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Dissent and Toleration: Lord Stanhope's Bill of 17891
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
It is widely accepted among historians that the House of Lords in the eighteenth century was an obstacle to religious change. Its unfriendly mien appears to be confirmed by the fate of several Quaker tithe bills and Dissenting petitions. Despite the passage of limited relief acts for Roman Catholics and Dissenters in 1778 and 1779 respectively, it was unusual for such legislation to be well received, or even to find a sponsor, in that chamber. Yet, in the summer of 1789 the House of Lords and that House alone witnessed what has been a neglected episode in ecclesiastical and political history. This was the attempt by the third earl Stanhope to amend the law concerning religious toleration. Although admittedly far from an exception to the rule in the way in which it was greeted by the peers, it has received scant notice from modern historians of toleration. Stanhope himself, of course, has become known to the historically minded as one of the celebrated eccentrics of the period; the image of ‘Citizen Stanhope’ the defender of the French Revolution and the ‘minority of one’ is unlikely to be effaced. Accordingly such discussion as there has been of the earl's bill has tended to emphasise Stanhope's personal idiosyncrasies and peculiar brand of aristocratic radicalism rather than the detailed provisions of the measure.
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References
2 See for instance Turberville, A. S., The House of Lords in the Age of Reform, London 1958, 92–3Google Scholar and 308–9.
3 Debrett, , Parliamentary Register, xxvi. 262 (9 June 1789)Google Scholar.
4 Birley, R., The English Jacobins from 1789 to 1802, Oxford 1924, 10Google Scholar.
5 Sunday Telegraph, 16 February 1969.
6 See Newman, Aubrey, The Stanhopes of Chevening: a Family Biography, London 1969Google Scholar, chaps. 5 and 6.
7 Ditchfield, G. M., ‘The Parliamentary Struggle over the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1787–1 790’, English Historical Review, lxxxix (1974), 551–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 This bill was carried in the House of Commons on 24 March 1789 and defeated in the Lords on 23 July 1789.
9 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 203.
10 Lindsey to William Frend, 6 March 1789: quoted in Knight, Frida, University Rebel: the Life of William Frend, 1757–1841, London 1971, 71Google Scholar.
11 Disney, John, An Arranged Catalogue of the Several Publications which have appeared, relating to the Enlargement of the Toleration of Protestant Dissenting Ministers; and the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, London 1790, 24Google Scholar and n.
12 In the House of Lords, 18 May 1789: Part. Reg., xxvi. 244.
13 Ditchfield, 552.
14 John Moore to Lord Hawkesbury, 17 May 1789: Liverpool Papers, British Library, Add. MS. 38224 fol. 126.
15 The Speeches in Parliament of Samuel Horsley, Dundee 1813, 5–6Google Scholar.
16 Jarrett, Derek(The Begetters of Revolution: England's Involvement with France, 1759–1789, London 1973, 257–8Google Scholar) states that Stanhope was ‘moving the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in the House of Lords in May 1789’.
17 Jebb, H. H. in A Great Bishop of One Hundred Years Ago: being a Sketch of the Life of Samuel Horsley, London 1909, 85Google Scholar, refers to a meeting of bishops at the house of the archbishop of Canterbury, where it was decided by 10 votes to 2 that Stanhope's bill should be opposed. This is almost certainly a confusion with the meeting of bishops ‘at the Bounty-Oflice’ on 10 February 1787, reported in Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of llandaff, 2nd ed. London 1818Google Scholar, i. 261–2, where it was agreed 10–2 to resist the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.
18 The printed text of the bill can be found in the bundle of papers on religious toleration in the Stanhope Papers, item 223b.
19 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 244 (18 May 1789)Google Scholar. By the ‘New Test Act’ Stanhope meant the law of 1743 (16 Geo ii c. 30) which extended the time limit for taking die requisite oaths from three months to six months after entering office.
20 Stanhope Papers, item 223b.
21 Document headed ‘Paper No. 1, House of Lords. Toleration Bill’: Stanhope Papers, item 223b.
22 The principal sources for the debate of 17 February 1789 and the subsequent discussions on Stanhope's bill on 18 May and 9 June are John Debrett, Parliamentary Register and William Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England … to 1803. The ibrcner is rather more detailed and is accordingly the usual reference in this article, reinforced by other reports, notably those in the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, The Diary or Woodfall's Register and the Chelmsford Chronicle. There are only minor discrepancies between all these reports, mainly affecting the debate of 17 February 1789, and allusion has been made to them where necessary.
