one of his “ converts ” came by at that
moment. “ Aren’t you coming in ?” asked the missionary.
“No,” said the convert, “ I don’t want anything just now.”
Someone has sent us a copy of a Roman Catholic organ,
the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart. It contains a
department headed “ Petitions,” and another headed “ Thanks
givings.” These are described as “ only a few ” out of the
“ thousands ” that reach the Editor. Not one of them is
accompanied by a name and address. The only place men
tioned is “ Tipperary,” and the petitioners and thanksgivers
sign themselves, “A Grateful Child of Mary,” “A Hopeful
One,” “ Hannah,” “ Three Orphans,” and so forth. We
suppose the registry of their names and addresses, with other
particulars, is kept in the beautiful land above. They pray
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for some favor—a good situa
tion, or the recovery of a sick relative; and if their prayer
is answered they drop a “ thanksgiving ”—together, we sup
pose, with something more substantial—to the Messenger.
If their prayer is not answered they say nothing. And thus
the game goes on to the comfort of the faithful and the profit
of the Church.
Such victims as these are an easy prey. Even the King is
�13
not a difficult one. He cannot help himself. If he were to
pooh-pooh the clergy, and refuse to take part in a Thanks
giving, he would only be fighting against the common interests
of imposture and privilege—in which his own interest is
included. But there is nobler game to be run down. We
may instance Mr. Chamberlain. He meets with a cab
accident, and spends his sixty-sixth birthday in hospital.
Now the accident might have been a good deal worse; it
might even have been fatal. We may look upon it as a
“ mercy ” that the Colonial Secretary is still alive. True,
his wound is described as “ not dangerous,” but who can be
sure of such things ? There is clearly room for prayer; yea,
and for thanksgiving afterwards. We suggest, then, that the
clergy should try to tackle Mr. Chamberlain. He would be a
splendid catch if they could only land him. And now that
he has lost a lot of blood he may be amenable. Perhaps the
Archbishop of Canterbury is too old for an enterprise like
this, but the Bishop of London is younger and more
ambitious. He might take Mr. Chamberlain in hand, induce
him to show at least a little connivance, get up a special
service of prayer for his perfect recovery, and, finally, drive
him in triumph to the Cathedral. It would be a splendid
stroke for dear old Mother Church, and it should really be
attempted.
Mr. Chamberlain’s thanksgiving service should precede the
King’s. It would serve as a rehearsal. The royal affair
might then go through without a hitch.
Meanwhile it is to be noted that illnesses and calamities
are a golden harvest for the clergy. They live upon other
men’s misfortunes. The happy do not need them. That is
why they preach the religion of sorrow. Every man’s misery
is their opportunity. They work upon man’s mortality, and
trade upon his fear of death. Were he immortal he would
laugh at them. As it is they can afford to laugh at him.
The King’s illness, in particular, has been a god-send to
the soul-savers of every denomination, though especially to
the parsons of the State Church. By voicing the general
�14
desire for his recovery, by battering the ears of the Almighty
•with their loud petitions, by representing every improvement
in his condition as the result of divine intervention, and,
finally, by securing that he shall publicly return thanks to
God in one of their joss-houses, they have shown themselves
what we always said they were—past-masters in the art of
deception^and imposture.
The King’s Dinner.
We do not wish to depreciate the King’s generous intention
in providing a Coronation dinner for half a million poor
people. It is something that he thinks of the destitute in
the midst of his plenty. But it is very certain that the
money—some ^£30,000—could be more profitably invested.
A dinner is eaten, digested, and assimilated; and when the
force it gives is expended it disappears for ever. What
advantage has been gained if there is no dinner on the
morrow ? If a man has to die of hunger, he may as well
die one day as the next. Evidently, then, the King’s Dinner
—however well meant—is like a dab of ointment on a running
ulcer, springing from a chronic corruption of the blood. What
is wanted is the prevention of poverty—in the sense of desti
tution of the necessaries and decencies of life. Giving dinners
will not promote that object. On the contrary, the very fact
that one person is able to pay for thirty thousand dinners,
while another person is unable to pay for one, is in itself a
sufficient proof that our civilisation rests upon an absurd and
precarious basis. Luxury at one extreme balances poverty
at the other. The too-much involves the too-little. The
�15
pride of the prince is the other side of the wretchedness of
the pauper.
Fancy half a million people in the richest city in the
world, the capital of the greatest empire on earth, to whom
a dinner is an event 1 Something to be looked forward to,
schemed for, and almost fought for. What a satire on our
boasted civilisation 1 What a scandal to Christianity ! Was
it to this end that Christ brought salvation ? After nearly
two thousand years of the gospel of redemption the world is
still so unredeemed ! Myriads who have the “ bread of life ’'
offered to them by rich soul-saving societies look around in
despair for a crust to appease their bodily hunger; and little
children cry for food, though “ of such is the kingdom of
heaven.”
But if a dinner is an event to half a million people in one
city, how many more are there to whom a dinner is an un
certainty ? And what kind of civilisation is it when the
cravings of animal appetite bar the road to intellectual and
moral progress ?
But for all the homilies of social science the King’s Dinner
will be eaten by ravenous thousands. Well-fed people are
interesting themselves in the matter. Some of them have
the ethical and religious interests of the King’s Dinner
eaters so much at heart that they insist on the meal being a
dry one. No drinks, not even a mug^of small beer. And
this in the name of Jesus Christ, who turned seventy-five
gallons of water into wine to keep a spree going ! Was there
ever greater hypocrisy ? Surely ^in the case of these poor
wretches, the square meal of a lifetime might be washed
down with something palatable. Surely, in their case, the
Bible text might be quoted, “ Let him drink and forget his
poverty, and remember his misery no more.”
It is a pity, for their own sake, that the clergy did not
squash the proposal of a Coronation Dinner. It was a grave
mistake, from their own point of view, to emphasize the con
trasting luxury and poverty of London. Nor is it reasonable
to suppose that the poor will feel grateful. They will feel
�16
nothing of the kind. They know very well that there is
“ something rotten in the state of Denmark,” though they
don’t exactly know how to set it right, and dread jumping
out of the frying-pan into the fire.
Christianity has no message for the poor except that of
kingdom-come. It contemplates the perpetual existence of
poverty. “ The poor ye have always with you.” Its gospel
is not justice, but charity. Private charity there may well
be over and beyond justice. But the one is no substitute for
the other.
It is the boast of the New Testament that “ the poor have
the gospel preached unto them.” This is all they can ever
expect from Christianity. “ Blessed be ye poor,” said Jesus
Christ, “for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” A poor
kingdom! like Sancho Panza’s governorship of that
imaginary island. It is the kingdom of earth that really
matters. The wealthy and privileged classes keep it to
themselves, and they pay a lot of tragi-comic fellows in black
to preach the kingdom of heaven to the disinherited masses.
This is the moral of the King’s Dinner.
�17
Coronation Day.
Coronation Day has come and gone at last. - It was fixed for
the end of June, but “ Providence ” played the deuce with the
arrangements. Splendid weather was turned on, and the King
knocked over. It was a nasty sarcasm on the part of that said
<c
Providence,” and a postponement was inevitable. Fortu
nately the King was taken in hand by a strong detachment
of the best doctors in the nation. Everything that skill and
care could do was done for him ; everything that money could
command was available. It is not miraculous, therefore, that
His Majesty pulled through the worst of the trouble with more
than usual celerity ; nor is it quite astonishing that his con
valescence has been remarkably rapid, for a magnificent yacht
in the Solent is certainly an ideal hospital. Science has saved
the King. But it would never do for him to say so. He has
to play his part as head of the Church as well as head of the
' State. Accordingly, in his message “ To My People ” he
gives Science the go by. Not so much as an allusion is
made to the doctors or the nurses. They will get their
rewards, of course; but they must not be thanked publicly.
Thanks have to be rendered elsewhere. The clergy must be
recognised. They got up prayers for the King’s recovery,
and they expect to receive all the credit. They are so exact
ing in these matters that the King was obliged to humor
them. “ The prayers of my people for my recovery,” he
says, “ were heard, and I now offer up my deepest gratitude
to Divine Providence.” Perhaps the King half believes this ;
he can hardly be such a fool as to believe it altogether. It is
a discreet mixture; a big sop to the clergy, and a little blague
on his own account.
We have asked this question before, and we ask it again:
Why should God save the King more than any other man in
this nation ? Monarchs are no longer indispensable. Queen
Victoria’s loss was “ irreparable,” but it was found that the
�18
earth still turned on its axis. After the lapse of a year and
a-half she is almost forgotten. King Edward’s death would
equally have left no unfillable void. The Prince of Wales
would have mounted the throne, and the loyalists would have
worshipped a new God. For loyalism is really a form of
religion. When the Prince of Wales becomes King we can
see a deity created under our very eyes. He is sanctified by
“ the divinity that doth hedge a king.” He becomes a totally
new being in the twinkling of an eye. Before, he could even
be chaffed ; now, to speak lightly of him is a species of blas
phemy. This is all nonsense, however, to the eye of reason.
Klings are but men. However high your seat, as old Mon
taigne says, you actually sit on your own posteriors. Nor,
we repeat, are kings in any way indispensable. One king
disappears—and another takes his place—“ The King is
dead—Long live the King.” And what difference is there,
from the point of view of the Infinite, between the greatest
king and the meanest of his subjects ? A dead lord, as Gray
said, ranks with commoners ; and a dead king ranks with the
mob of “ the illustrious obscure.” Unless, indeed, he is some
thing more than a king. But how few monarchs have been
able to claim the title of great men; Most of them are small
enough—except in their own estimation, or in the flattery of
their parasites. It was this truth that made Byron exclaim,
in reference to “ God save the King ” in connection with
George the Third, that it was “ a great economy in God to
save the like.” Poor men, working men, breadwinners of
families, die every day, and many of them prematurely.
They have no troop of doctors round their sick beds, no
crowd of nurses to attend to all their wants. They have to
fight death alone, and they succumb. Why does not God
save them ? Why save the father of princes and princesses,
and not the father whose death leaves his children to penury
or destitution ?
Whatever be the reason of the King’s recovery, he has
recovered, and gone through his Coronation. The Arch
bishop of Canterbury has dabbed His Majesty’s bald head>
�19
his breast, and the palms of his hands with holy oil, and
thus “ consecrated ” him in the name of the Lord. He is
now a full-blown sovereign, King in the sight of God, as well
as in the sight of men. The one thing wanting is added.
Edward the Seventh was King de facto already, but the
Church has made him King by the grace of God. He is now
both crowned and anointed—and much good may it do him !
The men and women who “assisted” at the Coronation in
Westminster Abbey were not the British nation. Neither did
they represent the British nation. Most of them were drones
or parasites. Some of them had attained to their positions by
hard work, of a kind, but these were a very small minority.
As for the idle crowd outside, one need not speak of it with
the slightest respect. There is more loyalism—perhaps we
should say royalism—to-day than ever. There is also, more
rowdyism. Forty years ago it was not common to hear lads
swearing in the streets ; it is common enough now ; and these
lads doff their hats with grotesque reverence at the sound of
“the King!” Various “odes” have appeared in the more
“ respectable ” papers. Mr. John Davidson even has joined
in the melancholy chorus. But the popular Coronation poet
laureate is the author of a tipsy song which has been shouted
on the music-hall stages, and shouted still more lustily in the
public thoroughfares :—
Drinking whisky, wine, and sherry,
We’ll all be merry
On Coronation Day.
The sentiment and poetry of these lines are worthy of the
occasion; the humbug at one end is matched by the vulgarity
at the other; and one is tempted to say that to be King over
such a mob is not an honor for which any man should thank
God too vigorously.
Humbug and vulgarity! These are the chief characteristics
of present-day loyalism. There is not a note of sincerity in
it. Journalists who should know better, and do know better,
are swept along by the popular flood. The Daily News, the
organ of the Nonconformist Conscience, put on one of its best
�20
homilectic scribes to write on “ The King’s Thanksgiving.”
There were many blunders in his article, but nothing quite
so bad as the reference to that great and noble Emperor
whose very name is music to the students of humanity.
“ The burden of Marcus Aurelius,” the Writer said, “ was not
so heavy as the burden of the ruler who presides over the
destinies of the British Empire.” - What a prostitution of
scholarship on the altar of political superstition ! Marcus
Aurelius was not a sham ruler, but a real one; the actual
burden of empire rested upon his shoulders. He governed in
fact, notin theory ; lie wielded power and bore responsibility ;•
and in all serious fighting he went through the oampaign at
the head of its army, sharing its hardships no less than, its
dangers. Such a man needed no hocus-pocus of anointing to
make him a true Emperor. The finest head and the noblest
heart in the Roman Empire, resting on the bare ground of
the tented field, wrapped in a cloak whose only distinction
was that its color was the imperial purple, and thinking out.
some point in moral philosophy before falling off into a sleep
well earned by the day-long cares of a mighty rulership,
ought not to be mentioned in the same breath with a common
place “ constitutional ” monarch, who is not the helm, but the
gilded figure-head, of the ship of State. Christendom has
never produced such rulers as the great Pagan Emperors.
The throne shed no lustre on them : they shed lustre on the
throne. They were eminent and conspicuous not only by
station, but by intellect, and character, and public ’ service.
And now, after the lapse of nearly two thousand years, and
all the pretended uplifting influence of Christianity upon the
Western world, we have nothing but “ Edward, R. and I.” to
set beside Marcus Aurelius 1 It is really too absurd. We
drop our pen in amazement at human folly.
�21
The King’s Chaplain.
This title is an Hibernicism. It should really be “the
King’s no chaplain.” But that looks and sounds odd, and
we have sacrificed strict accuracy to appearance and euphony.
The case is this. A gentleman—probably in the soul-saving
business himself—has been writing to the newspapers, com
plaining that King- Edward does not keep a chaplain on
board the royal yacht. There is a doctor to look after the
crew’s bodies, if anything goes wrong with them, but no
priest, minister, preacher, or man of God of any description,
to look after the salvation of their immortal souls. The
result is that Captain Lambton actually takes charge of
divine service when it has to be celebrated. No doubt he
gets through the job with all the proverbial dexterity of a
“handy man.” Yet he is only an amateur, after all; and
the -job requires the services of a professional. Captain
Lambton has never been consecrated. He is not endowed
with the Holy Ghost. Probably, being a sailor, he swears as
often as he prays—perhaps oftener. There is something in
the salt water, or the open sea, or the atmosphere of a ship,
or whatever it is, that encourages the use of superlative
epithets and other striking forms of expression. All the
greater, therefore, is the need of a tame Christian on board,
to dilute the nautical language down to the proper strength
for a set interview with the Almighty. Besides, a parson is
as necessary as a doctor. Not only is he required as a soul
saver, but he has his living to get, and an opening should be
made for him somewhere. It is a sad. spectacle to see a lean
curate looking longingly at the royal yacht from a distance,
when he might be pursuing his trade on board of her, and
enjoying a fine opportunity of becoming both fat and useful.
It is clear, therefore, at least from the clerical point of view,
that the King is acting improperly in sailing about without
the company of a clergyman. Nevertheless, it is conceivable
�22
that the King is acting quite properly from his own point of
view. Not that we have any right to speak for him ; only
we think that something could be said if we had the right
to say it.
Let us venture to suggest a few considerations. It will be
conceded, we imagine, that after all that Coronation ceremony
(or tomfoolery) in Westminster Abbey, following so soon upon
his severe and well-nigh fatal illness, the King is very much
in need of rest. Now a doctor is more conducive to his rest
than a clergyman. The former would say “ Take your ease,
eat and drink well, keep on deck all you can, and sleep sound
at nights.” The latter would say, “ Prepare to meet thy
God.” But we may be sure that the King is not at all
anxious to meet his God, or to spend a superfluous amount
of time in getting ready for the encounter. He was quite
near enough to meeting his God a couple of months ago. A
very distant acquaintance will do for the next ten years.
