18 - Beacon Lights of History - European Leaders by John Lord

Join Dr. Lord in this captivating installment of the European Leaders series, where he delves into the lives and legacies of influential figures such as William IV, Sir Robert Peel, Cavour, Czar Nicholas, Louis Napoleon, Prince Bismarck, and William Ewart Gladstone. Discover the pivotal moments that shaped Europe through the stories of these remarkable leaders. (Summary by KHand)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of Beacon Lights of History, Volume ten, European
Leaders by John Lord. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Recording by K Hand William Ewart Gladstone, Part one,
eighteen o nine to eighteen ninety eight, The Enfranchisement of
the People. It may seem presumptuous for me at the

(00:23):
present time to write on Gladstone, whose public life presents
so many sides concerning which there is anything but unanimity
of opinion. A man still in full life, and likely
to remain so for years to come. A giant so
strong intellectually and physically as to exercise without office a
prodigious influence in national affairs by the sole force of

(00:45):
genius and character combined. But how can I present the
statesman of the nineteenth century without including him, the nester
among political personages, who for forty years has taken an
important part in the government of England. This remarkable man,
like Canning, Peale and maccaully, was precocious in his attainments
at school and college, especially at Oxford, which has produced

(01:06):
more than her share of the great men who have
controlled thought and action in England during the period since
eighteen twenty. But precosity is not always the presage of
future greatness. There are more remarkable boys than remarkable men
in England. College honors may have more influence in advancing
the fortunes of a young man than in this country.

(01:27):
But I seldom have known valedictorians who have come up
to popular expectations, and most of them, though always respectable,
have remained in comparative obscurity, like the statesmen to whom
I have alluded. Gladstone sprang up from the middle ranks.
Although his father, a princely Liverpool merchant of Scottish descent,
became a baronet by force of his wealth, character and influence.

(01:50):
Seeing the extraordinary talents of his third son, William Ewart,
Sir John Gladstone spared neither pains nor money on his education,
sending him to Eton in eighteen twenty one at the
age of twelve, where he remained till eighteen twenty seven,
learning chiefly Latin and Greek. Here he was the companion
and friend of many men who afterward became powerful forces

(02:11):
in English life. Here he was the companion and friend
of many men who afterward became powerful forces in English life, political, literary,
and ecclesiastical. At the age of seventeen, we find him
writing letters to Arthur Hallam on politics and literature, and
his old school fellows testify to his great influence among
them for purity, humanity, and nobility of character. While he

(02:32):
was noted for his aptness in letters and skill in debate.
In eighteen twenty seven the boy was entrusted to the
care of doctor Turner, afterward Bishop of Calcutta, under whom
he learned something besides Latin and Greek, perhaps indirectly in
the way of ethics and theology, and other things which
go to the formation of character. At the age of
twenty he entered christ Church at Oxford, the most aristocratic

(02:56):
of colleges, with more attainments than most scholars reach at
third and was graduated in eighteen thirty one double first class,
distinguished not only for his scholarship but for his power
of debate in the Union society, throwing in his lot
with tories and high churchmen, who, as he afterward confesses,
did not set a due value on the imperishable and
inestimable principles of human liberty. With strong religious tendencies and convictions,

(03:21):
he contemplated taking orders in the Church, but his father
saw things differently, and thus with academic prejudices which most
graduates have to unlearn. He went abroad in eighteen thirty
two to complete the education of an English gentleman, spending
most of his time in Italy and Sicily, those eternally
interesting countries to the scholar and the artist, whose wonders

(03:42):
can scarcely be exaggerated, affording a perpetual charm and study.
If one can ignore popular degradation, superstition, unthrift, and indifference
to material and moral progress, He who enjoys Italy must
live in the past, or in the realm of art,
or in the sanctuaries where priests hide themselves from the
wan light of what is most valuable in civilization and

(04:03):
most ennobling inhuman consciousness. Mister Gladstone returned to England in
the most interesting and exciting period of her political history
since the days of Cromwell. Soon after the Great Reform
Bill had been passed, which changed the principle of representation
in Parliament and opened the way for other necessary reforms.

