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Is everything ready? Said the honorable Samuel Sumkee to Mister Perker. Everything, my dear sir, was the little mans reply. Nothing has been omitted, I hope, said the honorable Samuel Slumkey. Nothing has been left undone, my dear sir. Nothing whatever. There are 20 washed men at the street door for you to shake hands with, and six children in arms that you are to pat on the head and inquire the age of be particular about the children, my dear sir. It always has a great effect, that sort of thing. Ill take care, said the honorable Samuel Sumkee. And perhaps, my dear sir, said the cautious little man, perhaps if you could. I dont mean to say its indispensable, but if you could manage to kiss one of them, it would produce a very great impression on the crowd. Wouldnt it have as good an effect if the proposer or seconder did that? Said the Honorable Samuel Slumkey. Why, im afraid it wouldnt, replied the agent. If it were done by yourself, my dear sir, I think it would make you very popular. Very well, said the Honorable Samuel Slumke with a resigned air. Then it must be done.

Thats all. Arrange the procession. Cried the 20 committee men. There was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited for the Honorable Samuel Slumkey to step out of his carriage. Suddenly the crowd set up a great cheering. Hes come out. Said little Mister Perker, greatly excited, the more so as their position did not enable them to see what was going forward. Another cheer, much louder. He has shaken hands with the men. Cried the little agent. Another cheer, far more vehement. He has patted the babes on the head, said Mister Perker, trembling with anxiety. A roar of applause rent the air. He's kissed one of em. Exclaimed the delighted little man. A second roar. He's kissed another. Gasped the excited manager. A third roar. He's kissing em all. Screamed the enthusiastic little gentleman. And hailed by the deafening shouts of the multitude, the procession moved on. So, Dominique, that was the Pickwick papers by Charles Dickens, which he wrote in 1836.

Yeah.

So that is four years after the great reform bill had widened the franchise. Yes, and that is a description of an election in the east anglian town of Eton Swill, which is a very dickensian name. I think it's based on Bury St. Edmunds and Dickens himself. You know, he'd been a parliamentary reporter and all through his life he never stinted, basically, in his contempt for politicians, MP's, parliament, elections. And I guess that in that way he stands at a tradition that's still going strong today. Because here we are in the midst of a parliamentary election.

Yeah.

And we thought it would be fun to look at the history of election campaigns, didn't we?

We did indeed. We did indeed. So the honorable Samuel Slumkey. He sounds like a much more natural campaigner than Rishi Sunak or Kirstama. So he's a bit hesitant about the baby kissing at first, but then he's clearly thrown himself into it.

Oh, completely.

Yeah.

So he's the Tory in that he's up against a Liberal and he wins.

Does he? Does Samuel Slumky win?

Yeah, he does win.

Who's Mister Pickwick favoring in this? Samuel Slumkey?

I think they can't decide. Yeah, they're favoring whichever party of supporters they mix up with. Because the supporters are quite violent.

Of course they are.

Which is basically the theme of today's episode, isn't it?

It is the theme of today's episode, yeah. Because elections were so. I mean, in Dickens time, elections were so colorful. And the Pickwick paper is probably the most famous description of an election. That's sort of carnivalesque.

Yeah.

There's booze, there's ribbons, there's crowds, there's babies. It's like a huge public event and great excitement. And it's great fun.

Yeah.

I think it's much more fun than a modern election, don't you? I mean, there is an element of management, but it's not as bland as a modern election.

I mean, the electorate is smaller, even with the great Reform act, which widens the franchise. And so that means there can be much more targeted bribery.

They can, yeah.

So I think if you're a voter, that must make it more fun.

There's bribery, there's enormous hooliganism, which we're getting stuck into.

Lots of beer.

Yeah. And there's also people being shot in the face.

Okay, that's less fun if you get shot in the face.

That's right. But we're gonna be getting onto that in due course. So we thought we'd do this episode about the sort of the riotous history of general elections. So general elections in the more distant past, and then we'll do one on more recent elections.

So today's is the deep history, isn't it?

The deep history. So the first elections are actually quite old. So the first parliament people, when they talk about parliament, they say, well, the first parliament was 1230, 612, 37, but there's no commons in that parliament. So that's basically a gathering of barons approving taxes. You probably get the first elections as early as 1265. And actually, this is. It's called Simon de Montfort's parliament. So Simon de Montfort's the kind of over mighty baron who challenges Henry III.

He ends up castrated.

Yes, he does. It's good to get that in early. He basically summons a parliament, a big council of people, to approve his policies.

And a parliament is where people talk.

Yes, exactly. And he's unusual. He gets the nobility and the churchman, but he also gets burgesses. So basically town bigwigs, but commoners from all the major towns, so York and Lincoln and so on, and summons them to London. And we don't know how they were chosen, but they were chosen somehow. Now, it wasn't democratic, and there probably wasn't a contest because they were basically chosen because they would do Simon de Montfort's bidding. But that principle of the major town, people will actually choose somebody to represent them in London and agree to taxes.

And even then, it's about taxes, right?

It's always about taxes. So that's why when we did our series on the American Revolution, that's at the heart of the american revolution. So, on the one hand, you have people who say, listen, parliament has always had the right to levy taxes. That is one of the cornerstones, if you can have multiple cornerstones, of the english constitution. And on the other hand, you have the american revolutionaries who say, hey, but the point is the town sends somebody to parliament, and we haven't sent anybody.

No taxation without representation.

Exactly. So taxation's always there. But this idea that people will be chosen somehow, in some obscure way. And actually, the truth of it is that from that point onwards, all the way through to, let's say, the dawn of political parties. So that's the reign of Charles II and then his successors, the Whigs and the Tories. So in that intervening period, which is, what, 400 years or so, we don't actually really know how people were chosen. It's very confused, it's very mysterious. Basically, what will happen is every now and again, the king will send a writ to two different places, to the counties and to the boroughs, and he'll say, I want you to send two MP's to parliament and how they choose them. There's no law, there's no set rules. So it's basically local custom that determines it. And actually, you would think that people are always saying, oh, let's have open contests, let's have more and more people choosing. But no, not at all. The gist of it is people say, well, too many people are choosing.

