alternatehistory.com

I, I: The Dynasty

In 1831, the Britain that we knew died, but when did it become sick? In a rush and a scramble, 162 years of continuous rule was ended, for a brief period it looked as if nothing would emerge in it's path. Victorious in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Government suffered an 'atrophy of victory' - a period of sharp economic decline, with the perfect electrical storm of a glut of servicemen re-entering the workforce, a technological overhaul of the economy that dumped millions into poverty, and an archaic system that radiated complacency.

After the Congress of Vienna restored Europe and pushed the reset button on Revolutionary France's grip on the attention of the continent, Britain, on the foreign arena and at home, personified lethargy. With its array of ‘Old Corruption’, spanning from pocket boroughs, rotten boroughs of small electorates that could be counted by hand, ‘treating’ - code for bribing the electorate directly, open ballots and a tiny overall electorate of 1/12th of the population, it performed as a haven for the rural landowners, shutting out new urban wealth, the emerging middle class and the workers of the nation. Having introduced the hugely unpopular Income Tax during the war, the eras oligarchic electorate of landowners wished a policy of laissez-faire, low-spend governance, and gifted the Government of Lord Liverpool power to entrust and enshrine those constraints. If they were to stray off the course, as the attempted to do in the aftermath of the victory at Waterloo by reintroducing the Income Tax to reduce a growing War Debt, men trying to control the Commons on behalf of the Government would have to contend with the vast plain of Crossbenchers who made Government a basis of continuous Coalition-building rather than relying on traditional political parties. The combination of ideological commitment restrict the growth of Government while protecting property, the status-quo and the institutions of power, like the Magistrates, Army, Navy and Landowners led to a tough uncompromising conservatism, an "opposition in power", so to speak.


Tax and Government were, in the eyes of landowners, were the antipathy of the victory - against Revolutionary & Napoleonic Ideals of equality before the law, constitutional government and reform of parliamentary politics and the balance of power between landowners and nobility. The deficit in the Government's purse however, rendered tax a much needed emergency measure, but still the Treasury's refusal to attempt to cross the political minefield caused a gap of a fifth of revenues for the state. They were instead forced to take on bonds and print Exchequer's Bills, the guarantee of payment with interest. Property owners, represented in institutions such as The Times, rejoiced at defeats against measures to tax wealth creators while ripping a whole in the nations accounts. The historic "Tory" wing in the Commons, a loose coalition in support of the political lethargy of Liverpool, coalesced to become the preferred brand of the Landowners, the Military, the Property Owner and the Nobility - a fearsome prospect for reform. The system of rotten boroughs, unequal constituencies and disinterested politicians with an iron grip on power caused a dwindling attendance in the chamber that allowed small cliques, like the one surrounding Liverpool's Government, who also managed the expectations and relationship with the Crown, who had a deep mistrust of Liberal elements, to dominate power.

While the power on financial matters centred around the Commons, the main political heavyweights fought it out in the House of Lords, an extravagant charade of tradition which centred the directional course of the politic of the Union. While Government's managed the Commons, they ruled from the Lords. Appointed by the King, the Lords set an ever-reactionary tone and with an Anti-Reform agenda, ensured an resistance to reform of the political system to achieve the goals of an ever-growing movement of public sentiment towards greater representation and democracy. To them, the spectre of the French Revolution still hung incredibly heavy and many in the aristocracy, were forced into a period of reaction and extreme conservatism by the need to keep their heads attached to their necks. The Presence of the Duke of Wellington, the General victorious at Waterloo, in the Lords ensured the members of that. The gross-overreaction of the post-Napoleonic period that was the personal passion project of men like Viscount Castlereagh, Lord Liverpool, Earl Eldon and Prince Metternich, saw the establishment of a Committee of Secrecy, a secret committee designed to find and eliminate organised opposition.

The development of the Liverpool clique controlling the Commons was enabled and encouraged by the inactivity of the opposition. The Whigs, representing the Commercial Interests in the Cities, constitutional monarchy and the parliamentary system, had little sympathy with the Reform Movement and had little zeal to impose it's will on the direction of travel of the country. Throughout the decade after the victory over Napoleon, there was no formal Leader of the Opposition in the Commons and Whig leadership in the Lords was patchy at best and their development to a formalised political party was earlier in it's process than the Tories. They had a massive amount to gain from expanded franchise, with their traditional relationship with the non-conformists, the groups of religious faiths disestablished from the Church of England and concentrated in Celtic Nations, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Rebellious, Radical MPs, like Francis Burdett, whose pro-French, pro-Reform and pro-Universal Suffrage made many an enemy within the establishment, were incredibly few in number. Attempts to reform in the Houses of Parliament summed John Russell's attempts to reduce 'rotten boroughs' and transfer their representatives to emerging Industrial Cities. This lethargy, this inertia to popular reform and the growing divide between the Parliamentary Oligarchy and the People would continue to develop over the next 16 years and topple the power structures of the old British Monarchy forever.