"The time of the election for the western division approached, and I received numerous letters from what might be called the industrious classes, begging me to come down and show myself in the vale of Berkeley, assuring me, in their homely way, that if I had lost my room in the castle, I had fifty rooms of my own in its place, for they had all set apart in their cottages or houses their best chamber, and had newly done it up as Mr. Grantley's room. From the tenants under the castle, too, and the members of my squadron of yeomanry, I also received the most hearty and generous assurances of devoted attachment and support, telling me not to fear any consequences to them, for Lord Fitzhardinge dare not turn them all out of their farms, and that they were unanimous in their feelings of goodwill

to me.

"Notwithstanding these and many such assurances of my popularity, I hesitated to trust myself to a contested election, without a sixpence that I could spare to pay my way; and I also did not think it generous on my part to embroil the tenantry with their landfords-Lord Fitzhardinge and Lord Ducie-in a contest, unless I felt sure that there was every chance of my being successful.

"At last the following laconic epistle from a dear old friend of mine, who kept an inn in Thornbury, determined me to throw myself on the county :

"Mr. Grantley.-Dear Sir,-Come down among us; we only want you as our leader; the pot's boiling over, and we can win.'

"My reply was almost as brief. It promised that at a given hour, on a certain day, I would, mounted on my well-known white charger, Beacon, present myself to my friends at the inn at Alistonship, and ride through the division of the county.

"My horse having preceded me, I came via Bristol, and, on arriving at the inn, was greeted by an immense assemblage of people with a band and banners. It was a curious sight to a reflective mind, for I cannot call to my recollection that there was a large proprietor present, though there were a vast number of their tenants, and thousands of labouring men, women, and children-the latter lining the banks on either side the road all the way into Thornbury. When we had formed into procession, there was a shout from the immense throng to me for colours. 'Colours! I have none! I cried; 'I can't afford to buy them; but I need none better than those of our vale. The oak-sprig, then, to your hats and breasts!' No sooner said than done; there was a general rush at the hedges and boughs of the oak trees, and, in a short time, like the wood of Dunsinane,' a forest moved in the direction of the town and castle of Thornbury, my dear old horse occasioning much laughter among my adherents, by pulling off the hats within his reach, in snatching at the leaves they bore. Immense arches of flowers, and every imaginable design,

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spanned the road at the entrance of the town, and decked the houses, and I found myself anything but alone and unfriended, for it was as if a whole county had gathered together to give me a hearty welcome."

The opponent selected by Lord Fitzhardinge to oust his brother was Mr. Grenville Berkeley, a cousin. On the first day of polling, Mr. Grantley Berkeley attended at the polling-booth, at Berkeley, right under the castle.

"I had been present at the polling booth at Berkeley on the first day of the election, and so terrified were my friends at what they called 'bearding the lion in his den,' none of them liked to go there; I had to remove a large board stuck up in front of the place where the votes were taken, telling the people to vote for Grenville Berkeley. I could not help noticing the sorrowful glances of old tenants and servants, when they replied to the question, 'For whom do you come to vote?'--' Grenville Berkeley.' I had seen the old butler, William Reynolds, who had known me from the earliest hours of childhood, and who had married my kind nurse, give a plumper against me, and then burst into tears. I had then given him my arm, and walked with him through the silent and respectful crowd to his own housedoor, for he was at that time retired from service. Then I received from him the assurance that so much pain had the vote he had just been forced to give occasioned him that, if it pleased God to spare his life for another election, and I needed it, he would give me a plumper in spite of anybody, to wipe out the error he had committed. He lived to fulfil his promise."

