| The Right Honourable William Windham PC, PC (Ire) |
|
|---|---|
| Secretary of State for War and the Colonies | |
| In office 5 February 1806 – 25 March 1807 |
|
| Monarch | George III |
| Prime Minister | The Lord Grenville |
| Preceded by | Viscount Castlereagh |
| Succeeded by | Viscount Castlereagh |
| Secretary at War | |
| In office 1794–1801 |
|
| Prime Minister | William Pitt |
| Preceded by | Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet |
| Succeeded by | Charles Philip Yorke |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 May 1750 |
| Died | 4 June 1810 |
| Nationality | English |
| Political party | Whig |
William Windham PC, PC (Ire) (14 May 1750 O.S. – 4 June 1810 N.S.) was a British Whig statesman.
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Windham was a member of an ancient Norfolk family and a great-great-grandson of Sir John Wyndham. He was the son of William Windham, Sr. of Felbrigg Hall and his second wife, Sarah Lukin. Windham was educated at Eton College from 1757 to 1766, the University of Glasgow (1766) and University College, Oxford from 1767 to 1771.[1] He wrote three unpublished theses on mathematics.[1] Windham was a Christian. Before his balloon ride, he wrote to George James Cholmondeley on 4 May 1785 in a letter that was only to be delivered if he did not survive the trip. It contained Windham's confession of faith:
The best, the greatest, the most solemn office I can render in a letter of this sort, is to extort you to a steady contemplation of divine truths, and a sincere endeavour to confirm in yourself that faith, which after various fluctuations I believe to be the true one, and which, independent of evidence, is supported by too great authorities ever to be rejected with confidence. Whatever may be the diversity of opinion as to the particular nature, I believe Christ to be a person divinely commissioned, and that faith in him affords the fairest hope of propitiating the great author of the world. Cultivate in your mind this persuasion and dwell upon it till it grows into a principle of action. May it avail both to the purposes of final salvation.[2]
Windham took part in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings and his speeches against him on 1 June 1787 and 22 March 1787 were admired.[1] During the Regency Crisis of 1788-89 he spoke in favour of giving George, Prince of Wales full regal powers as Regent.[1]
After initially sympathising with the French Revolution, Windham's opinion (increasingly influenced by fellow Whig MP Edmund Burke) changed in late 1791.[1] Windham supported the Royalist uprising in La Vendée and wished that the British government would aid it with the aim of restoring the House of Bourbon to the throne: "I would, from the beginning, have made this the principal object of the war".[3] Windham supported Catholic Emancipation and repeal of the Test Act in Scotland.[1] He was a consistent opposer of parliamentary reform, remarking on 4 March 1790 that no one would begin to repair a house in hurricane season.[1]
He was Secretary at War under William Pitt the Younger. In the aftermath of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Windham supported the union of Ireland with Great Britain, believing that Catholic emancipation would follow. On 7 February 1801 Windham was among those who resigned in protest of the King's veto on Catholic emancipation.[1]
Immediately after the Peace of Amiens was signed, the Prime Minister Henry Addington wrote to Windham on 1 October 1801: "I think when I see you which I hope I shall before you leave London I can satisfy you that it is not clear even upon your own Principles that we are wrong".[4] Windham replied to Addington on the same day:
I can have no idea of the measure in question but as the commencement of a career which, by an easy descent, and step by step, but at no very distant period, will conduct the country to a situation where, when it looks at last for its independence, it will find that it is already gone. I have no idea how the effect of this measure is ever to be recover'd; Chance may do much, but, according to any conception I can form, the Country has received its death blow.[5]
When the preliminaries of the Treaty were debated in the Commons on 3 November 1801, Windham gave a speech that "...was the sensation of the evening".[6] He said Addington and Lord Hawkesbury "...in a moment of rashness and weakness, have fatally put their hands to this treaty, have signed the death-warrant of their country. They have given it a blow, under which it may languish for a few years, but from which I do not conceive how it is possible for it ever to recover".[7] According to The Times Windham sat on "the same bench from which Mr. Burke always spoke after separating from Mr. Fox" and an observer said he spoke "like the ghost of Burke". One contemporary said Windham possessed Burke's insanity without his inspiration.[8] When Charles James Fox visited France during the Peace of Amiens he conversed with Napoleon Bonaparte on 23 September 1802. Napoleon said he believed Windham's "talents were mediocre and that he was an unfeeling, unprincipled man". Fox immediately defended Windham but Napoleon countered: "It is easy for you who only know public debate. But for me, I detest him and that Pitt who together have attempted my life". Fox assured Napoleon that "Mr Pitt and Mr Windham, like every other Englishman, would shrink with horror from the idea of secret assassination".[9]
William Wilberforce wrote to Hannah More on 15 November 1804: "I really think there scarcely ever were, or can be, two men more different from each other in all their ideas than Windham and myself".[10] Windham said that Wilberforce would delight in sending aristocrats to the guillotine.[11] He was opposed to the evangelical movement: "Few subjects agitated...Windham...more than the puritanical and Wilberforcian assault on the traditional sports of Englishmen such as boxing and bull-baiting. Windham's speeches in parliament in defense of such practices seem among his most heart-felt".[12] Windham wrote to a friend on 17 August 1809 on the subject of boxing, in the aftermath of the British victory over the French at the Battle of Talavera:
