PE

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. 423.-APRIL, 1910.

Art. 1.-SOCIETY AND POLITICS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

1. The Correspondence of Priscilla, Countess of Westmorland, 1813-1870. London: Murray, 1909.

2. Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino, 1831-1835. London: Heinemann, 1909.

3. Memories of Fifty Years. By Lady St Helier. London: Arnold, 1909.

If we examine the connexion between politics and Society in the nineteenth century, and consider how far the course of public events and the careers of public men were influenced by the life of country houses and drawing-rooms, we shall see at once that a great change had come over the spirit of the age since the days of the Stuarts and the first of the Hanoverian kings. Not so easy will it be to ascribe to these social influences their exact measure and right value. One shrinks from so obvious a platitude as the observation that the destinies of men and races have been affected by women for evil or for good since the days of Cleopatra; indeed since Eve walked in the Garden of Eden. George II, in one of his boastful moods, declared that Charles II had been governed by his mistresses, James II by his priests, William III by his ministers, Anne by her women. 'Who do they say governs now?' he asked; and the meek Queen, who ruled him, and through him ruled England, without his knowing it, encouraged his delusion. Frederick, Prince of Wales, was shrewd enough to appreciate his mother's ability in spite of their mutual hatred. He would never Vol. 212.-No. 423.

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make the ridiculous figure his father had done,' said he, in letting his wife govern him or meddle with business which no woman was fit for.' He did not live long enough to put this resolution to the proof. His wife was not without political aptitude, but she was forced to yield authority to her son. George IV was at the mercy of many women, but it may be premised that when the nineteenth century began, that system was extinct under which all men alike, courtiers, soldiers, and statesmen, were dependent for advancement and security upon the women who enjoyed the sovereign's favour. It must be admitted that this power was never more extensively exercised than when it was a woman that occupied the throne. George II spoke truly of Queen Anne, but his mistresses only lacked authority because the Queen herself wielded it, not openly, but none the less surely. More than one ambitious man, Chesterfield amongst them, made the mistake of courting the mistress instead of the wife. Walpole detected the reality, and through the Queen's confidence kept his own power firm. Caroline died in 1737, and power no doubt passed into the hands of Lady Yarmouth (Walmoden). Even the austere Pitt succumbed. Horace Walpole records that, on October 21, 1756,

'the palace had its solitude alarmed. The Pages of the Backstairs were seen hurrying about and crying, "Mr Pitt wants my Lady Yarmouth." That great stranger made her an abrupt visit-said he had come to explain himself, lest it should be thought he had not been sufficiently explicit.'

But the days of the mistresses were passing. Their sway had been great and undisguised. It was not through the unavowed persuasions or exertions of private life that they had governed; they were the recognised dispensers of patronage and agents for parties. They had to be courted assiduously, but with nothing of the delicacy of private life. Their reign, however, was now over; and it is noteworthy that no other kind of feminine influence immediately succeeded it. If one would observe how little the counsel of women was allowed to weigh in the management of their husbands' affairs, it may be taken as a sign that until the early years of the nineteenth century, bachelor parties were general. The men dined

and drank and hunted and plotted together; they had no need of women to urge them, and encourage, and advise. There is a striking contrast between the habits of Ministers a century apart. In 1720 Secretary Craggs wrote to Lord Stanhope:

'There dined yesterday at Lord Sunderland's the dukes of Devonshire and Newcastle, Lord Carlisle, Lord Townshend, Lord Lumley, the Speaker, Walpole and I, and we got, some very drunk, and others very merry. Lord Falmouth, whom the publick nicknamed Lord Foulmouth . . .'

On November 13, 1834, Greville recorded that Lord Sefton told him

'that Mrs Lane Fox's house was become the great rendezvous of a considerable part of the Cabinet. The Chancellor, Melbourne, Duncannon, and Mulgrave are there every day and all day; they all dine with her, or meet her (the only woman) at each other's houses, as often as they can.'

We may say then that the new century brought with it a new condition in the relations between politics and Society; henceforward the part to be played by women was to be of a very different character. The position of the King's mistress had been fully recognised and was almost official. The women of Society were not expected and did not aspire to meddle with public affairs. Passive

obedience is a doctrine which should always be received amongst wives and daughters,' wrote the sprightly Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the women of her day were usually content to restrict their energies to domestic duties and recreations.