Any man, even a king, who has just narrowly escaped death,
will object to being pestered with reminders of his mortality.
In the next place, it must be admitted that the King has
been to church a good many times already, that he has
listened to a lot of sermons, and that he has heard plenty of
lessons, prayers, and hymns. He has had enough to last him
for a while. What he wants now is a holiday. He should
leave his land-life entirely behind him; and, as the parson is
a part of it, the parson is rightly told to stop on shore. When
a man is seeking new health and strength, after a very trying
illness, he does not want a soul-worrier constantly at his
elbow; but may very well say, with the gentleman in the
Acts of the Apostles, I will hear thee at a more convenient
season.
In the third place, it can hardly be assumed that the King
is in love with clergymen. As a man of the world, he must
be pretty well aware of what they are driving at. He must
know that they pursue their profession (or “ calling ”) for
ordinary business reasons. He must recognise that they
preach heaven in order to live on earth. He must have a
�23
poor opinion of them as a class, and in all probability he
loves them so that he dotes upon their very absence.
Why, in the fourth place, should the King have a chaplain
on the royal yacht for the sake of the crew ? Sailors are
seldom enamored of clergymen. They think it unlucky to
have a clergyman on board. They have an idea that it
means bad weather. We do not know why, but such is the
fact. Perhaps it is a tradition that has come down from the
days of Jonah. There was no peace till the prophet was
thrown overboard. And it may be that sailors are still of
opinion that the proper place for a chaplain is the belly of
any fish that will entertain him.
The advocates of the clergy may object that the King has
shown himself in other respects a friend of religion. Did
he not declare that it was to his people’s prayers that he
owed his recovery ? Did he not express his gratitude in con
sequence to Almighty God? Did he not “hurry up” his
Coronation, and give the clergy a chance of signalising their
services to the throne and the nation ? Did he not show his
opinion that he was only half a king until he had received
the Church’s blessing ? Yes, he did so; but it must be
remembered that he has a part to play as head of the Church
as well as head of the State. It is a very rash assumption
that his heart speaks every time he goes through a bit of
public hocus-pocus with the clergy. They play the panto
mime, and so does he ; it is a part of the “ business ” of both
their professions. They dispense the grace of God, and he
reigns by the grace of God; but when the pantomime is over
it is not surprising that he prefers their room to their company.
For our part, we commend the King’s common sense in
taking his sea-trip without a ghostly companion—a person
who habitually wears black to suggest a funeral, and occa
sionally puts on a cassock to suggest a shroud. It will be
time enough to resume touch with the mystery-mongers
when his holiday is over. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.
�24
The Thanksgiving Comedy.
The great Coronation farce is drawing to a close. Soon
after this article meets the readers’ eyes the curtain will be
rung down, the .performers will be disrobing, and the spec
tators will be streaming home. What the performers think
of the spectators, and what the spectators think of the
performers, will not appear in the newspapers. The con
ventional platitudes and unctuosities will be printed. No
body will talk sense or truth. It will be all fireworks and
“ God save the King.”
On Saturday the King and Queen will drive into the City
and home again by way of South London. Those who wish
to bask in the sunshine of the royal countenance will enjoy
their opportunity. They will find it cheap this time. Seats
can now be had for the price of an old song. The first fine
careless rapture is gone. It is impossible to bring back the
loyal ecstacy of June. The psychological moment went by,
and the psychological moment never returns.
On Sunday the King will take another drive. Accom
panied by the Queen and other members of the Royal
Family (capitals, please), he will attend a Thanksgiving
Service (more capitals, please) at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
There is to be a “ small procession,” but nothing very “loud.”
For did not “ Providence ” humble the King’s or the nation’s
pride in June ? And is it safe to offer another provocation ?
His Majesty, however, will be met at the west door, at the
top of the great flight of steps, by the Bishop, the Dean, and
the Canons Residentiary; a procession will then be formed
by the Lord Mayor, bearing the pearl sword, immediately
preceding the King and Queen; and the whole troupe will
appear before the Lord in a highly distinguished and effective
manner.
The two Psalms selected for the service are the thirtieth
and the hundred and eighth. The former opens as follows:—
�25
“ I will extol thee, 0 Lord ; for thou hast lifted me up, and
hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. 0 Lord, my God,
I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. 0 Lord, thou
hast brought up my soul from the grave : thou hast kept me
alive, that I should not go down to the pit.”
We presume this will be regarded as the King’s address
Jehovah. Certainly he has been spared from the “ grave ”
and the “ pit,” which mean precisely the same thing. In
other words, he has had his trip to heaven postponed. He
would rather not take it while the royal yacht holds out for
better excursions. He has a good taste in personal enjoy
ment. “ If you want a good thing keep near me,” might be
his motto. But he is obliged to adopt something more
“respectable.” So absurd is the divinity that doth hedge a
King.
It must be admitted that the Lord has let a good many go
down into the pit since he reprieved King Edward. Some of
them, too, were of much more importance to the world.
Zola, for instance—a great writer and a noble man—might
have been saved from that absurd death by suffocation, and
allowed to complete the work of his genius. Nor should
humbler instances be overlooked. How many a bread
winner’s life has been cut short disastrously since the month
of June. How many widows and orphans have been cast
amongst the wreckage of society. Why, O why, should the
Lord be careful of kings and careless of poor working men ?
We thought he was no respecter of persons. Yes, that is
the text; and the flunkey Thanksgiving Service is the com
mentary.
The Bishop of London is to bo the preacher at this
Thanksgiving Service. He was done—by “ Providence ”—
out of the five minutes that he was to have had for a sermon
at the Coronation. But now he is to have his revenge.
“ Providence ” will have to put up with it, and the King will
have to listen. It is to be presumed, however, that Dr.
Ingram is courtier enough to “ cut it short.” God will think
twice, a French lady said, before he damns a gentleman of
�26
quality; and the Bishop of London will think twice before
he inflicts a long sermon upon his King.
We read of provision to be made at St. Paul’s Cathedral
for all sorts of persons, including pressmen, who are all sorts
in themselves. But we see nothing about provision for the
King’s doctors. It was they, and not the ghost behind the
curtain, who kept him out of the “ pit.” Everybody with a
grain of common sense knows that if it had not been for
their skill and attention, backed up by the finest nursing and
other adjuncts that could be had for love or money, all the
prayers in the world would never have saved King Edward
from becoming a corpse. An operation was absolutely
necessary, and that particular operation has only been prac
tised for a few years. Not so long ago, even the doctors and
the parsons together could not have saved the King’s life.
And prayer was just as efficacious then as it is now. It is
science that has improved.
Probably the King himself knows why he is still alive.
But his position is an awkward one. He must satisfy the
clergy or make them his implacable enemies. The per
formance at St. Paul’s Cathedral must therefore be gone
through. But we dare say no one will be happier than him
self when it is all over.
�27
The “ D.T.’s.”
The Daily Telegraph was once said to be run by a Jew in
the interest of Christianity. The original Hebrew of the
tribe of Levi who got hold of it traded a good deal on the
eheap, shallow, popular writing of George Augustus Sala.
And thereby hangs a tale. Mr. Sala (it is said) in the early
days of the connection was instructed to write a rousing
article on the Crucifixion. It was to appear the day before
Good Friday, and the great G. A. S. wrote it at home, and
took it down to Fleet-street himself—which was the cause of
all the trouble. For on the way down Mr. Sala, who was
not, a teetotaller, met several friends, and the journey was
broken by the usual adjournments. When he arrived at the
D. T. office he was eagerly received by the aforesaid Hebrew
gentleman of the tribe of Levi, who had begun to despair of
that particular contribution. “Ah, Mr. Sala,” he said, “I’m
very glad to see you. Have you brought the article ? ”
f Yes,” replied the welcome contributor, and he held it out.
But just at that moment he was seized with a fit of maudlin
compunction. “You sha’n’t have it,” he stammered; “it
was you----- Jews who crucified the Savior. You shan’t
have it! You shan’t have it I ” And he reeled over and
dropped the article into the fire. There was consternation
in the editorial office, and weeping and wailing and gnashing
of teeth on the part of the self-disgusted contributor, when
he was able to realise the terrible sacrifice he had made on
the altar of a too-well stimulated piety.
Many, many years have rolled by since the probable,
possible, or mythical date of that touching incident. But the
Daily Telegrph still maintains its pious reputation. Was it
not the D. I7., in the early seventies of last century, when
Albert Edward Prince of Wales was down with typhoid
fever,, that invited us all to watch the great national wave
of prayer surging against the throne of Grace ? Was it not
�28
the D. T. that almost told God he would forget himself if he
let the Prince die ? And was it not the D. T., when the
Prince recovered, that sang the loudest in the Thanksgiving
Chorus ? The D. T. “ caught on ” to British piety on that
occasion, and it has held on ever since.
Our Jew-Christian or Christian-Jew contemporary came
out on Monday with a magnificent article on the Thanks
giving Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was written in
the fine bold style that Matthew Arnold so much admired,
and so celebrated in the Dedicatory Letter of Friendship's
Garland. Yes, Adolescens Leo, Esq., is still the same.
Time has not impaired his youthful vigor. It has not even
mellowed him. He roars with the same robust music. He
displays the same unction in his moments of piety. The
voice breaks, the tears fall; and a large admiring public
gazes spellbound at the pathetic spectacle.
“ If the King’s life,” our contemporary said, “ was pre
cious to his people before his grave illness, it is doubly so
now, in that his subjects throughout the world devoutly
believe that he was restored to health in direct answer to
their supplications and intercessions.”
We doubt if the writer believes a word of this. Probably
he had his tongue in his cheek from the beginning to the
end of the sentence. Anyhow it is not true that all the
King’s subjects “ devoutly believe ” in the supernatural
character of his recovery. Many of them believe they could
have recovered themselves—with or without prayer—in the
same circumstances. With a number of the first doctors in
the land, with the best nursing skill obtainable for love or
money, and with every other conceivable advantage that
ample wealth and lofty position could afford, it is very diffi
cult to see much room for divine assistance in the King’s
case. When there are six doctors and one God, will some
one tell us how the celestial share in the patient’s treatment
is to be calculated ?
According to the Bible, the doctors are a sort of interlopers
in any kind of illness. But upon this point our contemporary
�29
is discreetly silent. There is no reason, however, why we
should practise the same hypocrisy. We beg to observe,
therefore, that the Bible persistently sneers at doctors. In
.the Old Testament we read that things went wrong with
King Asa because in his sickness he sought unto the physi
cians instead of unto the Lord. In the New Testament we
read of the woman who had “ suffered much of many physi
cians,” and was made worse rather than better, until at last
she was healed by the power of faith. Definite directions
also are given about what should be done by believers in
time of sickness. There is the calling in of elders, the
anointing of the sick, and the praying over them ; but there
is no reference to calling in a doctor. Indeed, it is expressly
said that “the prayer of faith shall recover the sick,” so that
all the other proceedings are purely formal. Such is the
teaching of the Bible-—the book which both Church and
Chapel force into the hands of the children in our public
schools ; yet no one has the honesty to admit it except Free
thinkers and a handful of Peculiar People—so called, per
haps, beeause they have the peculiarity of squaring their
practice with their profession.
Let us ask- our, contemporary a question. If it be true
•that the King’s restoration to health is owing to the prayers
of his people, is it honest to send poor parents to prison for
■relying upon prayer to save their sick children? If the
doctrine of the efficacy of prayer be true at Buckingham
Palace, how does it become false at Barking ? And if it be
right to thank God in a Cathedral for saving the life of a
King, how is it wrong to trust the same God to save the life
of a little child in a poor man’s cottage ?
So much for the Daily Telegraph. And now a few words
on the Bishop of London. This right reverend Father-inthe-Lord was allowed five minutes for his Thanksgiving
Sermon. That was all the King could spare him. But the
Bishop made good use of the time. Never was there a worse
exhibition of flunkeyism. Dr. Ingram expressed no end of
astonishment that King Edward had twice—yes, actually,
�30
twice—been near death. Such things, of course, are never
heard of in the case of ordinary men. God meant some
thing by saving the King’s life a second time; yes, it
was to be thought that “ God had some plan for that life
of special service and usefulness and strength.” Altogether,
if we may judge by the rest of the preacher’s observations
on this head, the Almighty has been thinking of little else of
late but the respectable, though not very brilliant, gentleman
who happens to occupy the throne of Great Britain and
Ireland. All the rest of the world has presumably to look
on and wonder—and wait for its share of divine attention.
Dr. Ingram thought it necessary to refer to “ the instru
ments God used.” Courtier-like he mentioned first “the noble
lady who was constantly by the patient’s side ”—just as
though it were an uncommon thing for wives to tend their
husbands. Then came “the surgeons and physicians, whose
untiring skill and care were of so great avail,” and last “ the
nurses who were so faithful in their service.” Yet the
object of the Thanksgiving Service was not to sing their
praises, but to “ honor God.” For without his spoken word
“ all skill and all nursing is unavailing.” Now what is the
legitimate inference from these expressions ? Why, this.
Doctors and nurses must attend the sick; it is not safe to
leave a patient entirely in the Lord’s hands; God can do
nothing without instruments; but, on the other hand, if the
doctors and nurses pull the patient through his trouble, it is
really not their doing, for all their skill and attention is
useless if God does not give the word for the patient’s
recovery. Such is the mental muddle in which we find a
Bishop and a most “ distinguished ” congregation at the
beginning of the twentieth contury.
�SOME WORKS BY G. W. FOOTE
A Defence of Free Speech. Three Hours’ Address
to the Jury before Lord Coleridge.
4d._
Bible Handbook for Freethinkers and Inquiring
Christians. New edition, revised. Cloth, 2s. 6d.; paper,
Is. 6d.
Bible Heroes. New edition. Cloth, 2s. 6d.
Bible Romances. New edition, revised. Cloth, 2s.
Book of God in the Light of the Higher Criticism.
Cloth, 2s. ; paper, Is.
Christianity and Secularism. Four Nights’ Public
Debate with the Rev. Dr. James McCann. Cloth Is. 6d.
paper, Is.
Crimes of Christianity. Cloth, 2s. 6d.
Flowers of Freethought. First series, cloth, 2s. 6d. ;
Second series, cloth, 2s. 6d.
Grand Old Book, The.
A Reply to the Grand Old
Cloth, Is. 6d.; paper, Is.
Is Socialism Sound ? Four Nights’ Public Debate
with Annie Besant. Cloth 2s.; paper, Is.
Man.
Letters to the Clergy. Is.
Theism or Atheism. Public Debate between G. W
Foote and the Rev. W. T. Lee. Neatly bound, Is.
Letters to Jesus Christ. 4d.
Peculiar People. An Open Letter to Mr. Justice
Wills.
Id.
Philosophy of Secularism. 3d.
Royal Paupers. 2d.
Sign of the Cross, The. A Candid Criticism of Mr
Wilson Barrett’s Play.
6d.
Christianity and Progress. A Reply to the Rt. Hon
W. E. Gladstone.
Id.
Comic Sermons and Other Fantasias. Paper, 8d.
Darwin on God. 6d.
Dropping the Devil. 2d.
The Passing of Jesus. 2d.
What is Agnosticism ? 3d,
�Progressive People should read
THE FREETHINKER
(EDITED BY G. W. FOOTE )
The Oldest and Liveliest Freethought Paper in England
Established in 1881
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY.
PRICE TWOPENCE
2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street, London, E.C.
