The True Story of My Parliamentary Struggle

A CARDINAL’S BROKEN OATH.

A Letter

TO HIS EMINENCE HENRY EDWARD, CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.

BY

CHARLES BRADLAUGH.

[EIGHTH THOUSAND.]

LONDON:

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1882.

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To his Eminence

HENRY EDWARD,

CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.

Three times your Eminence has—through the pages of the Nineteenth Century—personally and publicly interfered and used the weight of your ecclesiastical position against me in the Parliamentary struggle in which I am engaged, although you are neither voter in the borough for which I am returned to sit, nor even co-citizen in the state to which I belong. Your personal position is that of a law-breaker, one who has deserted his sworn allegiance and thus forfeited his citizenship, one who is tolerated by English forbearance, but is liable to indictment for misdemeanor as “member of a society of the Church of Rome.” More than once, when the question of my admission to the House of Commons has been under discussion in that House, have I seen you busy in the lobby closely attended by the devout and sober Philip Callan, or some other equally appropriate Parliamentary henchman. Misrepresenting what had taken place in the House of Commons when I took my seat on affirmation in July, 1880, your Eminence wrote in the Nineteenth Century for August, 1880, that which you were pleased to entitule “An Englishman’s Protest” against my being allowed to sit in the Commons’ House, to which the vote of a free constituency had duly returned me. In that protest you blundered alike in your law and in your history. You gave the Tudor Parliamentary oath Saxon and Norman antiquity. You spoke of John Horne Tooke as having had the door of the House shut against him by a by-vote, no such by-vote having been carried, and the statute which disabled clergymen in the future not affecting John Horne Tooke’s seat in that Parliament. You declared that in the French Revolution the French voted out the Supreme Being; there is no record of any such vote. In March, 1882, when the House had expelled me for my disobedience of its orders in complying with the law, and taking my seat, you again used the Nineteenth Century. This time for a second protest, intended to prevent my re-election. You, in both your articles, reminded the bigots that I might be indicted for blasphemy. Your advice has since been followed. Persecution is a “two-edged sword,” and I return the warning you offer to Lord Sherbrooke. When I was in Paris some time since, and was challenged to express an opinion as to the enforcement of the law against the religious orders in France, I, not to the pleasure of many of my friends, spoke out very freely that in matters of religion I would use the law against none; but your persecuting spirit may provoke intemperate men even farther than you dream. In this country, by the 10th George IV., cap. 7, secs. 28 and 29, 31, 32 and 34, you are criminally indictable, Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster. You only reside here without police challenge by the merciful forbearance of the community. And yet you parade in political contest your illegal position as “a member of a religious order of the Church of Rome,” and have the audacity to invoke outlawry and legal penalty against me. Last month, in solemn state, you, in defiance of the law, in a personal and official visit to the borough of Northampton itself, sought to weaken the confidence of my constituents; and you were not ashamed, in order to injure me, to pretend friendship with men who have for years constantly and repeatedly used the strongest and foulest abuse of your present Church. An amiable but ignorant Conservative mayor, chief magistrate of the borough, but innocent of statutes, was misled into parading his official robe and office while you openly broke the law in his presence. In the current number of the Nineteenth Century you fire your last shot, and are coarse in Latin as well as in the vulgar tongue. Perhaps the frequenting Philip Callan has spoiled your manners. It else seems impossible that one who was once a cultured scholar and a refined gentleman could confuse with legitimate argument the abuse of his opponents as “cattle.” But who are you, Henry Edward Manning, that you should throw stones at me, and should so parade your desire to protect the House of Commons from contamination? At least, first take out of it the drunkard and the dissolute of your own Church. You know them well enough. Is it the oath alone which stirs you? Your tenderness on swearing comes very late in life. When you took orders as a deacon of the English Church, in presence of your bishop, you swore “so help me, God,” that you did from your “heart abhor, detest and abjure,” and, with your hand on the “holy gospels,” you declared “that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm.” You may now well write of men “whom no oath can bind.” The oath you took you have broken; and yet it was because you had, in the very church itself, taken this oath, that you for many years held more than one profitable preferment in the Established Church of England. You indulge in inuendoes against my character in order to do me mischief, and viciously insinuate as though my life had in it justification for good men’s abhorrence. In this you are very cowardly as well as very false. Then, to move the timid, you suggest “the fear of eternal punishment,” as associated with a broken oath. Have you any such fear? or have you been personally conveniently absolved from the “eternal” consequences of your perjury? Have you since sworn another oath before another bishop of another church, or made some solemn vow to Rome, in lieu of, and in contradiction to, the one you so took in presence of your bishop, when, “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” that bishop of the church by law established in this country accepted your oath, and gave you authority as a deacon in the Church you have since forsaken. I do not blame you so much that you are forsworn: there are, as you truly say, “some men whom no oath can bind;” and it has often been the habit of the cardinals of your Church to take an oath and break it when profit came with breach; but your remembrance of your own perjury might at least keep you reticent in very shame. Instead of this, you thrust yourself impudently into a purely political contest, and shout as if the oath were to you the most sacred institution possible. You say “there are happily some men who believe in God and fear him.” Do you do either? You, who declared, “So help me, God” that no foreign “prelate ... ought to have any jurisdiction or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm.” And you—who in spite of your declaration on oath have courted and won, intrigued for and obtained, the archbishop’s authority and the cardinal’s hat from the Pope of Rome—you rebuke Lord Sherbrooke for using the words “sin and shame” in connexion with oath-taking; do you hold now that there was no sin and no shame in your broken oath? None either in the rash taking or the wilful breaking? Have you no personal shame that you have broken your oath? Or do the pride and pomp of your ecclesiastical position outbribe your conscience? You talk of the people understanding the words “so help me, God.” How do you understand them of your broken oath? Do they mean to you: “May God desert and forsake me as I deserted and forsook the Queen’s supremacy, to which I so solemnly swore allegiance”? You speak of men being kept to their allegiance by the oath “which binds them to their sovereign.” You say such men may be tempted by ambition or covetousness unless they are bound by “the higher and more sacred responsibility” involved in the “recognition of the lawgiver in the oath.” Was the Rector of Lavington and Graffham covetous of an archbishopric that he broke his oath? Was the Archdeacon of Chichester ambitious of the Cardinal’s hat that he became so readily forsworn? Lord Archbishop of Westminster, had you, when you were apostate, remained a poor and simple priest in poverty and self-denial, although your oath would have still been broken, yet you might have taunted others more profited by their perjuries. But you, who have derived profit, pride, and pomp from your false swearing—you, who sign yourself “Henry Edward, Cardinal-Archbishop” by favor of the very authority you abjured in the name of God—it is in the highest degree indecent and indecorous for you to parade yourself as a defender of the sanctity of the oath. As a prince-prelate of the Church of Rome you have no right to meddle with the question of the English Parliamentary oath.