23 Part Reg., xxv. 477–9.
24 Ibid., xxvi. 198. Some reports, such as Part. Hist., xxvii. 1281, have Stanhope mentioning Smith by name.
25 Part. Reg., xxvi. 198.
26 Ibid., 202.
27 ibid., 203–4. Stanhope referred to the act as having been passed in the 13th and 14th years of the reign of Charles 11; his two opponents placed it in the 13th year. In The Statutes, third Revised Edition, H.M.S.O. 1950Google Scholar, i. ocxx, it is given as 14 Cha. 11 c. 4, although it is noted that Ruffhead's earlier edition gives 13 and 14 Cha. 11 c. 4.
28 Ibid>, 203–6. These details are confirmed by newspaper reports but Parl. Hist., xxvii. 1275–83, in its account of the debate, omits the speeches of Bathurst and Hawkesbury and Stanhope's reply to the archbishop of Canterbury.
29 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 18 February 1789. Fitzwilliam's comment is not reported elsewhere.
30 The favourable medical bulletin issued on 17 February made the Lords’ debates that day on the Regency bill seem a trifle academic. On 19 February, only two days after Stanhope's amendment, Thurlow announced that die king was convalescing and that the bill would be taken no further.
31 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 206.
32 See The Life of Charles, third Earl of Stanhope, commenced by Ghita Stanhope, revised and completed by G. P. Gooch, London 1914, 77–82Google Scholar. This work, prints the Protestation itself (280–2). See also Ward, Bernard, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England, 1791–1803, London 1909Google Scholar, i. 131–4 and 156; Butler, Charles, Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics, since the Reformation, 3rd ed. London 1822,Google Scholar iv. 16–18; and Duffy, Eamon, ‘Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected: II (1787–1796)’ Recusant History, 10 (1970), 309–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Duffy, 312–14.
34 Stanhope's note of his conversation with Thurlow ‘yesterday', dated 18 March 1789: Stanhope Papers 223b.
35 Papers headed ‘Abstract of Bills, 1789’ and ‘Abstract of a Bill intituled An Act for relieving Members of the Church of England from sundry heavy Penalties and Disabilities to which by the Laws now in force they may be liable; and lor extending Freedom in Matters of Religion to all Persons (Papists only excepted) and lor other purposes therein mentioned’: Stanhope Papers 223b.
36 Disney, Arranged Catalogue, 24–5.
37 There is a paper of notes on penalties for denying the Trinity prescribed in the Blasphemy Act of 1698 (9 William 111 c. 35) in the Stanhope Papers, 223b.
38 Bishop Warren nonetheless complained that the bill, if enacted, would render void the Blasphemy Act of 1698: Parl. Reg., xxvi 256–7 (9 June 1789)Google Scholar.
39 ‘Abstract of Bills, 1789’: Stanhope Papers, 223b.
40 Ibid. The oath involved swearing allegiance to George in, denying that the pope could release British subjects from that allegiance, denying that any church had any constitutional authority separate from parliament, denying that any person ought to be forced to profess any religion or could be absolved from any sin at the pleasure ol pope or priest, denying that any person could be injured on the grounds of being a heretic, denying the infallibility of the pope and the ability of the pope to dispense with this or any other oath, and finally asserting ‘that this Declaration is made without any evasion or mental reservations’. For the sharp controversy among English Catholics caused by oaths of this nature, see Duffy, 313 ff.
41 ‘Abstract of Bills, 1789’: Stanhope Papers, 223b. The bill was not to apply to Scotland.
42 ‘Breviat to the Bill for discriminating between Papists and Persons abjuring the Principles of Popery’: Stanhope Papers, 253b.
43 Part. Reg., xxvi. 243.
44 The ‘Catholic Dissenters’ Petition praying relief is printed in Journals of the House of Lords, xxxviii. 404–5. Bernard Ward (op. cit. i. 156–7) states that the petition was presented simultaneously to both House s of Parliament on 9 May but the relevant journals make it clear that it was presented to the Lords on 5 May and the Commons on 7 May. Neither House sat on g May, which was a Saturday. In the Lords it was ordere d that the petition lie on the table. Rawdon is recorded as present on 5 May but the Journals do not say that he presented the petition. It was Stanhope who gave him the credit for so doing.