The New Paper
THE
PIONEER ;
A POPULAR PROPAGANDIST
ORGAN
OF
ADVANCED IDEAS
PUBLISHED MONTHLY.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
The Pioneer Press, 2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street, London, E.C:
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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God save the king, and other coronation articles, by an English Republican (G.W. Foote)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: v, [6]-30, [2] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Publisher's advertisements ("Some works by G.W. Foote") on unnumbered pages at the end. First published in The Freethinker, June-October 1902. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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The Pioneer Press
Date
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1903
Identifier
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N241
Subject
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Republicanism
Monarchy
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (God save the king, and other coronation articles, by an English Republican (G.W. Foote)), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
NSS
Republicanism-England
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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The new Book of Kings
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Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 123, [5] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: List of reviews of the book in four unnumbered pages at the end. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
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T399
Subject
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Republicanism
Monarchy
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The new Book of Kings), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
History
Monarchy
Republicanism
Socialism
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Text
THE WEDDING
DAME WINDSOR’S,
AND
W THAT WAS SAID ABOUT IT BY
IN
RELATIONS AND FRIENDS,
AND BY THE
ZI OYS OF St. STEPHEN’S SCHOOL.
i«*8t !
W iJfDON : A. RITCHIE, 15, WINE OFFICE COURT, FLEET STREET.
Price Sixpence.
?
�J. COEN, PRINTER,
15, WINE OFFICE COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON.
------ y
when I first saw the vessel?
cg-crnx uvu<nu ax
�Webbing nt Same Wxnbsof s.
GrH
WHAT RELATIONS SAID ABOUT IT.
3N ame
Windsor is a widow, a little over fifty, of ample
fd rtune, and possessor of several spacious houses.
r|er husband, good soul, who was universally re
31! jected,
died suddenly, to the deep regret of every-
.1 le, and left her with a family of nine children, five
idi ‘which are daughters, two of them being unmarried,
?
e 1 'er eldest daughter, who was greatly esteemed, on
in<
ccount of her comeliness and graces, was united,
91
|me years since, to a fine German, who lives in a
71
driving hotel in Berlin, the sign of which has been
b
|tely altered from the “ King William ” to the
aißi IKaiser,” and which change of style is expected, at
a early period, when the present landlord, who is an
|d man, dies, to prove highly advantageous to the
'¿w occupier.
1 Two other daughters, Alice and Helen, are also
3.”i
S:
�1
o
3
n:
4
married to Germans, whose incomes, although liberal, U.P'1
are not equal to that of the former, nor are theiri Ldh
future promotions in life anything so promising.
.] L-j ■
Mrs. Windsor’s eldest son, who has a large yearly ufi?
income in his own right in some tin mines, which
were profitably worked during the young man’s;
minority by his prudent father, inherited a consider^ y N
able fortune when he came of age. This lucky fello^j
was married, about eight years since, to a handsoma Lj®
li
Danish lady, which event gave great satisfaction at
I
the time, as the young girl came from an old stock,
ir.
o
b
t
b
e
>>
?
3
e
•(
t
and was mighty winning in her behaviour both to
rich and poor.
Teddy, for that is the young man’s
4*
name, is likewise heir to three rich domains, and will, [¿i
be more looked up to when he comes into that ancieni tn
property.
He has seen much of the world, having
gone round it with observant guides, and has picked be
up varied knowledge.
Few men, it is said, can, hn
01
better understand a genuine cigar, and his experience jgqx
of fire-engines is also great, as he rarely fails to enjoy
a run upon them, with some smart mates, when a big h ■
run.
1t
* blaze illumines the town where he lives.
Now, one evening, Mrs. Windsor, who was desirous
|l
> when I first saw the vessel.”
I"
�5
getting her single children off her hands, being
amn one with her eldest unmarried daughter, Louise, at
0
•ii Leir own house in the north, at a place called Bahl
fi 'orrell, she spake motherly unto the lass regarding
li. ■ 3r affections towards a young man of those parts,
Ij.
o ha had beguiled the damsel’s heart, and whose
d afl sits had been much encouraged by the glad dame
t mention thereof, the innocent girl coloured up,
Epd hid her blushing face on her mother’s bosom,
)|hereat the maternal dame kindly hinted that her
rt ild was quite free to marry the honest Gael, if such
rfere her real wishes, and she graciously gave her
¿nsent to the match,
The whole of the family, at
•me and abroad, were at once made acquainted with
te proposed wedding, the news of which was ill
ovtifceived by some of them, because of their very high
hfwate.
The brother-in-law at Berlin, thought, for
q I? part, that the young lass would do better by belirij
ming the wife of one of his kinsmen, especially as
fwq
3 own expectations of a rise were very great; how-
ff-J
er, he would not strongly urge against the wedding,
such were the wish of the two people, and Mrs.
»¿bl indsor approved of the same.
3.”—
.
Si
�o
6
Teddy thought the choice of a more distinguished 1..4.
fl
partner advisable, but, lighting a fresh Havannah,
3
said ma might advise about the matter as she pleased: [
so he left them, to look after his horses and to attend
I *
to his book at the club.
Alf, on being spoken to about it, didn’t see wb !
1
/I
Louie shouldn’t marry who she liked, provided hi li,„ j
I
was really a proper fellow, and likely to make : :..i>
hi
Y
ir
o
kind husband, as he was sure Archy would, and hi H .
■ r *
hoped when the couple put out to sea, the sails o b
matrimony would swell with many a pleasant gale. I
j
Leo said he preferred a match of the kind, ant , .
b
thought mother would be more liked by everybody | ..
■ t
b
le
»
?
P
for letting Master Lome come into the family, whc |.
he was sure, would make his sister happy, and wha 1 ,
I r'
else had they to care about.
Little Beatry almost jumped for joy, and said sh j
was so glad ma would let Louie have Archie ; i ;
>e
r<
a
would be so nice to have them living in England, a 1
?;
their new house.
«
Q.
a
i
she would not lose her, but be able to go often t
Cousin George, who is blind, got some one to wr|
a note for him, which he sent from abroad, bearing| |
F
d
■ti________ _________________ ,
s when I first saw the vessel.”
�-b®«d abbed-out Hanover stamp.
In it he was rather
psihij molding about the affair; but as he had lately lost a
'.av/d town, and was vexed, considering himself cruelly
iteqi nposed upon by friends who, he thought, should
juve treated him better, Mrs. Windsor and her family
et down his disfavour to Louie’s wedding to bad
iesq.d emper, so they took no heed of his cold words.
ynA
Another cousin George—he of Cambridge—hap-
Ao in lened to drop in while the affair was being talked
"''M
>ver, with his red coat rather splashed, for he had just
g...nej )een seeing his soldiers do their work in the Park,
gd u )n being spoken to about the suit, he gave it his
•(insj iearty approval, and thought it high time such silly
ifoiid lotions of shutting out certain people from the family
p-rel were done .away with. He had kicked against such a
do* foolish rule himself, and in defying people’s remarks
.. bfi had found no reason to repent of his course; and
why shouldn’t Louie be as happy with a Scotch
noiva swain as with any foreign fellow with a sounding
hibI name that meant nothing.
He knew the boy, and
jodlliked his good sense, which would always carry him
hoi well through the world, and prove creditable to
in ou Louie.
�0
Aunt Augusta was too infirm to come, but she
wrote, saying that in her young days such things
were deemed shocking.
However, as times are sol
altered now, she would not dream of hindering the
5
new idea, the more so as her niece, Mrs. Windsor,
had determined on setting the change.
/I
1
?”•
i?'
ip
se
1H
ja
a-,
_a
:
a
th.
sa
>i
»e
as when I first saw the vessel.”
�9
YHAT
THE . FAMILY
ADVISERS
SAID
ABOUT IT.
ft]
.as Irs. Windsor, who is a model of household order,
jiu< rould not seriously move about her daughter’s pro-
.o^gosed wedding without consulting certain family
dvisers, whose opinions thereon should finally decide
d a er how to act.
She therefore bade Some men of
he ood repute and knowledge to come down to her
hiA welling on an island at the edge of the sea, where
?
ight confer with her and advise on the matter
hey miL
ri
nq h lat pressed upon her heart.
- sill Then certain prudent chiefs assembled at her house,
J ad, after listening to her words, they counselled
illy thereon.
An elder, named Hatherley, deeply
h rJ i,rned in the law, spake of the practices of times
»st, and declared that no statute in the books of the
n
j a1 ws of the land hindered the marriage; but rather,
• odi
thought, were it to be contracted between the
a srsons proposed, it would bring felicity to them, and
s.”-
�10
command favour with all people. A councillor nameJ
Gladstone next gave utterance, and would have
waxed into a flow of artful words, but that the occa
sion needed only his mind to be declared in simple
speech.
The virtues of Mrs. Windsor’s daughter, he
said, claimed the best of husbands, and that maternal
solicitude and sagacity which had caused those mani
fold virtues and graces to bud and ripen, were the
surest guarantees that a match so wisely arrangea
should continue auspicious to the end.
Ko legal
prohibition against it existed, and Mrs. Windsor, by
sanctioningthe same, would complete her daughter’l
happiness, and revive her own popularity.
The !
chief, Granville, with rare gentleness of tongue and
manner, said he knew the laddie well, and had
marked his shrewdness and good parts.
He felt !
assured that if Mrs. Windsor desired him for a sori j
in-law, no loss of dignity or respect towards he) i
would follow on that account; indeed, by grafting st I
honourable a branch to her own ancient stock, everl I
one would be pleased, and regard her more affec t
tionately.
After several others had all likewise spoken, on
when I first saw the vessel.”
�11
■iirtgi]
blister Lowe, who is keeper of the treasure-chest,
boied
Littered to the same purpose.
rZ" -ua
toair will need a little money wherewith to keep house
Besides, he said, the
'“mofhonestly, and I will speak to my good master, Mister
7 JlulBull, who will not in the least begrudge to give them
eilthe few thousands that I shall name, so that they
Sh^Jmay lack nought to support their state decently and
rtj)ai?}freflect his honour.
£)
e.”—
Sh
�12
WHAT WAS SAID BY DECENT CITIZENS
AND SOME CHURLS.
i
The intended wedding, being well bruited abroad
was in all men’s moutbs, who spake of it one to the
ii
r
,r
o
other, wishing Dame Windsor’s daughter abundant
joy to the end of her days.
In the highway which is called Parliament-street,
in the City of Westminster, a citizen thereof, and a
b
t
f
e
?
p
5
se
ri
a
7;
.«<
man of much substance, meeting one of his fellows,]
also of ample means, being a tradesman of the Wests
End, bade him good day, and pointed out to him
certain M.P.’s who were driving to the House to
speechify and to say “Aye” for a proposed yearfy
gfant to Miss Windsor, the young lady about to be
married.
He then talked of the matter, assured that
the Members would with one consent agree to the
moderate dotation, for that the damsel deserved the
same, and that they would the more heartily bestow
h
a
i
if
;d
----is when I first saw the vessel.”
�13
ifi because her mother had wisely set aside a perverse
e tie on her child’s behalf.
f
“Tea, and a right thing, too,” answered the
stener, “ for the swain is reported well worthy of
fist > fair a bride ; besides, ’tis a good sign when custom,
Gfflj
lb4 unded in pride, loses its force, having only age to
mo ¡commend it.
As well preserve a dung-heap on a
Wife ithway, because it was made by Caesar’s horse.
way with nuisances, say I, whether they encumber
Ind or weigh heavily upon man.
JOJ
By-the-bye, it is
pmoured that Mrs. Windsor is coming more amongst
L ; and I’m sure that her wonted face will bring
imshine to us again, and waken shouts that had wellj 4'
igh died away.”
| When these men of quality had parted, a labourer,
ib.
b
fending to his work along the flags, overtook another,
■hose pipe gave forth a cloud wreathing behind over
is shoulder.
Then the former asked for a light, and
iiey two went on, forgetting care in their smoking,
¿id filling the wind with the smell of their tobacco.
4T 1
-11.. I
i “ It gives me joy, mate, to see thee journeying to
4j ■job.
Is it for long F”
I “ Nay, only for a week, to make gas-piping for the
V 1
»/A J
e.”—
_
Si
�3
jy
14
flare that will light the shops at night, when the grand f
!
■y
wedding comes off.”
“ Of Mrs. Windsor’s daughter ?”
“ Yes ! and rarely for better purpose did fiery stars ,
turn the dark streets into day, to amuse the crowds,
than will the glowing ciphers kindled everywhere on
that coming occasion.
Why, I’ll burn a tallow-wicJ
myself to tell the world that another ban is blotted j
i
from the earth.”
“ Eh ! they’re going to vote her a round sum to
night at the House yonder, and I only wish that all]
r
)
>
t
the money they gave went to as good a use.
It’s
quite time that husbands for Dame Windsor’s single)I
daughters were found at home, without hunting fori
them in the land of sour krout.”
“ But one Taylor is going to pitch in against the
. i
grant.”
“ He ain’t got the pluck; and if he had he’d be
laughed down, as he ought to.
Let him slip intJ
real abuses, and he’s my man; but as for goinJ
|
agin that, why he’s as mischievous as the brawlera
who pretend to be working men; but who filch
their living from simpletons by spouting.”
t____
when I first saw the vessel.”
u.
�F
15
>’ “ At any rate Dame Windsor has touched the
>[ n^ ight key in this instance, which pleases everybody.
a '¿J1 inly she should begin to come out more, to enliven
[at# ne folks a bit, and set some trade moving.”
1'idZI
^slg
fiilT
Here the men ceased to discourse, having come to
place where their feet should turn opposite ways.
Thus the whole populace talked of the marriage,
h nd rejoiced much that Dame Windsor esteemed her
[aughter’s welfare beyond the tyrannous whim of
t'A
EQxds ashion.
inff
But certain obscure Odgerites, noisy and churlish
-wol
fellows, whom few men heeded, strove to stir up the
n nultitude against the reasonable dowry that John
Bull, in the largeness of his heart, was bent upon
giving to the bride.
These disturbers lifted up their
n Voices in pot-houses, while they swilled with the hire
iXlj
juggled from the pockets of the simple; yet their
¡iiivyavings were not regarded by peaceable folks, who
■wlreverenced Dame Windsor the more for her sound
iWit and love for her daughter, in that she might
mlinarry the man of her own choice, and one of her own
a country.
So the brawlers, whose tongues were as brands,
GB
�sank into limbo, and there was mirth throughout the
land, the rich and the poor loyally beseeching a life
long blessing on the wedding of Dame Windsor’s
daughter.
J. Cocn, Printer, 15, Wine-Office-Court, Fleet-street, London.
I first saw the vessel.”
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The wedding at Dame Windsor's and what was said about it by relations and friends, and by the boys of St. Stephen's School
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by J. Coen, Fleet Street, London. A satire on the wedding of Princess Louise Caroline Alberta to the Marquess of Lorne (later 9th Duke of Argyll). Text partially obscured by binding.
Publisher
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A. Ritchie
Date
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[1871]
Identifier
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G5453
Subject
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Monarchy
Marriage
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[Unknown]
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The wedding at Dame Windsor's and what was said about it by relations and friends, and by the boys of St. Stephen's School), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Louise Caroline Alberta
Marriage
Monarchy
Princess of Great Britain
Satire
Weddings
-
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Text
378
[September
THE POET-KING OF SCOTLAND.
HE tragic fate of David, Duke of
Rotliesay, eldest son of Robert
III. of Scotland, is known to every
reader of Scott, as it forms perhaps
the most startling incident in The
Fair Maid of Perth. The youthful
prince, like many other heirs ap
parent, and the more that he had a
feeble and doting father, yielded
himself without restraint to the
impulses of youthful blood, and
rioted in all manner of insolence
and debauchery. He and Jack
Falstaff’s Prince Hal were simul
taneously pursuing similar courses.
Displeasing as this was to the
State at large, it was emphati
cally so to the haughty Earl of
Douglas, whose daughter Marjory
was the prince’s wife, and who na
turally resented the dishonour done
to his blood. Here, then, was one
powerful and dangerous enemy.
