The Rise of the Democracy

The Rise of the Democracy, by Joseph Clayton

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Title: The Rise of the Democracy
Author: Joseph Clayton

Release Date: October 23, 2006 [eBook #19609]
Language: English
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THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY
by
JOSEPH CLAYTON
Author of "Leaders of the People" "Bishops as Legislators," etc. etc.
With Eight Full-Page Plates

Cassell and Company, Ltd. London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1911 All Rights Reserved
[Illustration: KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA
From the Fresco in the Royal Exchange, by Ernest Normand.
By permission of Messrs. S. Hildesheimer & Co., Ltd.]

PREFACE
This short account of the rise of political democracy is necessarily but an outline of the matter, and while it is not easy to define the exact limits, there is no difficulty in noting omissions. For instance, there is scarcely any reference to the work of poets or pamphleteers. John Ball's rhyming letters are quoted, but not the poems of Langland, and the political songs of the Middle Ages are hardly mentioned. The host of political pamphleteers in the seventeenth century are excluded, with the exception of Lilburne and Winstanley, whose work deserves better treatment from posterity than it received from contemporaries. Defoe's vigorous services for the Whigs are unnoticed, and the democratic note in much of the poetry of Burns, Blake, Byron and Shelley is left unconsidered, and the influence of these poets undiscussed. The anti-Corn Law rhymes of Ebenezer Eliot, and the Chartist songs of Ernest Jones were notable inspirations in their day, and in our own times Walt Whitman and Mr. Edward Carpenter have been the chief singers of democracy. But a whole volume at least might be written on the part the pen has played in the struggle towards democracy.
Again, there is no mention of Ireland in this short sketch. A Nationalist movement is not necessarily a democratic movement, and the Irish Nationalist Party includes men of very various political opinions, whose single point of agreement is the demand for Home Rule. In India and Egypt the agitation is for representative institutions. Ireland might, or might not, become a democracy under Home Rule--who can say?
The aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of the English people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks on that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more closely for themselves the journey taken. For the long march teems with adventure and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage, pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the centuries left behind.
J.C.
HAMPSTEAD, September, 1911.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
The British Influence--"Government of the People, by the People, for the People"--The Foundations of Democracy--British Democracy Experimental not Doctrinaire--Education to Democracy
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN
The Great Churchmen--Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy--Thomas �� Becket and Henry II.--Stephen Langton and John--The Great Charter
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
Democracy and Representative Government--Representative Theory First found in Ecclesiastical Assemblies--The Misrule of Henry III.--Simon of Montfort, Leader of the National Party--Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295--The Nobility Predominant in Parliament--The Medieval National Assemblies--The Electors of the Middle Ages--Payment of Parliamentary Representatives--The Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages--No Theory of Democracy in the Middle Ages
CHAPTER III
POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND
General Results of Popular Risings--William FitzOsbert, 1196--The Peasant Revolt and its Leaders, 1381--Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450--The Norfolk Rising under Ket, 1549
CHAPTER IV
THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN
Parliament under the Tudors--Victory of Parliament over the Stuarts--The Democratic Protest: Lilburne--Winstanley and "The Diggers"--The Restoration
CHAPTER V
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT
Government by Aristocrats--Civil and Religious Liberty--Growth of Cabinet Rule--Walpole's rule--The Change in the House of Lords--"Wilkes and Liberty"
CHAPTER VI
THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA
The Witness of the Middle Ages--The "Social Contract" Theory--Thomas Hobbes--John Locke--Rousseau and French Revolution--American Independence--Thomas Paine--Major Cartwright and the "Radical Reformers"--Thomas Spence--Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals
CHAPTER VII
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE PEOPLE
The Industrial Revolution--The Need for Parliamentary Reform--Manufacturing Centres Unrepresented in Parliament--The Passage of the Great Reform Bill--The Working Class still Unrepresented--Chartism--The Hyde Park Railings, 1866--Household Suffrage--Working-class Representation in Parliament--Removal of Religious Disabilities: Catholics, Jews and Freethinkers--The Enfranchisement of Women
CHAPTER VIII
DEMOCRACY AT WORK
Local Government--The Workman in the House of Commons--Working-class Leaders in Parliament--The Present Position of the House of Lords--The Popularity of