45 Pad. Reg., xxvi. 243.
46 Ibid., xxx. 252 (31 May 1791).
47 Stanhope Papers, 223b. The letter was signed by Lord Stourton, Lord Petre, Sir Henry Englefield, Charles Berington, Thomas Hornyold and John Throckmorton. It thanked Stanhope for his ‘kindness and attention’ in their cause and expressed the hope that ‘their business will be resumed very early in the next Sessions’.
48 Stanhope's note of his conversation with Thurlow: Stanhope Papers, 223b.
49 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 232. The best report of the first reading is ibid., 232–45.
50 These headings are given in Parl. Reg., xxvi. 232–42.
51 Ibid., 242; Jarrett, op. cit., 257–8.
52 3&4 Jac. 1, c. 4.
53 Printed text of the bill, 2: Stanhope Papers 223b.
54 Ibid.
55 ‘There were weapons lying loose on the ground, and scattered about, which the fiend of persecution might catch up and use to a deadly purpose’: Horsley's speech on the second reading of Stanhope's bill, House of Lords, 9 June 1789: Part. Reg., xxvi. 258.
56 Ibid., 242–3.
57 Printed text of the bill, 2.
58 The eight provisos are given in the printed text of the bill, 2–4, and Parl. Reg., xxvi. 243–4.
59 1 and 2 Jac. 1, c. 4.
60 Printed text ot the bill, 4–5.
61 ‘An Act for the more effectual preserving the King's person and government by disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament’: 30 Car. 11, sta. 2. c. 1.
62 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 237.
63 The Diary, or Woodfall's Register, 19 May 1789.
64 Moore to Hawkesbury, 17 May 1789, quoted above, 5.
65 ‘The Duke of Portland presents his Compliments to Lord Stanhope, he is very sorry that the accident which happened to him some time agone incapacitates him from complying with His Lordship's wishes for his presence in the House of Lords on the discussion of the Bill intended to be brought in by his Lordship, the principle of which so strongly intitles it to the D. of P's attention’: Portland to Stanhope, 15 May 1789: Stanhope Papers, item 249. It might be added that Stanhope's connexions with Pitt and his personal attacks on Fox in the 1780s hardly endeared him to the Whig opposition.
66 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 242.
67 Pretyman to Stanhope, 5 April 1789: Stanhope Papers, item 249.
68 It might be added that Stanhope would have been helped had a politician of his own ilk, James, viscount Maitland, M.P. for Malmesbury, entered the House of Lords a little earlier. He succeeded his father as eighth earl of Lauderdale on 24 August 1789 and became a Scottish representative peer in 1790. Known as ‘Citizen Maitland’ because of his radical, pro-French revolutionary views, he voted for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1787 and 1789 and would almost certainly have sided with Stanhope.
69 Twenty-eight peers voted for the unsuccessful Dissenting petition in the Lords on 2 April 1773; for their names see Part. Hist., xvii. 790–1.
70 The Journals of the House of Lords, xxxviii. 444–5 list 101 peers as present on 9 June 1789Google Scholar. They included Fitzwilliam, but not Portland or Lansdowne. Both archbishops and twelve bishops were present, including Hinchcliffe. According to the Journals Stanhope's bill was the last item of business that day and it is impossible to say how many of the 101 were still present at that time.
71 The debate on the second reading is in Parl. Reg., xxvi. 253–62.
72 Ibid., 254.
73 Hallilax had been bishop of Gloucester at the time of the debate on 17 February 1789.
74 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 258.
75 Gentleman's Magazine, lix (1789)Google Scholar, 1178. The sources tor Horsley's speech are Parl. Reg., xxvi. 258–60; Parl Hist., xxviii. 120–31. The latter is abridged from The Speeches in Parliament of Samuel Horsley, 1–34, which prints the speech in lull. There are shorter reports of it in H. H. Jebb, A Great Bishop of One Hundred Years Ago, 85–9 and in the usual newspapers and periodicals.