Your Church has been the foe of liberty through the world, and I am honored by your personal assailment. But you presume too much on the indifference of the age when, in this free England, you so recklessly exhibit as weapons in an election contest the outward signs of the authority the Vatican claims, but shall never again exercise, in Britain.

Charles Bradlaugh.

NORTHAMPTON
AND THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN

CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.,

AND THE RIGHT HON.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, M.P.

LONDON

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NORTHAMPTON

AND THE

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

20, Circus Road, St. John’s Wood, London, N.W.,

March 1st, 1884.

To the Right Hon. Sir Stafford H. Northcote, M.P., G.C.B.

Sir,—If, on either of the occasions when recently moving against me in the House of Commons, you had accorded or claimed for me opportunity of speech in self-defence, I might have been spared the need for this letter.

Apparently your view is that a member unfortunate enough to have the majority of the House against him need not have even the semblance of fairness shown him—that you, being strong, need not be troubled with scruples, and that the mere fact that the member is, like yourself, the chosen member of a constituency does not entitle him to the smallest courtesy or consideration.

You have taught me, Sir, many lessons during the past four years. Some of these I trust to remember and profit by in the future. You have taught me that a temporary majority of the House may, year after year, exclude any member of Parliament from his seat, although he has strictly obeyed every Standing Order—and this without vacating that seat—that it may so exclude the member although he has been a decent and orderly member of the House, attending regularly for months to all its duties, and one against whom no charge or pretence of Parliamentary misconduct was made whilst he so served in it.

You have taught me, Sir, that the leader of a great party may sit silent, and acquiesce in it by his support, while the law-abiding electors of a great constituency are called “mob,” “dregs,” and “scum”—that such a leader may permit his followers to openly accuse two of the highest judges of our country of having judicially decided unfairly from corrupt party motives—that he may even, without dishonor, keep silence whilst it is suggested that the whole judicial bench is so corrupt that it will be ready to decide unjustly at the bidding of a government—and that the first law officer of the Crown is ready to be fraudulently collusive with myself. Did you believe these things, Sir, when they were stated and loudly cheered by those who sit around you on your side of the House? If yes, I am glad that your experience of humanity has been less fortunate than my own. I have regarded our judges as at least striving to be just and independent. You seem to think it nothing that the highest judges should, in your presence, be charged with judging unjustly from favoritism for the government of the day.

You have encouraged and practised deliberate violation of the law, and, to cover this law-breaking, you have connived at, and been party to, the basest insinuations against those whose duty it is to judicially pronounce on matters of legal dispute. You have, without rebuke, permitted your followers to declare that if the High Court of Judicature declared the law to be in my favor, that then they and you still intended to defy and disobey the law.

The first resolution you moved against me, on the 11th February, was worse than futile, for it forbade me to do that which I had already done, and which you well knew that I had so done, in order to compel the submission to the judgment of a competent tribunal of the legality of my act.

The ridiculous form of your resolution arose because you—having bargained with me in writing through Mr. Winn that I should come to the table immediately after questions, and not before—intended to interpose ere I could reach the table. This would have been a dishonest trick had you succeeded; it became contemptibly ridiculous when you failed; but it is a lesson to me that I must be careful, indeed, when English gentlemen of name and family make treaties with me.

Your second resolution, on February 11th, was a spiteful, paltry, and cowardly insult to myself and to my constituents, for it was pressed by you despite that my colleague offered for me the express undertaking that you pretended you wished to secure, and was still pressed by you though Mr. Burt offered for me that I would at once personally give such undertaking. These two resolutions, utterly illegal and dangerous to Parliamentary repute, you have renewed on Thursday, the 21st, although you had heard read by Mr. Speaker an undertaking from me to the House that I would not attempt to take my seat until the judicial interpreters of the law had given formal judgment. And they are very cowardly and inexcusable resolutions, spiteful in excess of any ever passed in previous years. They exclude me, not only from the House, but from the reading-room, library, tea-room, dining-rooms, and exterior lobbies, though there is not the faintest suggestion that I have used my right to go to those places to enable me to disturb the House. If I had not taken the precaution to anticipate your malice, I should actually have been hindered by force from going to the proper officer to obtain the certificate of my return. Yours is a mean and spiteful act, Sir, unworthy an English gentleman. And I admit that you have inconvenienced me, for you have deprived me of access to the library of the House, and you may thus put me to some expense and annoyance in the procurement of law books and Parliamentary records in the litigation in which I am involved in defending the rights of my constituents.

It is too much that, in 1884, a duly-elected and properly-qualified burgess of Parliament should be shut outside by such votes.

To repeat to you words signed, in September, 1656, by your own ancestor, Sir John Northcote, M.P. for the County of Devon: “we who have been duly chosen to be members of the Parliament, have an undoubted right to meet, sit, and vote in Parliament,” and “no part of the representative body are trusted to consent to anything in the nation’s behalf if the whole have not their free liberty of debating and voting in the matters propounded.” To continue the language of your sturdy ancestor, you have “now declared that the people’s choice cannot give a man a right to sit in Parliament, but the right must be derived from your gracious will and pleasure.” You reply that you have the force on your side; but Sir John Northcote declared that: “The violent exclusion of any of the people’s deputies from doing their duties and executing their trust freely in Parliament doth change the state of the people from freedom into a mere slavery;” and if you tell me that the majority of the present members of the House are with you in what you do, I recall Sir John Northcote’s protest: “That all such chosen members for Parliament as shall take upon them to approve of the forcible exclusion of other chosen members, or shall sit, vote, and act by the name of the Parliament of England while, to their knowledge, any of the chosen members are so by force shut out, we say such ought to be reputed betrayers of the liberties of England.”

You cannot now pretend with any hope that sane men will believe you, that you desire “to prevent the profanation of the oath.” In 1880 you prevented the second reading of the Affirmation Bill, introduced by my colleague, Mr. Labouchere, under the pretext that such a measure ought to be introduced by the Government. In 1881, after you yourself had said the matter should be dealt with by legislation, you prevented the Government from introducing it. In 1882 your friends blocked the Affirmation measure again proposed by my colleague, and in 1883 you exerted every influence to defeat, and successfully defeated, the Affirmation Bill brought forward by the Government.

