Hugh Kenrick by Edward Cline

Author:Edward Cline [Cline, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781596929449
Publisher: M P Publishing Limited
Published: 2002-05-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21: The Toast

HUGH’S INITIATION INTO THE SOCIETY OF THE PIPPIN WAS AS RIOTOUS as its members would permit its meetings to become. In an age noted for the excess of its pleasures and vices, the Society was more sedate than most of the clubs that met in London’s innumerable taverns, coffeehouses, ale-houses, and private billets. Its members did not drink themselves under the table, nor gorge themselves to groaning immobility from a table indiscriminately piled with steaming cookery. Its custom was to have a light meal with some moderate drink, and to debate politics, government, foreign affairs, art, literature, agriculture, business, and anything else deemed by the members worthy of sober discussion and sharp thought.

The ending toast was not sedate. It was radical, and risky. “Long live Lady Liberty” was not the same as “Long live the king” or “Long live His Majesty.” The average magistrate, or high court justice, or army officer, had he overheard the toast unaccompanied by a toast to the king, would have instantly concluded that here was a conspiracy to overthrow the government and evict the throne. A toast that consciously omitted esteem for the sovereign was a toast uttered by men who did not esteem him, by men moved by another, insubordinate allegiance. To not wish the sovereign well, even as an afterthought or by rote, was to wish him ill. To neglect wishing liberty and the king well in the same breath was to sire a schism.

To the vessels of the “nomic” wisdom of the time, such a schism was imaginable only in terms of chaos, anarchy, civil war, unchecked rioting, universal destruction, and the reign of Satan. All good things, even liberty, emanated from the sovereign, with Parliament serving as a grand ombudsman. The sovereign was the lynchpin of existence, balancing church and state in both his hands; remove him, and society would crumble. The fate of the Commonwealth in the last century had proven that; was not Oliver Cromwell merely a king without a crown? The average Englishman, regardless of the power of his mind, could no more imagine a polity without a sovereign than he could a world without a God. A sovereign—whether he was elected, an heir, or a conqueror—was both a metaphysical and psychological necessity to him, the head of the body politic that ensured order and tranquility, even though, more often than not, the literal head was a criminal, wastrel, or functioning idiot. A sovereign was the keystone of society, an icon bathed in an aurora of sanctity and near-divinity, unapproachable except by his leave, even though he might be a dullard who despised Englishmen, as George II at this time was. The king could do no wrong; he was above judgment and prosecution, and so were his emissaries and any institution officially connected with his name. Parliament could do wrong, but was immune from criticism and accountability by all but its members for its multitude of wrongs. Virtually the only redress acknowledged by Parliament was a riot.

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