But an enemy more powerful and
more dangerous still was his uncle,
the Duke of Albany, a man cruel,
crafty, unscrupulous, and ambitious,
who had set his heart on the throne
for himself and his family. Rothe
say being entrusted by the feeble
king to his artful brother, as old
Boece says, ‘ to leir him honest and
civill maneris,’ was brought to
Falkland and thrown into a dun
geon without meat or drink. He
was subjected to that most tedious,
terrible, and revolting of all violent
deaths—starvation ; and we need
not wonder that round such a
‘ strange eventful history ’ much
circumstantial romance should have
gathered. For instance, a woman
moved with compassion for the un
happy prince is said to have let
meal fall down through the loft of
the tower, by which his life was pro
longed several days ; but her action
having been discovered she was put
to death. Another supplied him
with milk from her own bosom,
through a long reed, and as soon
T
as it was known ‘ she was slain
with great cruelty.’ At length the
captive was reduced to such straits
that he devoured the filth of his
dungeon, and gnawed his own fin
gers. A death so tragic necessarily
had miraculous consequences; and
his body having been buried at Lindores, miracles were performed there
for many years after; until, indeed,
his brother, James I., began to pu
nish his slayers, ‘ and fra that time
furth,’ says the chronicler, ‘ the
miraclis ceissit.’ There can be
little doubt in the mind of the
competent enquirer that both Al
bany and Douglas, the prince’s
brother-in-law, were, as the Scot
tish law-phrase has it, ‘ art and
part ’ in this foul murder, though
probably not to an equal degree, for
in the Remission that they after
wards received at the hands of the
feeble monarch their condonation
was in terms as ample as if they had
been the actual murderers.
Robert was advised to provide for
the safety of his remaining son James
by sending him for education and
protection to his ally the King of
France. The prince, then only
eleven years of age, sailed from the
Bass with his tutor, the Earl of Ork
ney, and a suitable attendance, in
March 1405. In direct violation of
a truce then existing between the
two kingdoms, an English ship of
war captured the Scottish vessel off
Flamborough Head, on the 12th of
April. To argue in such a case
would have been unavailing: besides,
it was known to the English that Al
bany would not be displeased that
his nephew and hisattendants should
be treated as prisoners of war; and in
fact it is surmised that he gave hints
for the capture, that the only remain
ing obstacle between himself and the
throne might be in a fair way of being
altogether removed. James’s own ac
count of the capture is as follows:
�;1874]
The Poet-King of S&itlaml.
Upon the wevis weltering to and fro,
So infortunate was we that fremyt day,
That maugre plainly quethir we wold or no,
With strong hand by forse sehortly to
say, .
Of inymyis taken and led away,
We weren all, and brought in thaire
contree,
Fortune it schupe non othir wayis to be.
For nineteen years he was the
prisoner first of Henry IV., and
then of his son Henry V.
In the treatment of ‘ his captive
guest,’ says John Hill Burton,
Henry V. showed a nature in which jea
lousies and crooked policy had no place.
Had he desired to train an able statesman
to support his own throne, he could not have
better accomplished his end. The King of
Scots had everything that England could
give to store his naturally active intellect
with learning and accomplishments ; and he
had opportunities of seeing the practice of
English politics, and of observing and dis
coursing with the great statesmen of the
day, both in England and in France, where
Henry had also a court. He would bo sent
back all the abler governor of his own
people, and more formidable foe to her
enemies, for his sojourn at the Court of
England.
It may be so ; but though there
is an over-ruling Providence
From seeming evil still educing good,
it is a spurious liberality that credits
violence and breach of faith with
happy results that were certainly
not contemplated. It has often
been asked why Henry IV. captured
and detained the youthful prince,
and above all why he was kept in
captivity so long. If Albany had
been the instigator, why was James
detained nearly five years after his
uncle’s death ? and if, as it has been
said, James was detained because
there was a refugee monk at Stir
ling believed to be Richard the
Second of England, who had escaped
from Pontefract, why was he not
liberated on the death of that per
sonage, whoever he was, which
occurred in 1419, when there .was
no longer the shadow of a claimant
to the English throne ? These
questions are more easily asked
VOL. X.—NO. LVII.
NEW SERIES.
379
than answered. A royal captive
was too tempting a prize to be
lightly parted with: and it was
natural that England should not
restore the sovereign of her trouble
some neighbour till she had taken
what precautions she could to
secure amity between the twTo
nations. In this case the fetters
of love strengthened the bands of
policy. A marriage with the blood
royal of England was the most ob
vious expedient, and James had
already lost his heart to the nearest
choice, Jane Beaufort, daughter of
the Earl of Somerset, and cousingerman of the English king.
Romance and policy went hand in
hand, and the aspirations of the
royal lover were in unison with the
wishes and the plans of politicians.
The story of his love is told with
singular sweetness and beauty in
‘ The King’s Quair ’(i.e. Quire,—
Book), to which we now turn with
out prosecuting the narrative of his
subsequent busy, energetic, and use
ful life.
This beautiful and graceful poem,
one of the bright consummate
flowers of romance, and therefore
singular as the production of one
whose whole after life, instead of
being a romantic dream, was a sage,
practical, far-sighted, stern reality,
was inspired by his passion for the
‘lady of his love,’ the beautiful
granddaughter of ‘ Old John of
Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster.’
The royal captive, an adept in all
knightly accomplishments, a musi
cian, a scholar, a philosopher, and a
poet, in the heyday of his blood,
found himself, contrary to all the
dictates of justice and hospitality,
‘ in strait ward and in strong
prison ’ in a strange land. For
nearly eighteen years he had be
wailed a ‘ deadly life,’ or a living
death, contrasting his own wretched
fate with the freedom that each had
in his kind,
The bird, the beast, the fish eke in the sea.
D D
�380
The Poet-King of Scotland.
He was tempted to question the
Divine goodness, seeing that he
more than others had had hard
measure dealt him, and thus days
and nights were spent in unavailing
lamentation. As a solace amid his
woes, it was his wont to rise early
as day and indulge in exercise, by
which he found joy out of torment.
Looking from his chamber window
in a tower of Windsor Castle, out
on a small flower-garden, occupying
the site of what had once been the
moat, he saw walking beneath—
The fairest or the freschest young floure
That ever I saw, methought, before that
houre—-
a vision of loveliness. The solitary
prisoner, with a poet’s eye and a
poet’s heart, looking out on a
garden fair and an arbour green,
musical in the May morning with
the notes of the nightingale, ‘ now
soft now loud among,’ was in the
mood to invest any comely daughter
of Eve with the attributes of a god
dess. When night is darkest the
light is near; and when the heart of
James was at the saddest the light of
his life was about to dawn on him.
Jane Beaufort, attended by two of
her maidens, entered the garden to
make her morning orisons, and the
captive of the Tower was so over
come with pleasure and delight,
that 4 suddenly his heart became
her thrall.’
Than gan I studye in myself and seyne,
All! suete are ye a warldly creature,
Or hevingly thing in likenesse of Nature ?
Or ar ye god Cupidis owin princesse ?
And cumyn are to loose me out of band,
Or are ye veray Nature the goddesse ?
That have depayntit with your hevinly
band
This gardyn full of flouris, as they stand ?
Quhat sail I think, allace.' quhat rever
ence
Sall I mester unto your excellence ?
He says she has—
Beauty enough to make a world to dote.
4 The King’s Quair ’ would have
been inevitably lost had it not been
[September
for the preservation of a single
manuscript, which once belonged
to Selden, and is now in the Bod
leian Library at Oxford. That
James was the author of several
poems is a fact noted by all who
have written of his life; but as
printing was not introduced into
Britain for a century after his age,
it can scarcely be matter of sur
prise that most of these should
have been lost. As Mair, Dempster,
and Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, all
mentioned particularly James’s
poem 4 upon his future wife,’ and as
reference was made to its being
among the Seldenian manuscripts
in the Bodleian, Mr. Tytler, of
Woodhouselee, engaged an Oxford
student to search for it; and this
search having been successful, he
further engaged him to make an
accurate copy. Mr. Tytler pub
lished it in 1783, prefixing a his
torical and critical Dissertation on
the Life of James I., and adding a
Dissertation on Scottish Music.
The text was illustrated by valu
able philological and explanatory
notes.
4 Christis Kirk of the
Grene ’ was also included by Mr.
Tytler in his publication, but we
reserve what we have to say of this
most humorous poem for the close
of our paper. The title of the
Seldenian manuscript above refer
red to is 4 The Quair, maid be King
James of Scotland the First, callit
The King’s Quair. Maid qn. his
Ma. was in England and at the
end there is the colophon—4 Quod
King James I.’ The transcript is
said to be a very indifferent one,
and contains not a few errors.
George Chalmers published in 1824
The Poetic Remains of some of
the Scottish Kings, in which what
is defective in Tytler’s exemplar of
4 The Quair ’ has not been remedied.
As James was taken to England
when a mere boy, and wrote Ins
poem there, and as he was a dili
gent student of Gower and Chaucer,
it is more than probable that it was
�1874]
The Poet-King of Scotland.
originally written in Southern or
East-Midland English. The exist
ing manuscript is not, however, in
that dialect, but in the Northern
English used in the Lowlands of
Scotland; therefore it is probable
that we have not got the first form,
but that which it took at the hands
of native scribes across the Tweed.
For the ease of the reader Mr.
Tytler divided the poem into six
cantos, according to the various
episodes contained in it. After the
taste of the age, it is allegorical, a
style of poetic composition probably
derived from the Provencal writers,
and continued in Britain to the end
of the reign of Elizabeth. To us of
the present day it is wearily, and
perhaps drearily, prolix; but it ac
corded well with an age of stately
decorum and stilted compliment,
and has all the elements of cum
brous magnificence. Congruity was
not aimed at by the allegorical
poets, and in ‘ The Quair ’ there is
an unseemly admixture of Chris
tian and Pagan mythology. This
cannot be ascribed to a want of
knowledge, but it is to be set down
to a defect of taste; for, except in
the case of the very highest poets,
who wrote entirely from inspira
tion, and had no recourse to models,
taste is a quality of culture, and the
child of criticism. It may exist in a
high degree with a mediocrity of
genius, and be sought for in vain
in the compositions of rich, original,
inventive bards. James did not
rise above the taste of his age, nor
furnish a purer and more chastened
model to his successors. But leav
ing out of view the structure of his
work, in individual passages he
soars to an elevation, and revels in
a sweet beauty, exceeded by none
of his contemporaries, and admired
even in this highly critical age,
familiar with the chastened grace
of Tennyson, by all possessed of
catholic sympathies.
Awaking from sleep in his prison,
he consoles himself by reading
381
Boethius, and this suggests to him
the instability of human affairs, and
the misfortunes and calamities of
his own unhappy life. Hearing the
bell ring to matins, he rose from his
couch, but could not divest himself
of the idea that the bell was vocal,
and was urging him to write his
own chequered history. Our read
ers will remember how often Charles
Dickens avails himself of a similar
fancy. James, therefore, ‘ took con
clusion some new thing to write,’
and invoked, as was the custom,
the Muses to his aid. He recounts
the details of his capture and cap
tivity ; at last his eye is delighted
with the garden and its bowers,
and his ear charmed with the song
of the nightingale, of whose sweet
harmony this was the text:
Worshippe, ye that lovers been, this May,
For of your bliss the Kalends are begun,
And sing with us, Away, winter, away!
Come, summer, come, the sweet season
and sun ;
Awake, for shame ; that have your
heavens won,
And amorously lift up your heades all;
Thank Love that list you to his mercy call.
He now speculates on the nature
of Love, to which he had hitherto
been a stranger, and prays that he
might enter his service, and ever
more be one of those who serve
him truly in weal and woe. His
prayer is answered sooner than he
expected, for in the garden appeared
his future queen, as has been men
tioned above, and falling under the
dominion of love, suddenly —
My wit and countenance,
My heart, my will, my nature, and my
mind,
Was changed clean right in ane other kind.
The personal beauty of the royal
maiden was enhanced by all the
art of the time :
Off liir array the form gif I sal write,
Toward hir golden haire and rich atyre,
In fretwise couchit with perlis quhite,
And grete balas lemyng as the fyre,
With mony ane emerant and faire
saphire,
D D 2
�382
The Poet-King of Scotland.
And on hir liede a chaplet fresch of hewe,
Of plumys partit rede, and quhite, and
blewe.
To this tricolour, the chosen em
blem of liberty, the royal youth
succumbed in a willing bondage.
About her neck, fair as the white
enamel, was a goodly chain of
gold, by which there hung a ruby
shaped like a heart; it seemed
burning wantonly on her white
throat like a spark of love. But better
and beyond all these were youth,
beauty, humble port, bounty, and
womanly feature—all sweet gifts
and graces to such extent that
Nature could ‘ no more her child
advance.’ He is now under the
law of Venus, and calls on the
nightingale to resume her song.
With that anon right she toke up a sang
Where come anon mo birdis and alight;
Bot than to here the mirth was tham amang,
Ouer that to see the suete sicht
Of hyr ymage, my spirit was so light,
Methought 1 flawe for joy without arest,
So were my wittis bound in all to fest.
And to the nottis of the philomene,
Quhilkis she sang the dittee there I maid
Direct to hir that was my hertis quene,
Withoutin quhom no songis may me
glade,
And to that sand walking in the schade,
My bedis thus with humble hert entire
Di'votly I said on this manere.
There is an infinite delicacy in
James’s expression of his love and
hopes, which his seclusion may have
fostered but could not have created,
proving how pure and noble and
knightly, in the highest sense—
how ‘ tender and true ’ was this ex
patriated flower of Scottish chivalry.
His ‘hertis quene’ became his lovely,
loving, and beloved wife : and when
the daggers of the assassins drank
his heart’s blood in the Dominican
Monastery at Perth, she was twice
stabbed in her frantic efforts to
defend and save him.
The chief interest of the poem
gathers round James himself and
his future queen. His pure heart,
his ingenuousness, his sincerity, his
brilliant fancy, his scholarly accom
[September
plishments, his deep and devoted
love, win irresistibly our admiration,
and make us forget the king and
the captive in the loyal-hearted and
warm-blooded man.
His transportation to the Sphere
of Love, and then to the Palace of
Minerva, and his subsequent journey
in quest of fortune, are very fanciful,
and in the purest contemporary style
of allegory. But to us, save in in
dividual passages, they are of no
great interest. Evidently these
portions of his work were composed
to conform to a conventional but
objectionable ideal. His discussion
of the vexed questions of Fate and
Free-will might seem to moderns to
be dragged in neck and heels to
exhibit his proficiency in scholastic
philosophy, but it is simply a com
pliance with the vicious practice of
the age. Gower and Chaucer were
his ‘ masters dear; ’ and, though
it would be heresy to place him
on a level with Chaucer, one of
those world-poets who mark an era,
he exhibits a reverential delicacy in
his description of the Lady of the
Garden which is wanting to Chaucer
in his enumeration of the charms of
Rosial in his ‘ Court of Love.’ Mr.
Ellis, however, one of the acutest of
our critics, is more daring than we
incline to be, for in his Specimens of
the BaflgBiiglish Poets he says with
out qualification that ‘“The King’s
Quair ” is full of simplicity and
feeling, and not inferior in poetical
merit to any similar production of
Chaucer.’
Before proceeding to describe and
criticise ‘Christis Kirk of the Grene,’
‘ a remarkable specimen of genuine
humour and pleasantry,’ we will
first attempt to establish the claim
of the First James to its authorship,
as this has been challenged in
favour of his descendant James the
Fifth. Mr. Paterson, in his Gudeman of Ballamgeich, is the latest
propounder and defender of this
latter opinion, and as he has stated
his case intelligently and fully, we
�1874]
The Poet-King of Scotland.
will examine his arguments in detail.
Meanwhile we will indicate, by way
of preface, what we believe gave
origin to the prevalent notion that
the Fifth James alone could have
produced such a graphic and
humorous picture of peasant life,
and we will do so in the words of
Mr. Burton, than whom there is no
higher authority on everything per
taining to ancient Scotland:
James V. was affectionately remembered
by his people as ‘ the King of the Commons.’