If you had really believed the oath profaned by me, you would have been one of the first to aid in removing the possible profanation by substituting the right of affirmation. In Ulster you took credit for keeping an Atheist out of Parliament, but it was not my Atheism you kept out, for I actually sat with you day by day, speaking, voting, and serving, from the beginning of July, 1880, until the end of March, 1881. And, during the whole of that time, my care was to be at least as good and loyal a member of that House as any sitting within its walls. I do not plead my conduct there, whilst using all my right, as anything on my behalf, for I at most could do no more than my duty; but at least I have the right to say that it was never suggested that I was other than a good working member of the House, strict in my attendance at and during every one of its sittings. It cannot be pretended that I used my right of speech to force upon the House one word which did not relate to the business then being dealt with, or that in any fashion I obtruded upon what should be a purely political assembly any views of mine on matters of religion.

You have permitted in public my conduct to be misstated in your presence, and utterances in Parliament to be attributed to me which are none of mine, and you have done this because you hoped that, by exciting religious and social prejudice against me, you might weaken the Government, and crawl back into office. To injure the Liberal party, you have allowed words which you pretend are sacred to be used as party cries, and you have made hundreds of thousands examine into and declare in favor of my opinions and expressions on religious questions who but for you might perhaps have never even known my name. You have allied yourself at Westminster with men whom you denounced in Ireland as “traitors and disloyal,” in order that, with their help, you might insult an English constituency; and you have succeeded in bringing Parliamentary Government into contempt by parading the House of Commons as the chief law-breaking assembly in the world. In four years against me you have done your worst to destroy me; with your own purse you have helped the various projects to ruin me; and you have so failed that clergymen and Nonconformist ministers have been driven to support me from very indignation against the injury you have done to the cause of religion. Your Conservative associations have flooded the country with leaflets containing garbled and misleading extracts from my speeches and writings, and have thus excited the curiosity of many whom I could have never reached. These, procuring my works, and finding that my words have been distorted and taken out of context, give a favor to me that I should perhaps have never otherwise won.

Few believe that you are moved by religious motives. Mr. Newdegate is regarded as sincere, though his sanity is doubted; but when men recollect the past and even present lives of many of those around you, whose tongues so loudly declare their piety, they come, not unnaturally, to the conclusion that he is the worst infidel who trails the banner of his church in the mire of political warfare, and permits the votes of the drunken, the dissolute, the dishonest, and the disloyal to be canvassed by his whips so that they may be counted on the side which he parades as that of the pure and the holy.

On the 7th February, 1882, I told you and your majority: “If I am not fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall.” I have gone since voluntarily to my constituents—to those from whom you presented a petition with 10,400 mock signatures upon it. The answer has come at the ballot-box. My constituents bid me resist you, and I will. They trust me to defeat you, and I will. The law is on my side, and you fear its pronouncement. You kept me from the possibility of obtaining a decision as long as you could, but on the 11th February I broke through your barriers. Then you fruitlessly tried to erase all trace of my voting, and when you found that I beat you on this by adding a new vote as you rubbed out the vote before, then, in malicious spite, you shut me out of the tea-room, dining-room, cloak-room, and library. For shame, Sir Stafford Northcote! This was worthy of “O’Donnell,” but not of the leader of a great party. You wear knightly orders. You should be above a knave’s spitefulness.

My turn is coming. You have won sympathy for me throughout the land; you have made Northampton men stand by me closer than ever; you are now awaking the country to stand by Northampton. Mr. Justice Stephen says that the appeal is to the constituencies, and I appeal. In the name of justice, by the hope of liberty, in memory of English struggles for freedom, I appeal, and I hear the answer growing as you shall hear it, too, on the day when, from my place in the House, I move: “That all the resolutions respecting Charles Bradlaugh, member for Northampton, hindering him from obeying the law, and punishing him for having obeyed the law, be expunged from the Journals of this House as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom.”

Charles Bradlaugh.

30, St. James’ Place, S.W.

March 4th, 1884.

Sir,—There are some points in the letter you have addressed to me which I am unwilling to pass over in silence lest I should be taken to admit your assertions.

In the first place, it is necessary that I should point out to you that the action of the House of Commons with respect to yourself has not been arbitrary or capricious, but has been founded on principles deliberately adopted by a large majority of its members of various political opinions, to which principles they have steadily adhered, and which they have always been prepared to justify.

In the second place it should be clearly understood that in all the steps which we have taken with respect to yourself, including some which we took with the greatest reluctance, we were acting on the defensive, in consequence of your repeated attempts to override or to evade the repeated decisions of the House of Commons.

The brief history of your case is this. You were duly elected member for Northampton at the General Election of 1880. On presenting yourself to take your seat you tendered an affirmation instead of an oath, and supported your claim to affirm by reference to the fact that you had been permitted to do so in a court of law under the Evidence Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870. That claim at once, and necessarily, brought under the notice of the House that you must either yourself have objected in a court of law to take an oath, or must have been objected to as incompetent to do so, and that the presiding judge must have been satisfied that the taking of an oath would have no binding effect upon your conscience.

That being so, a Committee was appointed by the House to consider whether the Evidence Amendment Acts were applicable to the case of a member of the House of Commons desiring to take his seat and to comply with the necessary conditions.

It was held by the Committee that they were not so applicable, and this finding of the Committee was subsequently confirmed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

Upon being refused permission to affirm, you immediately came to the table of the House and offered to take the oath. This proceeding was objected to, and the majority of the House (still, as theretofore, composed of members of different shades of politics) refused to allow you to go through the form of taking an oath, which, by the hypothesis on which your original claim to affirm was founded, as well as by the evidence afforded by a letter of your own, they held you to be incompetent really to take, and which they considered it would be a profanation to allow you to pretend to take.

That was the ground taken by the House on the 23rd June, 1880, and it is the ground which it has maintained ever since.

You have, since the adoption of that resolution, made various attempts to force the House to admit you to a seat, while still maintaining its objection; and those attempts have, on more than one occasion, led to scenes of a very indecent and disorderly character. In its anxiety to prevent the recurrence of such scenes, the House has felt itself obliged to adopt measures of rigid exclusion, which it would gladly have avoided.

