April 29th. – Mr. Gladstone announces the intention of the Government of bringing in a bill amending the Parliamentary Oaths Act.
May 2nd. – The Attorney-General moved that the House resolve itself into committee with a view of his asking leave to introduce the Bill. Debate on motion adjourned to the 5th with the view of fixing the time on the 6th, when the discussion should be resumed.
Mr. MacIver gave notice to ask the Prime Minister whether he was prepared to reconsider his decision of last session, and will introduce “a short measure” for the partial disfranchisement of Northampton. (The question was never put.)
May 6th. – Further obstruction of the Bigots.
May 10th. – After 1.15 a.m. the Government proposed a morning sitting for that day (Tuesday), to discuss the introduction of their Bill. Further obstruction, wrath, and bitterness, and the Government abandoned the intention to hold a morning sitting.
At the afternoon sitting a resolution was arrived at, which authorised the Sergeant-at-Arms to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh from entering the House.
Lord Selborne (Lord Chancellor) in reply to a letter relative to Mr. Bradlaugh and the oath, says equal justice is due to Christian and infidel; he saw no possibility of refusing to afford by legislation to all who scruple to take the oath, the same option in Parliament as they have in courts of law, to make an affirmation.
May 25th. – Mr. Newdegate formally blocked the Bill, of which Mr. Labouchere gave notice, for indemnifying Mr. Bradlaugh against penalties for having sat and voted on affirmation.
June 19th and 20th. – The common informer’s action tried at Nisi prius before Mr. Justice Grove. Verdict against Mr. Bradlaugh for penalty and costs. —Rule nisi for new trial afterwards, granted by Justices Grove and Lindley; this rule was made absolute by Justices Denman and Hawkins, but was set aside by Lords Justices Brett, Cotton and Holker.
Mr. Bradlaugh appeals to the country. The country answers.
Aug. 3rd. – Mr. Bradlaugh, acting on his right to enter the House of Commons, is seized at the door of the House by fourteen men, police and ushers (Inspector Denning said ten), and roughly hustled out into Palace Yard, Mr. Bradlaugh protesting against such treatment as illegal. “In the passage leading out to the yard Mr. Bradlaugh’s coat was torn down on the right side; his waistcoat was also pulled open, and otherwise his toilet was much disarranged. The members flocked down the stairs on the heels of the struggling party, but no pause was made until Mr. Bradlaugh was placed outside the precincts and in Palace Yard.” —Times. Alderman Fowler was heard to call, “Kick him out.” This he afterwards denied, but there is evidence that he did so. (Mr. Bradlaugh suffered the rupture of the small muscles of both his arms, and erysipelas ensued).
Many thousands of people went up to the House with petitions, urging the House to do justice to Northampton and Mr. Bradlaugh.
In the House Mr. Labouchere moved a resolution condemning, as an interference with the privilege of members, the action of the authorities in expelling Mr. Bradlaugh from the lobby. This was rejected by 191 votes against 7, and a motion of Sir Henry Holland, declaring the approval of the House of the course taken by the Speaker, was agreed to without controversy.
At a crowded meeting at the Hall of Science the same evening Mr. Bradlaugh stated that he had told Inspector Denning in Palace Yard that he could come back with force enough to gain admittance, but that he had no right to risk the lives and liberties of his supporters.
Aug. 4th. – The Times declares, in an article favorable on the whole to Mr. Bradlaugh’s claims, that the House of Commons was yesterday the real sufferer in dignity, authority, and repute. It says: “the question contains within itself the baleful germ of a grave constitutional contest between the House of Commons and any constituency in the land;” and “such a conflict can but have one conclusion, as all history shows.”
The Daily News, in a similar article, concludes thus: “Sooner or later it will be generally acknowledged that Mr. Bradlaugh’s exclusion was one of the most high-handed acts of which any legislative body has ever been guilty.”
