inoffensive, supported the bill, because, as he said, he dreaded the
consequences of a refusal of concession to the demands of the people,
rather than because he loved reform, which he had previously opposed.
The Duke of Wellington of course uttered his warning protest, and was
listened to more from his fame as a warrior than from his merits as a
speaker. Lord Brougham delivered one of the most masterly of his great
efforts in favor of reform, and was answered by Lord Lyndhurst in a
speech scarcely inferior in mental force. The latter maintained that if
the bill became a law the Constitution would be swept away, and even a
republic be established on its ruins. Lord Tenterden, another great
lawyer, took the side of Lord Lyndhurst, followed in the same strain by
Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury. On a division, there was a
majority of forty-one peers against the bill.

The news spread with rapidity to every corner of the land that the Lords
had defeated the reform for which the nation clamored. Never in England
was there greater excitement. The abolition of the House of Lords was
everywhere discussed, and in many places angrily demanded. People could
do nothing but talk about the bill, and politics threw all business into
the shade. An imprudent speech from an influential popular leader might
have precipitated the revolution which the anti-reformers so greatly
dreaded. The disappointed people for the most part, however, restrained
their wrath, and contented themselves with closing their shops and
muffling their church bells. The bishops especially became objects of
popular detestation. The Duke of Newcastle and the Marquis of
Londonderry, being peculiarly obnoxious, were personally assailed by a
mob of incensed agitators. The Duke of Cumberland, brother of the king,
was dragged from his horse, while the mob demolished the windows of the
palace which the nation had given to the Duke of Wellington. Throughout
the country in all the large towns there were mobs and angry meetings