I was just thinking about that. The idea that shrinking the electorate is democratic.

This is my policy, Tom.

But if you think today there's kind of arguments about how party leaders are chosen.

Yeah.

And at the moment it's party members and it's not the MP's, and there's a real movement to say, actually, it should just be MP's because party members are all mad, by definition. Because they're party members.

Yeah. Who joins a political party, so they.

Shouldn'T be allowed anywhere near an election.

Exactly.

So it's a bit like that, isn't it?

It is a bit. So, in 1429, I read, there's a brilliant essay on this by a guy called Neil Johnston from the House of Commons library, and he says that in 1429, the Commons actually presented a petition to the king, to King Henry VI, and they said an excessive number of people are deciding who the MP's are. And the greater part of these people are people of little or no means, and these people pretend to have an equivalent voice as the most worthy knights or esquires dwelling in the same counties. In other words, like upper starts, people have no consequence, Tom.

Yeah. Well, do you know, Dominic, whenever I read about kind of medieval or early modern elections, I always think they sound much more fun and that we should go back to organizing like that.

Definitely. Much better. So this sort of emerges a consensus that basically, you don't get to vote, really, unless you own a freehold. So you have property worth 40 shillings or more in land in a particular place.

And, Dominic, that might mean that a woman could vote.

Right. Well, this is a fascinating thing. So under the Tudors and the Stuarts, it is perfectly possible. We don't know for sure, but it is possible that women could have voted.

I think it's generally held to be likely, isn't it?

Yeah, I think because, for example, if you have a rich widow who owns property, it is perfectly possible that she could have voted. And some people think, well, maybe the way it worked was, you know, in places where people were suspicious of a woman voting, she would take a lodger and basically he would vote for her, or she would lend her vote to somebody in some way. So there's that. So, first of all, it's not certain that it was actually just men. So you've got two kinds of seats, counties and boroughs. And in the counties we've said you have to have property worth 40 shillings. Now, in a borough it is totally random. So that's basically a town. It's completely mad and random.

Well, as someone from Salisbury. Sarum. Yeah, new sarum. But we have old sarum outside it. Yeah, it's the most famous of all Rottenboroughs.

Well, we'll get to Rottenboroughs in a second.

Oh, sorry, I'm jumping the gun here.

That's all right.

But it's my over excitement at the fact that Salisbury's going to feature it.

Of course, I know you love Wiltshire and the Salisbury area generally, there's no question about that. So here are some fun complications. So first of all, there are boroughs that are called Scott and lot boroughs.

Brilliant.

So Tom, this is a borough where you're liable to a scot of a lot. I think that clarifies. Of course that clarifies things.

Okay, what does that mean?

So a Scot is like a payment and a lot is a share.

So it's not if you keep a Scotsman.

No, this is a very bad thing, a scot of a lot, because it means you have to pay a share of the local church and poor relief tax, you know, rates. So then you get to vote.

I wouldn't mind doing that. Compassionate person.

Then there's a pot walloper borough.

Right.

And a pot walloper borough. You're a householder, you're not on welfare, you're not on benefits, they don't make any claim on poor relief. And you have your own hearth on which you can wallop a pot.

A pot.

And that means to boil a pot.

Do you have to wallop a pot? Is this kind of part of the ritual, part of the election, fun? You get out of your pot and wallop it.

You have to demonstrate that you can boil a kettle. Yeah, exactly. Then slightly more boringly, there's corporation boroughs. So this basically is very corrupt. This is where the corporation of a town, the people who are basically the town council or whatever, they choose the MP's and they can give no consideration whatsoever to the residents. And there the corporation is self sustaining. So in other words, it's like a closed oligarchy. When somebody dies or whatever, the corporation effectively choose who replaces them. So if you have somewhere like the good example is Tiverton. It's Devon, isn't it?

Tiverton, yeah, it is in Devon.

So there before the great Reform act that you mentioned, at the beginning, there were 10,000 residents, but only 25 of them could vote. And they were the corporation. And basically, the corporation usually did the bidding of the local landowner. So that's a corporation bearer. And then my favorite of all these complicated things is the faggot vote.

So this will be of interest to our american listeners.

It definitely will be. So, the faggot vote. Basically, what happens there is you, Tom Holland, own a 40 shilling freehold. You own some land in Wiltshire. Let's say you're rewilding some land in Wiltshire, Tom, for example, and that would give you a vote. Now, you might subdivide your land up into parcels and sell them off and say these are all 40 shilling freeholds, but you would basically do a deal with the people who buy them. You're creating more voters, but they will vote as you instruct them.

Brilliant. I'm all in favor of that.

So that was outlawed by the splitting act of 1696, but people ignored that and carried on creating faggot voters.

Woke tosh. That's the bulldog spirit.

Exactly.

So this is the kind of stuff that maybe reform could bring back in, right?

Yes. Properly turn the clock back to a more organic voting system that better reflects the sensibilities of the british people.

The organic traditions of the mother of parliament.

Exactly.

Also, just to ask, don't Oxford and Cambridge have MP's as well?

Yes, they do. They're the only ones. Only universities.

But that goes right the way up, I think, to the 20th century.

Yes, to the second World War, thereabouts. I think the Oxford and Cambridge had MP's. I mean, that is mad. Now, you mentioned rotten boroughs and old Sarum.

Yeah.

So for people who don't know, what is old Sarum?

So old Sarum is an iron age hill fort, and then it became a roman town and then it became an anglo saxon center for moneyers, so coining. And then it became a norman stronghold.

