Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament. John Morrison Davidson

serve the nation it would be impossible to adduce.

      "That which is bred in the bone," says the proverb, "will come out in the flesh." The anti-monarchical sympathies of the Dilkes, like those of the Taylors, are at least as much inherited as acquired. No fewer than three of the Dilke ancestry were among the judges of Charles I.; viz., the resolute Bradshaw, who presided over the High Court of Justice, Sir Peter Wentworth, and Cawley. All were stem foes of "one-man government," whether that one man were the "divine right" Charles Stuart, or the Puritan Bonaparte, Oliver ​Cromwell. "For what king's majesty," asks the immortal defender of the regicides, Milton, "sitting on an exalted throne ever shone so brightly as that of the people of England then did, when, shaking off that old superstition which had prevailed a long time, they gave judgment on the king himself, or rather upon an enemy who had been their king, caught, as it were, in a net by his own laws, and scrupled not to inflict on him, being guilty, the same punishment which he would have inflicted on any other? … This is the God," he continues, "who uses to throw down proud and unruly kings … and utterly to extirpate them and their family. By his manifest impulse being set at work to recover our almost lost liberty, we went on in no obscure but an illustrious passage pointed out and made plain to us by God himself."

      At his trial Charles vainly declined to recognize the authority of the court, on the silly pretext that he himself was "the fountain of all law." "If you are the fountain of all law," curtly observed Bradshaw, "the people are the source of all rights." When the Cromwellian coup d'etat took place. Sir Peter Wentworth was, I think, the last man in the House to protest against the violence offered to the representatives of the people; and Bradshaw afterwards told the military usurper to his face, "We have heard what you did, and all England shall know it. Sir, you are mistaken in thinking Parliament is dissolved. No power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves. Take you notice of that."

      One of Sir Peter Wentworth's sisters was married to Bradshaw's brother; while another, Sybil Wentworth, became the wife of Fisher Dilke, from which ​union the distinguished representative of Chelsea in Parliament is lineally descended.

      The Dukes were probably of Danish origin, and are to be found settled at Kirby Mallory, in Leicestershire, as early as the middle of the sixteenth century.

      Fisher Dilke was a Puritan of the Puritans, much given to angling, and piety of an extravagant kind. He was a Fifth Monarchy man, and, like his sect, would have prepared the ways of King Christ, and made the paths of his speedy return straight by first abolishing all existing authority and cancelling all bonds of human allegiance. He was doomed to sore disappointment. His co-sectaries mustered strong in Barebone's Parliament, but in the eyes of the pious Lord Protector did no good whatever, though they never deliberated without meanwhile setting apart a committee of eight of their number to seek the Lord in prayer. Their mittimus came speedily from the Protector in the memorable words, "You may go elsewhere to seek the Lord, for to my certain knowledge he has not been here for many years."

      At the restoration of the monarchy Fisher Dilke is said to have died of sheer grief, having first dug his own grave.

      Of all Sir Charles's ancestors, however, the most remarkable was Peter Wentworth, the grandfather of Sybil, wife of Fisher Dilke, leader of the Puritan opposition in Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and brother-in-law to the famous Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham. This Peter and his brother Paul were seldom out of trouble. Hallam calls them "the bold, plain-spoken, and honest, but not very judicious Wentworths, the most undaunted assertors of civil liberty in his reign."

      ​In the Parliament of 1575 Peter made a stiff speech in defence of the rights and privileges of the Commons. It is on record. "I find," said he, "within a little volume these words in effect: 'Sweet is the name of liberty, but the thing itself a value beyond all estimable treasure.' So much the more it behooveth us to take great care lest we, contenting ourselves with the sweetness of the name, lose and forego the thing. … Two things do great hurt in this place. The one is a rumor which runneth about saving, 'Take heed what you do: the queen liketh not such a matter. Whoso preferreth it she will be offended with him.' The other, a message is brought into the House either commanding or inhibiting, very injurious to the freedom of speech and consultation. I would to God these rumors and messages were buried in hell; for wicked they are: the Devil was the first author of them, from whom proceedeth nothing but wickedness."

      And so on he went reprobating the venal flatterers of royalty who "make traitorous, sugared speeches," "send to her Majesty a melting heart that will not stand for reason," and who blindly follow their leaders instead of voting "as the matter giveth cause."

      Peter was not permitted to finish his speech, but was given into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, pending an examination of the delinquent by a committee of the House."

      His apology is recorded: "I heartily repent me that I have hitherto held my peace in these causes, and I do promise you all, if God forsake me not, that I will never during my life hold my tongue if any message is sent in wherein the liberties of Parliament are impeached; and every one of you ought to repent you of these faults, and amend them."

      ​He was, of course, sent to the Tower, where he remained over a month, when "her Majesty was graciously pleased to remit her justly occasioned displeasances."

      He returned to the House; but in the following session he was recommitted for a similar offence. Indeed, he appears latterly to have spent more of his time in the Tower than at St. Stephen's; and in the Tower the stout-hearted, liberty-loving man is believed ultimately to have perished.

      His plainness of speech had aroused against him more than royal ire. He and Paul were both at constant feud with the prelates. On one occasion the Archbishop of Canterbury announced, in the hearing of Peter, that it was the function of Parliament to pass articles of religion approved of by the clergy without note or comment. "No," said the indomitable iconoclast, "by the faith we bear to God, we will pass nothing before we understand what it is; for that were but to make you popes. Make you popes who list, we will make you none."

      Through the member for Chelsea, Elizabethan Peter yet speaketh. And how modern is it all! How little real progress have the English people made in liberty since these indignant words were uttered three centuries ago! Nay, may it not even be doubted whether in some respects we have not even lost ground? Have we not still bishops thrusting down our throats articles of religion which neither they nor we can understand? Have we not likewise our royal "messages" respecting manifold dowries and annuities, duly heralded by sinister "rumors" of royal "displeasance," which incontinently convert honorable members into a troop of court ​flunkies, and make even Liberal Ministers deliver themselves of " ti'aitorous, sugared speeches," enough to make Peter and Paul Wentworth turn in their coffins?

      "Age, thou art shamed!

       Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

       Oh! you and I have heard our fathers say

       There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd

       The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome

       As easily as a king."

      Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, M.P., is the eldest son of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, first baronet, and grandson of Charles Wentworth Dilke, the celebrated critic, whose literary judgment and administrative talent were the chief stock in trade both of "The Athenaeum" and "The Daily New" in their younger days.

      Sir Charles's father, as is well known, was much devoted to matters affecting art and industry, and was a leading promoter of the great Exhibition of 1851. As some acknowledgment of his eminent services, he was offered, and accepted, contrary to the advice of his father the critic, a baronetcy. The old gentleman was an inflexible Radical; and Sir Charles may be said, in all his mental and moral characteristics, to be the son of his grandfather rather than of his father. He was the preceptor and companion of Dilke's youth. He was an antiquary as well as a critic, and loved to trace the descent of grandson "Charley's" mother from the gentle and unselfish regicide Cawley as a noble pattern for her to set before her son.

      The future member for Chelsea was born in the borough which he now represents in September, 1843. He is consequently in his thirty-seventh