PERILOUS QUESTION Also by Antonia Fraser NON-FICTION Mary Queen of Scots Cromwell: Our Chief of Men James VI of Scotland, I of England King Charles II The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-century England The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot The Six Wives of Henry VIII The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605 Marie Antoinette: The Journey Love and Louis XIV : The Women in the Life of the Sun King Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter FICTION Quiet as a Nun The Wild Island A Splash of Red Cool Repentance Oxford Blood Jemima Shore’s First Case Your Royal Hostage The Cavalier Case Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave Political Death PERILOUS QUESTION THE DRAMA OF THE GREAT REFORM BILL 1832 ANTONIA FRASER Weidenfeld & Nicolson LONDON First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson 13579 10 8642 © Antonia Fraser 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher. The right of Antonia Fraser to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. isbn: 978 o 2978 6430 i Typeset by Input Data Services Ltd, Bridgwater, Somerset Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon cro 4YY Weidenfeld & Nicolson The Orion Publishing Group Ltd Orion House 5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane London, WC2H 9EA www.orionbooks.co.uk The Orion Publishing Group’s policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. In Memory of HAROLD WINTER and FRANK LONGFORD who were not afraid to ask perilous questions CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Author’s Note xiii prologue: A new King, a new people i chapter one: The clamour 13 chapter tw o: I will pronounce the word 30 chapter three: Believing in the Whigs 50 chapter four: The gentlemen of England 69 chapter five: Russell’s Purge 86 chapter six: King as angel 99 chapter seven: Away went Gilpin 115 chapter eight: Confound their politics 132 chapter nine: What have the Lords done? 151 chapter ten: A scene of desolation 167 chapter eleven: The fearful alternative 184 chapter tw elve: Bouncing Bill 202 chapter thirteen: Seventh of May 217 chapter fourteen: Prithee return to me 236 chapter fifteen: Bright day of liberty 249 Epilogue: This great national exploit 260 References 279 Sources 289 Index 296 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS William IV by Sir Martin Archer Shee, 1835, aged seventy. (Royal Academy of Arts, London) Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, c. 1831, by Sir William Beechey. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Charles 2nd Earl Grey by Sir Thomas Lawrence. (Private collection) Mary Countess Grey with two of her daughters. (Private collection) John George Lambton - 'Radical Jack* - ist Earl of Durham. (Private collection. Photography by Les Golding, Fine Art Photography) Master Charles William Lambton: the famous portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence known as ‘the Red Boy*. (Private collection. Photography by Les Golding, * Fine Art Photography) Arthur Wellesley, ist Duke of Wellington, by John Simpson c.1835. (Apsley House, The Wellington Museum, London / © English Heritage Photo Library / The Bridgeman Art Library) Sir Robert Peel by Henry William Pickersgill. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Dorothea Princess Lieven. Line engraving by William Bromley, after Sir Thomas Lawrence. Published 1823. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Old Sarum by John Constable (1776-1837). (Private collection / The Stapleton Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library) High Street market, Birmingham. Engraving by William Radclyffe, 1827, from a drawing by David Cox. (SSPL / Getty Images) Captain Swing, c. December 1830. ‘An original portrait of Captain Swing’, published by Orlando Hodgson, 1830. (© The Trustees of the British Museum) ‘Wiseton’ by Richard Ansdell. (From the Collection at Althorp) John, 3rd Earl Spencer by Sir George Hayter. (From the Collection at Althorp) The Marquess of Blandford, heir to the Duke of Marlborough, by George Sanders, c.1830. (Photograph reproduced with the kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace Image Library) Thomas Attwood. Engraving by C.Tumer, 1832, after portrait by George Sharpies. (Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library) IX PERILOUS QUESTION ‘The Preston Shoe Black in Parliament Showering a few of his Brilliant Ideas out at the Expence of Some of the Rotten Members*. (By permission of the People’s History Museum) Lord John Russell and Lord Holland. Portrait by George Hayter (attributed to). (The Congregational Memorial Hall Trust (1978) Limited. Image supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation) Holland House in Kensington. Engraving by R. Havell after J.C. Smith. (Private collection / The Stapleton Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library) Lord and Lady Holland in the Library at Holland House. ‘Holland House * Library* by C. R. Leslie. (Private collection) SECTION TWO ‘John Gilpin!!!* by John Doyle. Lithograph published by Thomas McLean, 13 May 1831. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) ‘An After Dinner Scene (At Windsor)* by John Doyle. Lithograph published by Thomas McLean, 12 October 1831. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Henry Lord Brougham, by Hénry Fuseli, 1808. (Bendor Grosvenor) Francis Place by Samuel Drummond, 1833. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Joseph Parkes, a silhouette by Augustin Edouart, 1838. (Private collection) Sir Herbert Taylor by John Simpson, exhibited 1833. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter. Stipple and line engraving by Joseph Brown after Frederick Cruickshank, published 1837. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Richard Curzon, ist Earl Howe. Stipple engraving by Richard Austin Artlett, after George Raphael Ward, published 1838. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Thomas Barnes, Editor of The Times 1817-1841. (© Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy) William Cobbett. Etching by Daniel Maclise, 1835. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) Thomas Babington Macaulay, drawing by I.N. Rhodes, 1832. (Private collection) ‘Handwriting Upon the Wall’ after John Doyle, published 26 May 1831. (Shelf mark: Reform Bills 2 54. The Art Archive / Bodleian Library, Oxford) Cannon at Belvoir Castle. (Photograph reproduced by kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Rudand) ‘Meeting of the Birmingham Political Ünion* by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1832. (1937 P370. Birmingham Museums Trust)