Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian is reading with great interest Giles Hunt’s “The Duel” the tale of rivalry between Canning and Castlereagh. There will be a review in the series of books of interest to those interested in conservative history but here is a small complaint and there are too many historians about whom it can be made.

There is no need, in Tory Historian’s opinion, to write about the past with a constant nudge to the present. Occasional parallels may enhance our understanding but there has to be an assumption that the reader of a history or a biography is capable of understanding events of the past and, if needs be, grasping the difference between the period under discussion and the here and now.

There is the obligatory reference to “Princess” Diana (really, Mr Hunt ought to know better) in connection with the Duchess of Devonshire, a parallel that is extremely forced as Tory Historian has pointed out before.

But Mr Hunt goes further. He points out that George Canning, while having many advantages in political life, had one serious disadvantage – he was neither a lord nor related to one. As it happens he knew many lords and one, Lord Macartney, was a kind of a patron, but the point is important. To some extent, Canning had to promote himself and survive on his wits. (Thackeray makes a similar point about Becky Sharp in “Vanity Fair”.)

Mr Hunt then says:

The avidity with which peerages were sought, even Irish ones that did not convey a seat in the House of Lords, may seem extraordinary to us, but it was not motivated simply by snobbery or social climbing and a wish to boast of aristocratic lineage – after all, both Castlereagh’s and Jenkinson’s fathers were born commoners [Earl and then Marquess of Londonderry and Earl of Liverpool, respectively] – but being a lord or an heir to a peerage gave weight politically. Eton and Christ Church had given Canning several aristocratic friends such as Lord Henry Spencer, Granville Leveson-Gower, or Morpeth, who accepted him as a social equal, and the fact that he had to earn his living made no difference since many a younger son of a peer had to do the same. But during the course of Canning’s career he was frequently criticized as being an upstart, and what would be considered normal ambition in other politicians was seen to mark out Canning as an adventurer on the make – especially as political opponents could point out that he was the son of an actress and therefore socially outside the pale.

Whether they did so point out remains unclear from this passage but the suggested superiority of our own more democratic age strikes a false note. First of all, clearly Canning was considered to be various peers’ equal. Secondly, not so long ago we had the small matter of cash for peerages scandal that showed an equal avidity to acquire peerages even now. Thirdly, Tory Historian is old enough to recall the sneering comments about Margaret Thatcher who was “a grocer’s daughter” and nothing more than “an ambitious politician”, a specie otherwise unknown in the annals of government.