CHAPTER LII
The vote on the Pains and Penalties Bill was taken at three o'clock in the afternoon, on November 6, 1820. One hundred and twenty-three lords voted for the King's divorce, and ninety-five against. The Prime Minister rose to speak. He had spent the previous night arguing with his Cabinet, most of whom wished the Bill to be withdrawn. Lord Liverpool declared before the peers of the realm that – with the country in such a perilous state, and the vote so tight – the Government had decided not to proceed with the Bill. The King did not get his divorce. The Queen wept when Henry Brougham brought her the news, crying out: "Regina still, in spite of them!"
That evening the capital celebrated. Illuminations filled the sky of London, even grander than those that had celebrated Lord Wellington's victory at Waterloo. Cannons and muskets were fired, church bells rung and soldiers – sent to guard the ministers' homes – cheered and waved their caps. Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Dublin, and Glasgow all erupted in uproar as the news spread: word reached New York that 'the greatest triumph has been gained by the People of England that ever was gained in the world'. The untitled, unrepresented populace had made their feelings known – and they had won.
On the same day, one hundred and fifty miles north of Westminster, Lady Matlock was delivered of a healthy baby boy. Richard Darcy arrived two weeks earlier than expected, though with such strong lungs the midwife was certain he was quite due. Mrs. Harrison, announcing the news to the young man's other aunt in Manchester, wrote that no one could doubt he had his father's long legs. Mrs. Wickham kept that particular letter safe inside the book the youngest Darcy's mother had sent her. The one she so enjoyed reading aloud to her friends in Manchester, along with the crumpled pages in her sister's hand, tucked inside the binding.
Lord Matlock's duties kept him from meeting his son for several weeks. Christmas at Pemberley was a quiet affair that year. Lady Matlock contented herself with letters from Mrs. Bingley about her Gardiner cousins' progress. Miss Darcy and Miss Butler returned to the Lakes, where neither felt the pressure of society. Though neither said it, both Matlocks knew that they would never again host a Christmas like the one of 1819.
They returned to London for the season and the next sitting of Parliament. He remained in his post until the summer of 1822, before moving on to become First Commissioner of Woods and Forests – fulfilling the grand ambitions of the seventh Earl with a decade in the Cabinet. Throughout the reign of George VI, the debutants of London were told they would do well to follow Lady Matlock's example of grace, composure and duty. The Countess never spoke too sharply, nor laughed too loudly.
The Queen, having gained her victory, lost interest in the Radical cause. Against the advice of Mr. Brougham, she accepted the Government's fifty-thousand pounds. In doing so, she went from oppressed victim to immensely wealthy woman – losing the people. On August 7, 1821, she died and was buried in Brunswick, in her native Germany, in a tomb that read simply: 'The Injured Queen of England'.
Lord Liverpool remained Prime Minister until 1827, finally retiring due to ill health and the growing support within his own party for Catholic emancipation, which he opposed. A Bill was finally passed in 1829, removing many of the legal restrictions placed on Catholics in the United Kingdom. The then Prime Minister, Lord Wellington, opposed the principle, but gave in fearing revolution in Ireland.
Lord Castlereagh did not live to see the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. He died by suicide a year after the Queen's death, following a blackmail threat to expose his relations with a man. It would be another hundred and fifty years until homosexual acts stopped being criminal in Britain.
Henry Goulburn rose to the heady height of Chancellor of the Exchequer – though he is not remembered as one of the great holders of that office, presumably much to his wife's chagrin. Following the Slave Compensation Act 1837 he received five-thousand-six-hundred pounds from the Government for his two-hundred-and-twenty-seven enslaved workers. His brother, Frederick Goulburn, was the first Colonial Secretary of New South Wales. Between 1788 and 1868, some one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand prisoners were transported from Britain and Ireland to the penal colonies in Australia. Most never returned.
Lord Sidmouth remains the United Kingdom's longest serving Home Secretary. He stepped down from that position in 1822, but remained active in Parliament for serval years. He cast his final vote against the Representation of the People Act 1832.
The 1832 Act was the first step in a long road to universal suffrage, increasing the electorate from four-hundred thousand to six-hundred-and-fifty thousand – roughly one in five men – though it was the first act that formally excluded women from voting, and the property qualifications meant that the majority of working men still could not vote. The fondest wish of those who marched at Peterloo was not achieved until the Representation of the People Act 1928 extended suffrage to all women over twenty-one (all men over twenty-one having received the vote ten years earlier).
Mr. Brougham played a prominent role in passing the Reform Act 1832 and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Inspired by Mr. Bentham, he was one of the founders of University College London, the first English university to open its doors to all, regardless of race, creed, or political belief. In 1868, it became the first British university to admit women on fully equal terms to men. Seven years earlier, at the age of eighty-two, Sarah Davidson was still living in London with her eldest son.
George IV remained on the throne for just ten years. It was the period following which saw Britain rise to the height of imperial power. It was an Industrial, not a People's, Revolution that saw the great cities of the North rival even London – if not in political power, then certainly in economic power. The engines of industry were fuelled by the rich coal and iron mines of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire. The ownership of this land became highly profitable, funding colonial ventures across the expanding Empire.
As industry grew, so too did discontent. Radicalism and the memory of Peterloo lived on in the Northern cities of Britain. In 1848, a factory owner in Manchester and his friend published a manifesto that would go on to change the world. The women's suffrage movement began in earnest there, under the banner: 'We helped you carry your banners at Peterloo. Now it is your turn to help us carry ours'. And in 1868, a group of trade unionists from all over the United Kingdom arrived in Manchester for the first meeting of the Trades Union Congress. Forty years later, following the third Representation of the People Act in 1884, the Labour Representation Committee was founded by a group of working-class MPs. That Committee would go on to become the Labour Party.
The first majority Labour government was elected in 1945: its lasting legacy is the National Health Service. Established in 1948, the NHS marked the first time in the modern world that healthcare was provided completely free at the point of use, not on the payment of fees or private insurance. It is a collective, social insurance.
Education did not become a universal right in the United Kingdom until the Education Act 1944 introduced free secondary education for all, raised the school leaving age to fifteen, and provided school meals and milk for all children. Fee-paying private schools remained for those who could afford them. The top professions of state – law, politics, medicine, and journalism – remain dominated by a privately-educated social elite.
The House of Lords continues to be an unelected, law-making upper chamber: most peers are now given life-time appointments by the Prime Minister and leaders of the main opposition parties, but there are still, today, ninety-two hereditary peers in the House of Lords.
FINIS.