The Move to Conservatism

Abstract

On Queen Victoria’s accession the political situation somewhat altered. The Government, long declining, hoped for the sympathy or at least neutrality of the Crown; and both sides were prepared to use the young Monarch’s personal ‘appeal’ in election propaganda. ‘The object of the Whigs’, wrote Greville, ‘was to remain in office, to put down the Radicals and Radicalism and go on gradually and safely reforming’, though some had ‘more extensive and less moderate views’. Meanwhile, the Tories were ‘thirsting for office’ and their impatience was restrained ‘within moderate bounds’ only by ‘the prudent reserve of Peel (in which Stanley and Graham probably joined)’. An exciting election was at hand. And Graham knew that his contest in East Cumberland was virtually hopeless. The Chronicle urged electors to ‘leave him to the house of refuge of the Lowthers [for] a penitentiary would not reclaim such a big offender’. Graham’s defeat would give the Whigs ‘extreme satisfaction, for they hate him rancorously’, wrote Greville, who could understand their feelings about ‘political conduct … neither creditable nor consistent’. Durham claimed to have extremist letters from Graham over the Reform Bill; yet now Graham was a near-Tory, ‘a very high Churchman and one of the least liberal of the Conservative leaders’. If London Whigs held such views, local men could scarcely be expected to be silent. At a Carlisle meeting in June 1837, under Henry Howard, Graham was strongly condemned; and 2,590 of the 4,688 electors signed a requisition for Major Aglionby and James to contest the seat.