I do not think it necessary to enter into the details of these scenes.

I am, however, obliged to take notice of your allegation that my action on the 11th February involved a breach of an arrangement previously made through Mr. Winn.

The arrangement which I authorised Mr. Winn to make in my name, and which he did make in a letter to Mr. Labouchere, was as follows:

“If Mr. Bradlaugh will write you a letter to the effect that he will not go up to the table to take the oath, nor make any other move with regard to his seat until Monday, February 11th, and will do so on that day, say immediately after questions, I am quite sure that Sir Stafford will neither move anything himself respecting Mr. Bradlaugh’s seat, nor employ anyone else to do so, previous to that day.”

The meaning of this is perfectly obvious, and it was in strict conformity with it that I myself abstained, and urged my friends to abstain, from taking any step whatever in relation to Mr. Bradlaugh until the day named. When, upon that day, you came forward in defiance of the Speaker’s repeated calls to order, and began to go through the form of taking the oath, I had no option but to support the Chair, and to support also the repeatedly pronounced resolutions of the House in former sessions.

I do not take notice of other passages in your letter reflecting on the course of the majority, and more particularly of myself.

But I will add, in conclusion, what your letter does not show, that your exclusion from the precincts of the House is terminable at any moment when you may be willing to undertake not to disturb the proceedings of the House. The inconveniences of which you complain are inconveniences which you might, if you chose, put an end to to-morrow.

I have the honor to remain,

Your obedient servant,

Stafford H. Northcote.

C. Bradlaugh, Esq., M.P.

23, Circus Road, St. John’s Wood, London, N.W.,

March 7th, 1884.

To the Right Hon. Sir Stafford Northcote, Bart, M.P.

Sir,—In reply to your favor of the 4th instant, in which you say that the House held me to be incompetent to take the oath, will you permit me to answer: 1. That the question of competence or incompetence to take the oath is one of law, fit only for the decision of a judicial tribunal, to which tribunal I have always desired and endeavored to refer such question. 2. That if the “principle deliberately adopted” by a large majority of the members of the House of Commons had been that they desired to prevent “a profanation of the oath,” then they ought, during the sessions of 1882—1883, to have gladly facilitated the passage of the Affirmation Bill, which would have prevented the necessity for the fulfilling by me of that which you describe as profanation, but which I contend is the duty imposed on me by law.

In your very temperate historic narrative, you omit the fact that when the House passed its resolution of the 23rd June, 1880, it had before it my declaration, made three weeks earlier, in answer to question 102 of the second Select Committee:

“Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree. I would go through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant it to be so binding.”

And as you refer to my letter of the 20th May, printed in the report of that committee, it is also fair to recall my answer thereon on the same day to question 197:

“I ask the Committee in examining it to take it complete, not to separate one or two words in it and to take those without the countervailing words, and to remember that in this letter I declare that the oath, if I take it, would bind me, and I now repeat that in the most distinct and formal manner; that the Oath of Allegiance, viz.: ‘I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law,’ will, when I take it, be most fully, completely, and unreservedly binding upon my honor and conscience; and I crave leave to refer to the unanimous judgment of the full Court of the Exchequer Chamber, in the case of Miller v. Salomons, 17th Jurist, page 463, and to the case of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company v. Heaton, 4th Jurist, new series, page 708, for the distinguishment between the words of asseveration and the essential words of an oath. But I also desire to add, and I do this most solemnly and unreservedly, that the taking and subscribing, or repeating of those words of asseveration, will in no degree weaken the binding effect of the oath on my conscience.”

In your reference to my attempts to take the seat to which I am by law entitled, you have omitted to state that on the 27th April, 1881, you personally advised me to wait for legislation, and that when I did so wait, your friends of the majority and yourself prevented such legislation.

In recalling the arrangement made by Mr. Winn on your behalf, you have omitted his most explicit and latest letter:

“Nostell Priory, Wakefield,

“January 28th, 1884.

“Dear Mr. Labouchere,—On the distinct understanding and agreement that Mr. Bradlaugh does not come to the table to take the oath, or adopt any other course with reference to his seat in the House of Commons, until immediately after questions on Monday, the 11th of February next, and that he will on that day and time come to the table, as he has intimated his intention of doing, I am prepared to say that Sir Stafford Northcote will not previous to Monday the 11th make any motion hostile to Mr. Bradlaugh, nor support any motion coming from any of our independent friends on the subject.

“I am, yours very truly,

“Row. Winn.

“H. Labouchere, Esq., M.P.”

My charge against you is that, despite this agreement, you had gone down to the House with a resolution prepared beforehand, and by its wording showing that it was intended to be moved before I should be able to get near the table to which you had made me specifically agree then to come.

You conclude by saying that I can put an end to any personal inconvenience by undertaking not to disturb the proceedings of the House. I gave such an undertaking last year in express words; it is printed in the journals of the House, and you did not accept it. Immediately before you moved your resolution of 21st February, you heard Mr. Speaker read my undertaking to do nothing until a legal decision was obtained. This you refused, and I have no reason to suppose that any second offer from me would be accepted. If what you really desire is that, if the law decides in my favor, I shall none the less join in your insult to my constituents by refusing to try to serve in the Parliament to which they have lawfully returned me, I can only say that I will never give such an undertaking.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

C. Bradlaugh.

THE LATEST
CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLE:
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Which have occurred since April 2nd, 1880.

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THE LATEST

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1880.

April 2nd.—After twelve years’ fight and three repulses, Mr. Charles Bradlaugh is elected member of Parliament for Northampton. The polling was as follows:—

The Weekly Dispatch said: Mr. Bradlaugh’s achievement of the position he has been aiming at so long and so zealously is a notable sign of the times. Whatever his critics may think of him, he will enter Parliament as the representative of a vastly larger constituency than the whole electorate or the whole population of Northampton.

The Birmingham Daily Mail: Mr. Bradlaugh holds extreme views on some subjects, but he will none the less be a useful man in Parliament, his unflinching courage in the exposure of abuses being unquestionable.

The Standard: Mr. Bradlaugh, now that he has got to the House of Commons, is not likely to efface himself in speechless obscurity.

The Southampton Times: The most signal and portentous triumph is that which has been achieved by Mr. Bradlaugh. His election shows what the unity of the Liberal party must have been.

The Christian World: His contributions to the discussions of the House may not be without value.