The following unique paragraph from The Rock is worth preserving in its original form: “The question now is whether the Christian people of this realm will quietly allow clamorous groups of infidels, Radicals, and seditionists, by organised clamor, bluster, and menace, to overawe the legislature, and by exhibitions of violence – not at all unlikely, if permitted to develop into outrage and riot – to cause an organic and vital change to be made in our Constitution and laws, in order that brazen-faced Atheism might display itself within the walls of the British Parliament.”
Mr. E. D. Girdlestone writes: “If the present Cabinet does not secure your admission to the House in some way or other, I can only wish they may soon be turned out of office. I don’t know what more I can do than say, ‘Go on! and go in!’”
Aug. 5th. – Mr. Bradlaugh’s application at Westminster Police Court for summons against Inspector, for having assaulted him at the House of Commons on the 3rd inst., refused.
Mr. Bradlaugh confined to the House with severe erysipelas in both arms, resulting from the injuries inflicted. Attended by Drs. Ramskill and Palfrey. The latter, on August 12th, ordered his immediate removal from town, to prevent yet more dangerous complications.
Aug. 13th. – Mr. Bradlaugh went to Worthing to recruit his health. Outside the station there, weary and exhausted, both arms in a sling, he was rudely stared at by a clergyman, who, having satisfied himself as to Mr. Bradlaugh’s identity, walked away saying loudly: “There’s Bradlaugh; I hope they’ll make it warm for him yet.”
The Northern Star (a Tory paper) suggested that Mr. Bradlaugh was malingering – “simply carrying on the showman business.”
Aug. 24th. – Sir Henry Tyler, in the House of Commons, attempts to discredit the South Kensington department for allowing science and art classes at the Hall of Science. Mr. Mundella gives those classes great credit.
Aug. 27th. – Parliament prorogued.
Further appeal to England.
1882
Jan. 9th. – The Earl of Derby, in a speech at the Liverpool Reform Club, says: “For my part I utterly disbelieve in the value of political oaths… I should hope that if Mr. Bradlaugh again offers to take the oath, as he did last year, there will be no further attempt to prevent him.”
Feb. 7th. – Reopening of Parliament. Mr. Bradlaugh again attended at the table to take the oath, and Sir Erskine May, the clerk of the House, was about to administer the same when Sir Stafford Northcote, interposing, moved that Mr. Bradlaugh be not allowed to go through the form. Sir W. Harcourt, in moving the previous question, said the Government held the view that the House had no right to interpose between a duly-elected member and the oath.
Mr. Bradlaugh, addressing the House from the bar for the third time, begged the House to deal with him with some semblance and show of legality and fairness. He concluded: “I want to obey the law, and I tell you how I might meet the House still further, if the House will pardon me for seeming to advise it. Hon. members had said that an Affirmation Bill would be a Bradlaugh Relief Bill. Bradlaugh is more proud than you are. Let the Bill pass without applying to elections that have taken place previously, and I will undertake not to claim my seat, and when the Bill has passed I will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I have no fear. If I am not fit for my constituents they shall dismiss me, but you never shall. The grave alone shall make me yield.”
When a division was taken there were for the previous question 228, against 286. Mr. Samuel Morley voted with the majority against the Government. Sir Stafford Northcote’s motion was then agreed to without a division.
Feb. 8th. – Mr. Labouchere, in committee of the whole House, proposed for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law of Parliamentary Oaths and Affirmations. The Bill was afterwards formally blocked by Mr. Molloy.
Feb. 17th. – Mr. Labouchere asked the Attorney-General whether the resolution of Feb. 7th had not vacated the seat. Sir Henry James answered that it had not.
Feb. 18th. – Mr. Gladstone writes Mr. Bradlaugh that the Government have no measure to propose with respect to his seat.
Feb. 21st. – Mr. Bradlaugh of himself takes and subscribes the oath, and takes his seat.
Feb. 22nd. – Mr Bradlaugh expelled the House of Commons.
Mar. 2nd – Re-elected for Northampton. For Bradlaugh, 3,796; for Corbett, 3,688.
