The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-09-14 00:00:00

THE UNVEILING OF THE FALKLAND

MEMORIAL,
The Falkland memorial at Newbury was unveiled on Mon-
day by Lord Crnarvon, in the presence of a large gathering,
on Wash Common, the scene of the first battle of Newbury.
A procession, consisting of Freemasons and members of
Benefit Societies, the Corporation, the Yeomanry, Rifle
Volunteers, and school children, proceeded from the market-
place to the memorial. After the unveiling of the statue,
Lord Carnarvon addressed the assemblage on the subject of
Lord Falkland's character. At a luncheon given later, his
lordship, in speaking of the work of the Long Parliament,
and on Lord Falkland's exemplary conduct, said :
. . . Lord Falkland was connected quite as much
with the Parliamentary history of England as with
that terrible war in which he lost his life. And what
could be grander, nobler, or more inspiring than the
record of English Parliamentary history for the last
200 years? A little more than two centuries ago met
that famous Long Parliament with which Lord Falk-
land's name must for ever be associated. Of all Parlia-
ments before or, perhaps, after, that was the most
memorable. From it dated, in the words of one of our
historians, the corporate existence of the two great
political parties in the State; from it certainly dated
the modern relations of the Crown to the people, and
the structure of England's constitutional freedom.
There had since then been great and fierce con-
flicts, but never, thank God, on a political and
constitutional point had the sword been drawn
in final appeal; for of all wars none was so
terrible or so unholy as that which arose between
brethren in civil strife. The words of Mr. Burke
which they saw inscribed on the base of the memorial
which had been unveiled that day were as applicable
to civil war as to all other wars, and although the
civil war of 200 years ago was removed from us by a
long interval, the Parliamentary history of the time
seemed to those who studied it as of yesterday. He
knew no picture which was more vivid or which
seemed to come more closely home to all than that of
the Long Parliament. We knew well the shape of the
long low room in which the Commons then met. We
hau the speeches of its members and the old familiar
names of many of them, whose families lived in the land
to the present day, We knew the very places in which
they sat; the position which Lord Falkland himself
occupied, and the many scenes which occurred in that
room. Let him take, for instance, that critical
moment at an early period of the sitting of the House
when its members, having been wrought to a high
pitch of feeling, sat silent for a time until the clerk at
the table read forth—as might be done any day now—
some details of a casual and trivial Bill, and then the
House, feeling, as it were, the contrast of mixing up
such a Bill with surrounding circumstances, burst into
a loud fit of laughter. Again, when Mr. Pym, the
Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, received and
brought into the House an anonymous letter threaten-
ing his life and containing a fragment of rag said to
be infected by the plague, which, as it dropped upon
the floor, was spurned with the letter out of doors—
who could not see in that an incident which might
easily happen at the present time? To come
to more serious matters, who was there that did
not remember the account of the grand remon-
trance when, after some fifteen or sixteen hours of
grave 'debate, when an unguarded word would have
roused the House into a paroxysm of tumultuous
anger, members waved their hats over their heads and
placed their sheathed swords before them? They were
on the eve then of a very serious crisis, and it brought
the whole picture before their eyes when they read
that Mr. Hampden, who then acted in opposition to
the Court, rose and by a few judicious words calmed
the storm. Lastly, when we called to mind that fatal
day when the King, with his Court, came into the
House of Commons in quest of the five members whom
ha desired to arrest, we found there another picture,
which brought the Long Parliament into close con-
nection with us; we recognized, as it were, the
features of the men with whom Falkland lived and
with whom he was associated. The work which the
Lone Parliament did was very great, and the most
ardent Royalist might acknowledge that a great debt
was due to it. That Parliament met in November,
1640, and on the 9th of September, 1641—0 f which the
day on which he was speaking was the anniversary—
after ten months' hard labour it allowed itself a short
holiday. When, therefore, our modern Legislature
complained of hard work it must bear in mind that the
Long Parliament, having sat for ten months, ad-
journed only for six weeks. (`` Hear, hear," and a
laugh.) And during those ten months, great was
the work which it had accomplished I Ship-money had
been pronounced illegal, arbitrary taxation and impress-
ing for the array were condemned, the Star Chamber
was abolished, the Court of High Commission was put
an end to and the imperial jurisdiction of the Crown
was for a'time suppressed. He had sometimes heard the
Long Parliament compared to the French Assembly
at the commencement of the great Revolution in
France; but, although there were, no doubt, points of
similarity, there was still a greater difference between
the two bodies and the way in which they each acted.
There came at last to the Long Parliament, as to the
French Assembly, a turning point, where men had to
decide which side they would take. It was a great
question in all revolutionary periods when concessions
were no longer of use, when extreme men desired to
push matters to an extremity, and when moderate
men felt compelled to exchange council for action.
When such a period occurred with us in England
we had the execution of Strafford a bad and
dangerous man' who desired to convert a temperate
monarchy into aContinental despotism. Butif Strafford
was bad and dangerous, the mode of disposing of
him which was adopted was also bad. Lord Russell
had left the opinion on record that in that instance
"the House of Commons acted from passion, the House
of Lords from fear, and Charles from some motive or
other, which, anyhow, was not the right one." It was,
however, hard at such a time to know when the real
turning point arose. There were on each side in such
cases men who were just and good, and men who were
bad and dangerous. On a former occasion he had felt
it to be his duty to speak at considerable length oa the
character of Lord Falkland, and he did not desire on
the present occasion to travel over that ground. He
would simply again remind those whom he had the
honour to address how noble was his character. He did
not seek to claim for him an ideal character. History
knew no such men. Lord Falkland was impulsive ; he
was a man of ardent feeling and made up of contra-
dictory sympathies. He was a man, in the words of
Lord Glevedon, possessed of "those prodigious parts
of learning and knowledge; that inimitablesimpiicity
and delight in conversation; that flowing and obliging
humanity and goodness to mankind' that primitive
sweetness and integrity of life" on wnich he neea not