History told that he had been no friend to
the nobles, and tradition mixed him up with
many tales of adventure among the pea
santry, who not less enjoyed their memory
that they were not always creditable to him.
It was, perhaps, from these specialties of
his popularity, that he long held a place
in literary renown as the People’s Poet.
‘ Christ’s Kirk of the Green' and ‘ The
Gaberlunzie Man ’ are rhymed pictures of
Scottish peasant-life; so full of lively de
scription, and broad, vigorous, national
humour, that in popular esteem they could
only be the works of ‘the King of the
Commons ; ’ but this traditional belief lacks
solid support.
The first who may be regarded
as attributing this poem to James V.
is Dempster; for in his Ecclesiastical
History of the Nation of the Scots,
published in 162 7, two years after his
death, he says that of the poems
left by James V. testifying to his
most delightful genius, he had seen
only the vernacular epos ‘ On the
Rustic Dances at Falkirk.’ Here
there are two gross blunders—the
poem is described as an epos, an
heroic poem, such as the Greek and
Latin poets rendered in hexameters,
and English and Scottish poets in
pentameters ; and he had seen it.
No metric system is more opposed
to what is known as the epic than
that of the poem in question. Again,
the dances are referred to Falkirk in
stead of to Christ’s Kirk. These are
damaging particulars, and the more
so when we consider that Dempster
is the most untrustworthy of his
torians: Archbishop Ussher asserted
that he would believe nothing on
his evidence, unless he had himself
383
seen it. Though he could have
had no critical or partisan object in
assigning it to the one James more
than to the other, yet when a legiti
mate question of criticism and
authorship arises, Dempster’s tes
timony either way must simply be
eliminated. If this finding be cor
rect it nearly settles the dispute, for
Gibson, Tanner, and Ruddiman are
merely Dempster’s echoes.
In 1691, Edmund Gibson, after
wards the Bishop of London,
published at Oxford a very in
accurate edition, and introduced the
poem as one ‘ composed, as is sup
posed, by King James the Fifth.’ He
gives no authority for his supposition,
it being almost certain that he is
relying on the testimony of Demp
ster. The learned Ruddiman, in
the preface to his edition of Gavin
Douglas’s translation of Virgil’s
fEneis, published in 1710 (Mr.
Paterson says 1720), ascribes
‘Christ’s Kirk’ to James V., avow
edly on the authority of the Oxford
editor, and so does Tanner, Bishop
of St. Asaph, in his Bibliotheca
Britannico Hibernica, published in
1748. Thus four authorities that
have been much relied on dwindle
on examination to one, and that
one no authority at all on any
matter that admits of dispute.
Bishops Gibson and Tanner are in
this case foreigners, and their
‘ opinions,’ if their testimony de
serves even this title, are those of
persons whose ‘ opinions ’ carry no
weight. The only piece of disin
genuousness we have observed in
Mr. Paterson’s advocacy, and it is
surely a mere inadvertence, occurs,
in reference to Watson’s ChoiceCollection of Scots Poems. In the
first edition, published in 1706,
Watson attributed the poem to
James V. ; but Mr. Paterson does
not add that in the second edition,
published seven years later, he
ascribed it to James I. For our
selves we hold this change of
opinion on the part of Watson as
�384
The Poet-King of Scotland.
of almost infinitesimal value in the
settlement of the question. Neither
do we attach much importance to
the adhesion of the Earl of Orford,
Percy, Warton, Ritson, and others
to the vague recollection of Demp
ster, and to the unauthoritative
supposition of Bishop Gibson. Ab
solutely there is no external evi
dence in favour of the claims of
the later James, ‘ the King of the
Commons; ’ the whole external
evidence—and it is not great—is in
favour of his illustrious ancestor,
as we shall now attempt to prove.
In the latter part of 1568, George
Bannatyne, a man of intelligence
and some poetic power, made that
invaluable transcript of Scottish
poetry known as the Bannatyne
manuscript, now in the Advocates’
Library. At the close of his copy of
‘ Christ’s Kirk ’ he adds the affida
vit, q.,i.e. quoth, KingJames the First.
This is not perfectly conclusive, but
at any rate it counts for evidence,
and far outweighs the presumption
of Bishop Gibson and his followers.
It is, in fact, the only external
evidence we have to guide us in
forming a conclusion. An attempt
has been made to invalidate Bannatyne’s authority, because in the
next poem but one he has written
King James V. instead of King
James IV. But that was a poem
of no great mark—‘The Dregy of
Dunbar maid to King James, being
in Strivilling,’ of which Bannatyne
could not but know that James IV.,
and not his son, was the object,
and consequently the inference that
his blunder was a mere lapsus pennee
is not only probable, but necessary
and inevitable. The presumption
of a similar lapse in the case of
‘ Christ’s Kirk ’ is untenable. Had
James V. been the author of a
poem of so much humour and mark,
it is incredible that in a MS.
written only twenty-six years after
his death by one who was almost a
contemporary, it should have been
ascribed to a king who had died a
[September
hundred and thirty-two years
earlier. James V. had been too
popular and too unfortunate to be
lightly robbed of any credit to
which he was justly entitled; on
the contrary, it was long the
custom to give him credit for much
that was not his own.
It is the internal evidence that
is weak, and on it alone we could
scarcely be justified in building any
conclusion. If James I. wrote it,
the language has undergone a
modernisation. It is less antique
than Henryson’s, and it ought not
to be. But on the other hand, as
a popular poem in every sense of
the word, it was just the sort of
piece to undergo a soft succession
of living changes. This has been
the case with the ancient ballads of
Scotland especially. Had it been
a closet poem, so to speak, it might
have remained untouched. But
how could it live on from age to
age, except by a process of uncon
scious transformation ? ‘ If there
is not sufficient evidence,’ says Dr.
Irving, ‘ for referring it to James I.,
there is no evidence whatsoever for
referring it to James V.’ Irving,
no doubt, was a dogmatic man, of
strong prejudices; but he was
specially wTell-informed, and meant
to do justice to all. If the intimate
knowledge of the peasantry dis
played in the poem is held as
pointing to the royal ‘ Gaberlunzie
Man,’ we must remember that his
more illustrious ancestor occasion
ally mingled with the lower orders
too, and that in a fashion after the
Beggar-man’s own heart; so that
tlie Second Charles owed as much
of his roving disposition to the
blood of the Stuarts in his veins,
as to the modicum he held of that
of Margaret Tudor, and of that of
Henri Quatre. We think Mr.
Paterson stultifies himself when,
after attempting to discredit the
authority of the Bannatyne MS.,
because the transcriber bad written
Fifth for Fourth, he adds, ‘ Now,
�1874]
The Poet-King of Scotland.
this occurred in the reign of Queen
Mary, daughter of James V. It is
strange, therefore, that his memory
should have been so treacherous in
reference to the queen’s father or
grandfather. We must conclude
that the inaccuracies described were
not the result of ignorance, but merely
slips of the pen.’ We must con
clude so too, and therefore the only
external authority for the author
ship, authority in the proper sense
of the term, that can be discovered
is fully vindicated. We have not
noticed; Pebles to the Play, ’ for about
the authorship of this we think
there is small room for dispute.
Mair or Major quotes the first two
words of it as belonging to a poem of
the First James, and Lord Hailes’s
objection to it in connection with
the 70th statute of James II. has,
we think, been satisfactorily dis
posed of.
‘ Christis Kirk of the Grene,’ to the
subject and treatment of which we
now turn, is, says Lord Kames, ‘ a
ludicrous poem, representing low
manners with no less propriety than
spriglitliness.’ Its popularity had
crossed the Border, and Pope no
tices, sportively, that ‘ a Scot will
fight for it.’ We question if an
Englishman would fight for .any
national poem. Being a native of
a richer and more cosmopolitan
country, he has greater self-com
placency, and would scarcely stickle
for what he might deem a trifle.
The ‘ Kirk ’ is said to have been a
village in the parish of Lesly, in
Aberdeenshire. The best introduc
tion to the poem is to quote the
first two stanzas, and we beg our
readers to note the frequent and
systematic use of alliteration, a
poetic characteristic of the humor
ous poetry of the age :
Wes nevir in Scotland hard nor sene
Sec dancing nor deray,
Nouthir at Falkland on the Grene,
Ner Pebillis at the Play ;
As wes of wowaris, as I wene,
At Christis Kirk on ane day :
385
Thair came our Kitties, weshen clene,
In thair new kirtillis of gray,
Full gay,
At Christis Kirk of the Grene that day.
To dans thir damysellis thame dicht,
Thir lasses licht of laitis,
Thair gluvis war of the raffel rycht,
Thair sliune wer of the straitis,
Thair kirtillis were of Lynkome licht,
Weil prest with monny plaitis,
Thay wer sa nyss quhen men thame nicht,
Thay squelit lyke ony gaitis,
Sa loud,
At Christis Kirk of the Grene that day.
There are in all twenty-three
stanzas, filled ‘ with a succession of
highly ludicrous objects, and con
taining many characteristic lines.’
‘ Whoever reads the poem,’ says
Mr. Tytler, ‘ simply as a piece of
wit and humour, comes very far
short, I imagine, of the patriotic
design and intention of its author.’
And this he endeavours to illustrate.
We confess we read it simply for
its wit and humour, though on the
supposition that it is James the
First’s, the patriotic intention is
highly intelligible, and affords strong
internal evidence of his being the
author.
From the description of the rustic
coquette Gillie, and Jock whom
‘ scho scornit,’ we find the same
reference to, and preference for,
yellow hair that the ancient poems
testify—
Fow zellow zcllow wes hir lieid.
Tam Lutar was the village min
strel ; Steven was a famous dancer
who ‘ lap quhill he lay on his lendis
and the quarrel was at last com
menced by Kobin Itoy and Towny,
but the laws of the ring were un
known, for—
God wait gif hair was ruggit
Bethix thame,
At Christis Kirk of the Grene that day.
The patriotic purpose referred to
by Tytler now appears, viz. to force
the Scots to practise archery, by
ridiculing their ineptitude. Their
defeats by the English were in
variably due to their deficiency in
�386
The Poet-King of Scotland.
this arm. When the one of the
combatants referred to had bent a
bow, he thought to have pierced
his antagonist’s buttocks, but ‘by
an acre-braid it cam’ not near him! ’
The weapons were also defective,
for a friend’s bow flew in flinders
when he had drawn it furiously to
aid him. Harij and Lowry fared no
better, for the arrow of the latter
aimed at the breast hit the belly ;
but so far from piercing burnished
mail, like the cloth-yard shafts of
England, the arrow rebounded like
a bladder from the leathern doublet.
The stricken man was, however, so
stunned that he ‘ dusht doun to the
eard,’ and his adversary, thinking
him dead, fled from the town. The
wives, coming forth, found life in
the loun, and ‘ with three rowts up
they reft him,’ and cured him of
his swoon. A young man aiming at
the breast sent his arrow over the
byre, and being told that he had
slain a priest a mile off, also fled
from the town. The fight becomes
general, and the women cry and
clap, as usual on such occasions.
The exploits of Hutchen, the Town
Soutar, the Miller, and the Herds
men, are described with inimitable
humour; and the action of Dick, who,
when all was done, came forth with
an axe ‘ to fell a fuddir,’ or heap,
gave both his wife and Meg, his
mother, their paiks, is described
with genuine Scotch pawkiness
—keen observation and gift of
satire hid under a seeming sim
plicity. In a word, whoever may
be the author of ‘ Christ’s Kirk,’ he
stands in the foremost rank of
Scottish humorous poets. If our
hypothesis is correct, the captive of
the Tower and the chronicler of
the sports of Christ’s Kirk was a
man of no common versatility, and
could touch many strings of the
harp, ranging at will from the
deepest tenderness to the highest
humour, from Allegory to Farce.
Our sketch would be imperfect
were we not to notice, however
[September
briefly, the singularly tragic end of
this royal and most gifted child of
song. Several causes led to it, for
to no one in particular can it be
clearly traced. His wise and strin
gent laws protected property, fos
tered industry, and emancipated the
humbler classes from the tyranny of
the great feudal lords. With the
former, therefore, he was popular,
while his searching enquiry into the
titles of the latter to their estates
had greatly frightened them. Se
veral forfeitures that had been made,
thoughin strict accord with the laws,
intensified theirfears, and Sir Robert
Graham, the prime motive power in
the tragedy that had been planned,
is said to have openly denounced
Janies in Parliament as a tyrant,
and to have made no secret of his
conviction that he deserved death
at the hand of the first who met
him. The portents of superstition
were likewise brought into play,
and a Highland witch warned
James of his coming doom. But
threats and warnings lie despised
alike, and his jests oil the last were
long remembered. He had spent
the Christmas of 1436 in the Black
Friars’ Monastery in Perth, and was
still there on the twentieth of the
following February. On the even
ing of that day he was conversing
gaily with the queen and her ladies
before retiring to rest, when three
hundred of Graham’s Highlanders
broke into the monastery. Escape
by door or window was impossible,
but the king raising a board of the
flooring leapt into a vault below. A
lady of the Douglas family thrust
her arm through the staples to serve
as a bolt, but it was soon crushed
by the violence of the assassins. He
might have escaped by an opening
to the sewer, but three days before
he had himself caused it to be built
up, because the tennis balls entered
it when he was playing in the gar
den. Though at fault at first, the
conspirators at last found his hiding
place, and after a heroic and most
�1874]
The Poet-King of Scotland.
desperate resistance lie was des
patched with sixteen dagger stabs.
The conspirators were pursued and
captured, and expiated their bloody
crime by almost unimaginable tor
tures.
Since the time of CEdipus no
royal line has equalled that of the
Stuarts in its calamities. The First
James, adorned with the graces
of poetry and chivalry, a wise
legislator, a sagacious and resolute
king, perished, as we have seen, in
his forty-fourth year. His son, the
Second James, was killed in his
thirtieth year at the siege of Rox
burgh Castle, by the bursting of a
cannon. The Third James, after the
battle of Saucliieburn, in which his
rebellious subjects were counte
nanced and aided by his own son,
was stabbed, in his thirty-sixth
year, beneath a humble roof by a
pretended priest. That son, the
chivalrous madman of Flodden,
compassed his own death and that
of the flower of his kingdom, while
only forty years of age, by a piece
of foolish knight-errantry. At an
age ten years younger his only son,
James the Fifth, died of a broken
heart. Over the sufferings and
follies, if we may not say crimes,
387
and over the mournful and unwar
rantable doom of the beauteous
Mary, the world will never cease
to debate.
Her grandson ex
piated at Whitehall, by a bloody
death, the errors induced by his
self-will and his pernicious educa
tion. The Second Charles, the
Merry Monarch, had a fate as sad
as any of his ancestors ; for though
he died in his bed, his life was that
of a heartless voluptuary, who had
found in his years of seeming pros
perity neither truth in man nor
fidelity in woman. His brother, the
bigot James, lost three kingdoms,
and disinherited his dynasty, for his
blind adherence to a faith that failed
to regulate his life. The Old Preten
der was a cipher, and the Young
Pretender, after a. youthful flash of
promise, passed a useless life, and
ended it as a drunken dotard. The
last of the race, Henry, Cardinal
York, died in 1804, a spiritless old
man, and a pensioner of that House
of Hanover against which his father
and brother had waged war with
no advantage to themselves, and
with the forfeiture of life and lands,
of liberty and country, to many of
the noblest and most chivalrous in
habitants of our island.
W. G.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The Poet-King of Scotland
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 378-387 ; 22 cm.
Notes: From Fraser's Magazine 10 (September 1874). Printed in double columns. Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Article signed W.G.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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1874
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CT34
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Poetry
Scotland
Monarchy
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W.G.