Yeah.

And they built the first Salisbury cathedral there, but it wasn't very convenient because it didn't have water supply, so basically, there were limitations to how large it could grow. And so they moved down to where the cathedral currently stands. The new cathedral.

Yeah.

And old Sarum was kind of left as a historical antiquity, so constable famously painted it.

So it's basically like a dead town, like a ghost town, almost.

It's not even that.

There's nothing there.

Yeah, there's very little there. I mean, there's kind of chunks of castle or whatever, but the cathedral has completely vanished. You can just see the outline. Yeah, it's fabulous.

So old Sarum, when it was a thing, old Sarum had been given the right to send two mp's to parliament in 1295, but obviously it declines and declines and declines. But when you've got that right, you never lose it.

Right?

So basically, there's nobody living there, but they're still sending two mp's. And this is obviously demented, but you can't change it, Tom.

Well, you say that, but why do you hate Britain? Dominic?

Yeah, so there's a wonderful description of the election. In 1802, the election was held in a booth in a cornfield, under a tree, which marked the former boundary of the town.

I think this is everything about merry England, and I'm amazed you're against it.

And the source says, not a vestige of which the town has been standing in the memory of man being now without a dwelling for a human being. So there are five electors. They are the Reverend Doctor Skinner, the Reverend Mister Burrow, Mister William Dyke, Mister Massey and Mister Brumsden. The Reverend Skinner nominates two potential mp's and he says their conduct will give satisfaction, due honor to their constituents who don't really exist.

Well, the five of them do.

Now, the other electors agree to this. The other four people, they say, brilliant, let's send these two guys and they get two mp's. This is in an era when Manchester has no mp's at all.

Yeah, well, I think sensible policies for a happier Britain.

Now, this election, which is very pickwickian, very dickensian, this was actually being controlled. It had been bought by the Earl of Caledon. He had bought the land and basically, he had installed the electors, and he is supposed to have paid 60,000 pounds for it. And that's the equivalent. I checked at their website, measuring worth, which is kind of academic calculator. That's the equivalent of about 80 million pounds today. So in other words, he's a super rich magnate who has paid 80 million pounds for two mp's.

Now he has them in his pocket.

Yeah, now he has them in his pocket. Exactly. But I mean, obviously, our subject is elections. There are lots of proper elections, because at the point where you get party politics. So the Whigs and the Tories, and we can go on to talk a little bit, maybe, about what the Whigs and the Tories are. There are probably about 200,000 people who can vote. So there are 200,000 of these freeholders and whatnot. And there's a brilliant, brilliant online project done by the University of Newcastle on 18th century political culture. And there's an opening essay by Doctor Hilary Burlock, which lays out exactly how an 18th century or late 17th century election would work. So basically, parliament is dissolved and the Lord Chancellor sends out writs for a new parliament. And it's a very sort of chaotic and confused picture, because the elections are decided kind of locally and they can happen at different times and often they can happen over different days. So it's a big nominating meeting, and if there are more than two candidates, then basically everyone's like, yes, we're going to have an election. So then they just start throwing massive banquets and feasts.

They offer. What are treats treating like? Obviously, the thing in pickwick papers is a treat, and treating is probably the central element of an election campaign. It's basically big open air street parties. Sausage rolls, beer, pies.

This would be illegal now.

I haven't really thought that through. The idea of going to a treat organized by Keir Starmer would fill me with such gloom, Tom, I don't know.

I'd go to them all. Would you spit roasting a hog?

They wouldn't be, though, would they? Come on the Labor party to be spit roasting a hog, rolling out barrels of beer. That's reform. That's Farage's treat.

Yeah, well, I think that might help him sweep to power.

I mean, that's basically him posing with his beer, which he always does.

Yeah, that's in the tradition, isn't it?

That's a kind of vestige, in a weird way, of this. Unlike Ed Davey going on his log flumes and falling off paddleboards again, the liberal Democrat leader.

Well, we'll be coming to that, but I just wonder whether this whole thing of you have a massive street party for people. I mean, presumably that can't be legal anymore. People would do it.

It would probably be considered bribery. I don't think you're allowed to give anything. There were various bribery acts to try and get round all this, but what they would do is, for example, the parties would sell goods. So they'd say, well, we're not bribing anybody, we're actually selling things. But they'd sell them at massive discounts so that you would be getting stuff, like a quarter of the price. So it kind of is bribery, but disguised. And they would go around, they'd give everyone in the town ribbons and cockades in all different colors. There's no set colors. You would choose colors, you know, yourself, really. In the american revolutionary period, the colors associated with the american revolution, I read, are blue and buff. So Charles James Fox, who's very keen on the American Revolution, he wears blue and buff. But his opponent, Sir Cecil Ray, wears green instead. So it's just totally random. The election starts when you open the polls. So what this means is there's a big sort of hustings. So it's big and it's kind of open air. Often the sheriff or the mayor or some local grandee reads the writ of election to a big crowd.

And then the way it works, let's say you want to vote, Tom, you're in Wiltshire.

Yeah. And I've banged my pot, or whatever it is you do.

Yes, exactly. You've walloped your pot.

Yeah.

And you're surrounded by your faggot voters. So the way it works is you would have to go and you'd have to give your vote orally for everyone to hear.

Oh, so everyone would know who I'd voted for.

Yeah. And you have two votes, except if you're in London, where you have four votes, or if you're in Abingdon, where you have one, for reasons that are unclear.

Right. Unclear.

So you have your two votes. Now, there were tickets, so people would say the Whig men are Dalrymple and young Smith, or whatever, and you could choose to go down the Whig ticket, or you could split your vote, or you could say, only one of those men is suitable to be voted for. So I will only use one vote. The other man is not worth my while.

So I guess that explains the whole bribery thing, because if everyone knows who you're voting for, then you can't just go around and, you know.