Why are we to boast so much of the native valour of our troops, as shewn at Talavera, at Vimeira, and at Maida, yet to discourage all the practices and habits which tend to keep alive the same sentiments and feelings? The sentiments that filled the minds of the three thousand spectators who attended the two pugilists, were just the same in kind as those which inspired the higher combatants on the occasions before enumerated. It is the circumstance only in which they are displayed, that makes the difference. ... Bravery is found in all habits, classes, circumstances, and conditions. But have habits and institutions of one sort no tendency to form it, more than of another? Longevity is found in persons of habits the most opposite: but are not certain habits more favourable to it than others? The courage does not arise from mere boxing, from the mere beating or being beat:—but from the sentiments excited by the contemplation and cultivation of such practices. Will it make no difference in the mass of a people, whether their amusements are all of a pacific, pleasurable, and effeminate nature, or whether they are of a sort that calls forth a continued admiration of prowess and hardihood? But when I get on these topicks, I never know how to stop...[13]
William Hazlitt apparently had it on a somewhat good authority that Pitt had hated Windham.[14] Windham in turn did not attend Pitt's funeral at Westminster Abbey.[15]
On 8 July 1809 Windham was returning to Pall Mall, London from a friend's when he saw a house on fire in Conduit Street. His friend Frederick North lived a few doors away from the burning house and had a valuable library there. Therefore with the aid of two or three men, Windham succeeded in removing most of the books before the fire reaching North's house. However when removing some heavy books he fell and bruised his hip. After a tumour grew in the hip he received medical help but this was ineffectual. On 6 May 1810 the surgeon Henry Cline advised him that an operation was imperative, an opinion shared by four of the six physicians Windham consulted.[16] Before the operation Windham went to some trouble to receive the Sacrament.[17] Cline performed the operation on 17 May and though it was successful Windham did not recover from the shock. His last words were to Dr. Lynn, who moved him into a more comfortable position on the night of 3 June: "I thank you; this is the last trouble I shall give you. You fight the battle well, but it will not do".[18] Not long after, he fell asleep and died in the presence of his wife. On 8 June Windham's body was transported to the family vault at Felbrigg, with a private funeral. In the church window Windham's widow installed a memorial brass with the inscription:
Sacred to the Memory of the Right Honourable William Windham, of Felbrigge, in this County. Born the 14th of May, O.S. 1750, Died the 4th of June, N.S. 1810. He was the only son of William Windham, esqre., by Sarah, relict of Robert Lukin, esqre. He married in 1798 Cecilia, third daughter of the late Commodore Forrest; who erects this Monument in grateful and tender remembrance of him. During a period of twenty-six years he distinguished himself in Parliament by his eloquence and talents; and was repeatedly called to the highest offices of the State. His views and councils were directed more to raising the glory than increasing the wealth of his country. He was above all things anxious to preserve untainted the National Character, and even those National Manners which long habit had associated with that character. As a Statesman, he laboured to exalt the courage, to improve the comforts, and ennoble the profession of a Soldier: As an individual, he exhibited a model of those qualities which denote the most accomplished and enlightened mind. Frank, generous, unassuming, intrepid, compassionate, and pious, he was so highly respected, even by those from whom he most differed in opinion, that, tho' much of his life had passed in political contention, he was accompanied to the grave by the sincere and unqualified regret of his Sovereign and his Country.[19]
Windham was greatly influenced by Whig philosopher Edmund Burke, describing Burke's words as "the source of all good".[20] The Foxite Whig Lord Holland considered Burke "the great god of his idolatry".[21]
Sir James Mackintosh wrote to a friend after meeting Windham in March 1800: "His conversation is full of sense, knowledge and vivacity and his manners very gentle. We talked with equal enthusiasm of Burke and with equal abhorrence of Democrats and Philosophers".[22] Upon hearing of Windham's death, Mackintosh said: "Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age".[23] Henry Brougham said of Windham:
...a lively wit of the most pungent and yet abstruse description, a turn for subtle reasoning ... familiarity with men of letters and artists as well as politicians...a singularly expressive countenance—all fitted this remarkable person to shine ... [but] he was too often the dupe of his own ingenuity; which made him doubt and balance ... His nature ... was to be a follower, if not a worshipper, rather than an original thinker or actor ... Accordingly, first Johnson in private and afterwards Burke on political matters were the deities whom he adored.[1]
The Whig historian Thomas Macaulay, in his essay on Warren Hastings he wrote in 1841, praised Windham: "There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly exercise, his face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham".[24] Lord Rosebery edited Windham's papers in 1913, and said Windham was:
...the finest English gentleman of his or perhaps of all time. Had he lived in the great days of Elizabeth, he would have been one of the heroes of her reign...He was a statesman, an orator, a mathematician, a scholar, and the most fascinating talker of his day...A noble gentleman in the highest sense of the word, full of light, intellect, and dignity, loved and lamented. His best qualities, no doubt, as is often the case, he carried almost to excess; for his cherished independence he led to a morbid craving for isolation. But to the charge of vacillation in public affairs he was not obnoxious; he was always true to his faith. But he chose his masters well, Johnson and Burke; the one gave him his religious, the other his political creed. In life he was brilliant and successful. In oratory, in parliament, in society, he was almost supreme. But he can scarcely be said to survive. He left no stamp, no school, no work. To those, however, who care to disinter his memory he displays character and qualities of excellence, rare at all times, rarest in these.[25]
F. P. Lock has described Windham as "a Norfolk squire of uncommon intellectual gifts and great personal charm. His great failing was chronic indecision".[26] Boyd Hilton said Windham "was the first in a line of brilliant but maverick right-wing politicians—Lyndhurst, Randolph Churchill, F. E. Smith—who operated too far outside the consensus to be effective. He had a scintillating personality, and political convictions so strong that they belied his otherwise scholarly and discriminating characteristics, but he lacked judgement and had a streak of melancholic instability".[27]