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Poet-King of Scotland), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
James I of Scotland
Scotland
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/13f81322efb5ef82706171ef2a41c194.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=r85%7E%7Eok0WYAnvCs-721166u--WEAbHUYn9k%7Ee3ru%7EyCTtltbcfqAM-2kfxETzzvrg9u2hqoMJ4EMqwwobbpcv-AMPEUbWz2cWyT7cOm%7E3ZuAX6KTWbXbRwLHVSMtrF3VknXD%7EJuAZM4o39gtENl6GLpug8IyjlvtceTQrp%7EwpT0Cr7s0OA9BiNSMxhayy-ym6yKIsvapdmC20qOTIFtQjlm9ghw6wlWcVEqiy43-nQBowTfv5PFFUDL6CQtsmYD%7EtjSlr1Z-BMOTwowVhheXMblepHiLsJqLUjkQzYG4pNolSJ8A22wt8O4GU1jLqgcjOGvPdwB%7EZVpqpEyTuyGTKw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d26b300a4f6f12489e8692dd5fff1835
PDF Text
Text
THE ENGLISH MONARCHY
AND
AMERICAN REPUBLICANISM.
Reply to the Speech of the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli by
CHARLES
WATTS,
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON REPUBLICAN CLUB.
On April 3rd, 1872, the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli delivered
a political manifesto in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. His
statements On the occasion were endorsed generally by the Tory
press throughout the country, and accepted by them as indicat
ing the programme of that “ enlightened ” party. Whatever is
publicly uttered by the hon. gentleman is deemed of more than
ordinary importance in consequence of the prominent position
he occupies as chief of English Conservatism. The principal
topic chosen by Mr. Disraeli for his speech was English Monarchy
and the American Republic ; his object being to show that the
form of Government in this country has certain advantages that
the American Republic does not possess. The reason for the se
lection of this subject maybe given in the speaker’s own words:—
“ The fundamental principles of the [English] Constitution have
been recently impugned and assailed. The flag of the Republic
has been raised, and therefore, gentlemen, I think it is not in
appropriate to the present hour and situation if I make to you
one or two brief remarks on the character of those institutions.”
It is evident that Mr. Disraeli had not only become conscious
of the rapid growth of Republican principles in England, but
that he had made up his mind to do his best to prevent their
further extension. Now there can be no objection to a person
stating why he differs from the Republican programme, supposing
he considers that programme wrong ; but no man has a right to
misrepresent facts, and utter statements before a public audience
which have no authority, and that are unsupported by statistics
or records of history. To show that Mr. Disraeli did this in his
Manchester speech is the object of the present reply.
�2
Before noticing the hon. gentleman’s fallacies, it may conduce
to the better understanding of the question under consideration
to inquire briefly into the nature of Monarchy. Generally
speaking, there are four kinds—absolute, constitutional, heredi
tary, and elective. In addition to these, we have in England an
imported Monarchy, that is, when the throne, being vacant, and
no one of native growth was found to occupy it,we sent to Holland
and Germany, andimported an occupant. True, these importations
have proved expensive, but then that is an “ advantage” shared
principally by the “ people,” and therefore it has commanded
official silence. The present Monarchy in England is supposed
to be a limited, constitutional, and hereditary one. Strictly speak
ing, however, it is not hereditary, because on several occasions that
principle has been set aside in the history of England, and some
of the best writers upon constitutional government agree that,
whenever the people pronounce in favour of an elective Monarchy,
they can have one in strict accordance with the law under which
they live. The hereditary principle is unwise, inasmuch as it pre
supposes that good and intelligent parents must necessarily have
good and intelligent children. This, however, is not so. The late
Prince Albert possessed some excellent qualities that the Prince
of Wales shows no inclination to emulate. Thus,as Dr. Vaughan
observes : “ In a hereditary Monarchy the worst men may come
into the place of the best.” To guard against such an evil is the
duty of every Republican. Moreover, the principle is unjust.
We are not justified in urging that because one generation
prefers a King or Queen, therefore succeeding generations
should do likewise. Each age should be at liberty to elect that
kind of Government which it finds most in accordance with the
genius of the time, and the aspirations of the people who have
to be ruled. There is some truth in designating the English
Monarchy limited. In one particular its limitation is very
perceptible. This, of course, is no reproach to the Queen, who,
from the best of motives, has for some years lived a life of seclu
sion. Her Majesty is a far-seeing woman, and can discern that
in the future of England a Republican form of Government will
obtain; and as a thoughtful sovereign, she absents herself, so that
her subjects may get initiated into the art of self-government,
that when they come to fulfil the duties thereof, they shall not be
taken unawares, but shall be able to perform such duties with
credit to themselves and with a benefit to the commonwealth.
Whilst opposed to all Monarchies, that form certainly may be
pronounced the best which recognises the right of election.
Kings and Queens should win their position by their ability, and
not rule because they have descended from royal parents, whose
only claim to Royalty was that of birth.
To prove the superiority of the English Monarchy over the
American Republic, Mr. Disraeli said that for two centuries
Monarchical governments had prevented a revolution in this
country, and had established order, public liberty, and political
rights. Now, accepting the term revolution in the limited sense
�3
used by Macaulay, it is true that in this country for nearly two
hundred years it has been unknown. But taking revolution, in
its comprehensive signification, as embodying the elements of
public discontent at, and rebellion against, official artifices and
governmental opposition to the people’s rights, England has
experienced many such outbreaks since 1688. What was the
American rebellion but a revolt against the wicked and unjust
obstinacy and oppression of the English Monarchy ? If it had
not been attempted to enforce taxation without representation
upon the inhabitants of America, they might still have been
bound to us by national ties, and then England would have been
saved the disgrace of an expensive and unnecessary war. The
numerous uprisings and manifestations against injustice in India,
in Jamaica, and in Ireland were so many revolutionary pro
tests against the cruel and tyrannical acts of Monarchical mis
rule. And if in England during the last two centuries revolution
has not broken out in its worst forms, it has not been in conse
quence of an enlightened and amicable policy adopted by our
Governments, but ’ rather the result of the forbearance of the
people, who desired to advance their cause by peaceable means.
The Monarchical policy has too often provoked anarchy and
public discord, by withholding reforms from the nation until it
was driven to despair, by insults and procrastination. Where is
the proof that Monarchical Governments have established order
and promoted public liberty, as stated by Mr. Disraeli? Not
in the history of the Derbyshire outbreak and Snow Hill riots of
1816 and 1817 ; not at the Peterloo massacre of 1819 ; not at the
riots of Bristol, Nottingham, and other towns in ^832; not
during the struggles for Free Trade, Catholic Emancipation, the
admission of Jews into the Legislature, and for Parliamentary
Reform. In connection with these movements, the conduct of
the Governments was such as to produce the very opposite of
order. They refused to grant what the people required until
there was “ no alternative but concession, or the horrors of civil
war.” At the close of the last, and in the early part of the present,
century, great efforts were made to obtain Parliamentary Reform
and an improvement of the land laws. And how were these
efforts met by the “ powers that be ?” Public petitions were
unheeded, supplications were disregarded, and traps were laid
by the Government to catch within the clutches of the law the
leading agitators of the time. Dr. Vaughan says the Govern
ment “ instituted a spy system, which was made to spread itself
everywhere; and miscreants, who could not detect treason to
satisfy their employers, were careful to stimulate and sometimes
to invent it. Hence came a long series of State prosecutions, in
which law was so perverted, or so openly violated, that each one
of them, in place of removing disaffection, multiplied it mani
fold........ Men of the most worthless character were accepted as
witnesses ; and juries who wanted evidence managed to pro
nounce the verdict of ‘ guilty ’ in the absence of it.” Even Sir
Samuel Romilly declared that “he believed in his conscience
�4
the whole of the Derbyshire insurrection was the work of persons
sent by Government.”
The State prosecutions that took place a little more than half
a century since will prove how reliable Mr. Disraeli’s statement
is, that Monarchical rule has favoured political rights and public
liberty. The trials of Muir and Palmer in Scotland, and Hardy,
Tooke, Thelwall, Cobbett, and Leigh Hunt in England, reveal
to us the fact that when Monarchical influence was paramount,
the solitude of a prison and heavy fines were the rewards of
those who sought to advance the social and political condition
of society. When and where has the throne of England ever
pleaded for the liberty of the people ? When has it attempted
to vindicate the rights of man ? or to extend that national freedom
which is the birth-right of every citizen ? Upon what page of
history is it recorded that modern progress has sprung from
Monarchy ? The liberties we now have were dearly bought by
the energies and self-sacrifice of those brave men whose aspira
tions and labours were sought to be crushed by royalist intrigues
and aristocratic exclusiveness. The lever that impelled forward
political and social freedom was found among the masses, apart
altogether from the occupants of the throne. For, as recorded
by Cassell, in his “ History of England,” “ whilst Royalty sat in
emblematic darkness, the people were breaking into light and
power by the efforts of genius born amongst them.”
The right hon. gentleman, in order to prove that Monarchy is
a national benefit, referred to the reign of George III. Now,
it is only reasonable to suppose that in Mr. Disraeli’s opinion
this sovereign was the best that could be cited as illustrative of
the alleged advantages of Royalty. A glance, therefore, at the
condition of society under George III. will enable us fully to
appreciate the value pf Monarchical “influence” on the progress
and well-being of the country. The following facts are taken
from pages 570, 571, and 572, vol. vi., of Cassell’s “ History of
England —-“George III. could not comprehend the right of
America to resist arbitrary taxation; he could as little comprehend
the right of his subjects to have full freedom of conscience, but
opposed doggedly the emancipation of the Catholics on account
of their creed. To all other reforms he was equally hostile, and his
Government and his son had, to the hour of his death, rigidly main
tained the same principles of rule. They had, as we have seen,
done their best to destroy the freedom of the press, the freedom
of speech, and the right to assemble and petition for the redress
of grievances. They had turned loose the soldiery on the people
exercising this right, and had armed the magistracy with full
powers to seize any person whom they pleased to suspect of free
ideas ; and having shut them up in prison had suspended the
Habeas Corpus Act, to keep them there without a hearing during
their pleasure. Never in the history of England, since the days
of the Stuarts, had there been so determined an attempt to
crush the national liberties as toward the end of this reign.......
The same reluctance had always marked the mind of George
�5
III. to reform the penal code as to reform political abuses.
During his period of sanity he continued to behold unmoved
the frightful ferocity of the criminal code, and to sign, unshudderingly, death-warrants for men and women, some of the
latter with children in their arms, for the theft of a sheep, or of
a few yards of calico.......The same darkness and apathy existed
on the subject of education. The great bulk of the people during
the Georgian period were almost wholly unable to read.” This
monarch’s “ influence,” no doubt, was great on the religion of
the time, for the same historian records that “ the Christianity
of the reign of George III. was a bloody farce, and an abomina
tion.” If this is the state of society to result from the influence of
Royalty, England will do well to get rid of it as speedily as
possible. For a full and correct account of what George III.
did for this nation, the reader is referred to Mr. C. Bradlaugh’s
“ Impeachment of the House of Brunswick,” where the deeds of
that worthy monarch are faithfully recorded.
Mr. Disraeli’s next statement in favour of Monarchy was that
this country “ is properly represented by a Royal Family.” This
sentence is the very opposite of truth. When has Royalty re
presented the intelligence, the industry, or the poverty of the
people ? What great literary or scientific production has ever
emanated from the wearer of the English Crown ? Indolence
and luxurious wealth have too often surrounded the throne, while
those who have been compelled to support it have had to “ toil
night and day ” amidst penury and squalid wretchedness. As
a nation we boast, among our characteristics, virtue, honour,
domestic purity, and benevolence. But in what Royal Family,
within the two hundred years mentioned by Mr. Disraeli, have
these characteristics found their representative ? Was virtue
represented by Charles II., who kept so many mistresses, and
had such a host of illegitimate children that no historian has
committed himself by naming the number of either? “No
man,” says Cassell, “ ever saddled the country with such a troop
of bastards ” as did Charles 11. Among the numerous progeny
resulting from his licentiousness may be mentioned the Dukes
of Monmouth, Southampton, Grafton, Northumberland, St.
Albans, and Richmond. Truly, these aristocratic families had
a noble origin ! Writing of this king, Buckle says : “ With the
exception of the needy profligates who thronged his Court, all
classes of men soon learned to despise a king who was a
drunkard, a libertine, and a hypocrite ; who had neither shame
nor sensibility ; and who in point of honour was unworthy to
enter the presence of the meanest of his subjects.” Did James
II. represent the honour of the country when he made secret
arrangements with Louis of France, whereby he sacrificed
England’s prestige and integrity for so many bribes, one alone
amounting to 500,000 crowns, which was followed by a second
remittance of two million livres ? His dishonour was only
equalled by his hypocrisy, for when he wanted sums of money
voted him by Parliament, he declared that he had “ a true
�6
English heart;” and when soliciting bribes from the French’
monarch, he proclaimed that his “ heart was French.” James 11,
represented nothing that was noble and true. “ He hoped to
turn a free Government into an absolute Monarchy,” but in this
he failed; and having disregarded the rights of the people, and
defied their wishes, he was driven from the throne. His fate
should be a warning to future would-be monarchs. Were the
wishes of the country represented by William III., in whose reign
commenced an extensive warfare, a reckless expenditure, and
the official inauguration of our National Debt ? In the twelve
years Queen Anne occupied the throne, she not only sided with
the Tories in their frequent quarrels with the Whigs, but she
raised the funded debt in that period from ^12,600,000 to
^36,000,000. Was this the Royal mode of illustrating the progress
and economy of the country ? Of domestic purity, as exhibited
within the domain of Royalty, but one instance shall be given,
and that from Mr. Disraeli’s king par excellence, George III.,
of whom Washington Wilkes, on pages 130—1 of his history of
the first half of the present century, writes :—“ It is generally
supposed that he was a model of domestic morality ; whereas he
was either a seducer or a bigamist........ It is not common for
virtuous parents to bring up a whole family of licentious profli
gates ; and yet what family ever exhibited such a troop of the
most shameless and sensual ones as that of George III. ? He
saw his sons seduce and abandon one woman after another, and
he could not reprimand them ; for he knew his own story better
than they who now act the historian seem to do.” No doubt,
by some, Queen Victoria is supposed to be a true representative
of benevolence. Well, if to give away portions of the money
that has been annually voted by Parliament for that purpose,
constitutes benevolence, then Her Majesty may be entitled to
that honour. But the record of sums given from the Queen’s
private .purse for benevolent purposes is difficult to find. View
ing, apart from class interest, the characteristics of the country,
and the conduct of Monarchy, it will require a Conservative
genius to discover how the former have been represented by the
latter.
Mr. Disraeli’s attempt to prove that the English Monarchy
was less expensive than the American Republic was a perversion
of facts, and a misrepresentation of figures. He said that her
Majesty had a considerable estate in the country which she had
given up, and the revenues from them had gone into the public
exchequer. The hon. gentleman did not inform us what estates he
alluded to. At the present moment the Queen is in possession of
large estates at Balmoral, at Osborne, and in the West of London,
the revenues of which the country does not receive. Did Mr.
Disraeli refer to the Crown lands ? If so, they never belonged to
the Queen, and, therefore, she could not have given them up.
Is it, however, correct to allege that the revenues derived from
the Crown lands are equal to the annual sum we pay to the Royal
Family ? That sum, according to the Blue Book and other
�official'documents, amounts to £692,373. This does not, it should
be observed, include the entire cost of Monarchy, but simply
represents the net cash paid in one year to and for the Royal
Family. Now, towards this £692,373, what is obtained fromthe
Crown lands? There was paid into the Exchequer in 1847,
.£68,000; in 1854, £272,000; in 1855—6, .£260,000 ; in 1870—1,
£385,000 ; and for the present financial year the amount named
is £375,000. Thus it will be seen that until the last few years,
the Crown land receipts were exceedingly low, and even now
they do not equal half the cost of the Queen and her family.
