FERGUSON'S HISTORY OF THE REPRESENTATION OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND.* WE
have too long delayed our notice of this interesting and, in its character, very original work. Mr. Ferguson has supplied the English public with one of the earliest contributions towards what is a great want in English literature,—a provincial political history of this country. Considering the interest which has always attached to the constitution and acts of the popular House of Repr esentatives, it is singular that it should have been left to the present century to take the first necessary steps towards a full narrative of the local vicissitudes in the representative bodies from which it has emanated, and to supply some account of the local and family history of the men whom these bodies sent from time to time as their elected or selected M.P.'s to the House of Commons. Such a history, when completed, would form a his- torical supplement to what we have already attempted to give some rough idea of in the columns of this journal,—the origin and career of the families which from time to time have exercised a paramount influence over the political destinies of England. Such, indeed, has been the tendency in English political life to recognize the hereditary principle even in elective processes, and to allow the cepresentation of the different counties and boroughs of England to descend to successive members of the same families, that the more limited class of " great governing families " may be almost con- sidered as merely a fractional part of the wider and less con- spicuous clam of Parliamentary families which form the subject of Mr. Ferguson's present volume. And it is only by means of such monographs as his, with reference to par- ticular districts of England, that we can hope to obtain the materials for a more general history of the House of Corn- enons in its constituencies. We therefore should be disposed to welcome almost any effort in this direction, even if the knowledge and artistic skill displayed were not commensurate with the task ; but we are still more grateful when we meet with a really intel- ligent and well-informed contribution such as that with which Mr. Ferguson has supplied us.
The difficulties of such an undertaking are not small in an artistic point of view, if the writer wishes to appeal to a wider public than that which is attracted to his subject-matter by local or family interest in its details. To write of purely local events so as to interest a whole nation, and to tell in detail the doings and belongings of families who are scarcely more than unmeaning names to the mass of Englishmen, is, on the face of it, a very difficult and hazardous enterprise, and one which requires no small natural artistic skill and literary experience in the author who ventures upon it Of course it would be easy to find points on which, in our opinion, Mr. Ferguson's plan or the execution of it might be amended. The plan of separating the
Cumberland and Westmorland .11f.P.'s, from Ilse Restoration to Gho ReVorm Bill of 1807 (sere-iao7). By Richard S. Forguaon, M A., Barrister-at-Law. London: Boll and tardy. 1971. biographies of the leading representative families from the more general history of the election contests with which they were engaged, if advantageous as a means of easy reference, is neces- sarily attended with the disadvantage of an alternative between repetition or omission in one part of the work ; and Mr. Ferguson has, we think, wisely sacrificed the interest of the so-called biographic portion to the preceding general history, into which he has introduced nearly all that is really worth saying respecting the different families and their more conspicuous mem- bers. There is sometimes some disproportion (taking into con- sideration the intent of the writer) in the space allotted to certain events, and occasionally the materials have not been quite suffi- ciently digested, or, in Mr. Carlyle's phrase, " smelted down," to make the book unexceptionable in an artistic point of view. But discursive gossip is almost a necessity of such a work (as it appears to be of local society), and it is very difficult to draw the line between inartistic copiousness and a dry sketch of facts. On. the whole, Mr. Ferguson has performed his perplexing duty with singular skill and discrimination, and we shall be quite satisfied if future historians of other districts of England follow up his labours with anything like equal ability and success.