'You'll wonder, perhaps, to hear that Lord Gower is a topping courtier' (she wrote to Lady Mar); 'there is something extremely risible in these affairs, but not so proper to be communicated by letter; and so I will in an humble way return to my domestics.'

It is true that this rule had its exceptions. Long after her days at Court were numbered, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, occupied herself eagerly with State affairs. It must be borne in mind that she was no ordinary woman; she had governed Queen Anne, and ruled a greater than she, the Duke himself. Power to her was indispensable; if not power, then to be defying power.

For the sake of annoying George II, whom she hated, she set a lure for his son by offering her granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer, for his bride, with a dowry of 100,000l., a scheme only frustrated by the vigilance of Walpole. She consoled herself by bequeathing a considerable legacy to Pitt, because he was a resolute assailant of the King's Government. But Duchess Sarah is the exception to all rules; she was a rare woman, and leaves the mass of her contemporaries insignificant by contrast. Here and there a woman has secured perpetual notoriety by activity not of a domestic kind, but this has usually been for the sake of and in connexion with some one man: an obvious instance is Lady Hamilton. Here again allowance must be made for temperament; at all times and in all places there have been brave and capable women, ready to share in public dangers or devote themselves to individual interests. In later times the wife of Sir Harry Smith will serve as an illustration. But this is a different thing from bringing politics into the drawing-room and inclining the ear of a statesman to the counsels of a boudoir. In this direction the fashion of the times began to turn. Before the century had begun Holland House had become a meeting-place for the leaders of the Whig party. The journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, describes at length the plots and counterplots that were hatched there, and particularly relates the circumstances of the futile secession of the Whigs from the House of Commons in 1798. They intended it as a protest against Pitt's war policy, calculated to destroy his credit: it only damaged their own. It was not strictly observed, and Tierney boldly seized the opportunity of conducting the Opposition in person. Holland House' had been the conspiring ground, and here the failure was admitted. 'Secession, did I say, madam?' cried Sir Philip Francis to his hostess; 'dispersion I mean.' What Holland House came to be in later years we know: Macaulay and Greville, in their respective ways, have told us all about it.

In the first years of the nineteenth century the influence of women was not greatly felt in public life. The King was insane and his Court was closed. The Regent's life was, indeed, fully occupied with women: he was at war with his royal wife, and his secret marriage

had not been fortunate. If he was cruel to Caroline, he could at least plead provocation. To the other lady he had allied himself solely by his own desire. He had risked his succession to the throne, as some held, by marriage with a Roman Catholic, despite its invalidity under the Royal Marriages Act. He had descended to every species of subterfuge and prevarication; and after all, an estrangement came between them. She was no doubt the most admirable of his various loves. But neither she nor her successors made any serious pretence of interfering with government. Personal rivalry, the satisfying of family needs, or mere indulgence of vanity, engrossed their attention. And it is worth noting that the three most conspicuous men in the country were, in effect, bachelors: the Regent presented no wife to the public; Pitt was unmarried; Fox avowed his marriage in 1802, but his previous connexion with the lady prevented her from taking her place in Society.

With William IV the new era began; the political atmosphere broadened, and women were permitted to live in it. According to the Duchesse de Dino, the King believed himself irresistible in the presence of a woman. The ubiquity of his FitzClarence progeny gave considerable offence; but we are not accustomed to associate scandal with his name after he succeeded to the throne. Queen Adelaide had no desire to take a prominent part: she was convinced that we were on the verge of an upheaval like that of France in 1789, and her only ambition was to accept the fate of Marie Antoinette with dignity.

The transition was gradual and scarcely perceptible. The right of women to venture upon the territory of man would no doubt have been vigorously disputed by many, not necessarily by all. Byron and John Cam Hobhouse were intimate friends. In Byron's opinion women ought to study only piety and cookery;* Hobhouse, on the other hand, spent his mornings in paying calls, because he found it 'a great disadvantage to lose touch with Society.'†

This leads us to consider how Society was composed; whether it was jealously exclusive or easily entered. The + 'Recollections of a Long Life,'

* Moore's 'Life of Byron,'