No, not at all. Now, obviously, the crowd are hooting and roaring and throwing things and stuff.

Throwing dead cats.

Right.

There's quite a lot of dead cat action, isn't there? At this point, if you like dead.

Cats, this is the podcast for you. So you would come up in what was called a tally, and a tally is maybe ten or 20 people. There would be a tally captain, who would wear the colors of your candidates. So you'd say, I'm a Whig man, and you'd get together with a Whig tally. There'd be a tally captain, and he would lead you. He might have a banner, he might have a band, and you'd all go together as a group for safety, basically.

Yeah. So that's the pickwick papers thing, the procession. They're all bunched together.

Exactly.

And that's why they have to sort the babies.

Now, you might think, this is a tremendous day. You'd be wrong. It's not a tremendous day. It could be a tremendous month that this goes on for great. So in some places where there are a lot of voters, this would just go on and on and on and they would almost sort of drag it out. In fact, dragging it out so far that in 1696, parliament had to pass a law to say, you've got to get this done and dusted in 40.

Days, and who's in control of it?

The local sheriff or mayor or whatever. The local authorities.

And so they supposedly are neutral. But they're not.

Yeah, but obviously they're not neutral often, as we. We will see. So you've gone and you've done your voting. At the end of the day, the candidates come out and address the crowd. You might think sensible to do it at the beginning, but no, do it at the end. They do it at the end of the day. They say, thanks for everyone who voted for me. The rest of you, there's always tomorrow. And then they would lead a procession, the rival candidates, with all their bands and all their banners, to a tavern. So they'd generally be staying in a tavern in the town and each would have a different tavern as their headquarters, and then they'd go into the tavern, drink would be had, then they'd come out and they'd address the crowd again from a window. There'd be lots of cheering and bants.

And presumably, by this point, they're quite inebriated.

Yeah, exactly.

So, which always improves an election address.

So on the last day of the election, when everybody's voted, or when we've got to the 40 days, the votes, they're all recorded in a book and they're counted and then the result is read out to this now gigantic crowd. And then, this is a strange detail. The winning candidates would be put on chairs and carried through the town. That's kind of fair enough. And there'd be great crowds following them, some shouting abuse, some saying, brilliant.

I mean, quite risky. I'd have thought, if there's dead cat throwing and you're on a chair, of.

Course, of course you've got to be.

Gutsy to do this and you've got disappointed voters.

Right. So by now, everyone would be absolutely hammered.

Yeah. So there's that as well.

So there'd be lots of fighting and there'd be people falling over and then at the end, a detail that I like, you'd be carried back to your tavern and then the crowd would ritually tear apart the chair, presumably to hit each other with. I don't know what the. So the thing is, as you might expect from this description of how voting works, there is enormous scope for fighting and bad behavior.

Yeah. I mean, it's basically like the euros, isn't it?

Yeah.

Loads of rival drunk fans.

Totally. England football fans would be in heaven with this. They could be singing all their songs, throwing stuff. It's a rich carnivalesque tradition. That's exactly what it is. So there's loads of violence, there's loads of attacks on taverns, there's stones being hurled, there's people with flipping halberds, there's grenadiers, there's all this kind of stuff, basically. Lots of hijinks. Tom and I think what we could do in the second half, we're a bit of a match of the day podcast, aren't we? So we'll go with the edited highlights. I know you're gagging to hear all about the election of 1698. Terrible scenes in Coventry in 1705, shocking business with the liberals in Cheltenham in 1865. So we'll go all the way through, give you the. Absolutely the tip top highlights. And Tom will do all that after the break. See you in a minute. Welcome back to the rest is history. So, let's start at the beginning of party politics. We're in the 1690s, the reign of William III. People are talking now about Whigs and Tories. So, Whigs. Gosh, how to explain Whigs? We often get asked this, and it fills me with dread.

Well, because it evolves, doesn't it?

It does. Whigs are the kind of the protestant succession mercantile.

They're back in the glorious revolution.

They're back in the glorious revolution, which.

Has seen James II thrown out. So essentially suspending the natural laws of succession.

Yes, because they love a Protestant, above all.

Yeah.

And they are softer on dissent, on non conformism, on kind of low church religion. And they despise nothing more than a papist and Tories.

They have a slight jacobite tinge to the. Them.

Yeah.

So, I mean, even, you know, a century on, Doctor Johnson is a great.

Jacobite king over the water, all that.

The king over the water, yes. And a supporter of the established church.

Yeah. And tourists say, oh, the Whigs are terrible metropolitan. They're interested in Europe. They are do gooders. They're out of touch with the bottom, the common sense of old England. Yes, that's basically what the Tory says of a whig, whereas the Whigs say the Tories, they're clapped out, red faced old fools.

I mean, the stereotype would be that you are a Tory and I am a wig.

It's not actually true, though, is it? I don't think no, it's not true.

But that would be people's stereotype, I guess.

These are the Personas, Tom, that we've confected for the podcast, isn't it? I don't want to let too much light in, but, yeah, I mean, a.

Wig generally has the look of someone who eats too many vegetables.

Yeah, absolutely.

And a Tory has the look of someone who enjoys his beef.

Yeah. So to that extent, that's the dynamic of the podcast. Right. Anyway, we've explained that in a very ham fisted way, but that's appropriate under the circumstances.

So I'm a Whig, you're a Tory. Just keep that vaguely in your head.

So, 1698, there's an election. Basically, the Whigs are in, and they're defending their position against the Tories, who are out and out of 269 seats, 104 of them are contested, and we'll just look at one, which is Westminster. Westminster had a very big electorate. It had about 15 to 20,000 people.

That's the biggest of the lot, isn't it?

Yeah.

And because it's the fulcrum of power, it's got parliament in it.

Yes.

That always adds an extra fiesta.