(04:23):
His personal ac law and his powerful friends gave him
an almost immediate entrance into the House of Commons as
Member for Newark. The electors knew but little about him.
They only knew that he was supported by the Duke
of Newcastle and preponderating Tory interests, and were carried away
by his youthful eloquence, those silvery tones which nature gave,

(04:44):
and that strange fascination which comes from magnetic powers. The
ancient said that the poet is born and the orator
is made. It appears to me that a man stands
but little chance of oratorical triumphs who was not gifted
by nature with a musical voice and a sympathetic electrical
force which no effort can acquire. On the twenty ninth
of January eighteen thirty three, at the age of twenty four,

(05:06):
Gladstone entered upon his memorable parliamentary career during the Ministry
of Lord Gray, and his maiden speech, fluent, modest and earnest,
was in the course of the debate on the proposed
abolition of slavery in the British colonies. It was in
reply to an attack made upon the management of his
father's estates in the treatment of slaves in Demerarah. He

(05:28):
deprecated cruelty and slavery alike, but maintained that emancipation should
be gradual and after due preparation, and insisting also that
slaves were private property. He demanded that the interests of
planters should be duly regarded if emancipation should take place.
This was in accordance with justice as viewed by enlightened
Englishmen generally. Negro emancipation was soon after decreed. All negroes

(05:52):
born after August first, eighteen thirty four, as well as
those then six years of age, were to be free,
and the remainder were, after a kind of apprenticeship of
six years, to be set at liberty. The sum of
twenty million pounds was provided by law as a compensation
to the slave owners, one of the noblest acts which
Parliament ever passed, and one of which the English nation

(06:15):
has never ceased to boast. Among the other measures to
which the Reform Parliament gave its attention in eighteen thirty
three was that relating to the temporalities of the Irish Church,
by which the number of bishops was reduced from twenty
two to twelve, with a corresponding reduction of their salaries.
An annual tax was also imposed on all livings above

(06:35):
three hundred pounds to be appropriated to the augmentation of
small benefices. Mister Gladstone was too conservative to approve of
this measure, and he made a speech against it. In
eighteen thirty four, their reform Ministry went out of power,
having failed to carry everything before them as they had anticipated.
In not having produced that general prosperity which they had promised,

(06:57):
the people were still discontented, trade still languished, and pauperism
increased rather than diminished. Under the new Tory minister, headed
by Sir Robert Peel, mister Gladstone became a junior Lord
of the Treasury. His great abilities were already recognized, and
the Premier wanted his services as Pitt wanted those of
Canning before he was known to fame. Shortly after Parliament

(07:20):
assembled in February eighteen thirty five, mister Gladstone was made
Under Secretary for the Colonies, a very young man for
such an office. But the Tory ministry was short lived
and the Whigs soon returned to power under Lord Melbourne.
During this administration until the death of William the Fourth
in eighteen thirty seven, there was no display of power
or eloquence in Parliament by the Member for Newark, of

(07:42):
sufficient importance to be here noted, except perhaps his opposition
to a bill for the re arrangement of church rates.
As a conservative and a high churchman, Gladstone stood aloof
from those who would lay unhallowed hands on the sacred
ark of ecclesiasticism. And here at last he has always
been insistent with himself. From first to last, he has

(08:03):
been the zealous defender and admirer of the English Church,
and one of its devoutest members, taking the deepest interest
in everything which concerns its doctrines, its rituals, and its
connection with the state, at times apparently forgetting politics to
come to its support. In essays which show a marvelous
knowledge of both theology and ecclesiastical history, we cannot help

(08:25):
thinking that he would have reached the highest dignities as
a clergyman, and perhaps have been even more famous as
a bishop than as a statesman. In the Parliament which
assembled after Queen Victoria's accession to the throne in eighteen
thirty seven, the voice of Gladstone was heard in nearly
every important discussion, But the speech which most prominently brought

(08:45):
him into public notice and gave him high rank as
a parliamentary orator, was that in eighteen thirty eight, in
reference to West India emancipation, the evils of the Negro
apprenticeship system, which was to expire in eighteen forty, had
been laid before the House of Lords by the ex
Chancellor Brougham with his usual fierceness and probable exaggeration, And

(09:07):
when the subject came up for discussion in the House
of Commons, Gladstone opposed immediate abolition, which Lord Brougham had advocated,
showing by a great array of facts that the relation
between masters and negroes was generally much better than it
had been represented. But he was on the unpopular side
of the question, and his speech excited admiration without producing conviction,

(09:27):
successful only as a vigorous argument and a brilliant oratorial display.
The apprenticeship was cut short and immediate abolition of slavery decreed.
At that time. Gladstone's appearance and manners were much in
his favor. His countenance was mild and pleasant, His eyes
were clear and quick, his eyebrows were dark and prominent.

