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I, V: Council Rule and Collective Action

Grey condemned the decision and condemned Wellington for his compliance with it. With this condemnation, Political Unions were able to mobilise against the actions and organise meetings. Public meetings began again for a second phase in November, and their agendas began to circle firmly on the Regent. Takeovers by Radical elements demanded new elections for councils in Political Unions, with a more radical council base taking hold in Bristol, Nottingham, Derby and Manchester, where the Tory members of the group were ejected in favour of a coalition of the free-trade liberals and more radical democratic elements. Soon, the demands of the Reform Act were not enough for the Political Unions. Thomas Attwood bemoaned "we have lost the Union in our spirit of democracy." While the radicalisation was least pronounced in Birmingham (they merely upgraded their platform to call for annual elections and the recalling of Parliament by December by the Council meeting in November), but most pronounced in the provinces, where the line for the reformists had struck significantly more to the left of the Whigs reforms. They dressed this as a protection of the constitution. "Since the times of Charles, we have not had a ruler which denies the right of Parliament, even as Parliament wants to reform itself. The separation of powers, it was argued, was "criminally corrupted". Inside the Philosophical Circles, talk began of convening an interim Assembly (they would not use the word Parliament) could be convened to discuss the real grievances of the political question from middle-class and working-class members alike. This was echoed in the Northern branches of the Political Unions, who had been attempting to convince the southern, more moderate Unions like Attwood's since Peterloo about the election of ceremonial delegates to represent them and also the support of Henry Hunt, who was against the idea.

Fury inside and outside of the Westminster Circles was once again was enraged when the Regent made John Conroy a Lord and promoted him in the cabinet to Lord President of the Council. This overt cronyism ignited William Cobbett, who claimed: "the system is rotten to its core, it needs to be abolished and a new one built with the confidence of the Commons and the country." Cobbett began claiming that only the National Convention would have the legitimacy to restore faith in Her Majesty's Government. In the north, political unions began to form larger units, with the North West Palatines Political Union, a merger between the Manchester, Oldham, Stockport, Wigan, Preston, Bolton and Blackpool Political Unions claiming to represent the County Palatines of Chester & Lancaster, they elected Edward Curran as President and John Knight, from Oldham, as Vice President, with the organisation becoming known as the Palatine Union. Similar calculations were had in Yorkshire, where vicious attacks by countrymen against the cities led to the political murders of several radical leaders in Keighley, Kirkheaton and Almondbury. The lynching of a radical leader, Joshua Holbert, led to a meeting of the All-Yorkshire Political Union, which was accompanied by the secret covenant of sympathetic weapons makers to arm a reformist militia, solely to protect the meetings. It was formed out of the necessity of violence increasing against it.

Legions of armed men, mostly from the rural countryside and sympathetic peasants (that were wooed with the promise of free beer and bread for the expeditions) raided meetings and beat up the speakers. These incidents began as sympathetic elements within the countryside (including many churches and priests sympathetic to the Crown and weary of losing to power) all loyal to the queen organised through political and cultural sway to deploy policing patrols on cities in their County and used peasants as collateral damage. These "County Divisions" increased their violence throughout late 1831 as violent suppression was seen by some as the only way to control the rising revolutionary threat, alongside the Yeomen and the Army.

"Jacobinism and the threat of desecration of our churches and your homes and the death of your brothers are only protected by armies of God. You must take up arms, you must cleanse the cities of the papist, of the godless and those whom we fought to defeat in 1815." - Pamphlet from a Church of England parish in Warrington, 1831.

This power of the Church in rural England, while significant in the cities, turned the country against the cities. They were seen as godless, French-sympathising heretics throughout the sermons delivered in November and December 1831. While in the landed gentry, the mood turned against reform and towards rebuilding and law-abiding Parliament and loyal subjects, in the working-class suburbs of industrial cities and their surrounding towns, of Bristol workers, of workers in Swing counties, in Ireland and the North, the feeling was turning sour as the chance seemed to be missed again. These groups tended to attract small-scale private farmers and recruited heavily from small, isolated villages with more loyalty to the crown. Some, in Westmorland, was not even aware William was dead. When an "anti-French crusade" was presented for God and Country, they had little awareness of the intricacies of Parliamentary politics. Royalist Lord Mayors and Sheriffs would constantly declare posse comitatus upon arrival of the Divisions. Radical and reformist, and Whig leaders all had to contend with violence at public meetings throughout November and the beginning of December 1831, County Divisions murdered two workers speaking at a meeting at Fixby Hall in favour of the Reform Act. Eldon appreciated the organisations: "It is excellent that these fine men have presented themselves in an action of God and Country."