dwell. There was also a political side to Lord Falk-
land's character. An old and eloquent writer in-
dicated very plainly the responsibility which, in his
opinion, rested on a man who occupied any great
position or discharged any high function for their
fellow-subjects. 'Cracks in a glass past mending are
no great matter; but the lea3t flaw in a diamond is
considerable." So it was that in Lord Faulkland's cha-
racter we searched for all those inequalities and little
defects which in an ordinary man passed wholly un-
noticed. Yet it might be said of him that in troubled
and not always incorrupt times he was a man of singular
purity, and that he combined in a remarkable manner
the character of an ardent reformer of political abuses
with that of a devoted follower of the Crown and the
Constitution. (Hear, hear.) In all times there would
be fanatics on one side and political bravos and swash-
bucklers on the other. History sometimes recorded
their names, and they gained for a moment a fleeting
popularity, but, true to herself, she consigned them
ultimately, if not to oblivion, at least to scorn. (Hear,
hear.) Lord Falkland, however, had throughout his
whole career, despite his fervour and enthusiasm,
exhibited as a singular moderation, which was re-
flected in the civil war in which he was engaged,
which in that respect differed from the Wars
of the Roses, the Wars of the League, the
war in Piedmont, or any other which he could
remember. In the great rebellion in England old
forms were adhered to, and he could call to mind no
single case on either side in which there was anything
like gross or detestable outrage. (Hear, hear.) If that
was so, it was not because great questions were not at
stake. There were questions then at issue which even
now were of vital interest for Europe, such as the con-
flicting claims of prerogative and freedom, the preten-
sions of Parliament on the one hand and personal Go-
vernment on the other, the position of the Army, the
regulation of the Church through the State. We,
happily, believe that our freedom was based on a
strong and abiding foundation, but Englishmen would
never forget what those constitutional conflicts were
in which we had been engaged, or undervalue the
principles which had been so well maintained.
(Cheers.)

The noble Earl concluded by saying a few words in
defence of the Memorial Committee for not having
erected a monument of a different kind, observing that
when the traveller stopped before the present one and
read the inscriptions upon it his mind would be ani-
mated by a love of freedom and the Constitution as
well as of everything elevating and noble which no
object of a merely ultilitarian character would be so
likely to produce.
Several other toasts followed.

The Memorial is erected on an elevated plot of
ground about a mile and a half on the south side of
Newbury, within a few yards of the spot on which
Falkland is supposed to have fallen. It is composed
entirely of Cornish granite. On a series of four rock-
faced steps rests a massive block of polished Penrhyn
stone, which supports an octagonal shaft 17ft. high,
the total height of the structure being 33ft. On the
four sides of the stone are inscriptions, that on the
north side being
In memory of those who, on the 20th of September, 1643,
fell fighting in the army of King Charles 1., on the Field
of Newbury, and especially of LUCIUS CART, VISCOUNT
FALKLAND, who died here in the hind year of his age.
This monument is set op by those to whom the majesty of
the Crown and the liberties of their country are dear.

_
On the south side the inscription is :—" The blood of man
Is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for
our country, for our kind; the rest is vanity, the rest is
crime."—Burke.