Rural Rides

  Long, Charles (1761–1838): first Baron Farnborough (from 1826). MP for Haslemere (1806–26). He was a prolific sinecurist. See DNB; Cole, RR, vol. Ill, pp. 1002–3.

  Long, Walter (1788–1871): Hampshire magistrate who supported the Barings in their attempt to prosecute rural rebels in 1830–31.

  Lonsdale, William Lowther (1757–1844): second Earl and masterful borough-monger. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1003.

  Lopez, Sir Manasseh Masseh (1755–1831): Jamaican-born merchant of Spanish descent who came to England and served as an MP for various pocket boroughs. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1003.

  Louis IX or Saint Louis (1214–79): King of France. He was a skilled warrior, administrator and diplomat. He attended the seventh and eighth Crusades and was canonized in 1297.

  Lowthers: renowned family of boroughmongers. See Cole, RR, vol. HI, p. 1003.

  Maberley, John: banker, Whig MP, army contractor and ‘John Bull’s Tailor’. Cobbett called him ‘Monsieur de Snip’ because of his work in army tailoring. The Frenchness of the name is a play on Maberley’s Norman roots.

  McCulloch, John (1789–1864): statistician, political economist and follower of Ricardo. Cobbett disliked his nationality, his economics and his statistics. M’ Kean, Thomas (1734–1817): Chief Justice of Philadelphia and influential Democrat who presided over a series of libel trials against Cobbett during his first stay in the United States. Cobbett dissected M’ Kean’s character in his pamphlet ‘The Democratic Judge’ (1798), reprinted in Porcupine’s Works (vol. VII) as ‘The Republican Judge’.

  MacKeen, see M’ Kean, Thomas.

  Mackenzie, Mrs: wife of Eneas Mackenzie, who was a Radical and friend of Cobbett’s.

  Mackintosh, Sir James (1765–1832): ‘Sir Jammy’, Whig MP, philosopher and historian. He cashiered his early support for the French Revolution to embrace Burkean conservatism. See DNB.

  Maddocks: see Madocks, William Alexander.

  Madison, James (1751–1836): fourth President of the United States.

  Madocks, William Alexander (1774–1828): Radical MP who in 1809 proposed that Castlereagh be censured for bribery in the case involving Quintin Dick.

  Maidulf or Maildulf (d. c. 675): monk who is supposed to have opened a school near Malmesbury. See DNB.

  Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766–1834): ‘Parson’ Malthus or ‘check-population parson’, author of the renowned Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). Cobbett said that he hated Malthus more than any other person, chiefly because he was wrong about population growth (Cobbett claimed that it was in decline — at least in rural parts) and presumptuous in his claim that the provision of poor relief might serve as an inducement to procreation. Cobbett strongly encouraged rural workers to have large families. See Spater, William Cobbett, vol. II, appendix 2; Dyck, Cobbett and Popular Rural Culture, pp. 102— 4; and Cobbett’s anti-Malthusian play Surplus Population (1831) which he arranged to be performed in parts of the rural South.

  Marlborough, George Spencer-Churchill (1766–1840): fifth Duke of Marlborough.

  Marlborough, Sarah (1660–1744): first Duchess; held an estate at Chilworth, Surrey.

  Martin, James (d. 1810) and son John (d. 1831): of Overbury Court, Worcester and Martin’s Bank. Both served as MP for Tewkesbury.

  Mary I (1516–58): Queen of England and Ireland.

  Maseres, Francis, Baron Maseres (1731–1824): lawyer, reformer and friend of Cobbett’s. Of Huguenot extraction, Maseres supported legislation beneficial to the poor; he was also a great patron of the arts. He wrote works on mathematics, politics and religion. Cobbett liked him very much, save for his Unitarianism. See DNB.

  Masséna, André (d. 1817): Marshal of Napoleon.

  Maxwells: Cobbett might have had in mind John Maxwell, MP for Renfrew, who urged studying of Robert Owen’s factory at New Lanark as a means of improving the lot of workers. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1008.

  May, Walter Barton (d. 1855): of Hadlow in Kent.

  Mayhew, Mr: farmer of Ropley Dean, Hampshire.

  Mears, Mr and Mrs: of Durley, near Botley in Hampshire. Mrs Mears employed the advice for straw-hat making that Cobbett set down in his Cottage Economy.

  Melbourne: see Lamb, William.

  Milton, Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, Viscount Milton (1786–1857): Yorkshire MP who supported parliamentary reform but was a renowned boroughmonger. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1009.