Mr. Disraeli said : “ I will deal with the cost of sovereignty in
the United States of America. Gentlemen, there is no analogy
between the position of Queen Victoria and the President of the
United States.” There is much truth in this remark; there is no
analogy between the two. The President of the United States
has to work; and the Queen as the right hon. gentleman re
marked on a former occasion, had become “physically and morally
incapacitated from performing her duties.” A man who aspires
to the Presidential chair must possess political ability, while a
knowledge of politics has not been deemed a necessary qualifica
tion in the occupant of the English throne. Besides, the Queen’s
salary is £385,000 a year, and the President’s is but £3,750.
In dealing with the relative costs of the two forms of Govern
ment, Mr. Disraeli did not put the case fairly. He was careful
to speak of the cost of the American Cabineg, but he never men
tioned the cost of our English Cabinet. The English Cabinet is
composed of sixteen members, who receive annually between
them in salaries £66,000. The American Administrative Depart
ment is composed of seven members, who receive among them
£8,400. In England some members get £5,000, others £7,500,
and one as much as £10,000 per year. In America no member
gets more than £1,200. Then we have the entire administration,
for which we pay, in salaries alone, £176,718, which, with the
£45,023 for expenses of the House of Lords, and £49,806 for the
House of Commons, together with £692,373 paid to the Royal
Family, make the cost of the English Government to be
.£963,920, while, as admitted by Mr. Disraeli himself, the
Republic in America costs only between £700,000 and
£800,000. And out of this sum the Americans pay their
representatives, an advantage we should do well to emulate ;
for if men are sent to Parliament to do our work, they ought to
be paid for it. If that were done, we should not find so many
empty benches as we do when the money of the country is being
voted away. In America, moreover, the sovereignty is the people.
There the people pay to rule themselves, while here we pay
Royalty to rule us. In America the sovereignty supports itself; in
this country it is supported by something outside of itself. Surely
then that which is self-supporting is more economical than that
which depends on something extraneous for its existence.
In
America its £700,000 or £800,000 are distributed among nearly
five hundred persons, but in England the £963,920 are given to
�8
less than one hundred individuals. So that in this country about
one hundred Government officials cost over £ 163,000 more than
five times that number in America.
There is a striking contrast also in the expenditure for diplo
macy in the two countries. As shown by Mr. Bradlaugh, in his
recent letter to Mr. Disraeli, America pays her Ambassador in
London a yearly salary of £3,215, and the total cost of the
American Embassy here is £4,336. Our Ambassador at New
York receives the sum of £5,000 per year, and an annual allow
ance of £1,000 for house rent, and the total cost of our Embassy
in America is ,£8,150, or nearly double. The Americans pay their
Ambassador at Paris £3,670, and the total cost of the Embassy
is ,£4,146. We give our Parisian Ambassador £10,000, and the
total cost of our Embassy is £13,595. Thus diplomacy in France
costs America less than one-third of our expenditure. In Eng
land the Lord Chief-Justice receives an annual salary of £8,000,
while the same functionary in America is paid £1,700 a year.
Many other instances could be given to show that Mr.
Disraeli was decidedly inaccurate in his comparisons of the ex
penses of the two countries. But, leaving particular departments,
what is the total cost of each nation ? The general cost of the
Governmentof Americafor 1871 was£s8,012,584,while the general
cost of England was £69,698,539 12s. 2d. The advantage to
America will appear the greater when we remember that last year
her population was 38,555,983 persons ; Great Britain and Ire
land 31,817,108. Territory of Great Britain and Ireland is about
119,924 square miles ; United States, 2,933,588 square miles.
Notwithstanding the much larger population, and the greater
extent of territory, the Republic has a much less expenditure
than the Monarchy.
Too much importance is not here attached to what has been
termed the “ cheap argument.” Because an article is cheap, it
does not therefore follow that it is preferable to that which is
more expensive. And the present examination of the relative
costs of the American and English forms of Government has
been to show, that in his speech the Right Hon. Benjamin Dis
raeli stated the very opposite of facts. True economy consists
in the usefulness of that which is purchased. Monarchy is dear
at any price, because it lacks the elements of good government.
The basis of all sound legislation is the public will, made known
through a fair and comprehensive system of representation; and
as this advantage is recognised and enforced by Republicanism,
its claims are established as superior to Royalty, even if it were
not less expensive.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London : Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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The English monarchy and American republicanism. Reply to the Speech of the Right Hon. B. Disraeli
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Watts, Charles
Disraeli, Benjamin [1804-1881]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: [Disraeli's speech delivered April 3rd, 1872 in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester].
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Monarchy
Republicanism
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Monarchy
Republicanism
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
grfte Atheistic platform.
X.
DOES
ROYALTY
PAY?
GEORGE STANDRING,
Editor
of
“The Republican.”
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 884.
PRICE
ONE PENNY.
COMPANY,
�THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
Under this title is being issued a fortnightly publi
cation, each number of which consists of a lecture
delivered by a well-known Freethought advocate. Any
question may be selected, provided that it has formed the
subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an
Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform
is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war
against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god,
political, social, and theological.
Each issue consists of sixteen pages, and is published at
one penny. Each writer is responsible only for his or her
own views.
1. —“ What is the use of Prayer ? ” By Annie Besant.
2. —“ Mind considered as a Bodily Function. By Alice
Bradlaugh.
3. —“ The Gospel of Evolution.” By Edward Aveljng,
D.Sc.
4. —“ England’s Balance-Sheet.” By Charles Bradlaugh.
5. —“ The Story of the Soudan.” By Annie Besant.
G.—“ Nature and the Gods.” By Arthur B. Moss.
These Six, in Wrapper, Sixpence.
7. —“ Some Objections to Socialism.” By Charles Brad
laugh.
8. —“Is Darwinism Atheistic?” By Charles Cockbill
Cattell.
9. —“ The Myth of the Resurrection.” By Annie Besant.
�DOES ROYALTY PAY?
TFriends,—Napoleon I. is said to have described the
English as a “nation of shopkeepers,” that is, a people
whose minds were “cribb’d, cabin’d, and confin’d” by the
sordid considerations of commerce, and were unable to
rise to the grandeur of the occasion when wars of conquest
and schemes of European domination were in question.
It is to you as shopkeepers or as commercial men that I
now wish to propound this question: 11 Does Royalty
Pay<n Is it a profitable investment to the nation? Is
?'
our servant paid too high a wage? Is it necessary, or
even prudent, to retain his “ services ” any longer ?
No employer of labor would fail to ask himself such a
question as regards the men in his employ. A large mill
owner, paying an overseer £1000 per annum to superin
tend his business, would find it necessary to make some
alteration in his arrangements if he were to find that, for
several months during the year his servant’s coat, thrown
over an empty chair, alone represented the individual
whom he employed! Such a system of business surely
would not “ pay.”
The national balance-sheet in regard to royalty would
stand thus :
Expenditure.
Receipts.
£
s. d.
£ s. fd.
To Guelph & Co., one
year’s salaries and
expenses .. .. 1,000,000 0 0
By services ren
dered per con
tra ................... 0 0 0
Surely this is a most unsatisfactory item in the accounts
of the nation! Let us see in what fashion this expensive
encumbrance of a useless monarchy has come down to us.
�148
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
By tracing the history of royalty in England through a
few of its most important phases, we shall be able to arrive
at a true estimate of its position and character in these latter
days. We shall see monarchy gradually dwindling from
a position of absolute dominance to its present degraded
and anomalous condition. Together with an oppressed
and uncivilised people we find a powerful sovereign; with
a free and enlightened nation monarchy exists but as a
mere costly sham. From this I think we may fairly infer
that the system we are discussing is fit only for a crude
and barbarous stage of society; and that with the growth
of popular intelligence and patriotism the old dominance
becomes less and less possible.
When William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, assisted
by a select band of continental cut-throats, invaded Eng
land and vanquished the Saxons, he established the feudal
system in its most rigorous form. The barons to whom he
allotted the land were responsible to him, and to him alone,
for their actions. The people were simply serfs or villeins,
without rights or duties as citizens. They were mere
chattels appertaining to the estates of their lords and
owners, and politically were of no account whatever. Thus
the centralised power of the Crown was originally domi
nant ; the nobles existed as dependents of the Crown, and
the people, as a political power, were practically non
existent. Thus was the “ State ” constituted towards the
end of the eleventh century.
It would be a most interesting study,'but it is absolutely
impossible to pursue it within the limits of a lecture, to
trace the gradual development of popular liberty; to see
the quarrels between the Crown and the nobles ; to observe
the first struggles of the populace in the direction of
freedom and independence. It will, however, be possible
to glance at certain epochs of our history in which the
gradual decay of the monarchical institution may be
traced.
First, then, let us turn to the period when the principle
of “Divine Bight ” was eliminated from English royalty.
Charles I. appears to have conscientiously held the view
that the Almighty had selected the Stuart family as “fit
and proper persons” to hold absolute and irresponsible
sway over the British people. With the courage of his
convictions, he sought to enforce his views, even to the
�DOES ROYALTY PAY ?
149
-desperate length of a resort to arms. God upon that occa
sion did not support his chosen one; and when the head of
Charles fell upon the scaffold at Whitehall it may be said
the doctrine of divine right fell with it, for it has never
been seriously maintained, as a political principle, in Eng
land since that time.
If we turn now to the end of the seventeenth century,
we shall note a further advance in the direction of popular
freedom. James II. had become so obnoxious to the
■country that he wisely fled and abandoned the throne.
William, Prince of Orange, was therefore invited by the
Lords and Commons to assume the Crown. An attempt
was made, however, to limit William’s authority, and to
this the Dutch prince would not agree. He told the English representatives that he was perfectly contented with
his position in Holland; a crown was no great thing, and
he had no wish for it; the English had sought him and
not he the English; and if they wished for his services
“they must agree to his terms. Ultimately the Dutchman
ascended the throne of Great Britain as William TTT.
upon a distinct contract with the [nominal] representatives
•of the people. “The Constitution,” says Hume, in his
History of England, “had now assumed a new aspect.
The maxim of hereditary indefeasible right was at length
venounced by a free Parhament. The power of the Crown
was acknowledged to flow from no other fountain than
that of a contract with the people. Allegiance and pro
tection were declared reciprocal ties depending upon each
other. The representatives of the nation made a regular
claim of rights on behalf of their constituents ; and Wil
liam III. ascended the throne in consequence of an express
capitulation with the people.”
Here, then, is a great advance. The people and the
'Crown are the two parties to a contract. Such a contract
may be determined by either of the parties ; and the con
stitutional Republican agitation of to-day is a movement
directed towards the lawful, peaceful termination of such
contract, as being no longer useful or necessary. The
object is a purely legal and justifiable object; and when
our opponents describe the Republican agitation as “sedi
tious” they merely expose their malice and ignorance.
It would be at once interesting and instructive to trace
-the history of English monarchy from the commencement
�150
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
of the eighteenth century down to the present time. We
should see how the importation of a disreputable German
family brought the Crown into contempt—how the German
mistresses of George I. and his successor had “ exploited”
the British—and how the people had been estranged from
their rulers. We should see the pious but stupid and pre
judiced George III. exercising his authority upon the side
of privilege and oppression, and retarding, to the full ex
tent of his power, every movement in the direction of
popular progress and freedom. The foes of liberty were
the “King’s friends,” and, necessarily, the friends of the
people were the “King’s enemies.” The student of his
tory will be aware that the influence thus exercised by
George III. was a very real and weighty factor in political
affairs. That estimable monarch died sixty-four years ago;
and it will be instructive to note the vast change in the
power and status of the Crown that this comparatively
brief period has brought about.
Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England seyenteen years after the death of George III. • and in the year
1840 was married to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. This
gentleman came from a small German court, and the pro
spect of wielding a certain degree of influence over the
affairs of a mighty nation was very attractive to his mind.
His position in this country was somewhat anomalous ; the
Queen took precedence of her Consort, and politically
Albert was a fifth wheel in the coach. w It was taken for
granted by the people that the Prince would not meddle in
political business, and time after time he was publicly com
plimented on the supposed fact that, recognising his posi
tion in this country, he had abstained from interference in
the national affairs. Albert, however, had been so inter
fering in a secret and underhand fashion; and when the
fact became known, public indignation was aroused. The
Queen and her Consort thereupon wrote to Baron Stockmar, asking for his advice and assistance. Stockmar, it may
be explained, had been a long-life friend and counsellor
of the Queen, and his direction would naturally have much
weight with her. In reply to the Queen’s appeal, Stockmar wrote a long and tedious letter (given at length in Sir
Theodore Martin’s “Life of the Prince Consort”) from
which one or two passages may be given. He pointed out
that, “in our time, since Reform .... and the growth
�DOES ROYALTY DAY?
151
of those politicians .... who treat the existing Consti
tution merely as a bridge to a Republic, it is of extreme
importance that this fiction should be countenanced only pro
visionally, and that no opportunity should be let slip of vindicat
ing the. legitimate position of the Crown.11 Stockmar then
discusses the imaginary situation of a stupid or unscrupu
lous Minister pursuing a foolish or mischievous policy, to
the detriment of the public welfare. The only punishment
that could be inflicted in such a case is “the removal or
resignation ” of the offender. But the divine system of a
properly-constituted monarchy would, Baron Stockmar
alleged, provide an efficient safeguard against such dis
astrous mismanagement. Who, he asks, “could have
averted the danger, either wholly or in part ? Assuredly
he [the Sovereign], and he alone, who, being free from
party passion, has listened to the voice of an independent
judgment [i.e., his own]. To exercise this judgment is,
both in a moral and constitutional point of view, a matter
of right, nay, a positive duty. The Sovereign may even
take a part in the initiation and the maturing of the Gov
ernment measures ; for it would be unreasonable to expect
that a King, himself as able, as accomplished, as patriotic (
as the best of his Ministers, should be prevented from
making use of these qualities at the deliberations of his
Council.”
Writing thus to a member of the House of Hanover,
Stockmar must have been singularly ignorant or strangely
oblivious of the history of that family. Where, since the
Guelphs first landed upon our shores, shall we find the
sovereign “as able, as accomplished, as patriotic as the
best of his ministers ” ? Can we so describe George I.,
ignorant of the English tongue, absolutely indifferent to
the national welfare, contented to pass his time carousing
with his fat German mistresses ? Is it possible thus to re
gard his scarcely more estimable successor, George II.;
the ignorant, bigoted, obstinate madman, George III.; the
profligate and unprincipled George IV. ; or his successor,
William IV., who, as Greville declared, would make a
good king if he did not go mad? And, looking to the
future, can we dare to anticipate that the Prince of Wales,
if he ever ascend the throne, will display either ability o
patriotism in a very eminent degree ? Baron Stockmar
urged the Queen to avail herself of every opportunity to
�152
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
vindicate the “legitimate position of the Crown.” This clear
and decided advice, it must be remembered, was given by
the Queen’s most trusted counsellor in response to a direct
appeal for such aid; but can it be pretended that Her
Majesty has ever followed it? Is it under the reign of
Victoria that the dwindling prerogatives of the monarch
have been strengthened and extended ? On the contrary,
the forty-seven years of the present reign have seen the
almost absolute self-effacement of the sovereign as a politi
cal and social factor. Parliament is opened by “commis
sion ” in the absence of the Queen; drawing-rooms are
held by the Princess of Wales, in the absence of the Queen.
Whilst the political machine is running, and the wheels of
society are swiftly revolving in their appointed fashion, the
nominal head alike of the State and of Society is buried in
the remote fastnesses of Balmoral, the solemn glories of
Windsor, or the sylvan glades of Osborne. Privacy of the
most complete nature is all that is apparently sought. In
short, Her Majesty is teaching the English how easily and
comfortably they may exist without a Queen!
