The English Nobillty.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5003, 24 January 1885, Page 1

The English Nobillty.

r-+ : The following is from the London Weekly Echo:—" • What, asked Cromwell of Pytn, 'is the great root of all oar grievances?' ' The . Aristocracy,' said Pym. ' Give us their true history, and you unriddle the secret of every national embarassment." Truer oracle than this \ was never spoken. For more than eight [ centuries of dishonour the story of our Old Nobility is one of all but uninterrupped and, alas J generally successful crime. . It divides itself naturally into four well marked epochs. In the first, covering the area of Norman and Plantagenet Royalty (1066------1485.) our Old Nobility were simply « gang of merciless Continental bandits, . who had, unfortunately; succeeded in garrotting the entire English people. ,M. Thierry truly describes the Conqueror's, companions as ' adventurers by profession; the idle, the dissipated, the profligate the enfans perdus of Europe.' 'Normans, Burgolauns, thieves, and felons,' is the ' summing up a contemporary 'Norman writer. Of the de Belesmes, the leading. Anglo Norman House, Mr Freeman says, they were 'monsters of cruelty and perfidy. Open robbery and treachous imagination seem to have been their daily occupation/ ( : In Stephens reign they all but compassed the complete overthrow of the State. ' Castles,' says William oi Fewbury,' rose in great numbers; and there were in England so to speak, as many, kings, or rather tryants, as lords of castles.'/ These robber strongholds ' they, filled with devils and evil men.' Life in England became intolerable, and in the words of the Saxon Chronicle, ' Men said openly, that Christ and the Saints had gone to sleep.' But what of Magna Charta and the deathless heroes of Jiunnymede? Was not the Great Charter the Barons handiwork P Not at all. A more preposterous 1 claim was uever preferred. The Charter was the achieve meat of the freemen of Eoglandia general and of the citizens of Lon- . don in particular. In fact the part played-: by the Barons was pusillanimous in the last degree.. True, they made a stand in order to save their ill-gotten estates.from, the grasp of John's mercenary captains, but it was a stand feeble indeed. John defied them in Northampton Castle/and in.a fortnight's time they and their retainers had ignominioußly to seek refuge within the walls of Bedford. In realitythe Charter was wrung from John 'by"a national movement, supported by a Scot-, tish army in the North., London alone put .twenty. thousand men under arms. The true motives of the.Barons became apparent when John rescinded the Charter, . and, with an army of imported meroen: aries, sent them flying in every direction. What did tfce'y then do P To save, their private estates they, openly sold their country to France. Louis landed with, a strong force, and after John's death it cost the English .people much hard fight: . ing to dislodge him. Had the Baronial patriots had their way, England would have. been reduced to . the position . of a French province—a greater calamity even than the Norman Conquest. True patriots I " . During the reigns of the Conqueror and his immediate successors, our Olid ', No'- . bility, it is calculated, cut off by famine and the sword one-third of the English 1

.-race!'-"' Eventually, in tho. faction fights of ,- ;the Red and White Rosis, they all butjex- ': -terminated-each -othor.-'TJahappilyV 'they . did not, perish alone In- the laudable ,wprk' of self-destrnotiou they contrived to „'immolate, more than a hundred thousand Englishmen who. had not the leust in- ' tflrest in-.llieirwicked quarrels. In tho second epoch embracing ihe times'.of the TudorVand'Stua'rls (1485 1688) there grew up an entirely new order of noble fungi—parchmenlj-inadd-P,eeri— crawling courtiers, perfect prodigies'l of avarice, cowardice, senrility,- lying; forgery .-plotting, and of all the 1 manner and ' meanest of human vices. Henry VII. and Henry VIII. sent them to the' block by the bcore for any reason or none. The craven Duke of Norfolk was a party to the execution of both his nieces, Anne Boleyu and .Catherine Howard, and congratulated the Royal Bluebeard on throwing his " ungracious mother-in-law, his- unhappy ■ brother'and wife,.and his lewd sister'of Bridgewater" into the Tower.- He aud his fellow peers showed, their respect for public liberty by.decreeing that Royal proclamations should have the force,of law:!