76 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 255 and 258.
77 Ibid., 259–60.
78 Ibid., 260.
79 Ibid., 261.
80 The Diary, or Woodfall's Register, 10 June 1789.
81 Part. Reg., xxvi. 261, quoted in Stanhope and Gooch, op. cit., 84.
82 Ibid., 261–2.
83 Stanhope's bill Tor the better preventing vexatious proceedings with respect to tythes, dues, or other ecclesiastical or spiritual profit’ was another product of his obsession with research into ecclesiastical law. It was given an unopposed first reading on 19 June 1789 (Journals of the House of Lords, xxxviii. 458) but negatived on the second reading on 3 July 1789Google Scholar: Part. Reg., xxvi. 263–9. Turberville (op. cit., 92) is surely incorrect in dating this bill May 1791Google Scholar.
84 A Letter to a Nobleman, containing considerations on the Laws relative to Dissenters, and on the intended application to Parliament for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. By a Layman, London 1790, 43–4Google Scholar, 173–4. The writer's own sentiments are unequivocal: ‘My firm and conscientious opinion is for a repeal’ (1).
85 Ibid., 174.
86 A Letter from Earl Stanhope to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: Containing a Short Answer to his Late Speech on the French Revolution, London2nd ed. 1790, 30–1Google Scholar.
87 A Letter to Earl Stanhope on the subject of the test, as objected to in a pamphlet recommended by his Lordship, London 1789, 42Google Scholar. The aim of this work was to refute Heywood's Right of Protestant Dissenters and the writer's main grievance against Stanhope was his admiration for Heywood. The Letter refers throughout to ‘Your Lordship’s friend, the Layman’.
88 Macaulay, Catherine, Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution in France, in a Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope, London 1790, 5Google Scholar.
89 Disney, Arranged Catalogue, 24 and n.
90 Belsham, William, History of Great Britain, from the Revolution 1688, to the Conclusion of the Treaty of Amiens, 1802, London 1805Google Scholar, viii. 238–40. This work gives a brief account of the debate of 9 June 1789.
91 Thomas Palmer to Stanhope, 11 November 1793: Stanhope Papers, item 249.
92 George Selwyn to Lady Carlisle, 19 November (?) 1789: Roscoe, E. S. and Clergue, Helen(eds.), George Selwyn, His Life and Letters, London 1899, 266Google Scholar.
93 Horace Walpole to Lady Ossory, 26 November 1789: Correspondence of Horace Walpole, ed. Lewis, W. S., Yale edition, 1937-, 34Google Scholar. 80.
94 Same to same, 1 December 1790: ibid., 98. Walpole added ‘Lord Lansdown, I hear, said there was some good sense in that rant’.
95 H. H. Jebb, op. cit., 84.
96 Cannon, John, Parliamentary Reform 1640–1832, Cambridge 1973, 140Google Scholar.
97 Jebb, op. cit., 84.
98 Ibid.
99 Parl Reg., xxvi. 259.
100 Ibid., 256.
101 Turberville, op. cit., 308–9.
102 Manning, B. L., The Protestant Dissenting Deputies, Cambridge 1952, 130–43Google Scholar and Davis, R. W., Dissent in Politics, 1780–1830: the Political Life of William Smith, M.P., London 1971Google Scholar, chap. 9.
103 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, xxii. 234–5.
104 Ibid., xxiii. 318–9.
105 The text of the bill of 1812 is published in the Monthly Repository, vii (1812), 391–2Google Scholar. There is a printed copy of the bill, annotated by the author and dated 2 June 1812, in the Stanhope Papers, item 223b.
106 Part. Debates, xxiii. 318–9 (2 June 1812)Google Scholar and 1887–92 (3 July 1812).
107 ‘An Act to repeal certain Acts, and amend other Acts, relating to Religious Worship and Assemblies, and Persons teaching or preaching therein’. For the rapid progress of this bill, see R. W. Davis, Dissent in Politics, chap. 10.
108 Stanhope tried unsuccessfully to amend Smith's bill in the House of Lords: Parl. Debates, xxiii. 1192–3 (23 July 1812) and 1247–8 (24 July 1812).