During the election Mr. Samuel Morley telegraphed to Mr. Labouchere as follows: I strongly urge necessity of united effort in all sections of Liberal party, and the sinking of minor and personal questions, with many of which I deeply sympathise, in order to prevent the return, in so pronounced a constituency as Northampton, of even one Conservative.

April 15th.—Mr. S. Morley, speaking at Bristol said, respecting his telegram to Northampton: He made no reference to candidates, nor did the friend who wrote the telegram go into detail, but he advised union. Those who had known him all his life would believe that he viewed with the intensest repugnance the supposed opinions, both social and religious, of one of the candidates. Afterwards, writing to the Record, Mr. Morley said he deeply regretted his telegram.

The Weekly Dispatch, commenting on Mr. Morley’s conduct, said: Let the bigots who have taken him to task for his temporary aberration from the path of pharisaism make what they can of his pitiful excuse. Other people can only regret that a man so useful in many ways, both as a politician and a philanthropist, should show himself so narrow-minded.

The Edinburgh Evening News: In their disappointment, the defeated party have eagerly caught at the election of Mr. Bradlaugh as supplying the most pungent taunt that can be thrown at their victorious opponents.

The Sheffield Telegraph: Bradlaugh is an M.P. ... the bellowing blasphemer of Northampton.

Mr. Bradlaugh announces that he considers he is legally entitled to avail himself of the Freethinkers’ affirmation, and that there is some reason to hope that other members will join him in that course.

April 17th.—Sheffield Independent’s “London Correspondent” says: Tenets which constitute the religious faith of Mr. Bradlaugh are understood to constitute an insuperable difficulty in the way of his being sworn a member of “the faithful Commons.”

April 29th.—Parliament opens.

May 3rd.—At the table of the House Mr. Bradlaugh handed in a written paper to the Clerk of the House; on this were written the words: “To the Right Honorable the Speaker of the House of Commons. I, the undersigned Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm, as a person for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath. Charles Bradlaugh.” Asked if he desired to state anything to the House, Mr. Bradlaugh said: I have to submit that the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, gives the right to affirm to every person for the time being permitted by law to make affirmation. I am such a person; and under the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870, I have repeatedly, for nine years past, affirmed in the highest courts of jurisdiction in this realm. I am ready to make the declaration or affirmation of allegiance.

At the request of the Speaker Mr. Bradlaugh then withdrew, in order that the House might consider the claim, and Lord F. Cavendish, urging that it would be manifestly inconvenient that when any hon. member had applied to take his seat in the House, any unnecessary delay should intervene, moved the appointment of a committee of inquiry which should lay before the House the material on which the House itself should found its decision. Sir Stafford Northcote seconded. Several other members spoke, and Mr. Beresford Hope said that the grievance of one man was very little compared with a great principle; at present the House of Commons was only a half-hatched chicken. The committee was then agreed to.

May 11th.—Appointment of committee carried by 171 votes against 74, after a two hours’ debate.

May 20th.—The committee report: “that in the opinion of the committee, persons entitled under the provisions of ‘the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869,’ and ‘the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870,’ to make a solemn declaration instead of an oath in courts of justice, can not be admitted to make an affirmation or declaration instead of an oath in the House of Commons, in persuance of the Acts 29 and 30 Vict., c. 19, and 31 and 32 Vict., c. 72.”

The draft report, proposed by the Attorney-General, was to the effect that “persons so admitted,” etc., may be admitted, etc. This was lost by the casting vote of the chairman (Mr. Walpole), the other members of the committee voting as follows. Ayes: Mr. Whitbread, Mr. John Bright, Mr. Massey, Mr. Sergeant Simon, Sir Henry Jackson, Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Watkin Williams. Noes: Sir John Holker, Lord Henry Lennox, Mr. Staveley Hill, Mr. Grantham, Mr. Pemberton, Mr. Hopwood, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Henry Chaplin.

Mr. Bradlaugh makes a public statement of his position with regard to the oath. He considered he had a legal right to choose between the alternatives of making an affirmation or taking the oath, and he felt it clearly his moral duty, in that case, to make an affirmation. The oath included words which, to him, were meaningless, and it would have been an act of hypocrisy to voluntarily take this form if any other had been open to him. He should, taking the oath, regard himself as bound not by the letter of its words, but by the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed, had he been allowed to make it, and as soon as he might be able he should take steps to put an end to the present doubtful and unfortunate state of the law and practice on oaths and affirmations.

May 21st.—Amid a tumult of cries from the Conservative benches Mr. Bradlaugh goes to the table for the purpose of being sworn. Sir H. D. Wolff objecting, the Speaker requested Mr. Bradlaugh to withdraw. He (the Speaker) was bound to say he knew of no instance in which a member who had offered to take the oath in the usual form was not allowed by the House to do so. Sir H. D. Wolff then moved that Mr. Bradlaugh should not be allowed to take the oath, alleging against Mr. Bradlaugh his repute as an Atheist, and his authorship of “The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick.” Mr. Alderman Fowler seconded the motion, stating that he held in his hand a petition praying the House not to alter the law and the custom of the realm for the purpose of admitting an Atheist to Parliament. Mr. Gladstone, in the course of replying, said: “it was not in consequence of any regulation enforced by the authority of this House—of a single branch of the legislature, however complete that authority may be over the members of this House, that the hon. member for Northampton presents himself to take the oath at the table. He presents himself in pursuance of a statutory obligation to take the oath in order that he may fulfil the duty with which, as we are given to understand, in a regular and formal manner, his constituents have entrusted him. That statutory obligation implied a statutory right.” He moved that it be referred to a select committee to consider and report for the information of the House whether the House has any right to prevent a duly-elected member, who is willing to take the oath, from doing so. A long debate ensued, characterised by the fierceness with which Mr. Bradlaugh’s admission to Parliament was opposed. Mr. John Bright, however, asked if the House were entitled thus to obstruct what he called the right of a member to take his seat on account of his religious belief, because it happened that his belief or no belief had been openly professed, what reason was there that any member of the House should not be questioned as to his beliefs, and if the answer were not satisfactory that the House should not be at liberty to object to his taking his seat? After two or three adjournments of the debate the Premier’s amendment was virtually withdrawn, and a motion by the Attorney-General was carried to the effect that a committee should be appointed to report whether it was competent to the House to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh, by resolution, from taking the oath.

May 28th.—Committee nominated—twenty-three members.

Mr. Labouchere gives notice to ask leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law of Parliamentary Oaths, to provide that any member may, if he desire, make a solemn affirmation in lieu of taking the oath.

