The House of Commons in 1808, by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827). In 1780, when the Gordon Riots broke out, the House still met as it had since 1549 in the then-disused St Stephen’s Chapel, destroyed by fire along with much of the rest of Westminster Palace in 1834. Most regarded the Papists Act (1778) as a liberal dismantling of religious prejudice, but for Gordon it was the reverse of liberal. He was not concerned with Christian theology — seven years later he became an Orthodox Jew — but with what he saw as the Pope’s political manipulation of European monarchs such as Louis XVI of France, which he did not wish to see replicated in England. Whether or not he was right about the Pope, history showed he was wrong about English Catholics.
Part 1 of 2
‘I AM afraid,’ he [Lord George Gordon] said, this time, ‘that we have little reason, gentlemen, to hope for any redress from the proceedings of Parliament. But we must redress our own grievances, we must meet again, we must put our trust in Providence, and it will bless our endeavours.’*
This speech being a little more temperate than the last, was not so favourably received. When the noise and exasperation were at their height, he came back once more, and told them that the alarm had gone forth for many miles round; that when the King heard of their assembling together in that great body, he had no doubt, His Majesty would send down private orders to have their wishes complied with; and — with the manner of his speech as childish, irresolute, and uncertain as his matter — was proceeding in this strain, when two gentlemen suddenly appeared at the door where he stood, and pressing past him and coming a step or two lower down upon the stairs, confronted the people.
The boldness of this action quite took them by surprise.
* Lord George Gordon (1751-1793), third and youngest son of Cosmo George Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon. He entered Parliament in 1774 as MP for Ludgershall, and five years later founded the Protestant Association with the aim of repealing the Papists Act of 1778. For his part in the events of June 2nd, 1780, and the destruction of the ‘Gordon Riots’ that followed, Gordon himself was acquitted of treasonous intent. However, he remained a political loose cannon and in 1787 was charged with defamation for his salacious revelations about Louis’s queen, Marie Antoinette. Gordon was committed to Newgate Gaol, where he died, a model prisoner who was much-loved among the inmates for his generosity and his welcome to all, in 1793.
Précis
In his 1841 novel ‘Barnaby Rudge’, Charles Dickens dramatised the exchanges between Lord George Gordon and the angry mob he had brought there on June 2nd, 1780, to protest against Catholic emancipation. Gordon doubted they would get any sympathy from Parliament, and was just expressing a hope that George III would intervene when two men pushed in front of him. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway (1721–1795), Governor of Jersey (1772–1795), painted by Thomas Gainsborough in 1780, the year in which his firm courage helped avert a constitutional travesty. In Lord Gordon’s quest to ensure that the Pope’s grip on European monarchs did not reach Great Britain, he shared with the protestors outside the Commons his hope that King George III would soon prevail on Parliament to repeal the Papists Act. It was quite an irony: a self-declared scourge of monarchical tyranny, an admirer of the Commonwealth (though not of Cromwell) and a noisy supporter of the newly-minted American republic, reassured the public that the King would soon redress their grievances in defiance of a tyrannical Parliament. Inconsistent perhaps; but not uncharacteristic.
THEY were not the less disconcerted, when one of the gentlemen, turning to Lord George, spoke thus — in a loud voice that they might hear him well, but quite coolly and collectedly:
‘You may tell these people, if you please, my lord, that I am General Conway of whom they have heard;* and that I oppose this petition, and all their proceedings, and yours. I am a soldier, you may tell them, and I will protect the freedom of this place with my sword. You see, my lord, that the members of this House are all in arms to-day; you know that the entrance to it is a narrow one; you cannot be ignorant that there are men within these walls who are determined to defend that pass to the last, and before whom many lives must fall if your adherents persevere. Have a care what you do.’
‘And my Lord George,’ said the other gentleman, addressing him in like manner, ‘I desire them to hear this, from me — Colonel Gordon — your near relation.* If a man among this crowd, whose uproar strikes us deaf, crosses the threshold of the House of Commons, I swear to run my sword that moment — not into his, but into your body!’*
* Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway (1721-1795), a brother of the 1st Marquess of Hertford. His cousin Horace Walpole, the novelist, was a son of Sir Robert Walpole, recognised today as the country’s first Prime Minister. Conway assumed that the crowd of protesters would know his name with good reason: he had been Secretary of State for the Northern Department (i.e. Home Secretary) in 1766-1768, Leader of the House of Commons in 1765-1768, Secretary of State for the Southern Department (i.e. Foreign Secretary) in 1765-1766, and Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1755–1757; before that, he had served with distinction in the British army during the War of Austrian Succession, at Dettingen in June 1743 and Fontenoy in May 1745, going on to face Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden in April 1746.
* General William Gordon (1736-1816), who was Lord George Gordon’s uncle.
* Dickens’s telling of the tale drew almost verbatim on reports in The Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military, and Literary Journal for June 1780. The mob backed away but went on a spree lasting several days of arson and vandalism, targeting the homes and churches of Roman Catholics but also breaking open gaols and attacking the Bank of England. About 450 were killed or wounded before the army managed to restore order.
Précis
One of the two men who had interrupted Lord Gordon now identified himself as General Conway, and declared very calmly that he would give his life to prevent the mob entering the Commons. His companion then reminded Lord Gordon that they were cousins, before promising to run Gordon through with his sword if any assault was made on the chamber. (60 / 60 words)