  Milton, John (1608–74): poet. Cobbett thought that Paradise Lost was ‘offensive to reason’, but knew the text well and cited it often, sometimes favourably. See Spater, William Cobbett, vol. II, pp. 537–8.

  Mitchell, Singleton: neighbour of Cobbett’s at Long Island in 1817–19.

  Molyneux: family of which the leading member in Cobbett’s day was James More, who lived near Guildford and was a large landowner in Surrey. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1010.

  Montague, Anthony Browne (d. 1592): made a viscount by Queen Mary.

  More, Sir Thomas (1478–1535): author of Utopia and Chancellor of Henry VIII.

  Movelly, John: soldier convicted of sodomy. See Jocelyn, Percy.

  Musgrave, Sir Richard (d. 1818): MP in the Irish Parliament who opposed the Act of Union.

  Nash, Mr: tenant farmer near Godalming.

  Nicholls, Mr: of Odiham in Surrey; friend of Cobbett’s.

  Nicholson, Margaret (‘Peg’) (d. 1828): a poor woman who believed that she had a claim to the throne, and accordingly attempted to stab George III. See DNB.

  Nolan, Michael (d. 1827): barrister and legal writer. Proposed reform of the poor laws, including a scheme that would see paupers enlisted in the militia. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1012.

  North: a large family that grew out of the spoils of the Reformation, serving up a prime minister in the eighteenth century and numerous sinecurists and pensioners in the nineteenth.

  Northesk, William Carnegie (1745–1831): seventh Earl; admiral whose ship was commandeered by the mutineers at Nore in 1797.

  Northington, Robert (1741–86): second Earl, lived at Alresford, Hampshire. His estate was bought by Henry Drummond and then Alexander Baring.

  Ogden, William (d. 1822): ‘the revered and ruptured Ogden’ was a phrase attributed to Canning, though he denied using it. Ogden was a Manchester printer, Radical and participant in the march of the ‘Blanketeers’ in 1817. He was arrested and so heavily shackled as to cause him to suffer a rupture. Cobbett believed that Canning had made light of Ogden’s predicament.

  Ogle, Sir Charles (1775–1858): mover of a ‘loyal address’ at a raucous county meeting in Hampshire in 1817.

  Onslow, Thomas (1755–1827): MP for Rye and then Guildford.

  Orde, the Rev. John: parson magistrate of Hampshire.

  Orde-Powlett, Thomas (d. 1807): first Baron Bolton, MP for Aylesbury.

  Owen, Robert (1771–1858): socialist and co-operative planner who at New Lanark developed a co-operative industrial community, where pay was superior and the working day shorter than in the capitalist industrial economy. Owen and his followers also established several other such communities in Britain and the United States, as well as co-operative stores and labour exchanges. Owen also led the short-lived Grand National Consolidated Trades Union as well as the National Regeneration Society. Although Cobbett saw Owen’s schemes as unnatural and fanciful, he joined his co-MP for Oldham, John Fielden, in the Regeneration Society, which sought the eight-hour day.

  Paine, Thomas (1737–1809): corset-maker, excise officer, author and revolutionary. Born in Norfolk, Paine lived an inconsequential life until emigrating to the United States, where in 1774 he emerged from the shadows with Common Sense: an articulate pamphlet condemning the British, and especially George 111, for unconstitutional conduct towards the thirteen colonies, and effectively urging Americans to declare their independence. Paine wrote widely in support of the colonists’ cause during the revolutionary wars, and afterwards returned to England where he soon became embroiled in a debate with Edmund Burke about th
e French Revolution. Paine’s book Rights of Man (1791–2) was declared outside the law in Britain, but by then he was in France, serving in the National Convention. As he wrote to George Washington, ‘a share in two revolutions is living to some purpose’. But not all went well in France. Paine was caught in the wrong camp and was thrown in gaol, allegedly for voting to spare the life of Louis XVI. Upon receiving his freedom he returned to the United States, where he died in isolation in 1809.

  Cobbett violently denounced Paine during his anti-Jacobin days, but by 1804–5 he began coming round to Paine’s economic views, particularly as regards paper money. Eventually Cobbett came to embrace most of Paine’s platform, save for his deism, republicanism and internationalism. It came as a surprise to Cobbett that there was such little interest in Paine’s bones, which he disinterred and transported back to England in 1819.

  Palmer, Mr: bailiff of Lord Folkestone (see Radnor).