Politically, the Sovereign now only operates as a machine
for affixing the sign-manual. The responsibility for every
measure, for every action, rests upon the official advisers
of the Crown. Without their aid there could be nothing
to sign; but—according to the glorious principles of our
constitution—the result of their labor and genius would be
null and void, minus the signature of the Sovereign. The
sole object, then, for which monarchy now exists, politi
cally, would be equally well served by an india-rubber
stamp, an impression of which could be affixed to any
document or measure that had received the sanction of
both Houses of Parliament. And the cost of this need not
exceed the moderate sum of one shilling.
With reference to the functions of the Sovereign, I am,
however, bound to admit that the view I have just endea
vored to state is not universally accepted as correct. There
can be no possible doubt that the principle that “ the Sove
reign reigns but does not govern ” is the only one upon which
the majority of Englishmen would tolerate the existence of
royalty. The spirit of democracy has so deeply permeated
English political life that the exercise of an irresponsible
unrepresentative power in public affairs would not long be
permitted to exist. Supposing, for instance, that a Fran-
�DOES ROYALTY I’AY ?
153
•chise Bill, after being passed by the Commons and Lords,
should be vetoed by the Crown, such use of the royal pre
rogative—although legally perfectly justifiable—would be
the death-warrant of the monarchy. But, judging from
■certain statements that have been made public, and which
have emanated from responsible sources, it seems probable
that, in truth, the Queen does exercise a very real influence
over public affairs, but it is an influence of which the
public officially knows nothing. Several years ago Mr. Dis
raeli stated in a public speech, at Hughenden, that the duties
performed by the Queen were “weighty,” “unceasing,”
and “laborious.” “There is not,” he said, “ a dispatch re
ceived from abroad, nor one sent from this country, which
is not submitted to the Queen. ... Of our present SoveTeign it may be said that her signature has never been
placed to any public document of which she did not know
the purport, and of which she did not approve.” Now Mr.
Disraeli was on many occasions extremely parsimonious of
the truth; and it is quite possible that the startling statement
there made was merely a vivid flash of the imagination.
Dor what does it amount to ? If the Queen signs no
document of which “she does not approve,” then her
influence in the State is paramount, and if any difference
of opinion arise between the Sovereign and the Ministry
it is the latter that must accommodate itself to the former
before anything can be done. If all that Mr. Disraeli
said at Hughenden on thjs subject be true, it is difficult
to detect the essential difference between the “ constitu
tional rule” of Victoria and the “autocratic sway” of
Alexander III. of Russia! I for one cannot believe it.
If the judgment of the Prime Minister and the Govern
ment is to be on occasion subjugated to the conflicting
judgment of a doubtless honest and well-meaning, but
very commonplace old lady, the sooner the people under
stand this the better for us all. But, I repeat, I cannot
believe it. Shrewdness is a prominent trait in the Queen’s
character; and I cannot conceive it possible that she
should dare to follow the course of action indicated by the
words of Mr. Disraeli. Certain it is that the people
officially know nothing of it; and, judging from the facts
as they are displayed before us, we are justified in re
garding the monarchy as simply useless—not worse than
useless.
�154
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
At present our india-rubber stamp costs us at least a
million sterling per annum. The Civil List of £385,000'
represents but a portion of the outlay which the mainten
ance of royalty involves. The pensions and allowances to
members of the Queen’s family; the cost of maintaining
and repairing the numerous palaces required for their
accommodation ; and innumerable indirect expenses which
are carefully dispersed amongst various branches of the
public accounts, fully make up the enormous total given.
Sir Charles Dilke, for instance, whilst investigating this
matter some years ago, found that a certain number of
men were continually employed in painting the ornamental
fire-buckets on board one of the royal yachts. Year in
and year out their sole duty was to paint these buckets.
As soon as they were finished the work was begun over
again.
What advantage does the nation derive from the exer
tions of its most expensive “servant”? The Daily Tele
graph and other pious and loyal journals sometimes urge
that the Queen furnishes us with a noble example of a
sovereign and mother. But how ? Officially she has for
over twenty years almost entirely neglected the public duties
of her high position. And where is the nobility of her ex
ample as a mother ? Many a poor widow toils incessantly
in order to maintain her young family, denying herself
proper rest and food, so that her children may be decently
clothed, fed, and educated, and obtain a fair start in life.
Such cases of devotion and self-denial are frequent amongst
the poorest classes of society. Is not this a nobler example
than that of a lady in possession of immense wealth, who
is perfectly well able to support the whole of her numerous
family, but who yet permits the burden of their mainten
ance to be thrown upon the nation ? The private wealth
of the royal family must be enormous, and abundantly
adequate for their needs; and yet how many appeals for
charitable grants have been made upon their behalf I
Prince after prince, and princess after princess, have thusbeen quartered upon the nation as out-door paupers, re
cipients of a charity that is disgraceful, and would be de
grading to any family save the Guelphs.
Let us glance at the long roll of pauper princes, and
see what advantage the nation derives in return for their
generous allowances. The Prince of Wales receives an
�DOES ROYALTY PAY ?
155-
income of more than £150,000 a year, including his wife’s
allowance, but not including the accumulations of the
Duchy of Cornwall, or various sums that have been voted
for exceptional purposes. His Royal Highness is a Field
marshal of the British army, and honorary colonel of
several regiments. Now, what is the work that H.R.H.
performs in return for his ample wage of £3,000 per week?
Upon this point I will cite the evidence of the Daily News,
a Liberal, pious, and respectable authority: “The Prince
of Wales had a hard day’s work on Saturday. In tho
afternoon, besides holding a levee, he unveiled a statue of
Sir Rowland Hill at Cornhill, and in the evening he dined
with the Lord Mayor and the provincial mayors at the
Mansion House, afterwards witnessing part of the per
formance of ‘ The Marriage of Figaro ’ at the Covent
Garden Theatre.” And this, O ye Gods ! was a hard day’a
work! Not one of the simple rounds of daily toil, but
over-time - into the bargain ! Cannot such labor be per
formed at a cheaper rate ? Cannot some patriotic indi
vidual be induced to expend his energies in the service of
the State at a more reasonable rate of remuneration than
£3,000 per week? Surely if the contract were submitted
to public competition the Prince’s post could be filled, his
arduous labors performed, more economically than is now
the case.
Take, again, the Prince’s oratory. He opens bazaars,
lays foundation stones, and performs similar ornamental
if not useful functions. At Norwich, opening the Agri
cultural Hall in that city, Albert Edward eloquently re
marked: “Mr. Birkbeck and Gentlemen,—I have the
greatest pleasure iu declaring this hall to be now open.
It is worthy of the County of Norfolk and the City of
Norwich. (Loud cheers.)” Is this the oratory of our
£3,000 per week Demosthenes? Without any desire to
over-estimate my own ability, I could venture to under
take to make a much better speech than that at a mere
fraction of the cost.
As to the Prince’s military worth I am not in a position
to offer any facts or opinion. His uniforms are covered
with medals, and it therefore follows that the Prince must,
during some portions of his career, have earned those
decorations by many acts of bravery and devotion. I have
searched the pages of contemporary history for the records
�156
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
of these deeds of heroism, but, alas! I have found them
not. It is difficult to account for the remissness of histori
ans in this matter. * In none of their works do we find a
line or a sentence referring to the Prince’s exploits on the
battle-field, to the deeds of valor which bear their outward
and visible signs in the Prince’s medals. I do not, how
ever, despair of obtaining the information some day.
Take another Guelphic hero and warrior, the Duke of
■Connaught. This young man is a major-general in the
British army, and in due course—if the monarchy survive
long enough—will doubtless be appointed commander-inchief when the Duke of Cambridge shall have passed
away, and his umbrella alone shall remain as a memento
of his glorious career. The Duke of Connaught has taken
a more or less active part in the military service, and it is
clearly to his ability alone that his rapid promotion is to
be traced. Unlike the heir-apparent, our major-general
can point to the records of history in proof of his achieve
ments. When the English troops were sent to Egypt to
crush the national movement organised and directed in
that country by Arabi, it was deemed advisable that a
prince of the blood should accompany the expedition. The
flagging popularity of the Crown needed a stimulant, and
it was hoped that the participation of a member of the
royal family in the noble work of suppressing Egyptian
freedom would bring about this result. Statements were
circulated to the effect that the Prince of Wales, inflamed
with military ardor, desired to take part in the war, but
that, “in deference to the highest authority,” he had
decided to remain at home. His younger brother, how
ever, was nominated to an important command, and his
departure from our shores was the signal for the most
fulsome and ridiculous panegyrics from “loyal” journa
lists. The Daily Telegraph in bombastic and inflated
language described the satisfaction that every Englishmen
must feel at the sight of one of the princes placing himself
at the head of British troops and leading them to glory on
the battlefield. A special general was sent out to see that
the duke got into no danger; a special doctor accompanied
him, and every precaution was taken for his comfort and
safety. Soon after his arrival the battle of Kassassin was
fought, and telegrams reached this country extolling the
bravery of the duke during the combat. It subsequently
�DOES ROYALTY PAY ?
157
became known that while the battle of Kassassin was
taking place the Duke of Connaught was ten miles in the
rear! It is not a difficult matter to display the most reck
less heroism when one is ten miles from any danger.
Artemus Ward escaped a fatal wound at Sebasto
pol by not being there, and our major-general owes
his preservation to a similar piece of good fortune.
I believe the only privation to which the Duke was sub
jected during the campaign was a temporary scarcity of
soda and brandy. At the conclusion of the war many of
the troops returned to England, and were enthusiasti
cally received by their countrymen. A certain number of
picked men were summoned to Windsor, when the Queen
affixed a medal to the breast of every soldier who had
distinguished himself. And, as a grand climax, the Duke
of Connaught came forward, his royal mother fastened
a decoration upon his already overloaded uniform, and affec
tionately imprinted a kiss upon his martial brow I Could
any more ridiculous farce be imagined ? The carpet
warrior who had merely accompanied the expedition as an
ornamental appendage, who was never in real danger—to
him was vouchsafed the same reward as to the men who
had risked their lives in the discharge of their duty.
However little we may admire the trade of the soldier, it
is matter of credit to him when he bravely performs the duty
imposed upon him, and the decoration earned by devotion
and heroism is an honor to him. But as for the rows of
medals and ribands that are so thickly strewn upon the
uniforms of princely toy«soldiers, they might just as well
be fixed upon a German sausage for any relevance that
they bear to the object upon which they appear.
The sham heroes of English royalty are in perfect keep
ing with the system to which they belong. They form
part of an institution that was once terrible and powerful,
but which is now as weak as it is contemptible and ridicu
lous. The political aspect of monarchy has entirely dis
appeared ; it is not merely useless, but an actual clog and
nuisance in the work of the State. Its social duties are
frivolous and unimportant, and its “services” could be
dispensed with, not only without detriment, but with
actual advantage to the nation. We are sometimes told
that England is a wealthy country and can afford to
bear the expense entailed by royalty. I deny the state
�158
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
ment absolutely and in all earnestness. Whilst we find
large numbers of people dying from starvation in our
midst; whilst we see so many thousands of our country
men barely able, by the most arduous exertions, to keep
the wolf at bay; whilst we find that misery and want are
rife among the laboring classes of the community, I say
that it is criminal extravagance to maintain in idleness
and luxury a family that perform no service to the country,
and whose position is based upon a barbarous and obso
lete form of government.
I should be performing but a portion of the task which
I have undertaken, if I failed to point out one considera
tion that is too often overlooked. The huge sum of money
appropriated to the maintenance of royalty does not go
into the pockets of the royal family, and by far the greater
portion of it is absolutely outside of their control. The
institution of monarchy is in this country the means of
supporting that huge crowd of lazy aristocrats who have
been irreverently but not inaptly termed “Court Flun
keys.” If the British tax-payer were to take the trouble
to enquire what is done with the money which he grum
bles so loudly at paying, he would find that it filters in
many ways into the pockets of the Crown’s most devoted
adherents. The royal family are bound by the iron fetters
of custom and precedent, and many huge establishments
have to be supported, at enormous expense to the country,
for their accommodation. A glance at the composition of
the royal household would show “about one thousand
unselected, vested-interest, hungry, hereditary bondsmen
dancing round the Crown like Red Indians round a stake,
and scrambling for £325,000 of the £385,000 that is
thrown to them every year by a liberal and unenquiring
country.” Royalty requires a whole army of attendants,
and all of them have to be highly paid. Many of the
superior officials do absolutely nothing. Their offices are
sinecures; and, in many cases, even when certain duties
have to be performed, the country, while paying A. a
handsome salary for occupying the office, obligingly pays
B. to do the work. It would be instructive to repro
duce the mere list of officials and servants employed in the
service of royalty. It comprises offices that are obsolete,
offices that are ridiculous, and offices that are unnecessary.
We have an aristocratic Master of the Tennis Court, with
�DOES ROYALTY PAY ?
159
a large salary but no Tennis Court; a barge-master with
two men to help him, but no barge—only the salary;
there are chamberlains of various kinds, chief clerks, ordi
nary clerks and assistant-clerks; lords in waiting, grooms
in waiting; gentlemen ushers and ushers who presumably
are not gentlemen ; masters of the ceremonies, assistants,
and people to assist the assistants; state pages, pages of
the back-stairs, a page of the chambers, pages of the
presence, and pages’ men to wait upon the pages, of whom
—reckoning all varieties—there are sufficient to make a
large volume ; several kinds of serj eants-at-arms, kings-ofarms, heralds, chaplains, dentists, painters, librarians;
gold sticks, silver sticks, copper sticks and sugar sticks;
secretaries to everybody and under-secretaries to the secre
taries; inspectors, equerries, footmen, “three necessary
women,” priests, painters, organists, composers, etc., ad
infinitum.
These officials pass their lives comfortably and luxu
riously, subsisting upon the public money. If any one of
them has any work to do it will be found that three or
four others are provided and paid to help him; and their
assistance is sometimes afforded when there is actually
nothing to be done. To these men and to their relations
royalty is the best possible form of government, and
they will defend to the last gasp the institution which
enables them to live in idleness upon the fruits of honest
industry.
I should like to suggest a possible way in which many
of these tax-eaters could be got rid of. A short Act might
be passed ordaining that the salaries of “Court Flunkeys”
should in future be collected direct from the people by the
holders of the offices in person. The “bargemaster” and
his two “watermen,” who so efficiently help him to do
nothing, might possibly be able to gather in the £400 per
annum that they receive for their valuable services; but I
am rather doubtful whether, after deducting wear and
tear of clothing (damaged in frequent kickings-out),
doctors’ bills, time, trouble, etc., they would find the
pecuniary results to be worth consideration. There would
be fair ground for hoping that in a very few years the
greater part of these useless offices would fall into
desuetude.
We may venture to trust that, in time, the English
x
�160
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
people will open their eyes to the anomaly of their position.
With a political system in which the Republican spirit is
the very breath of life, we foolishly continue the ex
pensive luxury of a useless monarchy. The only terma
upon which we consent to retain and maintain the mon
archical element is, that it shall do nothing to logically
justify its existence. The misfortune is that the nation
has not the courage of its convictions. The facts of our
political existence are democratic; the fictions—and most
expensive fictions—are monarchical. But the day is not
far distant when the scales of prejudice and ignorance will
fall from the eyes of our people; when they will be
aroused to the dignity and independence of their man
hood ; when, being no longer children, they will put’ aside
childish things, dismiss the useless representatives of a
bygone system, and transfer their allegiance from the
Crown to the Commcnwealth.
London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugii,
63, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Does royalty pay?
Creator
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Standring, George
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: [147]-160 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Atheistic Platform
Series number: 10
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Publisher's series list on p. [146]. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1884
Identifier
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N621
Subject
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Republicanism
Monarchy
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Does royalty pay?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Monarchy-Great Britain
NSS