The rights of catholics to sit in parliament and take part in public life had been restricted since the Reformation, when the Church of England was established as the state Church. Laws were passed which discriminated against Roman Catholics, including the 1559 Act of Uniformity. Widespread discrimination and persecution followed.

Political opposition to suppression of catholics grew throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Grenvilles were strong supporters of emancipation but Lord Grenville’s government of All the Talents fell in March 1807 in the face of opposition by King George III to even limited catholic emancipation.

“The funeral procession of Broad-bottom” (6 April 1807). James Gillray’s satire of the fall of Lord Grenville’s government, portraying the Grenvilles as catholics. From left: George Grenville (the Marquess of Buckingham), Pope Pius VII and Richard Temple (Lord Temple). 

The Catholic Question split the Grenville family too. Richard Temple, the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos was an ardent supporter of the catholic cause—his mother and his sister were catholics. But his wife and their son, Chandos, were fiercely opposed to allowing catholics further rights.

In late 1828, Brunswick Clubs were formed across England with the express purpose of stirring opposition to catholic emancipation. Chandos took the chair of the newly formed Buckinghamshire Brunswick Constitutional Club in late 1828, while his father was touring the Mediterranean. When Richard got to hear of the Club in March 1829, his response was immediate and furious. He wrote an open letter from Rome to the “Gentry, Clergy, and Freeholders of the Hundreds of Buckingham, Ashendon, and Cottesloe in the County of Buckingham” condemning the Brunswick Club for misunderstanding history, the constitution and betraying his family.

Richard’s lengthy letter defends the role of catholics in British history and argues there is no constitutional reason the King could not sign an act on catholic emancipation into law. He calls on the memory of his father, George Grenville, who Richard says was much loved by the people of Buckinghamshire who had supported him in full knowledge of his pro-catholic views. And they had several times voted for Richard himself. “Every freeholder… voted for me. Ay, every one!”, he writes somewhat hysterically. The Bucks gentry had voted for him because they:

“had not then been lashed into fury and madness by intriguing, mischievous, and discontented spirits. You had not then suffered the unbridled enthusiasm and fiery zeal of heated youth to overpower prudence and overwhelm experience.”

The heated youth and discontented spirit Richard referred to was his son, Chandos. An Ultra Tory, Chandos opposed emancipation at every stage but to no avail. On 13 April, 1829, King George IV reluctantly signed “An Act for the Relief of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects” into law.

Catholic emancipation is of course not yet complete. Nearly 200 years after catholics were allowed to sit in parliament we have yet to have a catholic prime minister and a catholic cannot ascend to the throne. But then, catholic emancipation has been a slow process all along.

Andy Boddington

In 1805, James Paull arrived in the House of Commons determined to settle old scores. Paull had been a successful trader in Oudh, now part of Uttar Pradesh, in India. As he built his fortune, he became friends with the governor-general, the Marquess of Wellesley (Richard Wellesley; 1760–1842; brother of the future Duke of Wellington). That friendship abruptly ended when Wellesley threw the traders out of Oudh.

A fiery Scot and lousy gambler, Paull smouldered with anger against Wellesley and was set on revenge. In June 1805, Paull purchased a seat in parliament representing Newtown on the Isle of Wight. Almost at once, he set about trying to impeach Wellesley for ruining the trade of the nawabs of Oudh but he met ferocious resistance, not least from Richard, Lord Temple, the future Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. Whatever the merits of the case against Wellesley, and the general view was that it was not strong enough to justify impeachment, the Wellesleys were close friends of the Buckinghams. Richard would not stand by and see him impeached. The matter dragged on through parliament for two years but the motion to impeach Wellesley was finally defeated by 182 votes to 31 in 1808.

