by TARQUIN O’FLAHERTY
Here in the following few lines, is England’s Shakespeare, putting exquisite words, phrases and ideas into Hamlet’s mouth; (Act 2, Scene 2)
‘… what a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…’
In this, I imagine, Shakespeare is surely talking about the Danes. The play is, after all, set in Elsinore. He is not talking about the English, in whose country, in the 18th Century, 95% of babies born did not survive beyond the age of five.
‘…how noble in reason…’
In whose country, between 1770 and 1830,(a mere fifty years) more than 6 million acres of ‘common’ lands were enclosed, thus depriving millions of people of the right to provide basic survival rations for themselves, or indeed, any type of livelihood at all.
‘..how express and admirable…’
In whose country, thousands of villages were literally razed to the ground, their inhabitants driven off, to make way for sheep.
‘…in action how like an angel…’
In whose country, when people objected to being starved to death, they were set upon and cut to ribbons by mounted troopers weilding indiscriminate sabres.
‘…in apprehension how like a god…’
In whose country, for the most minor of crimes, people were transported (for the rest of their lives) to the ends of the earth.
‘…the beauty of the world…’
In whose country, the richest country on earth, the peasantry, when called upon for King and country were, for the most part found to be unfit for military service. (due to malnutrition)
‘…the paragon of animals…’
Hamlet goes on to say;
‘…and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me…’,
And can you blame him?
In 1828, and again in 1829 there were disastrous harvests. Wages were cut to a minimum and threshing machines were introduced on some farms.
Fifty years earlier the standard hiring fair contract guaranteed the farm labourer a years work. By the 1820’s these contracts guaranteed work only for a fortnight, sometimes for just a week. Out of this almost obsessive need to pay as little as possible in the way of wages, all of England erupted in fury in what came to be known as the “Swing Riots’. As I have outlined earlier, from Scotland to the English south coast, landowners were sent lists of demands. These demands were always signed by ‘Captain Swing’. Failure to comply meant buildings, machinery and crops were mysteriously destroyed overnight. This always included the hated threshing machines which put so many out of work. While the rioting went on, there was constant fear that the ‘natural order’ might be swept away. In 1830 in a Parliamentary debate, Charles Grey (Earl Grey) suggested that the only way any sort of order might be established would be by reforming the House of Commons. The Prime Minister, The Duke of Wellington gave it as his opinion that the present system was virtually perfect and therefore incapable of improvement. (Wellington owed his position in Parliament to an Irish ‘rotten borough’ at Trim, County Kildare.)
When word got out of Wellington’s thoughts on the reform of the House of Commons, his home was attacked by mobs of people, who had to be driven off.
On the 15th of November, 1830, the Tory party, torn apart by the granting of Catholic Emancipation, was defeated, and Charles (Earl) Grey was asked to form a Whig government.
Grey immediately set up a body to examine how the House of Commons might be reformed. In the meantime, Lord Melbourne, the new Home Secretary, set about dealing with these criminals who were rioting so tediously. Special Commissions were set up which resulted in about two thousand half-starved, dispossessed and desperate rioters being brought before the courts.
252 were sentenced to death, 644 were imprisoned, and 481 were transported to Australia. Most of the death sentences were commuted. The rest were released.
It is important to realise here that Grey’s coming to power did nothing to stop the agitation for the reform of Parliament. This was largely because the more radical elements outside of Parliament, be they either working-class or middle, did not believe for a second that the Whigs would keep their promises. They had a ‘business as usual’ reputation and were likely to be as treacherous as the Tory party.
William Cobbett, who had spoken up again and again in defence of the farm labourer, raised the ire of important landowners who arranged for him to be brought before the courts on a charge of ‘seditious libel’. Cobbett defended himself by accusing the wealthy of being parasites on the backs of honest hardworking people, and that Parliamentary reform was the only way to resolve this situation. Cobbett, gently and forcefully reminded the courts of who these parasites might be. Eventually he was acquitted, but not before the government was embarrassed mightily.
An interesting aside here is that one of Cobbett’s periodicals was eventually sold to a chap called Hansard, and became the forerunner of the modern parliamentary record.
TO BE CONTINUED