In Ireland, Britain's "oldest colony", a conflict over religion was brewing. Tithes forced payments in kind, mostly livestock, for the upkeep on the minority Church of Ireland, had bedded much resentment in the Catholic majority. Often forced to pay to Ministers who didn't even live in the parish. After emancipation, elements of the Catholic Association began advocating non-payment of the tithes to damage the Church in its pockets. This campaign was successful, and this civil disobedience would be top of the priority lists for the Privy Council to deal with the eight months of personal rule. They would increase Army units in Ireland and draw up debtors lists to reclaim the money. Despite increasing their enforcement of the tithes from March, the Tithe's conflict turned increasingly violent after the Carrickshock Incident, on December 14th, when a group of 14 protestants trying to collect the tithes from a debtors list in County Kilkenny were ambushed and killed. The Authorities and the Regent, who had an anti-Papal stint to her politics, did not take the disorder quietly. She insisted that control must be maintained and the payment of taxes must be continued. Eldon made the point in letters to her, and Conroy, that the only course of action was to impose martial law in Ireland, a mammoth task, and revoke emancipation of Catholics, including O'Connell until debts were reduced by 80%. O'Connell saw this as the greatest example yet that the English Government did not reflect the will of the people, and was encroaching on tyranny. As plans were distributed to the Privy Council to include clauses in P.O.R.A that "temporarily" revoked emancipation for all believers of faiths outside the Church of England and Ireland in England and Ireland, a measure targeting not only Catholic Church gatherings but Methodist Sunday Schools (long thought a tool to spread radical propaganda) and Non-Conformist groups. Wellington became increasingly skittish, and while Privy Council meeting minutes were never kept, his diaries reflect that even now, in early December, he was considering his position if emancipation wasn't secured and unimpeded. "We cannot allow ourselves to revoke the peace between religions we have benefited from emancipation," he wrote privately "the content of representation for not only Roman Catholic but also Nonconformists in Government settles the matter and secures the privilege of the established church in the Kingdom."

The first sparks in England occurred in Stockport four days after Carrickshock, when a meeting to submit a petition to the Regent, signed by 12,000 people, across the working-class and middle class signed for universal suffrage and the recalling of parliament, but more importantly, the election of privy councillors and the abolition of the House of Lords. The National Political Union, trying to restore its credibility, attempted to present "a thousand petitions" from across the country in the desire of reform, with the Palatine and Yorkshire branches sending 15 petitions, signed by 45,000 people in total. The "thousand petitions" in December 1831 were mild by modern standards; more parliaments, universal suffrage, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and assembly and equal constituencies. In non-conformist areas, they led with freedom of conscience and freedom of religion and expressed the desire to govern their "own" affairs, independent of the Church-Lords-Commons-King paradigm. Their rejection by the Regent was not surprising to those in the moderate Reformists and Radicals previously in Parliament, who knew she would outright reject on the influence of Conroy, who developed the policy of "no reform before the election". The Stockport branch of the Palatine Union met to discuss the regent's rejection of their demands and became increasingly heated. A relatively mixed leadership between middle-classes, commercial bosses and workers, the workers began increasingly exacerbated by the raid from the Divisions across minor workers meetings and political clubs. Some 18,000 met in Stockport on December 18th 1831 to demand political concessions and a recalled Parliament. They were met by the Cheshire Brigade, a County Division from Chester who came with muskets and pikes and who had, as one witness said, "drank their way across the county on the route". They slaughtered 119 men, women and children in, what became known as the "Winter Massacre".


