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Tuesday 2 December 2008

The Duel: Castlereagh, Canning and the Deadly Cabinet Rivalry

Pistols at dawn

Raymond Carr on the latest book from Giles Hunt

Canning’s family were, like Castlereagh’s, members of the Irish Ascendancy, but his father had been disinherited for marrying a penniless girl; dying a bankrupt, his impoverished widow went on the stage when actresses were considered as little better than whores. When Canning was a leading politician the Whig leader Charles Grey, later to be Lord Grey of the Reform Bill of 1832, remarked that it would be improper for the king to appoint the son of an actress as prime minister. To his eternal credit Canning did not disown a mother who was an embarrassment any more than Castlereagh ceased to love a wife who was described by Prince Schwazenburg as ‘very fat and dresses so young, so tight, so naked’. In a profligate age, its moral standards set by the heir to the throne who was an incurable lecher, both were happily married, and were faithful husbands.

Canning was always considered by his enemies — and his caustic wit brought him many — as an adventurer and opportunist for ever pushing his claims to high office. In an aristocratic political world he was ‘not one of us’, declassed, so to speak, by his father’s marriage. Inconceivable as it must now seem today, he was the only commoner in Portland’s government of peers and sons of peers. He could not have operated in this exclusive world if generous relations had not sent him to Eton and Christ Church, the two most aristocratic educational institutions in Britain. There he made useful friends and became a star performer, well drilled in the mores and manners of the British establishment. Castlereagh did not go to a public school, and he left Cambridge without a degree.

How did Castlereagh and Canning, as members of Portland’s government, come to shoot at each other on Putney Heath? All cabinets suffer splits and it is the enjoyable professional duty of political journalists to expose them. To Canning, Portland was a laid-back, elderly man presiding over a weak government incapable of meeting Napoleon’s challenge for the mastery of Europe. He repeatedly pressed for a stronger, remodelled government and most of the cabinet agreed with him. The remodelling included the removal of Castelreagh from the War Office, where his performance was regarded as lamentable. Lord Camden, Castlereagh’s uncle, who regarded his nephew as his own son, was to inform Castelreagh of this arrangement but failed to do so. When he learnt of the proposal he saw himself as the victim of a conspiracy. He determined to save his honour and take his revenge by challenging Canning.

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