at Brougham was to
be the whig lord chancellor, and on the 22nd he actually took his place
on the woolsack. His title was Baron Brougham and Vaux, but, though he
lived to retain it for nearly forty years, he always preferred, with
pardonable vanity, to sign his name as "Henry Brougham".

Before the close of 1830 the new ministers found time to carry a regency
bill, whereby the Duchess of Kent (unless she married a foreigner) was
to be regent in the event of the Princess Victoria succeeding to the
crown during her minority. Having adopted the watchword of "Peace,
Retrenchment, and Reform," they gave an earnest of their zeal for
retrenchment by instituting a parliamentary inquiry into the possible
reduction of official salaries, including their own. The defeat of
Stanley by "Orator" Hunt at Preston was a warning against undue reliance
on popular confidence, for Preston was already a highly democratic
constituency, largely composed of ignorant "potwallopers". A similar but
more emphatic warning came from Ireland, where O'Connell did his utmost
to insult and defy Anglesey, the new lord-lieutenant, in spite of his
sacrifices for catholic emancipation, and his well-known sympathy with
the cause of reform. In the southern counties of England, too, violent
disturbances had broken out, and were marked by all the ferocity and
terrorism characteristic of luddism in the manufacturing districts. They
spread from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey into Hampshire, Wiltshire,
Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. In these four counties there was a
wanton and wholesale destruction of agricultural machinery, of
farm-buildings, and especially of ricks, as if the misery of labourers
could possibly be cured by impoverishing their only employers. The
rioters moved about in large organised bodies, and their anarchical
passions were deliberately inflamed by the writings of unscrupulous men
like Cobbett and Carlile.

Happily, the ministers showed no sign of the weakness upon which the
ringleaders had probably calculated. They promptly issued a proclamation
declaring their resolution to put down lawless outrage, and promised
effective support to the lords-lieutenant of the disturbed counties.
Acting upon this assurance, Wellington himself went down to Hampshire,
and took a leading part in quelling disorder. The government next
appointed a special commission, which tried many hundreds of prisoners
and sentenced the worst to death, though few were executed. This