CHAPTER X
TWO PARLIAMENTS ESCAPE REFORM
Parliamentary reform, I am still sure, must sooner or later be carried in both coun-
tries. If it is well done, the sooner the better.... For God’s sake, do not persuade
yourself, in the meantime that the measure... is inconsistent with either the dig-
nity or the tranquillity and facility of government. On the contrary, I believe they
ultimately depend upon it.
—WILLIAM PITT, PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN,
TO THE DUKE OF RUTLAND, LORD
LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND, 1784
The great object of most of these reformers is to prepare the destruction of the
Constitution by disgracing and discrediting the House of Commons.
—EDMUND BURKE, MEMBER OF
PARLIAMENT FOR MALTON, 1784
As we now, after long considering the American Revolution and its influence, re-
turn to pick up the trail of events in a dozen European countries, it is well to look
back upon some of the main points staked out since the beginning of this volume.
The makings of a great conflict were accumulating in Europe, a conflict that was to
reach its height during the last years of the century and that may be called the
Great Democratic Revolution, in that it was primarily a revolt against aristocracy
in its numerous manifestations. Aristocracy was entrenched in a multitude of con-
stituted bodies—estates, diets, councils, and parliaments, and in the established
churches in view of the social origins of the higher ecclesiastical personnel. The
simultaneous growth of both aristocratic and middle- class ideals and ambitions
produced stresses of many kinds. By 1774, or the eve of the American Revolution,
the constituted bodies were yielding before contrary pressures. On the one hand,
enlightened monarchy, in its own way, worked toward a greater equality as among