The Regent lost her credibility in the North after these dates, proclaiming the Brigade had "acted in the grace of God". Rioting resumed after December 21st across the North, alongside Bristol, which reignited after Thomas Brereton was sentenced to death and Wetherall returned, to judge the case of the 115 rioters who were found guilty of treason and high treason. The choice was purposeful on Eldon's part - he believed further violence in Bristol would discredit the larger Political Unions that were forming and become less conciliatory and more radical by the week. In Manchester, Salford Yeomanry was called out again, alongside the around 100 soldiers. They broke up a meeting of the Palatine Union of over 15,000 people on New Years Day, injuring 700 and killing 13 - evoking memories of Peterloo. This accelerated the radicalisation of the Political Unions in the North and sent them hurtling towards forming an armed militia. They received letters of support from the Yorkshire Political Union, and the Northumbrian Political Union, formed out of Political Unions in the far north, Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham and Barrow - with a radical slant, containing much of Northern shipping routes to Ireland. These three Unions co-wrote an open letter to every Political Union in the country, to meet after electing a National Convention to discuss a written constitution to break the political deadlock. The Birmingham leadership, still headed by Attwood, declined, preferring to support Whig candidates in the upcoming election. Unions from South Wales, Glasgow, Nottingham, Derby & Bristol pledged to attend and began to plan large scale public meetings across January to select their delegates for the convention. In London, the letter was well received by the Radical members of the Metropolitan Political Union, like Cobbett, who expressed support for the concept of an elected convention. This split the convention down the middle, as Francis Burdett and Henry Hunt were united in their desire not to replicate Parliament, symbolically or otherwise. This, it was felt, would cause the break-up of the meetings to be more violent than they had to be.

In Ireland, this movement was blended with a rising feeling of hostility. While Martial Law was not officially called in by Christmas, the number of troops in Ireland increased dramatically. Kilkenny, Limerick, Kerry (O'Connell's County), Tipperary and Dublin saw most of the increases, whereas the North-Eastern sections, dominated by Ultra-Royalist Ulster Protestants, were relatively low. Major Loyalist settlements like Belfast were pencilled to have more freedom than other areas, like the Gaelic-speaking west of the Island which was to be governed centrally from a military base in Tipperary. Tithe collection was boosted by more Royal Irish Constabulary men, which contained a rough mix of the religions in their area. In the south, the combination of regular troops stepping on the jurisdictions of the RIC men, orders from Protestant officers to give increasingly violent orders to Catholic regulars to stave off the arrival of the Army in their towns and villages led to a distrust of Catholics of all Protestants in the state, even moderate Nationalist Protestants. This religious settlement made O'Connell uncomfortable, and his letters to Jeremy Bentham, whom he had a strained relationship as with many of English Radicals, reflected this desire to defeat the retrenchment of Catholic rights, felt more akin to continue fighting within Westminster, but without the institutions of Parliament, he felt lost and in need of legitimacy. His campaign to Repeal the Act of Union was to restore the Constitution of 1782, with the addition of Catholic voting rights. The goal of the Repeal organisation as far as O'Connell was concerned, was less about constitutional ends, however, but a vague concept of returning something from England. In his Bolivarian fantasies, he considered himself the centre of any settlement for the rule in Ireland, and he felt, quite rightly, that a significant proportion of the Irish population wouldn't accept a new settlement for Ireland without O'Connell as Head of Government.

As the Government felt more distant than ever, and people around the Repeal Association began to show splits on the lines of "unilateralism": that calling an Irish Parliament through elections at "monster meetings" would pressure to liberalise the country, bring more access to government for Catholics and, echoing O'Connell's reformist dogma allows for proper, logical reform of the Government in the country, and the "constructionists" who favoured constructive, Island-wide reform along Grey's lines, to bring about reform. The Constructionists, of which O'Connell favoured, wished for monster meetings to take place, but to work within the law to achieve the ends of Repeal. There was a feeling amongst those favouring the unilateral settlement that the time was now, with increased Army presence and the Regent's harsh line on Emancipation, and widespread discontent with the Tithes meant that iron was hot to strike. O'Connell favoured waiting until the election when a further Whig majority would be sure to Reform, which would springboard the issue of Repeal. The feeling that the unilateralists had was that this would lead to home-rule, perpetual domination by England within the confines of self-rule. If O'Connell's brand of liberal Catholicism was the former and not the latter, and that Radicalism was compatible with the models of Radicalism in the rest of Britain, he would need to impose a constitution at some point, why not now? This radical streak was voiced most noticeably by Feargus O'Connor, who advocated the calling of an "Emergency National Assembly" to discuss the next steps for the Irish Nation. On January 4th 1832, O'Connor insisted that the concern of home-rule for Ireland was of little importance in Westminster, so Dublin must take it into their own hands. "Must we ask while Westminster is incapacitated, that a Dublin Castle administered by the populous, not by such inertia in Parliament?"