The character of such a work almost defies any attempt at giving within the limits of these columns any fair idea of the nature of the contents. Mr. Ferguson has aided us, indeed, in so doing by the resume of facts which ho supplies from time to time ; but of this, again, we cau only make a very limited use. In general, we may say that the families of Lowther, Musgrave, Howard, Lawson, and Curwen supply the kernel of the political interest, and that there is scarcely one event of importance in the whole period in which one or other or all of these families are not principally concerned. The Lowthers occupy the lion's share in the narrative. They are always "in the front," and their power is always gradually in- creasing, until at laat it preponderates so greatly as to leave scarcely anything else but the "popular spirit," when on rare occasions it attains the necessary fever-heat, capable of shaking their absolute ascendancy. With varying politics, at different stages of the constitutional struggles, there are still apparent the same keen, persistent, somewhat insolent and self-indulgent, yet emotional and large-minded, family characteristics. By the simple interest attaching to their strange yet attractive peculiarities, they effectively preserve the history of the local contests of the two counties with which they were principally concerned from all risk of dullness, and give it much of the interest of a personal bio- graphy. Too proud and independent to be corrupt and greedy placemen, never quite attaining the ideal of wise and high- minded patriotism, yet not falling into the category of unprincipled schemers, they are never fools, and never entirely unprepossessing. With a strong constitutional disposition to tyranny, they were almost always capable of generous acts of an exceptional greatness, and with all their egotistical pride they were too shrewd men not to see sometimes the policy, if not the virtue, of unselfishness. They have not the great historic traditions of the Howards and the Stauleys, the popular and constitutional associations of the Russells, or the graceful tact of the Stanhopes; but they have a strong will and a passionate nature, bridled only by their own physical indolence or their sagacious common-sense, which have left nearly as great a mark on the face of English provincial life. Mr. Ferguson tells us that between the years 1660 and 1867 this family has seated in Parliament no less than twenty-one of its members as representatives of the Cumberland and Westmoreland constituencies, independently of those whom they returned on the score of family connection, dependent business relations, or as political allies or political chiefs.
The Musgraves of Edenhall—loug as prominent as the Lowthers in the election contests in this district, and the typical representa- tives of the old Cavaliers of the days of King Charles I.—still remain, but have not come to the front as Parliamentary families since the accession of William IV. The various branches of the Howards have still much influence, but it is limited to the eastern portion of Cumberland. The Curwens, who were prominent dur- ing the reigns of Charles I. and IL, ended in an heiress who married her cousin, John Christian, who assumed the name of Curwen. This second race for a time seemed disposed to revive the Parliamentary eminence of their maternal ancestors, but the promise has not been fulfilled, for they disappeared from the Par- liamentary roll about the same time with the Musgraves. We may here mention an error into which we fell in our account of the " Groat Governing Families," and which is courteously cor- rected by Mr. Ferguson. It respects the manner in which the Cavendishes acquired the Furness abbey-lauds of the Curwens.
Those abbey estates " did not remain long in the Carwen family ; not being entailed in the male line, they went by an heiress to the Prestons, and thence to the Cavendishes." The Daletons were once prominent in Westmoreland, but have lost their baronetcy, and no longer make any conspicuous figure. The Flemings of Rydal Hall, &c., who were prominent in the reign of James and the succeeding period, have disappeared from Parliament with the first years of the present century. The Fletchers, descended from a merchant in the early Tudor period, fell out of the Parliamentary ranks about the same time as the Flemings, and have recently sold all their estates in Cumberland. The Lawsous, originally a York- shire family, who made themselves conspicuous on the Puritan side during the Civil War, have ever since with little varia- tion maintained their hereditary position among the leaders of the popular party in Cumberland. The Grahams of Esk and Notherby own a common ancestor in a favourite of the first George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who made the greatness of the family. The Esk branch is best known by the celebrated Sir Richard Graham—Viscount Preston of the James II. and Restoration period—and a favourite minister of James during his exile. The Netherby branch is familiar to the present generationfrom the political abilities and ministerial eminence of the late Sir James Graham, whose versatility of talent and opinions made his career a very chequered and discourteous one in respect of the constituencies he represented. His return to something like his old opinions, and to his " old love," the " Carlisle Blues," is one of the most touching episodes in the Parliamentary anion- glum &le. The Tuftons, Earls of Thanet, long held a position ; but they have now lost their peerage, and have not been heard of in the House of Commons since the beginning of the reign of William IV. The Egremont Wyndhams, as successors of the Percies, have long preserved, and still retain, much power in the Cockermouth district.
