The first Whig the Devil? Then who was the first Tory?
The great reaper toils on. Of the dozen or so ushers at my wedding in 1957 only two are left. But they are going strong. Hugh Thomas has just produced a superb book on the origins of the Spanish empire, and now comes Peregrine Worsthorne's highly provocative tract for the times, In Defence of Aristocracy (HarperCollins, £15). In an enchanting section at the beginning of the book, Worsthorne discusses his own claims to aristocratic status. His grandfather was a Belgian banker, Alexander Koch de Gooreynd, who settled in Belgrave Square and tried to start a line of English aristocrats. His son (whom I met occasionally: the word boulevardier might have been invented to describe him) wanted to lead the life of the idle rich but was made to many Peny's mother — a Catholic earl's granddaughter and fierce defender of noblesse oblige — then to look for a safe Tory seat. Central Office told him, 'You'll never get one with a name like that. My word! Better change it, old boy.' So he picked on Worsthorne, a village on his wife's family estate in Lancashire. Alas, he never got the promised seat, and in disgust he changed his name back again. But in the meantime a son had been born, to grow up with one of the best-known bylines in British journalism. I often used to say to him, That name of yours is worth an extra £1,000 a year to begin with.'
Unfortunately for his case, which rests on the assumption that there is such a thing as an aristocratic consensus, a view of life, a culture, his autobiographical fragments show that the English aristocracy cannot agree on anything. His mother and his stepfather, Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, totally despised the well-born who did not do their bit for society. On the other hand, they did not like self-made rich either — dynamos like Lord Beaverbrook. Perry's grandfather had tried to buy the Times from Northcliffe. But Sir Montagu and Lady Norman, when they heard that Lord and Lady Kernsley were travelling on the same ship across the Atlantic, immediately changed their booking rather than risk social contagion with a newspaper proprietor. Worsthorne comments, 'Nobody today would dare to give the Murdochs or even the discredited Blacks the same kind of brushoff.' I don't agree. The only kind of people who salaam to Rupert and his journos' are naive vote-cadgers like Tony Blair, and the fact that the Blacks are 'discredited' makes them more sortable rather than less, the love of schadenfreude being a strong emotion, especially among 'top people'.
The truth is, the aristocracy and/or ruling class cannot agree on anything, even the most trivial points. When Mrs Rodd tried to draw up rules about 'class indicators' all she did was to start up arguments in every country house in England. Osbert Lancaster made the point neatly when he had Maudie Littlehampton shovelling down peas with her knife, announcing, 'What I say is, if it's me, it's U!' Jane Austen also noted that English grand families were not interested in what others of their degree thought, merely in what they themselves thought. The chief characteristic of the English upper crust is mutual suspicion and dislike. What is a sociologist to make of this little episode? When the Earl of Crawfurd visited Knowsley, the palatial home of the earls of Derby outside Liverpool, he was appalled by the lack of taste in the contents. To his relief he eventually spotted a set of Chippendale chairs and hastened to congratulate Derby on their quality. After he had gone, Derby commented, 'Awful cheek of that fellow to notice our chairs.' Derby also took exception (it was mutual) to the manners of his fellow northern grandee Lord Curzon — they had one thing in common: both pronounced their `a's short — and accused him of dishonesty over a house-let. Curzon simply dismissed Derby as 'yellow'.
The tectonic abysses of dislike which run through the rich, especially the landed rich, make any theory about their philosophical usefulness in setting standards for society precarious. One of Harold Macmillan's favourite stories was of walking in St James's with his father-in-law, the Duke of Devonshire. They were overtaken by a heavy shower. Supennac proposed sheltering in the Carlton Club but the Duke flatly refused. 'I would rather be soaked to the skin than enter those infamous portals.' So they had to trudge on to Brooks's. The Whig-Tory division is one of the most important factors in English history, going back well before the terms came into use, and continuing today even though they are obsolete. It is all to do with attitudes to authority. I sometimes argue that the fissure first appeared under Richard II, and that John of Gaunt was the first Whig. Dr Johnson would have replied, 'No, sir! The first Whig was the Devil!' And one sees what he means: the rebel archangel who could not bear to obey even the prince of righteousness. Study English history at whatever period you choose — even AngloSaxon England — and you find the same patterns of schism and mysterious hatreds: the troubles of Stephen's reign, for instance, the rebels under Henry II, the events leading up to Magna Carta, the first Parliament, the Wars of the Roses. There were always groups of the elites — North Yorkshire grandees, Welsh Marches lords — who felt themselves different and acted together except when they quarrelled, mysteriously and violently. English politics in the classic period in the 18th and 19th centuries was essentially about the shifting allegiances of large landed proprietors, still in the 1880s able to overthrow governments. And even when the democratic deluge descended, the aristocrats were still quarrelling about which club to flee to for shelter. Political animosities were fiercer following the Lloyd George budget and the Liberal plan to end Union than at any other time, before or since: society in two armed camps equipped, to be sure, not with guns but with brollies and walking sticks. Margot Asquith did not exactly punch A.J. Balfour's nose but she might well have taken a swing at Bonar Law with her iron-studded handbag. And F.E. Smith sneered that only the Unionists now got invited to grand parties: The Liberals are left to the society of knights' ladies.'
What a dreadful fate! English history resonates in that contemptuous phrase. The building bricks that compose the upper classes often have names of ill omen: Pitt peer', 'Lloyd George peer', 'Blair life-peer (paid)', etc. In old countries, everyone is an upstart at some time. One reason Diana could not bear Prince Charles's supercilious treatment was because she felt her Whig blood was better than his Germanic blut. After all, she said, the Spencers were one of the five Whig families who put the House of Hanover on the throne of England. Who did he think he was? Sometimes she felt she had married beneath her.
Worsthorne is right to call for a sense of public service, and right too to believe that certain institutions, such as the better public schools, still contrive to inculcate it. He is to be congratulated on sounding a high trumpet note. But how many aristos will respond? Too busy quarrelling among themselves.
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