109 This matter is fully discussed in Davis, op. cit., 183–5. The correspondence between Stanhope and Smith was published in the Morning Chronicle and reprinted in the Monthly Repository, vii (1812), 456–63Google Scholar.
110 Monthly Repository, vii (1812), 463Google Scholar. So successful were Smith's tactics that the government itself sponsored his ‘toleration’ bill in both Houses of Parliament.
111 The voting figures were Contents 10, Non-Contents 31. Stanhope claimed afterwards that he would have had more supporters but for the unexpected earliness of the division; Monthly Repository, vii (1812), 463Google Scholar. So, in all probability, would his opponents.
112 Ibid., 455–6 and Journals of the House of Lords, xlviii. 950. The latter source omits the name of Lansdowne.
113 Newman, The Stanhopes of Chevening, 163–4. Letters of thanks from the Protestant Society, from ‘the General Committee of the Societies founded by the late Rev'd John Wesley’ and from other groups can be found in the Stanhope Papers, item 223b.
114 Monthly Repository, vii (1812), 473–4Google Scholar and Davis, op. cit., 183–5.
115 Wyvill to Lindsey, 27 April and 28 May 1792: Wyvill, Political papers, 1794–1806, v. 13–14 and 15–17. For Wyvill's ‘sentiments in favour of a moderate Ecclesiastical Reform’ see ibid., 17n.
116 For Wyvill's religious petitions see Jervis, Thomas, A Speech, intended to have been spoken at a General Meeting of the Inhabitants of the Borough of Leeds, Leeds 1813Google Scholar, 23–7 and 35–7, and Parl. Debates, xvii. 508–11 (8 June 1810), xxii. 418–21 (17 April 1812) together with Journals of the House of Commons, lxviii. 206–7 (23 February 1813)Google Scholar. Wyvill summarised his views in A More Extended Discussion in Favour of Liberty of Conscience, 2nd. ed. London 1808Google Scholar.
117 Jervis, op. cit., 25.
118 Heywood, op. cit., 3rd. ed. London 1790, 65–70.
119 Address to the Protestant Dissenters of England and Wales, issued by ‘A Meeting of the Deputies and Delegates from the Protestant Dissenters of England and Wales, appointed to obtain the Repeal of the Test-Laws, at the King's Head Tavern, in the Poultry, London, on the 30th Day of May 1792’.
120 Nathaniel Bridges to Stanhope, 2g May 1789: Stanhope Papers, item 249. Bridges was rector of Wadenhoe from 1783–92 and of Orlingbury from 1783–1805.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid. The duties of churchwardens included the presentation of offenders against ecclesiastical law. The oath for churchwardens is printed in Phillimore, R., The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, 2nd. ed. London 1895Google Scholar, ii. 1479.
123 In 1812 this bill failed because of the lateness of the session. Parl. Debates, xxiii. 806–8 (29 June 1812)Google Scholar and Journals of the House of Commons, lxvii. 528 (14 July 1812)Google Scholar.
124 The Royal Assent to Scott's bill was given on 12 July 1813.
125 ‘An Act … to make Provisions for the Abolition of unnecessary Oaths’ (5 & 6 William iv c. 62) put in its place a declaration that the churchwarden will ‘Faithfully and diligently perform the duties of his office’.
126 Parl. Reg., xxvi. 244.
127 Life of Charles, Third Earl Stanhope, 83.
128 Heading in Parl. Debates, xxiii. 887.
129 Ibid., 318.
130 The ‘Act to relieve, upon conditions, and under restrictions, the persons therein described, from certain penalties and disabilities to which papists, or persons professing the popish religion, are by law subject’ (31 Geo. iii c. 32) is printed in Danby Pickering (ed.), the Statutes at Large, Cambridge and London, 1762–1807, xxxvii.Google Scholar 310–20. The oath of 1791 appears in ibid., 311–12. It was the oath from the Irish Relief Act of 1779, which was used in place of the controversial oath previously lavoured by the Catholic Committee. See Duffy, op. cit., 312 ff.
131 Butler, op. cit., iv. 16–18.
132 In presenting a petition from the Catholics of Ballynakill: Part. Debates, xxv. 203–3 (19 March 1813)Google Scholar.
134 Newman, op. cit., 164.
135 Monthly Repository, xi (1816), 732Google Scholar.