This is a touching incident well told; and so is the account of the news of the final triumph :

"I shall never forget the calm, still, hot summer's night of the Saturday when the election had concluded, and the numbers were being summed up. I was staying with my good, kind old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bromedge, near Stone, in the vale of Berkeley, and within hearing too of the Berkeley Church bells. We knew that about this time we might expect to hear the news, and were all lis tening for an indication from some church or other of the sound of rejoicing bells. Though we had heard nothing, Mrs. Bromedge's maidservant presently rushed from the lawn into the house, and, exclaimed, The Berkeley bells!' We knew that they would ring only on my defeat. On hearing this, we all hurried out, but no Berkeley bells could be heard. All at once, in the midnight air, a signal bell sounded in the steeple at Stone, and then the same all round us; then, as if simultaneously, far and near, there came a chime of joyful triumphs, and all knew that I had won."

·

Mr. Grantley Berkeley had a majority over his cousin-opponent, Lord Fitzhardinge's new candidate, of 621; but, though he was thus triumphantly returned, his troubles were not yet ended. When attending at the hustings for the official declaration of the poll, he was served with a demand to declare his qualification. This was followed by a petition against the return for want of qualification. The petition ultimately failed, a Committee of the House of Commons deciding that Mr. Grantley Berkeley was duly qualified; and this last fruitless effort of vindictiveness was especially discreditable to Lord Fitzhardinge, as Mr. Grantley Berkeley had sat as his nominee for fifteen years with the same qualification which he now disputed, and the earl endeavoured to use his position and opportunities of knowledge, as trustee of his brother's marriage-settlement, to his brother's prejudice. In the time which has passed since this bitter contest of 1847, several changes have taken place, and among them the abolition of the property qualification for members, and the limitation of polling in counties to one day. The parliamentary reformer's hand has also since extinguished the old institution of chairing, thus doing away with much foolish expense and mischievous incitement to drunkenness and rioting. Mr. Grantley Berkeley had a triumphant chairing procession-not free, however, from personal dangers, as he boldly approached the Castle of Berkeley. The danger surmounted, a triumphant reception awaited him in the town of Berkeley.

"At the entrance of the town I was met by its entire population. The men were kindly laughing spectators at their doors, taking no part in the procession-for they felt they dared not do so-but all their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and children, thronged out to join me, carrying oak boughs, and shouting all sorts of congratulations. We promenaded the town; my supporters asked if they might lead on up to the outer lodge of the castle; so, still smarting under the attack that had just been made upon my friends, I replied, 'Certainly, and give three cheers at the gate itself.'

"This was the first time in the whole course of my life that I had ever ascended that well-known hill under any other feeling

than that of veneration and affection, and I could not help the tears rolling down my face as I heard the roar of voices; for, standing still, all the men joined in it, cheering for me, and execrating the conduct of an elder who, apart from his attempted and ill-advised oppressions, still stood to me in the light of a brother.

"It was here, as we halted close to the entrance of the churchyard, that Harry Ayris, the present Lord Fitzhardinge's huntsman, suddenly appeared from behind the tombstone hand, gave the view-holloa I had so often of a predecessor in the field, and, hat in delighted in, and a cheer for me; this, knowing, as his hearers did, that perhaps his place depended on the act, electrified them all. It was reported to his master by some spy; but Harry was too good a huntsman and too necessary a servant to be dismissed; so, after a jobation, he maintained, and maintains still, his place at the head of those splendid hounds."

Such passages as this of the huntsman, and the formerly quoted one of the old butler, are redeeming bits in a book which, though capable of being turned to very useful account, cannot be pronounced wholly creditable. They snatch from us occasional sympathy with the author.

Mr. Grantley Berkeley was elected by the independent enthusiasm of a county constituency, in opposition to three powerful noblemen, whose wishes under ordinary circumstances would have obtained easy acquiescence-Earl Fitzhardinge (the Lord-Lieutenant of the county,) the Earl of Ducie, and the

Duke of Beaufort. The first two noblemen were Whigs, the last a Conservative. The victorious member thus nailed his three great opponents in a speech to his constituents made in the first excitement of victory :