So it's got parliament in it. It's very urban, and because it's so big, you can't manage it through bribery and patronage. So it's always contested. Now, traditionally, what would happen is the rival groups of political enthusiasts would assemble on what was called Tuttle fields or Tothill Fields. This is a big open patch of ground, and they would just have a massive fight. That's how it would work.

I would just think.

That would be brilliant.

I mean, you could just put it on sky sports.

Yeah, exactly.

Stream it live.

Two candidates who are Whigs in this election, Charles Montague and James Vernon. And opposing them, of course, as a man, you know, the ultimate kind of Tory stroke. Country name, which is Sir Henry Dutton Colt's baronet.

No nonsense. Can I just ask, the two whigs, they're not competing against each other. They're kind of running on a joint ticket, are they?

Yeah. Remember, every seat has two mp's.

Yeah.

So they basically want to squeeze out Sir Henry Dutton Colt, Baronet.

Is he the only Tory?

Yes, he's the only guy, I think he's the only Tory running in that election. And in fact, their party political allegiances are so fluid. So, like a couple of years later, he's a Whig or something. It's just bonkers. He arrives with all his guys, some of whom are, like, equipped with, like, a little knife or a cudgel or something.

Well, I mean, a Tory, you know, they're hunting, shooting, fishing.

Yeah, absolutely. But he's behind the times. Vernon and Montague are much more modern because they arrive with, and I quote, a troop of several thousand horsemen, and they charge Sir Henry Dessenkolt's men and drive them. And I quote, this is Vernon himself said, the Whig, you know, not so much a do gooder. He said, my men ran down Colt's men at a strange rate and cudgeled them into ditches full of water. And he was unrepentant about this James Vernon. He said, colt supporters are, and I quote, the very scum of the town, victuallers, porters and chairmen. So men who basically carry on a sedan chair.

Yeah, well, fair enough.

So it's very like people throwing milk at Nigel Farage. Well, actually. So after this, Henry Dutton Colt Bart, he lost. He finished 600 votes behind James Vernon and 800 votes behind Charles Montague. And he petitioned parliament to have the result canceled. He said they had gone too far. One of his men had died from wounds inflicted during a cavalry charge. He said that Vernon and Montague had broken the rules, the accepted rules, by employing off duty grenadiers against his men, and that he himself had been threatened with pistols.

I love it that there are rules that say you can't employ off duty grenadiers.

Yeah, well, parliament said, no, there's no such rule.

Oh, right.

This is all completely acceptable for a parliamentary campaign. So his petition was thrown out, but it actually wasn't the best thing that happened in 1698 because there are even more exciting scenes in Norfolk. So here, one of the MP's is a man called Sir Henry Hobart, another baronet. He's a Whig. He was knighted by Charles II when he was 13, very impressively. But he loses his seat in 1698 to two Tories because two Tories returned from Norfolk. And Sir Henry Hobart is absolutely furious and he says, I know who's to blame. It's basically a guy who lives down the road, another landowner called Oliver Le Neve. He's a dyed in the wool Tory squire who spends all his time hunting and fishing. And Hobart is convinced that Lena has been spreading rumors that he's a coward. Specifically, that he behaved in a cowardly manner at the Battle of the Boyne. And he says, this is absolutely disgraced. This is the only reason I lost this seat is because this Lanave has been spreading these rumors. Lanaeve says, I have never told anybody these things about you, but Hobart won't accept it and challenges him to a duel because he's so upset at losing.

His seat and are thinking that people are calling him a coward. So you challenge someone to a duel to prove your. Your manhood?

Yeah, your manhood. So for some obscure reason, they fight on a heath midway between their two houses, but with no seconds. I read that there was a servant girl hiding in a bush who was the only person to observe this. I don't know why she was hiding in the bush, but anyway, Hobart is a much more accomplished swordsman, so he clearly thinks, easy win. And he's so fast, he strikes first. But his sword gets tangled in Lana's coat and Lana, very unsentimentally, immediately just runs him through in the stomach. And Hobart dies. So he's lost his seat and his life. And Laniv fled to Holland and then he returned after two years and he was acquitted. The jury acquitted him because they said he's a tremendous fellow.

I think that reflects well on the jury.

Do you know, that's the last jewel in Norfolk history, Tom? And it's said. It is said that if you visit the heath, then sometimes at night you can hear ghostly swords clashing in the.

Darkness and perhaps see the servant girl hiding in a bush.

Perhaps you can. So that's 1698. Would you like to hear about 1705?

Yeah, I'd have to.

So 1705, the sort of party politics is. It's only seven years on, but it's becoming a tiny bit more recognizable. It's becoming a little bit more predictable. It's all about kind of. The Tories say the Church of England is in danger from radicals and dissenters. The Whigs say, oh, the Tories are a bunch of Catholics. Terrible scenes.

So at this point, it's not about tax.

Well, it's partly about the war of the spanish succession, raising taxes for the war, all of that kind of thing.

Oh, so it is still about tax?

Yeah. So tax is always kind of lurking there.

Attacks and religion, tax and culture wars.

It's culture wars and tax. So when people say, oh, these terrible culture wars, what a terrible distraction from real things, that's tosh and rubbish. Culture wars have always been an absolute center.

So that kind of high church, low church thing, it absolutely feeds into the cultural wars today.

Totally. It does, yeah, absolutely. It's enduring. So why not? Let's go to Coventry.

Yeah, I love Coventry.

Coventry is a big and bustling place. In 1705, it's a big trading city and it's an absolute hotbed of religious dissent. So the politics of the town is dominated by Presbyterians, not Church of England. And as a result of that, it is a real Whig stronghold.

So not a place for a Tory.

Not a place for a Tory, or so you would think. Because in the run up to this election, which is that summer, there are weeks and weeks of clashes between rival Whig and Tory mobs. And I think because they are so outgunned in the town, the Tories just think, you know, we've got to do something special here. So there's going to be a three day election in Coventry, and the night before it kicks off, hundreds of Tory supporters pour into the town armed with halberds.

