Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [550]
Now Porteus turned to look at Barnikel. His expression said – “There, I told you so”. But his hand was shaking with anger.
Agnes was gazing at him imploringly. He must try to keep the peace.
“Let me argue against you, Ralph,” he began. “And see, Porteus,” he cried hopefully, “if you do not find my reasoning just.”
And then, for a moment, Barnikel paused. What did he think? Which man did he actually agree with?
When he spoke, it was with perfect certainty.
“The French overturned a despotic king. But in England the very rights we have – imperfect though they may be – do not need to be snatched from a tyrant for they derive from centuries of our history: from Saxon common law, from Magna Carta, from the legislations of our parliaments, from the principles of the new monarchy set up in 1688.
“Are we so wise, have we the right, to throw away our own ancestral privileges for the sake of a Utopia which, in practice, has failed? I say no. Most Englishmen say no. Our monarchy, our Church, are old and noble institutions. They form,” he searched for a word; “they form an organism,” he went on, “like the human body itself. This, sir, is the English nation. Throw that away in the cause of a supposed perfect liberty and you may lose all. Continuity, inherited rights and privileges, sir, are the very things that make a nation. It is breaking with them that sets up tyranny.”
This was the very case made by the great Edmund Burke in his celebrated Reflections on the French Revolution. It was the perfect expression of what was acceptable to most thinking Englishmen. It was also, though he did not realise it, the perfect statement of the old world’s view, derived from feudal village, medieval guild, local courts and councils, that liberty is primarily a corporate affair, in contrast to the new world’s view that it is first and foremost an individual business. It was the grand statement of English political compromise.
He blushed. He was not used to making speeches.
“Well said, doctor.” Agnes’s eyes were shining with admiration.
He blushed deeper still.
Even Porteus, still speechless with suppressed fury, bowed stiffly towards him to indicate that he approved of what he had said.
On Ralph it had no effect at all.
“Nonsense,” he cried, “Tom Paine answered that with his Rights of Man. Each generation makes its own government. And if you believe in the natural rights of man and in reason, then the only true government is a democracy where every man has a vote. If your traditions don’t give you that, then throw them out of the window.”
Barnikel tried to interrupt him, but Ralph went on furiously.
“As for your monarchy, your inherited peerage, your rotten boroughs, your established Church, what have they to do with democracy? Sweep them away.”
It was the voice of the early revolution. It was insanity. Barnikel buried his face in his hands.
“That is treason.” It was Porteus who spoke, or rather, since his throat was constricted in a white hot fury, hissed the words. “You speak against the king as well as the Church.”
“Your Church,” Ralph retorted. “From which you derive income from – it is five or six benefices?”
Though restrictions had been placed on how far apart the parishes held by a single clergyman might be, it did not stop Porteus having three, in each of which he had a poor curate and from which he derived a modest income. This last jibe was even more insupportable to him than the rest.
“Their income was useful to you,” he thundered, “when I paid for you to go to Oxford.”
“And no doubt you think you have the right to own my opinions because of it,” he shot back furiously.
It was the last straw. Porteus rose. His long thin body shook so violently that the silver on the table rattled.
“Viper!” he screamed. “Viper in the bosom of this family! Ingrate! Traitor! Leave this house, sir. Leave this house at once!”
Only Barnikel, at that moment, had an