(09:49):
His gestures varied but not violent. His jet black hair
was parted from his crown to his brow. His voice
was peculiarly musical, and his diction was elegant and easy,
with out giving the appearance of previous elaboration. How far
his language and thoughts were premeditated, I will not undertake
to say. Daniel Webster once declared that there was no

(10:10):
such thing as extempore speaking, a saying not altogether correct,
but in the main confirmed by many great orators who
confess to laborious preparation for their speech making, and by
the fact that many of our famous after dinner speakers
have been known to send their speeches to the press
before they were delivered. The case of Demosthenes would seem
to indicate the necessity of the most careful study and

(10:32):
preparation in order to make a truly great speech, however
gifted an order may be. And those who like the
late Henry Ward Beecher, have astonished their hearers by their
ready utterances, have generally mastered certain lines of fact and
principle of knowledge which they have at command, in which,
with native power and art of expression, they present in
fresh forms and new combinations. They do not so much

(10:56):
add new stores of fact to the kaleidoscope of oratory,
place the familiar ones and new positions, and produce new pictures,
add and finitum. Sometimes a genius, urged by a great impulse,
may dash out in an untried course of thought, but
this is not always a safe venture. The next effort
of the kind may prove a failure. No man can

(11:17):
be sure of himself or his ground without previous and
patient labor, except in reply to an antagonist, and when
familiar with his subject. That was the power of Fox
and Pitt. What gave charm to the speeches of Peel
and Gladstone in their prime was the new matter they
introduced before debate began, and this was the result of
laborious study. To attack such matter with wit and sarcasm

(11:40):
is one thing. To originate it is quite another. Anybody
can criticize the most beautiful picture or the grandest structure,
but to paint the one or erect the other hic
labor hoc opus est. One of the grandest speeches ever
made for freshness and force was Daniel Webster's reply to Heine.

(12:00):
But the peroration was written and committed to memory, while
the substance of it had been in his thoughts for
half a winter, and his mind was familiar with the
general subject. The great orator is necessarily an artist, as
much as Pascal was in his penses, and his fame
will rest perhaps more on his art than on his matter,
since the art is inimitable and peculiar, while the matter

(12:23):
is subject to the conditions of future, unknown progressive knowledge.
Perhaps the most effective speech of modern times was the
short address of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, but this was
simply the expression of the gathered forces of his whole
political life. In the month of July eighteen thirty seven,
mister Gladstone was married to Miss Catherine Glynn, daughter of

(12:43):
Sir Stephen Richard Glenn of Hartwin Castle in Flintshire, Wales,
a marriage which proved eminently happy. Eight children have been
the result of this union, of whom but one has died.
All the others have turned out well. As the saying is,
though no one has reached distinguish eminence. It would seem
that mister Gladstone, occupying for forty years so superb a

(13:05):
social and public station, has not been ambitious for the
worldly advancement of his children, nor has he been stained
by nepotism in pushing on their fortunes. The eldest son
was a member of Parliament, the second became a clergyman,
and the eldest daughter married a clergyman in a prominent
position as head master of Wellington College. It would be
difficult to say when the welfare of the church and

(13:26):
the triumph of theological truth have not received a great
share of mister Gladstone's thoughts and labors. At an early
period of his parliamentary career, he wrote an elaborate treatise
on the State in its relation to the Church. It
is said that Sir Robert Peel threw the book down
on the floor, exclaiming that it was a pity so
able a man should jeopardize his political future by writing

(13:46):
such trash. But it was of sufficient importance to furnish
Macaulay a subject for one of his most careful essays,
in which, however, though respectful in tone patronizing rather than eulogistic,
he showed but little sympathy with the author. He pointed
out many defects which the critical and religious world has
sustained in the admirable article which mister Gladstone wrote on

(14:07):
Lord Macaulay himself. For one of the Principal Reviews not
many years ago, he paid back in courteous language, and
even under the conventional form of panegyric, in which one
great man naturally speaks of another. A still more surging
and trenchant criticism on the writings of the eminent historian
Gladstone shows and shows clearly and conclusively the utter inability

(14:28):
of Macaulay to grasp subjects of a spiritual and subjective character,
especially exhibited in his notice of the philosophy of Bacon.
He shows that this historian excels only in painting external
events and the outward acts and peculiarities of the great
characters of history, and even then only with strong prejudices
and considerable exaggerations. However careful he is in sustaining his

(14:49):
position by recorded facts, in which he never makes an error.
To the subjective mind of Gladstone. With his interest in
theological subjects, Macaulay was neither profound nor accurate in his
treatment of philosophical and psychological questions for which indeed he
had but little taste. Such men as Pascal Leibnitz Calvin Locke.