That's very retro.

Very retro, exactly. Well, the Tories are quite retro, aren't they? I suppose, yeah. Merry England, all that stuff. They march into the town and they seize the guild hall. There's about 700 of them. And because they control the guild hall, they've basically seized it from the authorities.

So they can now run the election.

They can run the election, which they do. So, as I read, those favoring the Tory candidates were admitted unhindered, but they were, and I quote, ready to eat anybody offering themselves for the whigs.

Yeah.

So basically, all the people who say their Tory vote is fine, and if you're a Whig, then you will be. This is a very strange thing. You will be, quote, horsed, viz. Carried on men's shoulders upon cowl staff and dragged upon the ground. So I've discovered what that means. That means you'd be sort of tied to a stick, like a big stick, and you'd be carried between two men.

Like a kind of captured animal.

Yeah, like a trussed animal. And then they'd drag you on the ground.

That's very tory, isn't it? Hunters would do that.

Exactly. Now, this was seen as going too far, because actually two Tory candidates, unsurprisingly one, but there was a massive kind of case, comes before parliament. And in 1707, two years later, the election was declared void and their wigs win. So there are some standards. A duel is fine. Grenadiers and cavalry charges are fine. The use of halberds.

Halberds is not.

Halberds is absolutely not fine.

Which I suppose just proves, you know, the darkest Tory suspicions that England's going to the dogs.

Totally, yeah.

And that the good old traditions are being phased out by humorless prigs.

Yeah. Nanny state prigs.

Nanny state prigs.

That's exactly what it is. So now, we could go through the whole 18th century like this and we'd be here till you know, the crack of doom. Let's fast forward a bit to the 19th century. So there's still a fair bit of violence, but it's slightly less mob and halberd and a bit more throwing dogs and bants, I think it's fair to say, tom.

So this is the Pickwick papers era.

This is the Pickwick papers era. So, basically, whenever you turned out as an mp, if it was a contested election, people would throw at you stinking fish, dead dogs, cats and rats. A candidate for Sussex in 1820, bombarded with the rotten eggs and dead cats of Chichester. There's tons of dead cats in kind of regency England, early victorian England.

So what would you rather have thrown at you? A dead cat or rotten eggs?

I think I'd take the egg. I'm just imagining the feel of a dead cat on my face.

Yeah.

As it, like, impacted. I think that's horrible. It actually gives me the chills to think of it, Tom, this is the.

Kind of analysis you don't get on other podcasts.

No way. No way. It's. All those politics shows have been riding high during the election campaign, but they're.

Not debating the issues that matter.

No, no. Where's the dead dogs? Where's the cats?

Yeah.

Where's the Bristol election of 1830?

Where indeed, Dominic? Tell us about the Bristol election of 1830.

So, this is Hilary Burlock again. And Bristol slave trade, obviously a big issue, and abolitionism a huge issue. But here you get some excellent fighting between rival Whigs. So, within the Whigs themselves, if there's lots of people competing and the party organization is quite weak, you can have rival candidates from the same party, from the same movement for the same seats, effectively.

So, like the Tories today, Dominic, like the Tories today.

Very good, very good. So here we've got two guys, two Whigs, fighting for one slot. They are Edward Prothero and James Bailey. Edward Prothero is a massive do gooder, Tom. He supports votes for Catholics and he supports the abolition of slavery. Now, James Bailey is also a Whig, so a bit of a do gooder, but he's more moderate. And actually, his opponents say of him, oh, he's just pretending to hate slavery.

So by moderate, he's not in favor of abolishing the slave trade, in other words?

No, he is, but more gradually, he's a gradualist. His Keir starmer to Prothero is Diane Abbott, I suppose is fair to say. And his opponents say of him, he's just a lackey of the West India interests, actually. Now, confusingly, this is very Labor Party. Bailey, the moderate, says of Prothero. He pretends to abhor slavery, to pick the pockets of Quakers and other enthusiasts. And he also says Prothero. And all these quakers, these sort of whig momentum, they've actually secretly invested in a brazilian gold mine. That depends on slaves. So they are absolute latte sipping. Yeah.

This is all very familiar guardian reading.

Hypocrites.

It's very like the debate about Bailey Gifford.

It is, totally is.

All the writers who oppose Bailey Gifford, who have their books on Amazon.

Yeah, that's an investment company that was sponsoring book festivals that was basically driven out of the world. Was sponsoring book festivals by agitated lefty writers.

Novelists.

Exactly. So these two guys, they had this massive violence between their supporters. When Bailey, the gradualist, enters Bristol, he has this procession into Bristol. There's a huge group of men and boys on horseback, and I quote, in a state of intoxication. Many of them aren't bludgeons who attack his. His procession. So it's not all kind of organic shoes and tofu? No, this is the hard edge.

I mean, no halberds, but the next best thing.

So he comes out of his pub, which is the rummer, to address the crowd.

That's a great name for a pub.

People hiss him, they charge his supporters, and in revenge, his supporters, and I quote, sailors and ships, carpenters, in a dreadful state of infuriation, intoxication. Also, armed with bludgeons, they attack the other blokes pub. There's massive fighting. And then 27 people had to be taken to the infirmary. The first day of polling. A prothero, the abolitionist, he comes out of his pub to address the crowd. There's a hail of missiles. Somebody hits him on the head with a ladder.

It's an oak ladder.

I read an oak ladder. An oak ladder. So it's like a ship's ladder, I presume.

The oak ladder of England.

And I'm assuming this is something to do with. I mean, don't forget, there'd be a lot of people in those crowds who would be in favor of slavery, because they basically think it's their livelihood, neighborhood, who are supporting the West India interest. So I'm wondering whether it's a ship's ladder and there's some sort of symbolism there that they've done it deliberately.

