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Vienna and the Slave Trade, 1815

Ian Clark

in International Legitimacy and World Society

The first case study is the Declaration against the slave trade made as part of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. How and why did this become an international concern, and with what results? The ... More

The first case study is the Declaration against the slave trade made as part of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. How and why did this become an international concern, and with what results? The chapter analyses how the international diplomacy of slave trade abolition was interconnected with the domestic political pressures brought to bear, especially upon the British government, by William Wilberforce and the Abolition Society, especially when the terms of the first Treaty of Paris became known. It explores the combination of interest and principle in Castlereagh's foreign policy. It describes the nature and the methods of the transnational movement against the slave trade. Critically, however, the chapter also insists that the international Declaration against the trade established a new normative framework, intended as it was to shame those who would flout its provisions. The articulation of an accepted international legitimacy principle against the trade was to be of major importance in the longer term.Less

Impact of the French Revolution: ‘The Battle of Burke’ — Tone or Castlereagh?

Paul Bew

in Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006

In the autumn of 1790, Edmund Burke, the most celebrated Irish politician of his day, published his notable attack on the French Revolution, immediately inspiring a debate, not only in England but in ... More

In the autumn of 1790, Edmund Burke, the most celebrated Irish politician of his day, published his notable attack on the French Revolution, immediately inspiring a debate, not only in England but in his own country too. The French Revolution challenged the principles of aristocracy and monarchy in Ireland. William Tone's solution to the ‘Irish crisis’ was disputed by Edmund Burke. The discussion argues that it was Tone rather than Lord Castlereagh who fought the ‘Battle of Burke’. The bloodshed and murder confirmed two awful lessons. For Catholics, the state and its allies would, if provoked, impose a bloody terror on the countryside. For Protestants, on the other hand, Catholics could not be trusted: given a chance, they would use their power to destroy the other community. Both sides now believed the worst of each other, and not without justification.Less

Byron and the Good Death

Tom Mole

in Byron and Marginality

The essay argues that throughout his writing life Byron was fascinated by the margin of life: the moment of death. For Byron and his heroes, looking squarely at other people’s deaths is understood to ... More

The essay argues that throughout his writing life Byron was fascinated by the margin of life: the moment of death. For Byron and his heroes, looking squarely at other people’s deaths is understood to signify and promote a kind of moral fortitude. Byron’s verse, however, often elides the moment of death, offering no description of it, but offering instead an aposiopesis – a rhetorical break that allows the moment of death to disappear into the texture of the verse. The essay investigates how Byron operates at the margins of life and also at the margins of language, suggesting that those margins become central to his poetry.Less

Entrance, training and promotion

Jennifer Mori

in The Culture of Diplomacy: Britain in Europe, c. 1750–1830

This chapter presents various examples to show that diplomacy was learned on the job, and Castlereagh sought to formalize this by attaching young men to the principal embassies. In addition to ... More

This chapter presents various examples to show that diplomacy was learned on the job, and Castlereagh sought to formalize this by attaching young men to the principal embassies. In addition to meeting the patronage needs of a new generation, Castlereagh sought to restock the corps with persons ‘properly qualified to discharge the functions of Secretary of Embassy and Secretary of Legation’. This came from a pool of public funds designated to cover the incidental expenses of Britain's missions. The status of the attaches as diplomats-in-training was thus clearly defined, much more so than that of their eighteenth-century predecessors had been. The study demonstrates diplomacy as a branch of power politics increasingly defined in ‘modern’ term.Less

‘Those true sons of Mars’: chivalry, cowardice and the power of satire

Alison Morgan

in Ballads and songs of Peterloo

This is the longest section in the book and comprises seventeen poems, many of which use satire not only to delight a sympathetic readership but also as a way of demonstrating defiance and voicing ... More

This is the longest section in the book and comprises seventeen poems, many of which use satire not only to delight a sympathetic readership but also as a way of demonstrating defiance and voicing outrage at the actions of the authorities both during and after Peterloo. The introduction explores how writers in the Romantic period, from the full range of the cultural spectrum, used satire as a form of cultural defiance and challenge to authority at a time when any form of opposition was deemed seditious. Another theme evident is that of chivalry, a contentious issue during the eighteenth century with its revival by conservatives such as Edmund Burke fuelling a radical counter-revival focussed on a new age of political chivalry. As a consequence, the language and symbolism of chivalry was adopted by both conservatives and radicals in support of their cause. The Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry is the target of many of thesatirical poems in this section, alongside the detested politicans, Lords Castlereagh and Sidmouth and the Manchester Magistrate, Reverend Ethelstone. It includes poems written by the radical writers, Robert Shorter and Allen Davenport.Less

Political Suicide: Castlereagh, Rebellion and Self-Directed Violence

Michelle Faubert

in Commemorating Peterloo: Violence, Resilience, and Claim-making during the Romantic Era

Attention to the violence of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 usually focuses on that of the soldiers who attacked the peaceful protesters gathered to demand equal representation and workers' rights. ... More