Jeremy Bentham, by this stage, was in his last days and felt that his 'disciples', such as J.S Mill, James Mill, Henry Hunt and (in his opinion) Daniel O'Connell, were longed to carry his legal and political reforms forward into the next, post-Reform generation of British Politics. Bentham worked on his final works, the Constitutional Code, and many in the Radical circles who wanted positivist, utilitarian reform of Government awaited his release of the manuscript with bated breath during the six-month recess. As popular sentiment turned against Wellington & the Regency, but also against the Church of England, "Old Corruption" and against the inertia and paralysis of the Westminster system, Radicals craved a practical proposal with the detail sure to be contained in a plan from Bentham. O'Connell was particularly keen to learn of the contents of the code, a learned follower of his legal analysis as a celebrated lawyer alongside his political career. He didn't anticipate it as code for any new constitution, but he wished to make reforms inspired by it. O'Connor, however, was attracted to the contents of the book and considered asking the Repeal Association to wait until the publication of the code before making any decisions on electing a Parliament. Surely, at this moment, a Parliament elected in any sense would have been a higher concern, but O'Connor's career was all about missed opportunities.

All this was fantasy, in the end as a report from the 'Secret Committee', revived for the ongoing agitation by reformers Seditious Activities Commission, a 3-man committee of Eldon, Edward Knatchbull (an over-zealous anti-Catholic) and Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, who had been High Sheriff of Cornwall and was too known as an Ultra, forced the hand of the Government. Presented to the Regent on January 15th, it said that insurrection in the North and Ireland was imminent, and Political Unions were more radical and less in alignment with the Government. It summarised two options; a military dictatorship from Whitehall without Parliament for at least a year, or elections within 30 days. Eldon insisted that with PORA, that stability and order could be brought about by a prolonged period of tight censorship, political repression and a tightly centralised state. Wellington protested about sections in the report relating to religious freedom, which consigned all religions but the Church of England in England & Church of Ireland in Ireland (religious interference in Scotland would provoke a reaction from the Scots if was felt) would be forbidden from organising openly, wearing any related dress (especially aimed at Jews), and meeting in public. The Regent, however, said the recommendations should be "implemented immediately", with the Protection of the Realm Act receiving Royal Assent, without Parliamentary approval, on 24th January to widespread fury. Whigs, Reformists, Radicals, Non-Conformists and Irish Catholics were united in disgust. On 28th January, a Radical speaker, Willaim Benbow, published a pamphlet entitled the Grand National Holiday and Congress of the Productive Classes. In which he advocated a general strike of the "working and commercial classes, united in their desire for political reform". It enhanced the calls from the Northern Political Unions that it was time for a national convention, but advocated that mill-owners should shut their gates, workers should down tools and they should together bring the country to a stop until reform was achieved. It advocated the adoption of local committees which were developed upon by William Herapeth, jailed in Bristol, who advocated new City Charters with Responsible Government. Finally, Hunt broke his silence and came out in favour of the Convention, saying "It is time to convene and discuss a permanent solution with the confidence of the people."

Calls for public meetings, in defiance of magistrates, the Army and Yeomanry patrolling the streets, became louder and the desire for a National Holiday to select a convention to write a constitution for the United Kingdom became a unifying cry. In Ireland, similar protests began to start up, with the support of the Catholic Church. The political leadership group around O'Connell, who ultimately wished to repeal the Act of Union, saw the National Convention as an attempt to form an Irish Parliament. Worryingly for the Dublin Castle administration, February 1832 was littered with reports of mutiny from the ranks of the RIC, as Catholic recruits loyalty began to wear incredibly thin. Reports of the ransacking of armouries and gun-lockers in RIC stations were becoming widespread, and secretly, a society across Ireland called the United Irishmen began to prepare to defend the Convention elections, whenever they came. Similarly, the Palatine and Yorkshire Political Unions had been arming themselves, as had more working-class organisations, like the Glasgow Political Union, led by Radical War veteran George Kinloch, whom himself wanted to proclaim a Scottish Provisional Government to seize independence for Scotland, among other things. In Nottingham, Derby & Birmingham, the Political Unions decided to merge into the Mercian Political Union and elected Thomas Attwood it's President. He condemned the violence and the preparations for arming the conventions in both public speeches and letters, but promised to elect a new Union Council at the Grand National Holiday, and was "prepared to carry out whatever the intentions of the public desire". Since the violence on the mass scale of the Winter Processions and the growing violence across the Kingdom folding seamlessly into a military dictatorship, the window of public opinion looked to eliminate the corruption of the monarchy, eliminate the gridlock of reform and finally bring responsive government. In the Swing Counties and South Wales, the demands had taken more Radical ends, with demand for Economic Relief alongside the political reforms - and they were prepared to use violence and confiscation as hinted at during the Swing Riots the year before, as an ends to achieve their goals.