The image above is taken from James Gillray’s print “A Plumper for Paul!” published on 13 March 1807. Paull had again made a nuisance of himself by petitioning against Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s election for the seat of Westminster. He failed to overturn the election result, just as he failed to impeach Wellesley. Sheridan is shown angrily blasting Paull who has collapsed onto the Wellesley impeachment document while holding the election petition.

One memorable debate took place on Monday, 10 March 1806. In the House of Commons, Richard accused the Rajah of Bhurtpore of treachery (he was not the only MP to do so). Lord Folkestone rose and condemned Richard’s remark with words quite ahead of their time:

“This rajah is a native prince of India, having natural connections with the country; we have none such, but are really invaders, seeking to establish a dominion and to acquire an empire. In these circumstances, if these or other native chiefs should take measures for preventing us, or for expelling us, it seems to me that it might be attributed to other dispositions than those of perfidy, and such conduct be called by another name than treachery.”

An independent radical MP, William Pleydell-Bouverie the 3rd Earl of Radnor was styled Viscount Folkestone. Despite his aristocratic background, he was fiercely opposed to the old style of government that relied on patronage and sinecures—though ironically he was elected to a pocket borough controlled by his father. His retort to Richard Temple was well ahead its time and the attitudes of most British politicians to the colonisation of India were to change very slowly indeed. It would be more than 140 years before India was to break free from British rule.

Andy Boddington

It is not the task of satirists to be kind to their subjects and to the Grenvilles and their political associates, James Gillray was never kind.

William Pitt died at half past four on the morning of January 23, 1806. William Wyndham Grenville was Pitt’s natural successor and King George III commanded that he form a government. It was not an easy process. As Grenville attempted to draw together something approaching a coalition government of national unity, he found he had too many politicians jostling for the limited number of posts, while others would not join him.

On 11 February 1806, the Ministry of All the Talents began its short and troubled attempt to govern a deeply divided Britain which was still at war with France. James Fox led the government from the House of Commons and prime minister Lord Grenville led in the House of Lords.

The ministry immediately became a target of Gillray’s acerbic etching pen. Not entirely without reason, Gillray believed that many politicians of the day, especially the Grenvilles, were in politics for personal and financial gain. He shared the suspicion of the majority of the public harboured about the new government’s catholic leanings. And he believed the growing burden of taxation was sucking working people dry to finance the ambitions and line the pockets of government.

Three weeks after the new government began work, Hannah Humphrey published James Gillray’s satire on the Ministry of All the Talents—“More Pigs than Teats”. It portrays 29 identifiable politicians rushing to suckle John Bull’s sow. Sidmouth, Grenville, Fox and Spencer are already sucking while others scramble for a teat. At the left edge latecomers are rushing to join the government and some do not succeed. Gillray subtitled the work “The new Litter of hungry Grunters sucking John Bull’s old Sow to death”. Grunters is probably an allusion to the Grenvilles, three of whom were in the cabinet. 

In an age where photography had not been invented and newspapers were yet to carry illustrations, cartoons like these carried an additional importance in putting a face to a name. One of Gillray’s great skills was portraying faces. He of course exaggerated facial features, sometimes grossly, but his caricatures are instantly recognisable. On the image below, I identify the politicians.

Andy Boddington

Lady Maria Nugent writes a note in her diary after dining at my father’s house in Pall Mall, where the talk was of William Pitt’s illness. Mr Pitt, Prime Minister, died two days later. Maria’s last words in this record will resonate with politicians and their families in any era.

Dine again in Pall Mall. A sociable and agreeable, though a rather melancholy party, poor Mr. Pitt being at the point of death, and almost the sole subject of conversation. Came home, reflecting much upon the lives of politicians, and how absorbing politics are of every other feeling.

“How absorbing politics are of every other feeling,” Maria wrote. Days after this was written, I was to join the new government. How true her words were to prove!

The cartoon below by James Gillray shows my family's government being kicked out by George III. I am head first in the water at the front with the label: "Last Stake of the Broad-Bottomed Family". Ouch!

Richard Temple