"The spontaneous agency and free-will of the people had defeated the schemes of three powerful peers, and triumphed over their dictation. He said three peers, for it was no use to deny that the Duke of Beaufort did not direct his tenantry to vote against him, for he had seen the order that had been given, and therefore he knew he did. As to Lord Ducie, he dared no more tell him that he did not exercise his power in coercing his tenantry than he dared attempt to fly. As to the LordLieutenant, they all knew what he had done. He desired his brother, Augustus Berkeley, whom he had not asked to his castle for fourteen years, to vote for his nominee, and attempted to intimidate Henry Berkeley, the member for Bristol, to do the same; but, with his full consent, his brother Henry

remained neutral, in order to please his Bristol friends, who were afraid that, if he offended the castle, they should get no more funds thence for future contests. At Coleford, where the cowardly outrage was committed, as well as in Newnham, port, sherry, cider, and beer were so profusely handed about in cans, that he had seen not only men, but children, lying by the wayside in the gutters in a state of drunken helplessness."

In another part of the book Mr. Grantley Berkeley says that on this occasion his brother Henry had very little assistance from Lord Fitzhardinge for his election at Bristol. He estimates, perhaps with exaggeration, the total expense for Lord Fitzhardinge of his unsuccessful effort in West Gloucestershire at thirty thousand pounds; while the expenses on Mr. Grantley Berkeley's side, which were subscribed for by his supporters, are said by him to have been under eighteen hundred pounds.

One separate means of coercion used by Lord Fitzhardinge, as unsuccessfully as all the rest, yet remains to be told, and is thus related by Mr. Grantley Berkeley :

"From the time that I came forward at his request in 1831-2, Lord Fitzhardinge had put my name down to all subscription lists and clubs that he pleased; he asked my permission to do so under the promise that for every expense so incurred he would be answerable. I also, at his request, commanded his squadron of yeomanry on the same understanding. For some time, however, and evidently with the design of crushing me, he had left accounts in arrear, all standing in my name, while at the same time the receipts for part payments were in his hands.

"Soon after he had ordered me to give up the representation of the division, he desired me to quit the yeomanry, again giving out that it was my personal unpopularity that necessitated my retirement. That falsehood having been sufficiently exposed, I refused to obey, every man of the squadron swearing to stand by me, their captain. The Lord-Lieutenant once more found himself in an awkward fix, but he ventured to send his agent, Mr. Joyner Ellis, to the non-commissioned officers of the squadron, some of whom were his powerful tenants, with a sort of round-robin, to which he thus desired them to put their names, stating in writing that they wished to retire from the troop because they did not like me, their commanding officer, I had become so overbearing and unpopular or words to that effect. Mr. Ellis called some of the noncommissioned officers together, set this document before them, and ordered them to attach their names; when Sergeant Jones, of

Willis's Elm, as spokesman for himself and his comrades, held out his right arm, and said, 'There, Mr. Ellis; I'd sooner chop that off than set my name to such a lie.'

"This attempt, therefore, failed; still he went on, and caused the same agent to let his tenants know that those who retained their service under me would inevitably lose their farms. This menace brought me and my men together. I was far from desirous that they should act to their own disadvantage, but they were ready to dare everything rather than fail me in my need. We came to a resolution that all who feared to lose their farms should resign with my leave, but not until they had procured a friend to fill their saddles, while the more opulent tenants, who did not care for threats, were to continue to serve. After the election had terminated, I informed them that I should decline to serve in the yeomanry any longer, and suggested that we might retire together. This arrangement was carried out to the full.

"Lord Fitzhardinge felt himself foiled, for my drills were attended by my usual number of men, and he saw that, unless by some still more desperate move, he could not prevent the usual muster under me for permanent duty in Stokes Croft, at Bristol. On this he went to the colonel of the regiment, the Duke of Beaufort. . . . The upshot of it was that, after close communication with Lord Fitzhardinge, I received an order from the duke to pay up years of arrears of my mess-bills and troop expenses, all of which Lord Fitzhardinge had undertaken to pay, and of which I had previously known nothing, and that, unless I immediately did so, I was not to attend the muster of the regiment.