  Palmers (William, Philip, Walter, George): of Bollitree, Hampshire; Radicals and family friends of the Cobbetts. They often hosted Cobbett during his rides. William’s son George occasionally accompanied Cobbett on horseback.

  Palmerston, Frances Poole, Lady Palmerston: wife of second Viscount.

  Palmerston, Henry John Temple (1784–1865): third Viscount, later Prime Minister. MP for Newtown and Secretary at War (1809–28).

  Paulet (or Powlet), Charles (1765–1843): thirteenth Marquis of Winchester. Hampshire owner whose estates were obtained through marriage. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1017.

  Paulet, Sir William (d. 1572): Marquis of Winchester. He had remarkable survival instincts in politics, holding high office under Henry VIII, Mary and Elizabeth.

  Peel, Sir Robert, the elder (1750–1830): cotton manufacturer. He was a strong supporter of Pitt, subscribing £10,000 to the ‘voluntary contribution’ of 1797 to assist with the French Wars.

  Peel, Sir Robert, the younger (1788–1850): had a rich and varied career in politics, but Cobbett knew him chiefly as author of Peel’s Act of 1819 which mapped out a strategy for returning Britain to the gold standard. Events conspired to make Peel look like a reactionary in the years prior to 1832, but he was a liberal with a conscience, as would later be revealed in his accommodation with the Reform Act and his legislation on crime and the Corn Laws. Cobbett sarcastically dedicated his Legacy to Labourers (1834) to Peel.

  Perceval, Spencer (1762–1812): Prime Minister from 1809 until his assassination in 1812. Cobbett saw him as an extender of the Pitt system.

  Peto, Mr farmer, at Albury in Surrey.

  Petty, Sir William (d. 1687): renowned political economist and scientist.

  Pitt, William, the Younger (1759–1806): Prime Minister from 1783, his twenty-fifth year. Pitt was the author of the ‘Pitt system’ that Cobbett so heartily despised, though Pitt’s reply would be that it was necessary to defeat the revolutionary French and to preserve the peace at home. For Cobbett the ‘system’ of Pitt included the paper money that accompanied the suspension of cash payments in 1797, pensions and sinecures, the rising national debt and the treason and sedition legislation of the 1790s. Cobbett rejoiced at news of Pitt’s death.

  Place, Francis (1771–1854): London Radical, tailor, sometimes ‘Peter Thimble’to Cobbett. Place and Cobbett collaborated during their early days as reformers but fell out in 1810 over personal disagreements as well as Cobbett’s decision to provide his own defence at his 1810 trial. The two men were also on different political paths: Cobbett was heading deeper into radicalism whereas Place began entertaining ideas about middle-class and working-class collaboration – something that Cobbett did not embrace (except briefly during the agitation for the Reform Bill). Place was also increasingly well disposed towards Utilitarian and Malthusian thought–both of which were anathema to Cobbett. Place was also a Londoner to the bone, whereas Cobbett came to seek his support and programme from the countryside.

  Pole, Reginald (d. 1558): Cardinal of Queen Mary.

  Pollen, Sir John Walter (1784–1863): MP for Andover and strong supporter of Pitt.

  Pope, Alexander (1688–1744): poet, whom Cobbett read while in the army.

  Portal, William (1755–1846) and John (1764–1848): owned the mill at Laverstoke which produced paper for Bank of England notes. Cobbett is doubtless alluding to John Portal, who lived at Freefolk House, Hampshire. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1020.

  Portsmouth, John Charles Wallup (1767–1853): third Earl, lived at Hurstbourne Tarrant He went insane and his second marriage (to Anne Hanson, daughter of John Hanson, solicitor to the Stamp Office) was a scandal from the start See Cole, RR, vol. HI, p. 1020.

  Poulett Thomson: see Thomson, Charles Edward Poulett.

  Poulter, the Rev. Edmund (1754–1832): chair of the Hampshire magistrates when they devised a penurious relief scale for the poor in 1822. This enhanced the dislike that Cobbett already felt for him as a ‘parson justice’ and ecclesiastical pluralist.

  Powlet: see Paulet, Charles.

  Poyntz, William (1770–1840): of Midgham, Berkshire and Cowdray, Sussex. He was the Whig MP for several different boroughs during his lifetime.