June 2nd.—Mr. Bradlaugh gives evidence before Select Committee, in the course of which he said: “I have never at any time refused to take the oath of allegiance provided by statute to be taken by members; all I did was, believing as I then did that I had the right to affirm, to claim to affirm, and I was then absolutely silent as to the oath; that I did not refuse to take it, nor have I then or since expressed any mental reservation, or stated that the appointed oath of allegiance would not be binding upon me; that, on the contrary, I say, and have said, that the essential part of the oath is in the fullest and most complete degree binding upon my honor and conscience, and that the repeating of words of asseveration does not in the slightest degree weaken the binding effect of the oath of allegiance upon me.” [It had been persistently represented that Mr. Bradlaugh had refused to take the oath.] “Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree.”

June 16th.—The committee report that the compliance by Mr. Bradlaugh with the form used when an oath is taken would not be the taking of the oath within the true meaning of the statutes; that if a member make and subscribe the affirmation in place of taking the oath it is possible by means of an action in the High Court of Justice, to test his legal right to do so; and that the committee recommend that should Mr. Bradlaugh again seek to make and subscribe the affirmation he be not prevented from so doing. (Majority in favor of his being allowed to affirm—four.)

June 21st.—Mr. Labouchere moved in the House of Commons that Mr. Bradlaugh be admitted to make an affirmation instead of taking the oath, seconded by Mr. M’Laren. Sir H. Giffard moved a resolution seeking to debar Mr. Bradlaugh from both oath and affirmation. Alderman Fowler seconded, a man who did not believe in a God was not likely to be a man of high moral character. The majority of the people were opposed to an Atheist being admitted to Parliament. Many other members spoke. General Burnaby said the making of the affirmation by Mr. Bradlaugh would pollute the oath. Mr. Palmer said Mr. Bradlaugh had a legal right with which the House had no power to interfere. The Attorney-General said he had come to the conclusion that Mr. Bradlaugh could not take the oath, chiefly on the consideration that he was a person entitled to affirm. Mr. John Bright said it was certainly open to any member to propose to take either oath or affirmation; probably if Mr. Bradlaugh had had any suspicion that the affirmation would have been refused him, he would have taken the oath as other members take it—very much, he was afraid, as a matter of form. Debate adjourned.

June 22nd.—Mr. Gladstone said that the House, by agreeing to the amendment, would probably be entering on the commencement of a long, embarrassing, and a difficult controversy, not perhaps so much within as beyond the limits of the House, perhaps with the result of ultimate defeat of the House. The more he looked at the case the stronger appeared the arguments which went to prove that in the essence of the law and the constitution the House had no jurisdiction. In interfering between a member and what he considered his statutory duty, the House might find itself in conflict with either the courts of law or the constituency of Northampton. No doubt an action could not be brought against the House, but he was not so clear that an action could not be brought against the servants of the House. He was still less willing to face a conflict with the constituency. The House had commonly been successful in its controversies with the Crown or House of Lords, but very different was the issue of its one lamentable conflict with a constituency.—Sir Henry Tyler, with execrable taste, dragged in the name of a lady with whom Mr. Bradlaugh is associated in business. At last, by a majority of 45—the numbers voting being 275 and 230—another triumph against liberty was scored.

The Christian World regretted that some Nonconformists helped to swell the Tory majority.

The Jewish World held it as a reproach to Judaism, that members of their community should have gone over to the party which once strove to detain them in bondage.

In 1851, Mr. Newdegate protested against the idea “that they should have sitting in the House, an individual who regarded our redeemer as an impostor,” and yet Baron de Worms voted with Mr. Newdegate for the exclusion of a man with whose tenets he disagreed.

The Whitehall Review headed an article “God v. Bradlaugh,” and said the majority had “protected God from insult.”

June 23rd.—Mr. Bradlaugh again claimed at the table of the House of Commons to take the oath, and the Speaker having informed him of the resolution passed the previous evening, requested his withdrawal. Mr. Bradlaugh thereupon asked to be heard, and after some debate the demand was complied with.

Mr. Bradlaugh spoke from the bar of the House, asking no favor, but claiming his right, and warning hon. members against a conflict with public opinion.

Mr. Labouchere moved, and Mr. Macdonald seconded, the rescindment of the resolution of the 22nd, which was lost on division.

Mr. Bradlaugh was then recalled and requested to withdraw from the House. Standing by the table, he said: “I respectfully refuse to obey the order of the House, because the order is against the law.” The raging of the bigots and Tories recommenced. Mr. Gladstone declined to help them out of the pit into which they had leapt: “Those who were responsible for the decision might carry it out as they chose.” After a sharp discussion Mr. Bradlaugh was, on the motion of Sir Stafford Northcote, “committed to the Clock Tower.” In the division the numbers were 274 for and 7 against, the Radicals having left the House.

June 24th.—On the motion of Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Bradlaugh is released from custody, “not upon apology, or reparation, or promise not to repeat his offence, but with the full knowledge and clear recollection of his announcement that the offence would be repeated toties quoties till his object was effected.”

June 25th.—Mr. Labouchere gives notice of motion to rescind the resolution of the 22nd, and Government agreed to give an early day for the discussion of the same.

June 28th.—Baron de Ferrieres announced his intention to move that the seat for Northampton be declared vacant, and that a Bill be brought in providing for the substitution of an affirmation for the oath at the option of members. Mr. Wyndham (Conservative) asked Mr. Gladstone whether the Government would bring in a Bill to remove all doubts as to the legal right of members to make a solemn affirmation. Mr. Gladstone said the Government did not propose to do so, and gave notice for Thursday (1st July) to move as a standing order that members-elect be allowed, subject to any liability by statute, to affirm at their choice. Mr. Labouchere then said he would not proceed with his motion. On another motion, however, by the same member, leave was given to bring in a Bill for the amendment of the Parliamentary Oaths and Affirmations, which was read a first time.

July 1st.—After a futile attempt made by Mr. Gorst to show that Mr. Gladstone’s resolution was a disorderly one, the Premier, in moving it said, in the course of an extremely fair speech, that the allegation of members that Mr. Bradlaugh had thrust his opinions upon the House was untrue. His (Mr. Bradlaugh’s) reference to the Acts under which he claimed to affirm had only been named in answer to a question from the clerk of the House. Sir Erskine May, in his evidence before the recent committee, stated that Mr. Bradlaugh simply claimed to affirm.