"These were hard lines to me. I did not know that anything was owing on my account, and upon inquiry I found that there was an arrear of a considerable sum. My finances had so rapidly diminished that, like 'Walter, surnamed the Penniless,' in the Crusades, I knew myself to be a good general, and to have a large following, but I had not of my own a 'stiver to pay my troops.' A friend started up, a Mr. Clayton, who offered to advance me some money on a note of hand. He did so ; and, paying the arrears thus purposely left to assist in my ruin, I laughed in the face of Duke and Lord-Lieutenant, and marched to Bristol with my squadron for the muster of the regiment.

"My way to the parade lay through Thornbury, and the town turned ont to welcome the squadron as it passed; to the compliment so conveyed of course I carried swords; and, placing themselves by my side at the head of the squadron, Mr. Townsend, the Vicar of Thornbury, and his two daughters, rode with me some miles on my way. Along the fourteen miles of road, and at Bristol, a welcome to the "Berkeley squadron" was hung out from many a window, and I was considerably amused at seeing my commander, the to me hostile duke, studying their devices as they waved above his head.

"As soon as the duty was over, I broke my sword, when I for the last time dismissed my men, across the pommel of my saddle, much to my old charger's astonishment, and told them that I would never again serve under any man who had lent himself, as the duke had done, to acts of undeserved oppression. Thus ended my yeomanry service."

Soon after the assembling of the new parliament, a petition signed by a number of electors was presented to the House of Commons, praying for inquiry into the conduct of Earl Fitzhardinge, a peer and the Lord-Lieutenant of the County, with reference to the West Gloucestershire election; and on December 14th, 1847, Mr. Wakley moved for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into and report upon the allegations of the petition. The petition contained many serious charges, and was sufficiently specific. The coercion by Lord Fitzhardinge of his tenants, to make them resign their service in the yeomanry under his brother, was charged in the petition. It was alleged that he had on two occasions offered large sums of money to Mr. Grantley Berkeley to induce him to withdraw from the contest. The petition stated that "Earl Fitzhardinge, "during and about the time of the said "election, paid, or caused to be paid, "large sums of money for the purchase "of votes, and for treating voters, and "for the instigation of violence, by "which an extensive and organized "system of personal violence, gross im"morality, bribery, corruption, and in"timidation was carried on at the said "election." Such were the statements of the petition; and the incidents of the contest and the election were notorious, having for a period of many months engaged the attention of the public. It would have been expected that the House of Commons would be impatiently eager to investigate the charges against Lord Fitzhardinge, for there are orders of the House of Com.mons, formally renewed at the beginning of every session, that a peer cannot even vote in an election, and that "it "is a high infringement of the liberties "and privileges of the Commons of the "United Kingdom for any Lord of

"Parliament, &c. to concern himself in "the election of members to serve for "the Commons in Parliament, or for any lord-lieutenant or governor of any

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county to avail himself of any authority derived from his commission to "influence the election of any member "to serve in the Commons in Parlia"ment." Here the accused was lordlieutenant as well as peer. It is impossible to read the speeches of the Attorney-General (Sir J. Jervis, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas), Lord John Russell, who was Prime Minister, and Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, in the debate on Mr. Wakley's motion, without perceiving that there was a desire to avoid the inquiry and screen Lord Fitzhardinge. But the impetuous zeal of Sir F. Thesiger on the Opposition benches for purity and freedom of election obliged the Government to make some concession; and Sir George Grey, after taking a few days to consider, proposed to refer the petition to the "Committee of Privileges," instead of to a Select Committee, as had been proposed by Mr. Wakley. The Committee of Privileges had long since ceased to be a practical institution; it was a mere tradition and name. ingenuity conveniently discovered that similar complaints had in bygone times been referred to the Committee of Privileges; and so a Committee of Privileges was constituted, in accordance with ancient practice, by the appointment of a a certain number of members by name, with the wholesale addition of every "gentleman of the long robe " having a seat in the House. Here, then, was a Committee of uncertain and indefinite number, and swamped with lawyers. The result was, as might have been foreseen, and as was probably desired. The accused got off by a technical mode of procedure. Instead of proceeding to hear all evidence that was forthcoming in support of the allegations of the petition, the Committee required the accusers to specify Lord Fitzhardinge's acts of interference as a peer, and by authority derived from his commission as lord-lieutenant. The inquiry fell to the ground. A Select Committee of the

But

House of Commons would probably have treated the matter very differently.