Yeah, it could be.

So, anyway, Prothero lost by 500 votes. So that's the more radical abolitionist and the moderate one. But a year later, there was another election in 1831, the two guys who'd fought so bitterly were the only candidates and stood unopposed. And there was no contest, no fighting, nothing. It's like they'd made up or something, or done a deal.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the strange thing about it, is that it's almost unknowable, I guess. It all seems so random and disorganized. I mean, there must be people who are sort of pulling the strings in some way, like issuing oak ladders and dead cats, but we don't really get much of a sense of them until later on. So let's move into the victorian period. Obviously, the big story here is the expansion of the franchise. So you mentioned the Great Reform act. Thanks to the Great Reform act of 1832, about 650,000 people can vote. There's another reform act in 1867 that takes it to 2 million, and then in 1884, to about 6 million voters. That's still no women and a bare majority of men. So about 60% of men in Britain can vote and 40% can't because they don't have enough property. Now, the other big thing, in 1872, there was thing called the ballot act, which brought in secret ballots.

And so that's the whole thing. You go behind the curtain, nobody knows what you're voting. I'd always thought of that as a pretty fundamental principle of british democracy. I'm amazed it was so late being brought in.

Yeah. And I think you and I can say this, Tom, obviously they wouldn't on these politics podcasts. That's the moment where it all went wrong for Britain, isn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, the 1870s is probably also the point where the United States and Germany start to catch up with us economically. And I think that's no coincidence.

Terrible times.

Yeah. The moment people started voting, you know, out of shame, I think that's the moment we lost our political.

Yeah. But the anti woke take would be that it's 1832 and the widening of the franchise. Abolition of rotten boroughs.

Yeah. That actually they should have heeded the 15th century petition that said too many people are voting. That was where it was at.

Yeah. Bring back the pop banging.

Yeah. So with the expansion of the franchise and then it's on with secret ballots, and obviously with the strengthening of party organizations and a general sense of kind of gladstonian rectitude, the violence starts to decline. But happily for us, it does not end. So I've got three fun examples of victorian larks. So, one comes from the Spartan of Cheltenham, 1865, which is very kind of prim and proper. Very prim and proper. Exactly. That's what makes this so incongruous. So in 1865, Lord Palmerston's liberals beat the Earl of Derby's conservatives. And it was generally seen as a very dull election. Basically an election dominated by corruption. But this is the great shining exception. And this is from a brilliant project done at Durham University called the electoral Violence Project, which is all about victorian electoral violence. It records 3000 incidents across the whole of the victorian period. Some of them are just vandalism and some of them are proper riots. There are 96 deaths.

I so approve of scholars doing this.

Yeah, this is a good use of taxpayers money.

It really is.

This is a genuinely good use, I think. I applaud this project. So on the 12 July in Cheltenham, 1865, a laborer called William Lyneston, he's walking down the street. He's been working as a sort of a messenger for the liberal candidates. He's called Colonel Berkeley. And he and this other volunteer are walking down the street and they pass a band. And the band is playing a scottish ballad called the Bonnets of blue. And Lynes, this guy, he's very enthusiastic about the liberals. You know, he can't get enough of the liberals. The liberal color is yellow. So he starts singing and he sings hurrah for the bonnets of yellow. You know, in this jolly liberal way. He loves yellow. He loves the liberals. He's happy with life. And passing him is a chemist called John Glass, John Thomas Glass, who's a very, very keen conservative. And he hears this bloke singing this and he comes over and I quote, interferes with him. I don't know what that means, but something happens. They have an argument and Lynes is still very jolly, but it's good humored banter.

Yeah.

Lyons says, listen, I love the liberals. I've worked really hard for them today. And he finishes, he says, you know, Colonel Barclay forever. And at that, the chemist, glass, he says, here's Barclay for you. You. And then the newspaper reports blank out the last word. So we don't know what he said, but he took out a revolver and shot this bloke in the mouth.

What?

No. Yeah.

Oh, my God.

That escalated quickly.

It did.

And at that, in very shakespearean style lines, then said, good God, I am shot. I shall die.

And he'd been shot in the mouth and he's still saying this. God bluff as his brain start dribbling out through his lips.

But then glass, the man who had shot him in the mouth then said, incredibly implausibly, I turned in the tone of voice to adopt for this.

He said, uh, I'm dying to know what he said.

He said, my God, I hope it's not as bad as all that.

Well, he just shot him in the mouth. Yeah, it's just a scratch. Tis but a surface wound.

I hope it's not as bad as all that. Why did you shoot him in the mouth? I mean, that's mad.

It's too late for that, isn't it?

Yeah. Glass is arrested.

Yeah.

Lines was taken to hospital and he. He died.

I'm not surprised.

And tragically. Tragically, Tom, I feel bad about laughing now because he left a wife, a pregnant wife and four children, and a fund was set up to support the widow and the orphans. The liberal candidate donated generously, which is very good. Now here's the mad thing, Mister Glass. At his trial there was a lot of discussion about whether he was mad. He does sound a bit bonkers. He was charged with murder, but the jury reduced it to manslaughter. He served 15 years penal servitude. Why would this he let off so lightly? Because in the press, the trial, everybody said, you can't blame a man. He was suffering from election excitement. And election excitement will addle your brain and you will shoot people in the mouth. So, you know, don't judge him too harshly, I think was the lesson there. It does seem there's something going on in that story. There's some detail we're missing because it seemed to escalate very quickly and then to deescalate unusually quickly.

Well, but it might just be, as you say, election madness.