Sir Stafford Northcote admitted that when Mr. Bradlaugh was called upon to affirm he was not disrespectful, but firm. He opposed the resolution as humiliating to the House. Several members protested against any course for facilitating the admission of Mr. Bradlaugh. General Burnaby stated that in order to obtain “authoritative” opinions on the matter he had obtained letters or telegrams from the Moravian body, the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Ossory, the Bishop of Ratho, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishop of Galway, and the Bishop of Argyle and the Isles, and the Secretary of the Pope of Rome, all of whom expressed themselves in the strongest terms against the admission of an Atheist into Parliament. Mr. Spurgeon, who was unfortunately from home, had expressed his opinion strongly adverse to it, and the Chief Rabbi—(loud laughter)—although refusing to interfere with political questions, felt very deeply on the subject. (Laughter, and cries of “the Sultan,” and “Shah.”)

When the House divided the numbers were 303 for, and 249 against.

July 2nd.—Mr. Bradlaugh takes the affirmation of allegiance, and his seat.

During the struggle several hundreds of indignation meetings were held in London and the provinces, and petitions, letters, telegrams, etc., in immense numbers, poured in upon the Government and the House, in favor of Mr. Bradlaugh’s rights.

July 2nd.—Mr. Bradlaugh gives his first vote, and was thereupon served with a writ to recover against him a penalty of £500 for having voted and sat without having made and subscribed the oath, the plaintiff being one Henry Lewis Clarke, who, as subsequently appeared, was merely the tool of the actual common informer, Charles Newdigate Newdegate, M.P. This writ was ready so quickly that, if not issued actually before Mr. Bradlaugh had taken his seat, it must have been prepared beforehand.

July 8th.—Mr. Norwood asks the first Lord of the Treasury whether, considering the Government declined to introduce a bill to amend the Oaths Act, it would instruct the law officers of the Crown to defend the junior member for Northampton against the suit of the common informer. Mr. Callan asked whether the Government would remit the penalty. Mr. Gladstone said no application had been received for remission of the penalties, and that his reply to Mr. Norwood must be in the negative.

July 14th.—Read first time in the House of Commons, a bill “to incapacitate from sitting in Parliament any person who has by deliberate public speaking, or by published writing, systematically avowed his disbelief in the existence of a supreme being.” It was prepared and introduced by Sir Eardley Wilmot, Mr. Alderman Fowler and Mr. Hicks. Owing to an informality the Bill could not come on for second reading.

The Rev. Canon Abney, of Derby, speaks of Mr. Bradlaugh as “the apostle of filth, impurity, and blasphemy.”

July 16th.—Parliament indemnifies Lord Byron against an action, he having sat and voted without being sworn.

July 20th.—Sir Eardley Wilmot gives notice of moving that it is repugnant to the constitution for an Atheist to become a member of “this Honorable House.” He afterwards postponed his motion.

At a meeting of the Dumfries Town Council, a member said: “If the law courts should decide that it was legal for an Atheist to sit in the House of Commons, he should feel it is duty to give notice of petition to Parliament to have the law altered; he would not allow Mr. Bradlaugh to go into a hundred acre field beside cattle, let alone the House of Commons.”

The Rev. Chas. Voysey writes, that he feels disgraced by the people of Northampton electing Mr. Bradlaugh, and declares that “most of the speeches in the Bradlaugh case in favor of his exclusion, strike me as singularly good, wholesome and creditable.” He repeats the myth of Mr. Bradlaugh forcing his objections to the oath upon the House.

July 21st.—Sir John Hay, M.P., speaking about Mr. Bradlaugh at New Galloway, made a most infamous, cowardly, and uncalled for attack on Mrs. Besant. The Scotsman refused to print the remarks, as “the language was so coarse that it could hardly have dropped from a Yahoo.”

Aug. 1st.—The Nineteenth Century prints “An Englishman’s Protest,” written by Cardinal Manning, personally directed against Mr. Bradlaugh.

Aug. 24th.—Mr. Bradlaugh gives notice that early next session he will call attention to perpetual pensions.

Sept. 7th.—Parliament prorogued. Hansard credits Mr. Bradlaugh with about twenty speeches during the Session. (Mr. Newdegate told the Licensed Victuallers that Mr. Bradlaugh “had made one speech, and proved himself a second or third-rate speaker.”)

1881.

Jan. 6th.—Parliament reopens. Mr. Bradlaugh renews his notice as to perpetual pensions. Great interest in the question throughout the kingdom.

Jan. 24th.—Mr. Bradlaugh makes a speech in the House of Commons against Coercion in Ireland.

Jan. 31st.—Mr. Newdegate, speaking in the House, described Northampton as an “oasis in the Midland Counties.”

Feb. 4th.—Mr. Bradlaugh makes a speech against the second reading of the Coercion Bill, and concluded by moving that it be read that day six months.

Feb. 15th.—Date of motion for inquiry into perpetual pensions fixed for March 15th. (When the day arrived Mr. Bradlaugh, on an appeal from Mr. Gladstone, allowed the motion to be postponed, in order to allow supply to be taken. 848 petitions had been presented to the House, with 251,332 signatures in favor of the motion.)

Feb. 17th.—Mr. Dawson, M.P. for Carlow, said that Irish members were much indebted to Mr. Bradlaugh for what he had done on the Coercion Bill.

Feb. 25th.—Mr. Bradlaugh made final speech against third reading of the Coercion Bill.

March 7th.—The case of Clarke v. Bradlaugh heard by Mr. Justice Mathew.

March 10th.—Mr. Bradlaugh brought before the House the case of the imprisoned Maoris.

March 11th.—Judgment in the case given, which was for the plaintiff, that he was entitled to recover the penalty, subject to appeal. Mr. Bradlaugh gave notice of appeal.

Mr. Gorst gave notice to move that Mr. Speaker issue his warrant for new writ for the borough of Nottingham [!].

March 14th.—Upon Mr. Bradlaugh rising to present petitions against perpetual pensions, signed by over 7,000 persons, Mr. Gorst rose to order, on the ground that the seat for Northampton was vacant. After discussion the Speaker called upon Mr. Bradlaugh to proceed with the presentation of his petitions.

March 15th.—At request of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bradlaugh postponed his motion for enquiry into perpetual pensions.

March 23rd.—Mr. Bradlaugh moved the Court of Appeal to expedite the hearing of his appeal, and also to expedite the trial of the issues in fact. The Court gave the appeal priority over other cases.