  Pratt, Charles, first Earl (d. 1794) and John Jeffreys, first Marquis (d. 1840): Charles held substantial office under the elder Pitt, including that of Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. His son John Jeffreys held highly remunerative offices of questionable public utility. By 1808 his sinecures (principally that of Teller of the Exchequer) were bringing him upwards of £20,000 a year, though he voluntarily resigned most of his income upon being investigated by Parliament in 1812. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, pp. 1021–2; DNB

  Prettyman: see Tomline, Sir George Pretyman.

  Price, John: of Ryall, near Upton on Severn, Worcestershire; farmer and Radical.

  Pym, J.: farmer at Reigate who experimented with ‘Cobbett’s Corn’.

  Radnor, Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie (1750–1828): second Earl Radnor. Unlike his son, the third Earl (see below), he was a sinecurist and boroughmonger.

  Radnor, William Pleydell-Bouverie, Viscount Folkestone and third Earl Radnor (1779–1869): educated partly in France, he developed ideas in line with some aspects of the Revolution, and conducted them to England, where he sat in Parliament as a Radical Liberal, favouring most of the causes that Cobbett did. Their only substantial difference was over the Poor Law Amendment Act, which Radnor supported.

  Raleigh, Sir Walter (d. 1618): denounced by Cobbett for having introduced potatoes to England (c. 1586). The tobacco that Raleigh also introduced seems to have been of less concern to Cobbett.

  Rawlinson, John (1778–1847): of Alresford, Hampshire. Much to Cobbett’s disgust he succumbed to the ‘Wen’ by becoming a police magistrate in Marylebone.

  Rennell, Thomas (1754–1840): Dean of Winchester and master pluralist. He was a steadfast Pittite, especially in his sermons. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1023.

  Ricardo, David (1772–1823): labelled ‘the Oracle’ by Brougham. He made a large fortune on the stock exchange by an early age, and then turned to buying up country estates. He published his influential Principles of Political Economy and Taxation in 1817 and sat in Parliament from 1818 until his death. Cobbett disliked all of his ideas.

  Ricardo, David (1803–1864): Whig MP, second son of David, the economic theorist. Cobbett nicknamed him ‘Squire Ricardo’ because he assumed his father’s estate at Gatcombe in Gloucestershire. Ricardo, Jacob: brother of David, the economic theorist. He was a financier who became embroiled in the Greek loan that saw upwards of £1,500,000 raised in support of the Greek revolutionaries. Cobbett was a staunch critic of the administration of the money, very little of which found its way to Greece.

  Ricardo, Osman (1795–1881): eldest son of David, the economic theorist. He was MP for Worcester and assumed the family estate in Gloucestershire.

  Rich, Sir Robert (1714–85): fifth Baronet; of Waverley Abbey, Surrey.

  Richard II (1367–1400): King of England.

  Richmond, Charles Gordon Lennox (1791
–1860): fifth Duke, agricultural improver, MP for Chichester 1811–19. He was a Tory and opponent of reform but showed a liberal streak with regard to legal reform and the game laws.

  Ridge, Thomas: landholder of Alresford who was renowned for his fox-hunting.

  Rivington: John (d. 1792); Charles (d. 1831); John(d. 1841): family of publishers. They served as publishers to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge from 1760. See Cole, RR, vol. Ill, p. 1025; DNB.

  Robinson, Frederick John (1782–1859): Viscount Goderich and Earl of Ripon, or ‘Prosperity Robinson’ to Cobbett. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1823, and in that office commented upon the prosperity of the country (hence the nickname), even in the face of obvious economic distress. He served briefly as Prime Minister after Canning’s death. See DNB.

  Rochester, Dean of, the Rev. Robert Stevens (1776–1870): succeeded to the Deanery in 1820.

  Roden, Robert Jocelyn, third Earl of Roden (1788–1870): JP, grand-master of Orange Society, made Baron Clanbrassil in 1821.

  Roe, James: draper of Kensington.

  Rolleston: see Rawlinson, John.

  Rollo: first Duke of Normandy (d. c. 932) from which the Dukes of Buckingham apparently claimed descent.

  Rose, George (1744–1818): of Lyndhurst in Hampshire; MP from 1784. ‘Old George Rose’ figures often in Cobbett’s writing. His name was synonymous with corruption, places, pensions and sinecures. Rose held numerous paid offices (Cobbett kept a running total), and assisted Pitt in allocating pensions and finding bodies for offices. Cobbett represents him as a bemused, jovial figure.

  Rose, Sir George Henry (1770–1855): son of ‘Old George Rose’ and MP for Southampton (1794–1813) and Christchurch (1818–44).