Election madness. So, Tom, I enjoyed that so much that we took too long over it. And we've got two more stories and we'll deal with them very quickly. So first, Bolton. So we had a bit of liberal victimhood. Now we've got liberal misbehavior. Bolton. 1868. Gladstone's first win over Disraeli. Basically what happened in Bolton was that the liberals disgraced themselves. They discovered where conservative voters lived, they kidnapped them, they detained them in a mill, Thomas Barlow's mill, and then they, and I quote, supplied them with drink until their senses were stupefied. And then if they were drunk enough, they were dragged down to the polls and forced to vote conservative. But if they weren't drunk and they were still sticking to their liberal principles, they were held prisoner in the mill to stop them voting. So this went on for days. On Monday the 2 November, some of the people held prisoner in the mill went to the windows and shouted for help and pleaded with the townsfolk to come and rescue them. When people came to try and rescue them, they discovered that, and I quote, a group of roughs, said to be Irishmen armed with sticks, were guarding the mill.

And there was a sort of pitched battle before these men could be rescued. And it does seem kind of plausible, because, of course, the Liberals would be the party that if you're irish, an irish immigrant working in Lancashire, you're probably more likely to support them than the Tories. Well, you're definitely more likely to support them than the Tories, so it kind of makes sense. The bizarre thing about this story was that Thomas Barlow, who owned the mill where all these Tory voters were held prisoner, he must have been in on it. His brother was the mayor of the town and the wesleyan Methodist temperance campaigner and Sunday school teacher.

Because I was going to say, they're Liberals of the temperance party.

They are the temperance party. The mayor of the town is a big temperance man, Sunday school teacher, and he'd supposedly paid for the roughs to come and imprison these Tories.

It's the makings of a very good Sunday evening drama there.

Sort of call the midwifeish kind of drama.

Yeah, but with forced alcoholism and roughs.

God, Jeremy Thorpe would enjoy that story. And then my other favorite one comes from Islington west in 1886. So the liberal party is split here in Islington west. It's a battle between liberal unionists. So they're basically going to become conservatives in the long run, and liberals. And the liberal unionist incumbent, Richard Chamberlain, is going to hold a really big meeting to rally support for his candidacy. And his former liberal allies hate him now. So they advertise his meeting in the Pall Mall Gazette and they say, this is going to be an absolute carnage. Come and see the sport. I mean, they're literally hiring roughs to come and disrupt this blokes meeting.

Roughs a tremendous feature of english elections.

Yeah, I think roughs basically are, you know, you now see them running amok in german towns during football tournaments.

Surely they're the heavies that we talked about in our episode on british fascism. Yeah, employed on both sides.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly it.

Yeah, the cable street thing. Because Moseley employs boxers, didn't he?

Yeah, I think a rough evolves into a heavy.

Yeah, of course.

So the meeting hasn't even really started. Mister Chamberlain appears, and as soon as he appears at this packed hall in Islington, men rush the stage. And one guy who's gone to see the talk, he's actually genuinely interested in politics. One person there who is generally interested in politics. A man called Doctor Slater, he's hit on the head with the chair and he manages to sort of fend off the chair. And then the man who's hit him on the head with the chair punches him in the arms and the head and there's just general chaos. And this man is eventually dragged out. The police, you know, break up the meeting and they get this man in particular, this man, he's dumbstruck to have been arrested. He thinks this is total injustice.

Infringement of his liberties as a freeborn englishman.

He's an 18 year old joiner called Arthur Brighty. And in court the policeman says, brighty. They said to Brightie, why did you go to this liberal versus liberal unionist kind of meeting? And he said, well, I have no interest in politics at all. He says, I went there with a lot more thinking to have a Barney. I'd read about it in the newspaper. There was going to be a big fight. And the judge said, well, normally you'd get a fine, but I'm not going to fine you because I know other people will pay your fine. Meaning liberals. Their liberals would pay you a fine because they're up to no good. So poor old Mister Brighty gets sentenced to a month's imprisonment with hard labor, which seems quite harsh to me for just hitting a man on the head with a chair. But I'm, you know, I don't mind a little bit of public disorder in elections.

Yeah, you're soft on crime. That's your problem.

Soft on crime. Now, you contrast that with Ed Davey. You talked about Ed Davy, the liberal leader. There's not much of hitting people on. I mean, it's just falling off amusement.

Park rides or flumes and things.

Yeah, flumes.

And we may be discussing that in our second episode.

Domino, maybe. I mean, it's worth saying, tom, obviously electoral violence is no joke. We've had two mp's lose their lives in the last few years and we've.

Had an mp stand down because of threats of violence against him.

Exactly. Exactly. So I don't want to sort of make light of it too much.

Rosie Duffield, Labor MP in Canterbury, has canceled, going to hustings. Yeah, I think because she's worried about violence. So, yeah, so it is a kind of undertow.

But I do lament the decline in sort of the beer drinking, ribbon wearing.

Let'S face it, rotten cat throwing.

Rotten cat throwing. And people being chaired through the town and then the chairs ripped apart. I'd like to see that return.

Or people being tied to poles and.

Yeah, that I could live with. And also that sort of. I think it's reasonable that if people wanted to have a battle on a heath like in 1698 or 1705 or something, there should be room in the english constitution, the british constitution for that, don't you think?

Would you go so far as to bring back halberds?

I bring back halberds. The pot business. I can't remember what that's called now. Yeah, and the faggots vote. I think I'd bring back all those things. You know me. I would restrict the franchise as tightly as possible.

Okay, Dominic, that was great. I mean, it does make elections sound brilliant. The fact that you never know when a pot is going to be banged or someone's going to be trussed up on a stick or halberds brought out.

Yeah.

But modern elections, they can be very lively as well. I think this general feeling that the one we're going through at the moment has been quite dull. Hasn't been a great amount of comic action.

Yeah. So boring.

But over what, the past 40, 50 years, there's been some tremendous elections. So in our next episode, we will be looking at the history of recent elections. So that's John Prescott punching a bloke with a mallet. Neil Kinnock all writing at his Sheffield rally. Oh, yeah, all that kind of thing. Great film, so we hope you enjoyed it. Bye.