March 28th.—Mr. Bradlaugh made his last speech in the House against flogging in the Army.

March 30th.—Appeal heard.

March 31st.—Judgment given against the defendant. Plaintiff not yet entitled to execution, but seat vacated, Mr. Bradlaugh undertaking not to appeal so far as the affirmation was concerned.

Mr. Bradlaugh again seeks the suffrages of the electors of Northampton.

April 6th.—The Tories serve notice on the Mayor not to accept Mr. Bradlaugh’s nomination, which the Mayor disregarded. Mr. Edward Corbett nominated by Tories.

April 9th.—Mr. Bradlaugh re-elected by 3,437 votes to Corbett 3,305.

April 26th.—Mr. Bradlaugh, accompanied by Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Burt, came to the table of the House, and, “the book” having been handed to him, was about to take the oath when Sir Stafford Northcote interposing, he was requested to withdraw, in order that the House might consider the new conditions under which the oath was proposed to be taken. Mr. Bradlaugh withdrew to the bar of the House, and Sir Stafford Northcote moved that he be not allowed to go through the form of taking the oath. Mr. Davey moved and Mr. Labouchere seconded an amendment to the effect that where a person who had been duly elected presented himself at the table to take the oath he ought not to be prevented from doing so by anything extraneous to the transaction. Other members spoke, and Mr. Bright regretted “the almost violent temper with which some hon. gentlemen came to the consideration of the question.”

Mr. Bradlaugh, speaking at the bar, claimed that his return was untainted, that it had not been brought about by the Liberal party, but by the help of the people, by the pence of toilers in mine and factory. He begged the House not to plunge into a struggle with him, which he would shun. Strife was easy to begin, but none knew where it would end. There was no legal disqualification upon him, and they had no right to impose a disqualification which was less than legal.

Mr. Gladstone made a lengthy and fine speech in favor of Mr. Bradlaugh, the text of which was Mr. Bradlaugh’s own words given above as to imposition of a new disqualification; on a division, however, the bigots again had it.

Mr. Bradlaugh again stepped to the table, and demanded the administration of the oath, refusing to obey the Speaker’s order to withdraw. Sir Stafford Northcote asked the Prime Minister whether he proposed to offer the House any counsel. Mr. Gladstone said he should leave it to the majority to carry out the effects of their vote. Eventually the Speaker called upon the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove Mr. Bradlaugh, who during the debate had been standing at the table. Mr. Bradlaugh withdrawing with the Sergeant three times to the bar, as often returned to the table. After further passages at arms between Mr. Gladstone and Sir Stafford Northcote, the House adjourned.

April 27th.—Mr. Bradlaugh again found at the table of the House claiming to be allowed to take the oath. At the bidding of the Speaker the Sergeant-at-Arms again caused Mr. Bradlaugh to withdraw to the bar, where he remained during the discussion which followed.

Mr. Labouchere asked the Prime Minister whether he would give him reasonable facilities to introduce his Affirmation Bill, if so Mr. Bradlaugh would not interfere with the resolution passed last night.

Mr. Gladstone said the giving facility for that purpose, meant the postponement of very serious and very urgent business, and he had no assurance as to the disposition of the House. He could not see his way to consent if it was to be an opposed Bill. After further discussion, however, Mr. Gladstone said it might be possible to test the feeling of the House by one or more morning sittings.

April 29th.—Mr. Gladstone announces the intention of the Government of bringing in a bill amending the Parliamentary Oaths Act.

May 2nd.—The Attorney-General moved that the House resolve itself into committee with a view of his asking leave to introduce the Bill. Debate on motion adjourned to the 5th with the view of fixing the time on the 6th, when the discussion should be resumed.

Mr. MacIver gave notice to ask the Prime Minister whether he was prepared to reconsider his decision of last session, and will introduce “a short measure” for the partial disfranchisement of Northampton. (The question was never put.)

May 6th.—Further obstruction of the Bigots.

May 10th.—After 1.15 a.m. the Government proposed a morning sitting for that day (Tuesday), to discuss the introduction of their Bill. Further obstruction, wrath, and bitterness, and the Government abandoned the intention to hold a morning sitting.

At the afternoon sitting a resolution was arrived at, which authorised the Sergeant-at-Arms to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh from entering the House.

Lord Selborne (Lord Chancellor) in reply to a letter relative to Mr. Bradlaugh and the oath, says equal justice is due to Christian and infidel; he saw no possibility of refusing to afford by legislation to all who scruple to take the oath, the same option in Parliament as they have in courts of law, to make an affirmation.

May 25th.—Mr. Newdegate formally blocked the Bill, of which Mr. Labouchere gave notice, for indemnifying Mr. Bradlaugh against penalties for having sat and voted on affirmation.

June 19th and 20th.—The common informer’s action tried at Nisi prius before Mr. Justice Grove. Verdict against Mr. Bradlaugh for penalty and costs.—Rule nisi for new trial afterwards, granted by Justices Grove and Lindley; this rule was made absolute by Justices Denman and Hawkins, but was set aside by Lords Justices Brett, Cotton and Holker.

Mr. Bradlaugh appeals to the country. The country answers.

Aug. 3rd.—Mr. Bradlaugh, acting on his right to enter the House of Commons, is seized at the door of the House by fourteen men, police and ushers (Inspector Denning said ten), and roughly hustled out into Palace Yard, Mr. Bradlaugh protesting against such treatment as illegal. “In the passage leading out to the yard Mr. Bradlaugh’s coat was torn down on the right side; his waistcoat was also pulled open, and otherwise his toilet was much disarranged. The members flocked down the stairs on the heels of the struggling party, but no pause was made until Mr. Bradlaugh was placed outside the precincts and in Palace Yard.”—Times. Alderman Fowler was heard to call, “Kick him out.” This he afterwards denied, but there is evidence that he did so. (Mr. Bradlaugh suffered the rupture of the small muscles of both his arms, and erysipelas ensued).

Many thousands of people went up to the House with petitions, urging the House to do justice to Northampton and Mr. Bradlaugh.

In the House Mr. Labouchere moved a resolution condemning, as an interference with the privilege of members, the action of the authorities in expelling Mr. Bradlaugh from the lobby. This was rejected by 191 votes against 7, and a motion of Sir Henry Holland, declaring the approval of the House of the course taken by the Speaker, was agreed to without controversy.