Passing from the representative families to the general repre- sentative history of the two counties, we observe that Mr. Ferguson has no great love for the Puritans, and rather seems to require that they should have acted the part of very lambs to their political opponents, and made no reprisals in point of con- fiscation for the persecutions, fierce antagonism, and constant conspiracies to which they were exposed during the periods of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. No doubt the Cavalier party suffered not a few hardships in this district, and it would be mere quixotry to justify all the acts of a dominant party, however we may admire the principles of which they were thts advocates ; but the Musgraves and their political associates in the Northern counties in those days were " Ma- lignants " of the stiffest necks, and the rough characteristics of Border feuds were still quite congenial enough with the public taste in those parts to call forth and justify in men's eyes conduct from which gentler districts of England had learnt to shrink. Those most indomitable men of peace—the so-called Quakers"—grew and flourished here as in a congenial soil, and the principle of passive resistance proved nearly as effective a weapon in their hands as the aggressive arms of their moss- trooping ancestors. Philip Lord Wharton had some influence in these counties at that time ; but the Restoration depressed his power, and that of the Howards and Lawsons, till the dread of the Papists produced a reaction, and threw suspicion on the Mus- graves and the other advocates of High-Church and King. The .conduct of King James brought together a brief coalition between the most opposite political creeds ; but after the Revolution there was again a division into two parties, headed respectively by the Lowthers and the Musgraves. During the succeeding period .the other formidable rivals of the Lowthers were the Whartons and the Rewards. The Wharton influence was at one time quite -predominant, but the downfall of the family at the beginning of the Georgiau era was complete, and their great estates became divided between the Lowthers and the Seymours. There was a .sharp struggle at one time between the Lowthers and the Bentineks, but the latter never established a firm hold on the district. The politics of the Lowthers had during all this time been of a some- what varying character, much influenced by personal position and territorial relations. On the whole, it was, perhaps, rather Whig than anything else. "The great eras in the political history of Cumberland are 1768,1802, and 1831." After a gradual gravita- tion in that direction somewhere about the year 1708, the county became " wholly subjugated by the Whig party," these being thence- forward divided into Court or Government Whigs, and County or Opposition Whigs. " During this Whig period the representation was mainly monopolized by Lowthers (of Whitehaven), Fletchers, Lawsons, and Peuuingtous." In 1768 the Whig era came to
an end, and the great Lowther and Bentinek struggle ensued, ending in a compromise by which, the representation of the
county was divided between the two parties. This lasted till 1802, when, by a new compromise, it was agreed that the Lowthers should not return snore than four out of the six members furnished by Cumberland. This arrangement between the leading aristocratical influences of the county was, however, from time to time resisted by an " independent " opposition. In 1831 this compromise also ended, and the " Blue " party returned a Blamire and a Graham in opposition to the Lowther interest. In 1832 the county was divided, and since that time, while the Eastern Division has nearly always returned two " Blues" or " Liberals," the Western Division has usually returned two Tories—one representing directly and a second sanctioned by the Lowther interest. During the whole period from 1660 to 1867 the county " has been universally represented by its landed proprietors." Popular influence has been more felt in the boroughs, but the Howards, Lowthers, and Wyndhams have main- tained a considerable influence. The same territorial representation of the county has been almost, if not quite, the unbroken rule in Westmorland. Between 1660 and the middle of the last century the seats wore contested between the Lowthers, Mus- graves, Whartons, Grahams, and Wilsons. " It never fell as thoroughly or as easily into Whiggisin as did the sister- county, for after the Tory Musgraves the Jacobite Grahams of Leven long retained a hold upon it. The Low thers next, about the middle of the last century, tried, and not without some success, to make themselves paramount over both seats, until, in 1774, a compromise was arranged by which the Independent interest was to have one seat," but the Lowthers gradually obtained control over both. In 1818, 1820, and 1826 Henry Brougham made daring but unsuccessful attempts to shake this supremacy ; and in 1831 they had to yield one seat, but they resumed their ascendancy in 1832, and have retained it ever since, the borough of Kendal alone bearing aloft the banner of Liberalism.
We have preferred drawing from Mr. Ferguson's volume a short sketch of the general characteristics of the local politics of Cum- berland and Westmorland during the period since the Restoration, to entering on special details ; but the reader will find in these pages much interesting matter, illustrative not only of the election contests, but of the social history and manners of the two counties. Among the most curious of the election incidents is the "Mushroom Election" for Carlisle in 1786, when the Earl of Loned ale carried the election by swamping Mr. Christian's voters with a body of " Honorary Freemen," such as were similarly created by the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire and other great landed proprietors in the boroughs adjacent to their family pro- perty. But we cannot enter on this or similar details, but must confine ourselves to strongly recommending Mr. Ferguson's volume to the notice of our readers.
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