Mar. 6th. – On the motion of Sir Stafford Northcote, the House reaffirms its motion of the 7th Feb., Mr. Gladstone supporting an amendment moved by Mr. Marjoribanks, by which the House would have declared the desirability of legislation, for the purpose of giving members an option between oath and affirmation.
Mar. 7th. – Lord Redesdale introduces in the House of Lords a Bill, requiring every peer and every member of the House of Commons before taking the oath or making the affirmation, to declare and affirm his belief in Almighty God. The Bill, introduced “from a sense of what was due to Almighty God,” was afterwards withdrawn “in deference to Lord Salisbury.”
To this date, 317 petitions with 62,168 signatures had been presented against Mr. Bradlaugh being allowed to take his seat; while in favor of the same 1,051, with 250,833 signatures, had been presented.
Mr. Labouchere’s Affirmation Bill blocked by Earl Percy.
1883
Jan. 11th. – Mr. Justice Field gave judgment that the privileges of the House of Commons prevented Mr. Bradlaugh from obtaining any redress for the assault upon him on August 3rd, 1881.
Feb. 15th. – Great demonstration in Trafalgar Square; from eighty to one hundred thousand people present. (Evening Standard says 30,000; Daily News, 50,000 an hour before the meeting.) Mr. Adams, chairman; Rev. W. Sharman, Jos. Arch, and Mr. Bradlaugh, speakers.
Opening of Parliament. (Mr. Gladstone at Cannes.) Government give notice for to-morrow for leave to introduce bill to amend the Oaths Act, 1866. Sir R. Cross gives notice of opposition on second reading of same. Mr. Bradlaugh consents, with the approval of his constituents, expressed on the 13th inst., to await the fate of the measure.
Feb. 16th. – Sharp succession of frantic speeches in the House of Commons by Mr. Newdegate, Alderman Fowler, Mr. Warton, Mr. Henry Chaplin, Mr. Onslow, Mr. Grantham, Mr. Beresford Hope, Lord H. Lennox, Lord C. Hamilton, Mr. A. Balfour, Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, and Mr. A. O’Connor. Divisions: from two to three to one for Government. The Marquis of Hartington consents to adjourn the motion for Bill until Monday at twelve.
Feb. 18th. – The Observer says that when Conservatives ask Liberals whether they really mean to alter the law for the purpose of admitting Mr. Bradlaugh, it is fair for Liberals in turn to ask Conservatives whether they really mean to maintain an admitted abuse and injustice for the mere purpose of excluding Mr. Bradlaugh.
Feb. 19th. – First reading of Bill carried on division by 184 votes to 53; second reading formally fixed for that night week.
Feb. 20th. —Daily News says Bill will be carried by large majorities, and will be regarded by the House and the country as the appropriate settlement of an unfortunate controversy.
The Times says the leaders of the opposition will not succeed in finally preventing the Bill from becoming law. Its real concern is that Mr. Bradlaugh has been substantially in the right; that he has been unjustly excluded from taking the seat which belongs to him.
The Morning Advertiser thinks the Government may yet find it difficult to persuade the House to adopt the Bill.
The Morning Post justifies the irregular opposition to the first reading of the Bill, and thinks notice of the measure should have been given in the Queen’s Speech. No measure had created more excitement or raised more indignation in the country, which desired to see it rejected by a decisive majority.
March 5th. – Appeal case Bradlaugh v. Clarke part heard before the House of Lords.
March 6th. – Case concluded; judgment deferred.
March 9th. – Action for maintenance – Bradlaugh v. Newdegate – tried before Lord Coleridge and a special jury. Henry Lewis Clarke, the common informer, swore that he had not the means to pay the costs, and would not have brought the action if he had not been indemnified by Mr. Newdegate. Case adjourned for argument of legal points.
March 17th. – Maintenance action argued; four counsel appearing for Mr. Newdegate. Lord Coleridge reserved judgment.
March 20th. – The Solicitors to the Treasury compelled Mr. Bradlaugh to pay the costs of the House of Commons in the action against the deputy Sergeant-at-Arms.