This was the heyday of the notorious - Church robbers; The- immense monastery lands were the mainstay of the poor. Deprived of these, they were reduced to vagrancy by thousands. To repress mendicancy, the despoilers by statute visited their victims with' branding, slavery, and death. In Henry .VIII.'s "reign se?entytwo thousand beggars were hanged out,of hand. Elizabeth was content with hang- - ing a modest three or four hundred per annum.'The •• Virgin Queen's" Ministers: —the .Cecils, father and son, from whom Lord Salisbury claims descent—literally . governed England by— the rack. Even ■ Lord Clarendon, the Tory historian, could hardly tolerate the younger Cecil. "No act of power," he writes " was ever pro- - posed which he did not advance and execute with the utmost rigour.' No man so great a tyrant in this country. " They all punctually changed, their religion with every change of-Governments In James I.'s reign peerages were sold at the rate of ! £10,00.0 each, rich men being occasionally compelled. to become hereditary legislators ' . againstrtheir willr When , the storm clouds of revolution \ finally burst about the head of Charles . Stuart, the Peers showed scarcely ft trace of capacity, civil or military. If they had helped the Commons to curb the Jioyal , Prerogative, not a drop of blood had been shed But they did not. In the hour of . danger most of them slunk like rats into holes, whence they only emerged at the Restoration. But if they had none of theinstincts of the lion, they had certainly some of the hjgeoa. They tore up and exposed to obloquy the dead bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, Admiral Blake, and even those of Cromwell's mother and daughter. Noblesse oblige. At this time land yielded the State nearly half its revenues. Of this most just obligation tho nobility relieved themselves at a blow in 1660 by substituting Customs and Excise Duties for the Land Tax. They subsequently undertook to pay 49 in the £on true annual rental ; but they have since fraudulently kept to the original valuation of 1692, with the result that they are now paying one million per , annum when they should be paying forty. Mr W. A. Hunter, than whom there is no better authority, has calculated that .whereas forty working men with an aggre- - gate income of £2000 (£SO a-year for each) contribute £16 in £100 to the revenue, one-man, an absolute non-producer perchance, with £2000, contributes but £3! So much for the notorious Land Tax swindle,which has already caused the loss

• of £1,250,000,000. The third period of Aristocracy extends from the " glorious Revolution" to the First Reform Bill (1688-1832). This was the halcyou era of noble . lords of Continental Wars, Standing Armies, National Debts, and Pensions. They then wielded the prerogatives of royalty, and usurped the functions of the Commons. In Dutch William's time they robbed the Crown of nearly all its vast estates, and znado it a pauper on the bounty of the people by the invention of the Civil List. There being but some 15,000 electors in a population: of 3,000 000, they were able by corruption, to take complete.possession of the Representative Chamber. Nearly fivesixths of the members were their direct or indirect nominees. .Their diabolical toast and watchword during this miserable period Was "A. long war and a short crop." Both tended to. raise rent. They fought everywhere — in, Europe, in Asia, in America— and always againßt Liberty. Every European despot, great and small, from the Antocrat of Russia to the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, was subsidised with British gold -in the vain attempt to restore the" Bourbons, and to undo the beneficent work of the French Revolution. A subsidy of £2400,000 enabled Prussia to finally partition Poland. America was lost, to say nothing of the sacrifice of nearly two millions of English lifes. Since 1688 we have paid in interest o,n Lord-begotten War Debt the vast sum of £2,790.000,00.0, and in reduction of the same £3.430,000,000, while no less than £750,000,000 still remains to be paid ! The fourth epoch of Aristocracy extends from the" Reform Bill to the present day (1832-1884)' 'Since the Reform Bill,' says the discriminating Bagehot, ' the Houso of Lords has ceased to be one of latent directors, and has become one of temporary rejectors and palpable alterers.' In the first epoch of their career they robbed the People; in the second they robbed the Church; in the third they robbed the Crown; in the fourth, as always, they have been the steady foes of Suffrage Reform, of Nonconformists, of Roman Catholics, of Ireland, of Agri- i culture, of Trade, of Labour, and, of Education. ' ' ' Howbeit there is now a chance such as may cot occur again for a century of ending this standing abomination—of tearing up, this blighting TTpns»tree by the very roots. The day of reckoning has at last arrived. The President of the Board of Trade has, - gallttntlygivcn the. signal. It is for the people to respond with an unanimous— " Cut it down; why cumbereih it the ground ? " '