John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle

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John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (October 16, 1756 – April 3, 1842) was a British peer who had served as a Member of Parliament in general support of William Pitt the Younger and was later an active member of the House of Lords. His violent attacks on Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox in the early 1780s led to his being the target for satirical attack in the Rolliad.

Physically he was a large man, and made no pretension to an intellectual approach. Nathaniel William Wraxall wrote of him "Nature had denied him all pretension to grace or elegance. Neither was his understanding apparently more cultivated than his manners were refined. He reminded me always of a Devonshire rustic, but he possessed plain common sense, a manly mind, and the faculty of stating his ideas in a few strong words." In later life he caused a disturbance at the coronation of Queen Victoria when he fell down the stairs.

[edit] Early life

Rolle was the son of Denys Rolle, who owned large estates in Florida. He was educated at Winchester College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and became a country gentleman in Devon. When his uncle John Rolle Walter died in November 1779, he was put forward to fill the vacancy. At this time, Devon was controlled by a group of large landowners principally in the Courtenay, Bampfylde and Rolle families who had so many supporters that no other challenge was possible; due to the expense, the county had not seen a contested election since 1712. Rolle was duly elected unopposed on January 4, 1780.

[edit] House of Commons

Because of the control of his county, Rolle was not under any political obligations. Although his family were traditionally Tory, Rolle was not a reliable vote for the Tory Prime Minister of the day, Lord North. He sometimes supported the government but just as often opposed it. However, following North's resignation, Rolle developed a vehement dislike of Charles James Fox for recalling George Rodney to a Naval command. When Fox, attempting to delay Parliamentary proceedings to get more of his supporters, put off the Call of the House, Rolle attacked his supporters' unpunctuality.

He supported the Shelburne government's peace proposals in 1783, although he had not been a consistent supporter of that ministry (being rated by Robinson, the Parliamentary manager, as 'doubtful'). During the Fox-North Coalition, Rolle was appalled when Edmund Burke reappointed two Pay Office officials called Powell and Bembridge who were under suspicion of embezzlement, and made vituperative attacks until Burke agreed to accept their resignations.

[edit] The Rolliad

The violence of his attack led the supporters of Fox and Burke to make him the chief object of the Rolliad, which purported to be a criticism of an epic poem but actually allowed the authors to insult all their opponents. The dedication of the Rolliad read:

Illustrious ROLLE! O may thy honour'd name

Roll down distinguish'd on the Rolls of fame!

Still first be found on Devon's county polls!

Still future Senates boast their future ROLLES!

For all that Rolle seemed an opponent of Fox, he was not a true supporter of Pitt. He opposed Pitt on Parliamentary reform and on the Duke of Richmond's fortifications plan, and was a member of the St. Alban's Tavern group which tried to create a united Ministry involving both Pitt and Fox. He consistently described himself as an "independent country gentleman".

[edit] Regency crisis

Rolle backed Pitt on the regency crisis in 1789, making a direct attack on the Prince of Wales' relations with Maria Fitzherbert which was thought inappropriate by the Whigs; Rolle responded by saying that he would have made the same speech if the whole House was against him. In the general election in 1790 he was forced into a token contest against a Bampfylde Whig and declared his "firm attachment to Mr Pitt, founded on personal esteem as well as public principles", and was returned with a healthy majority.

His opposition to Parliamentary reform continued and intensified due to the French revolution; he spoke against Thomas Paine's doctrines and supported the repressive legislation aimed at damping down revolutionary sentiment in Britain. He supported moves to abolish slavery and campaigned for a reduction of duty on horses (suggesting a heavy tax on the employment of foreign servants be used to replace the revenue).

[edit] Peerage

The 1790s saw him attempting to obtain a peerage for himself or his father who had returned to the life of an English country gentleman after the failure of his American colonisation schemes. His father was uninterested but in Pitt made a firm promise to Rolle himself, so long as a problematic byelection in Devon was not thereby caused. At the dissolution of Parliament in 1796, Rolle was duly ennobled.

In 1797 Rolle's father died and he inherited all of the family's extensive estates, which were reckoned in 1809 to be worth £70,000 per annum. He was an active member of the House of Lords, and became increasingly Conservative: he was one of 22 'stalwarts' to vote against the Third Reading of the Reform Bill of 1832. Two years later, after a clash with Lord Chancellor Lord Brougham, he came up to him at the woolsack and told him "My Lord, I wish you to know that I have the greatest contempt for you both in this House and out of it".

[edit] Coronation accident

Coronation of Queen Victoria by John Martin, 1839 — The painting depicts the accident of Lord Rolle falling on the steps to the Throne.

At the age of 82, the infirm Lord Rolle attended the coronation of Queen Victoria. What happened was later described by the Queen in her diary:

The incident is also included in the latter part of the tenth verse of Richard Harris Barham's Mr. Barney Maguire's Account of the Coronation:

Rolle died four years later at Bicton House in Devon.

[edit] References

• Complete Peerage, Volume XI, pages 75-6
• History of Parliament 1754-1790
• History of Parliament 1790-1820