(15:10):
He lets alone to discuss the great actors in political history,
like Warren, Hastings, Pitt Harley, but in his painting of
such characters he stands pre eminent over all modern writers.
Gladstone does justice to mcaulay's fast learning, his transcendent memory,
and his matchless rhetoric, making the heaviest subjects glow with
life and power, affecting compositions which will live for style alone,

(15:33):
for which in some respects he is unapproachable. Indeed, I
cannot conceive of two great contemporary statesmen more unlike in
their mental structure and more antagonistic to their general views
than Gladstone and Maculi, and unlike also in their style.
The Treatise on State and Church on which Gladstone exhibits

(15:54):
so much learning, to me, is heavy, vague, hazy, and
hard to read. The subject, however, has but little interest
to an American, and is doubtless much more highly appreciated
by English students, especially those of the great universities, whom
it more directly concerned. It is the argument of a
young Oxford scholar for the maintenance of a church establishment
is full of ecclesiastical lore. Assuming that one of the

(16:16):
chief ends of government is the propagation of religious truth,
a ground utterly untenable according to the universal opinion of
people in this country, whether churchmen or laymen, Catholic or Protestant,
Conservative or Liberal. On the fall of the Whig government
in eighteen forty one, succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel,
mister Gladstone was appointed Vice President of the Board of

(16:37):
Trade and Master of the Mint, and naturally became more
prominent as a parliamentary debater, yet not a parliamentary leader.
But he was one of the most efficient of the
Premier's lieutenants, a tried and faithful follower, a disciple, indeed,
as was Peel himself, of Canning and Canning of Pitt.
He addressed the House in all the important debates on railways,

(16:58):
on agricultural interests, on the other abolition of the corn laws,
on the Dissenter's Chapel bills, on sugar duties. A conservative
of conservatives, yet showing his devotion to the cause of
justice in everything except justice to the Catholics in Ireland,
he was opposed to the grant to the Maynooth College,
and in consequence resigned his office when the decision of

(17:20):
the government was made known. A rare act of that conscientiousness,
for which from first to last he has been pre
eminently distinguished in all political as well as religious matters.
His resignation of office left him free to express his views,
and he disclaimed in the name of law, the Constitution
and the history of the country, the voting of money
to restore and strengthen the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland

(17:42):
in difference to Sir Robert Peel and the general cause
of education. His opposition was not bitter or persistent, and
the progressive views which have always marked his career led
him to support the Premier in his repeal of the
Corn Laws, he having been, like his chief, converted to
the free trade doctrines of Cobden. But re chirement of
such prominent men as the Duke of Buckley and Lord

(18:03):
Stanley of Alderly from his ministry as protectionists led to
its breaking up in eighteen forty six and an attempt
to form a new one under Lord John Russell, which failed,
and Sir Robert Peel resumed the direction of a government
pledged to repeal the Corn Laws of eighteen fifteen, as
the Duke of Newcastle was a zealous protectionist, under whose
influence Mister Gladstone had been elected Member of Parliament. The

(18:26):
latter now resigned his seat as Member for Newark and
consequently remained without a seat in that memorable session of
eighteen forty six which repealed the Corn Laws. The ministry
of Sir Robert Peel, though successful in passing the most
important bill since that of Parliamentary reform in eighteen thirty two,
was doomed, as we have already noted in the Lecture
on that great leader. It fell on the Irish question,

(18:48):
and Lord John Russell became the head of the government.
In the meantime, mister Gladstone was chosen to represent the
University of Oxford in Parliament, one of the most distinguished
honors which he ever received, and which he duly pride.
As the champion of the English Church represented by the University,
and as one of its greatest scholars, he richly deserved
the coveted prize. On the accidental death of Sir Robert

(19:11):
Peel in eighteen fifty, the Conservative Party became disintegrated, and
mister Gladstone held himself aloof from both Whigs and Tories,
learning wisdom from Sir James Graham, one of the best
educated and most accomplished statesmen of the day, and devoting
himself to the study of parliamentary tactics and of all
great political questions. It was then that, in the interval

(19:32):
of public business, he again visited Italy in the winter
of eighteen fifty to fifty one, this time not for
mere amusement and recreation, but for the health of a
beloved daughter. While in Naples he was led to examine
its prisons with philanthropic aim, and to study the general
policy and condition of the Neapolitan government. The result was
his famous letters to Lord Aberdeen on the awful despotism

(19:54):
under which the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies groaned, where
over twenty thousand political prisoners were incarce rated in one
half of the deputies were driven into exile and defiance
of all law, where the prisons were dens of filth
and horror, and all sorts of unjust charges were fabricated
in order to get rid of inconvenient persons. I have
read nothing from the pen of mister Gladstone superior in

(20:16):
the way of style to these letters, earnest and straightforward,
almost fierce in their invective, reminding one in many respects
of Brougham's defense of Queen Caroline, but with a greater
array of facts so clearly and forcibly put as not
only to produce conviction but to kindle wrath. The government
of Naples had sworn to maintain a free constitution, but

(20:37):
had disgracefully and without compunction, violated every one of its conditions,
and perpetuated cruelties and injustices which would have appalled the
judges of Imperial Rome, and defended them by a causestry
which surpassed in its insult to the human understanding that
of the priests of the Spanish Inquisition. End of Section
eighteen Sage