The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1775: Chapter 90: Each Generation Brings Forth New Talent

In 1830s Britain, there were fewer than 400 families that truly owned large estates or held senior government positions without having been granted hereditary honors. Even among these 400 so-called ”commoner” families, as well as between them and noble families, there were close blood and marital ties.

—— John Burke ”Burke’s Peerage”

If you were to ask Arthur what impression he had of the British nobility,

perhaps it could be summed up by referencing a speech made by Tory Party MP Hanna More in 1780: Our nobility hold prestigious positions among the public, yet they not only fail to uphold the dignity of their status, they have instead disgraced and defiled it. Our young nobility consist of clowns, philanderers, and spendthrifts, while the older members shamelessly plunder the public to cover their descendants’ deficits. The government attempts to reform the poor while turning a blind eye to the corruption of the wealthy, equivalent to poisoning the water source while pouring perfume into the stream; it is purely futile.

Of course, it might be unfair to only highlight their faults when discussing the British nobility.

Because their numbers were significantly fewer compared to other European countries.

On the eve of the French Revolution, the nobility in continental European countries comprised about one to two percent of the population.

Take France as an example: at that time, there were approximately 60,000 noble households, with the noble class numbering between 350,000 and 400,000, accounting for about 1.3% to 1.5% of the total population.

And how about the number of nobility in England during the same period? Since Ireland had not yet merged into the Kingdom of Great Britain, the number of English nobility was relatively easy to count. Simply subtract the 26 bishop seats and the 16 Scottish noble seats from the 345 seats in the House of Lords, then you can conclude that there were 302 hereditary noble households in England, and calculating 20 people per household, the noble class in England accounted for less than one-thousandth of England’s total population.

And following the integration of Ireland into the Kingdom of Great Britain through the Anglo-Irish Union Act, the proportion of the population that nobles accounted for fell even further.

Thus, compared to continental European countries, although the personal quality of the British nobility might not be significantly superior, at least in terms of numbers, they imposed a slightly lighter burden on the general society.

Or perhaps putting it this way is still inadequate, because even among the nobility, there are distinctions of high and low status, and not every noble is wealthy. At least before the 1831 parliamentary reform, Arthur was quite certain that British politics were primarily dominated by 90 noble families.

As for the remaining few hundred, many of them were not particularly affluent, and those in debt were not in the minority.

Overall though, compared to the situation in Russia, France, and the German States, the condition in Britain was considerably better.

Because the characteristic of the British nobility to favor country life does not completely isolate their lives from the general public, and at least the landlord class in Britain has always remained open to new members from industry, commerce, and other professions. The pathways for lower-level nobles to ascend were at least mildly accessible.

Take the example of the Duke of Wellington’s family. In the generation of the Duke of Wellington’s father, the Wellesley family holding the title of Earl of Mornington was merely an ordinary Irish noble family, on par with the family of Eld.

If the family had been particularly wealthy, the Duke of Wellington would not have been sent by his mother to attend military school in France.

But it was from the Duke of Wellington’s generation that the Wellesley family, having produced several outstanding sons, leapt forward to become a top-tier British noble family.

The Duke of Wellington’s elder brother, Richard Wellesley, the 1st Marquess Wellesley, started off as the follower of the Prime Minister Little William Pitt and rose through the Indian Management Committee to become the Governor of India. During his tenure as Governor of India, he collaborated with his fourth brother, the Duke of Wellington, to completely conquer the Kingdom of Mysore in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, and through the Second Maratha War, forced the Maratha States in India to become vassals of the British East India Company. In the Percival Cabinet, he again, as Foreign Secretary, assisted his brother, the Duke of Wellington, in preparing for the Peninsular War. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he then served as Governor of Ireland for seven consecutive years, and last year, when Peel was forming the Cabinet, he invited this veteran of the Tory Party to return to help oversee Ireland.

The Duke of Wellington’s second brother, William Wellesley, the 1st Baron Maryborough, was skilled in financial matters. He served as the Chairman of the Irish Finance Committee for many years, and when the British Government faced financial strain due to the Napoleonic Wars, he became the Master of the Mint, fully participating in the implementation of the post-war gold standard restoration policy.

And the Duke of Wellington’s younger brother, Henry Wellesley, the 1st Baron Cowley, was a diplomat far more professional than Sir Arthur Hastings. In 1809, during the time when the Duke of Wellington was battling several Marshals of the French Empire on the Iberian Peninsula, Henry Wellesley was transferred to the post of Envoy to Spain, taking on the responsibility of coordinating communications between the Duke of Wellington and the Spanish Government. After the Napoleonic Wars, he was again dispatched to Vienna to serve as the Ambassador to Austria, acting as an important bridge for communication between the British Government and the Austrian Emperor and Prime Minister Metternich. If it wasn’t for the influence of the parliamentary reform, his term in Vienna might not even have ended by now.