There probably came into play, to save Lord Fitzhardinge on this occasion, that community of interest and reciprocity of service between a government and an influential parliamentary supporter which enters so largely in the working of our political system. The Government of that day tried to protect Lord Fitzhardinge against inquiry, just as a government of which Sir F. Thesiger, now Lord Chelmsford, would be member, would endeavour to save one of its parliamentary supporters. Reasonably, too, it may have influenced the disinclination to pursue Lord Fitzbardinge with a parliamentary inquiry, that the political scandal had grown out of a family brawl.

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In the debate on Mr. Wakley's motion, Admiral Berkeley, the present Lord Fitzhardinge, stated for and from his accused brother, that "it was the "foulest falsehood that ever disgraced 66 any set of men, when it was asserted "that he had induced any of his

tenantry to retire from the corps of "which his brother was captain; and "that he had not in any way interfered "with respect to the election."

It is fair to Mr. Grantley Berkeley to produce the reply which he made on the moment to this contradiction, and which is recorded in "Hansard." It was not Mr. Grantley Berkeley's fault that he had no opportunity of proving his statement before a Committee of the House of Commons.

"I feel it only necessary to say that I happen to be the captain of the corps which has been mentioned, and I can assure the House of the truth of the interference. I have in my possession the letters of the tenantry serving in my corps, telling me that they would not have left me had they not been coerced to do so by their landlord. If the committee is granted, I can produce these letters in support of my assertion. When I returned the muster-roll of my corps to the War Office, I represented the fact under the printed heading for observations, why so many of my best men had suddenly deserted my corps, as I thought it might appear owing to some error in my own conduct; and I then stated that they had left me through the coercion of the Lord-Lieutenant of the county. I was not permitted to send that muster-roll to the War Office with those words in it; and therefore,

in obedience to my commanding officer, after having consulted a gallant officer, a friend of mine, in this House, I erased the words having first inquired how I was to report the fact why so many men had left my corps. I can assure the House that these men were compelled to leave it through the interference of their landlord."

The scandalous history of the West Gloucestershire election of 1847, and the other incidental revelations in Mr. Grantley Berkeley's book of delicate relations between the Lord of Berkeley Castle and the cities of Bristol, Gloucester, and Cheltenham, are lessons which should not be thrown away by those who desire to effect a real purification of the English system of representative government. The expediency, justice, and even practicability of excluding peers from influence in elections for the House of Commons, may be fairly disputed. The sessional order against any peer's "concerning himself" in elections is, and perhaps had better be, inoperative. In the last session of Parliament a nobleman, who cannot be suspected of revolutionary tendencies, broadly stated-what has indeed been stated over and over again, and is notorious, but what comes with peculiar effect from such a quarter-that the representation of counties was chiefly in the hands of peers. It was on the occasion of Mr. Locke King's motion, he introducing his often rejected Bill for a ten-pound county franchise, that Lord Robert Montagu expressed himself as follows:

"His own great objection to the Bill was, that it was founded on a delusion. It assumed that the representation of the country was a real thing. This was a hallucination. The fact was, that the representation of the counties was in the hands of large landowners. It was chiefly in the hands of the peers."

Many boroughs, also, exemplify an over-ruling or marked influence of peers. The influence of the peerage in elections is inseparably associated with political power to peers, and a large share for the aristocracy of Government patronage; and the problem to be solved is, how to separate the legitimate influences of rank and property from abuses of wealth and power, and save the aristocratic element of our State