Attention to the violence of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 usually focuses on that of the soldiers who attacked the peaceful protesters gathered to demand equal representation and workers' rights. However, this chapter demonstrates that the event and its aftermath brought into sharp focus the intense concern with, and conflicting attitudes towards, self-directed violence and its ultimate expression, suicide, in Romantic-era Britain. Self-directed violence met with a variety of legal and cultural responses in the long eighteenth-century, but it was often presented sympathetically as a courageous political act that asserted individual autonomy in the face of implacable tyranny in Romantic literature. This theme was threatened, however, when Viscount Castlereagh - Conservative defender in the House of Commons of the government's attack at Peterloo, and the very figure of despotism in the period - slit his own throat with a pen knife in 1822.Less

‘We only have to be lucky once’: Cato Street, insurrection and the revolutionary tradition

Jason McElligott and Martin Conboy

in The Cato Street Conspiracy: Plotting, Counter-Intelligence and the Revolutionary Tradition in Britain and Ireland

An overview of the Cato Street Conspiracy and why it should be taken seriously by historians of Britain and Ireland.

State witnesses and spies in Irish political trials, 1794–1803

Martyn J. Powell

in The Cato Street Conspiracy: Plotting, Counter-Intelligence and the Revolutionary Tradition in Britain and Ireland

Describes how the experience of Irish trials associated with the United Irishmen influenced the theory and practice of later English political trials. The author pays particular attention to the use ... More

Describes how the experience of Irish trials associated with the United Irishmen influenced the theory and practice of later English political trials. The author pays particular attention to the use of different categories of witnesses against the Irish revolutionaries, and how much the British state in general, and Lord Castleregh in particular, learned from these notorious show trials.Less

A Nineteenth-Century ‘Truman Doctrine’ avant la lettre? Constitutional Liberty Abroad and the Parliamentary Debate about British Foreign Policy from Castlereagh to Palmerston*

Horst Dippel

in Constitutionalism, Legitimacy, and Power: Nineteenth-Century Experiences

The aim of the chapter is to document the parliamentary debate on British foreign policy from 1814 through 1851 inspired by the British constitution as a model to prevent social revolutions resulting ... More

The aim of the chapter is to document the parliamentary debate on British foreign policy from 1814 through 1851 inspired by the British constitution as a model to prevent social revolutions resulting in radical constitutions threatening established hierarchical societies. While Whigs, Liberals, and Radicals argued for a policy of interventionism to promote liberal constitutionalism, Tories and Conservatives refused to commit British policy beyond what they understood to be Britain’s interest. Between these extremes the policy of interventionism changed its meaning and made the Mediterranean an area of prime concern for Britain. Portugal, Spain, the Ionian Islands, and Greece were prominent in a British policy to stabilize some sort of a constitutional and social order which increasingly necessitated British engagement. Whereas its supporters approved this policy to promote liberal British-like constitutionalism in the world, the opposition in parliament rejected it as morally unsustainable, ideology-ridden, and in its effects counter-productiveLess

Order in the European Concert Era

Kyle M. Lascurettes

in Orders of Exclusion: Great Powers and the Strategic Sources of Foundational Rules in International Relations

Chapter 5 (“Order in the European Concert Era”) examines three moments of order change opportunity in the nineteenth century centered around the Concert of Europe. The first section assesses the ... More

Chapter 5 (“Order in the European Concert Era”) examines three moments of order change opportunity in the nineteenth century centered around the Concert of Europe. The first section assesses the scholarly debate over what the Concert actually was, making the case that it constituted a decisive departure from the brand of balance-of-power politics that had previously dominated Europe. And yet accepting what the Concert was says nothing about how it came to be, an argument developed in the second section that examines the strategic and exclusionary impulses behind its origins after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The third section assesses two more cases of opportunity where the dominant actors elected not to seek major changes to the Concert order: the aftermath of the liberal revolutionary wave of 1848 and the negotiations that ended the Crimean War in 1856.Less

Individual Incidents and Cases that Impacted on the Policing Board

Desmond Rea and Robin Masefield

in Policing in Northern Ireland: Delivering the New Beginning?

This chapter vividly brings out the extraordinary range of incidents and cases with which the Policing Board (and the PSNI) had to deal in the period under review - several were of such magnitude ... More

This chapter vividly brings out the extraordinary range of incidents and cases with which the Policing Board (and the PSNI) had to deal in the period under review - several were of such magnitude that they could have potentially jeopardised the existence of the Board. In date order, they included: the Castlereagh break-in, the search at Stormont, the Police Ombudsman’s investigation into the police handling of Sean Brown’s murder, the Northern Bank robbery, the murders of Robert McCartney, Thomas Devlin, Harry Holland, Michael McIlveen, Paul Quinn, Constable Stephen Carroll, Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, and Constable Ronan Kerr. Again the chapter notes that the Board’s handling of some of these incidents, including holding the Chief Constable to account in public sessions of the Board, which had potential to impact materially on the political and peace processes – something which no other police authority in Great Britain had to face.Less