Robert Stewart, the son the second Marquis of Londonderry, was born
on 18th June, 1769. After his education at St. John's College, Cambridge,
Stewart toured Europe. At the age of twenty-one he obtained the seat
of County Down, a pocket borough under the control of the Marquis
of Downshire, in the Irish Parliament. It is claimed that the election
cost the Marquis of Londonderry £60,000. In 1794 Stewart also
obtained the Tregony seat in the English
House of Commons.
During his election campaign in Ireland, Robert Stewart advocated
parliamentary reform. This included extending the vote to Roman
Catholic freeholders. However, soon after his election he enrolled
in the Londonderry Militia. As a result of his military duties, Lieutenant-Colonel
Stewart rarely attended Parliament during the next few years.
Robert Stewart entered Parliament as a Whig
but in 1795 he switched his support to William
Pitt and the Tories. Pitt granted Stewart the title Lord Castlereagh
and in 1797 appointed him as his Irish chief secretary. This was a
time of great turmoil in Ireland and in 1798 Castlereagh played an
important role in crushing the Irish uprising.
Castlereagh and Pitt became convinced that the best way of dealing
with the religious conflicts in Ireland was to unite the country with
the rest of Britain under a single Parliament. The policy was unpopular
with the borough proprietors and the members of the Irish Parliament
who had spent large sums of money purchasing their seats. Castlereagh
appealed to the Catholic majority and
made it clear that after the Act of Union
the government would grant them legal equality with the Protestant
minority. After the government paid compensation to the borough proprietors
and promising pensions, official posts and titles to members of the
Irish Parliament, the Act of Union was passed
in 1801.
King George III disagreed with Pitt
and Castlereagh's policy of Catholic Emancipation.
When Pitt discovered that the king had approached Henry
Addington to become his prime minister, he resigned from office.
Addington took office but Lord Castlereagh refused to serve under
him.
In 1802 Castlereagh accepted Addington's offer to return to the cabinet.
His initial responsibility was India but he soon became the leading
figure in developing Britain's foreign policy. Henry
Addington resigned from office in May 1804 and was replaced by
William Pitt as prime minister. Castlereagh
was now giving the post of Secretary for War.
Castlereagh left office in 1807 but five years later the new prime
minister, Lord Liverpool, appointed
Castlereagh as his foreign secretary. Castlereagh concentrated his
efforts to defeat Napoleon in Europe. In 1814 Castlereagh represented
Britain at the Congress of Vienna. The agreement reached at Vienna
resulted in the reinforcement of hereditary rule and the suppression
of liberal and nationalist sentiments in Europe
In 1815 British forces were victorious at the Battle of Waterloo.
The abdication of Napoleon and the successful conclusion of the French
Wars improved the public standing of Castlereagh and Lord
Liverpool. It was hoped that with the end of the conflict in Europe,
Lord Liverpool's government would be able to concentrate on introducing
the social reforms that were much needed in Britain.
In 1817 Britain endured an economic recession. Unemployment, a bad
harvest and high prices produced riots, demonstrations and a growth
in the Hampden Club movement. As leader
of the House of Commons, Castlereagh in
November, 1817, introduced the bill for the suspension of Habeas
Corpus.
The economic situation gradually improved and Lord Liverpool's government
hoped that a reduction in taxation would prevent a revival of radicalism
when the suspension of Habeas Corpus came
to an end in 1818. This was not the case, and the summer of 1819 saw
a series of large gatherings in favour of parliamentary reform, culminating
in the massive public meeting at Manchester
on 16th August 1819.
Lord Liverpool and his government made
it clear that he fully supported the action of the magistrates
and the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry.
Radicals reacted by calling what happened in St. Peter's Fields, the
Peterloo Massacre, therefore highlighting
the fact that Liverpool's government was now willing to use the same
tactics against the British people that it had used against Napoleon
and the French Army.
Lord Liverpool's government decided to take action to prevent further
large meetings demanding social reform. In November 1819, Parliament
was assembled and Castlereagh introduced in the House of Commons the
severe measures that became known as the Six Acts.
Castlereagh, who was the government's spokesman for civil matters
in the House of Commons, along with Lord
Liverpool and Lord Sidmouth, the
Home Secretary, took the blame for these repressive measures and the
men were booed whenever they appeared in public.
Castlereagh found this loss of popularity very painful. He became
depressed and his doctor suggested that he retired to his estate at
North Cray Place in Kent. On 12th August, 1822, Lord Castlereagh cut
his throat with a penknife in his dressing-room and died almost immediately.
(1)
Lord Castlereagh, speech in the House of Commons
(16th May, 1821)
It had not been correctly stated
that the meeting at Manchester had consisted of moderate reformers,
assembled for temperate discussion. They were a great mass assembled
for purposes of intimidation and in order to bring on a revolutionary
movement; and if the design had not been repressed at Manchester,
it would have broken out into rebellion, and instead of the blood
that had been shed there, torrents of blood would have burst forth.
The magistrates had not intended to interfere with the meeting. They
had taken their post for the purpose of watching the meeting, not
of breaking it up. After a variety of depositions had been made, which
give a character of terror to the meeting in the minds of the people
of Manchester, and which gave the meeting that illegal character which
the law asserts, then had the magistrates granted a warrant.
The magistrates had not employed a greater force than was necessary,
and had not called assistance in until the danger to the yeomanry
required it. Now, he would not attempt to go into the circumstances
of what happened to many innocent persons. The servants of the magistrates,
the constables, had suffered; they had been struck, injured, and trodden
down. The bloodshed was not occasioned by the magistrates, but by
those who under the mask of reform, had no other object than rebellion.
On such persons the charge of blood ought to fall; and not on the
magistrates who were performing a painful and difficult duty, and
who had the manliness to do that duty with firmness.
(2) Shelley
was in Italy when he heard the news of the Peterloo Massacre. He immediately
wrote a response in the form of a poem The Mask of Anarchy.
As I lay asleep in Italy,
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.
I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him;
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to millstones as they fell.
And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
And he wore a kingly crown:
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'
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