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The Henry James Review 23.1 (2002) 53-71



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Revolution and Democracy in the London Times and The Princess Casamassima

Christine DeVine, University of Louisiana at Lafayette


On Saturday, 6 May 1882, at about 7:30 p.m., while walking together across Phoenix Park in Dublin to dine with the Lord Lieutenant at the Viceregal Lodge, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, the Under Secretary, were stabbed to death and left in a pool of blood. In the midst of the quarrel over Home Rule, this brutal act was part of the ongoing fight by Irish nationalists against British domination.

The English press, quite predictably, expresses outrage at the murders. In its reporting, the Times focuses the attention of its readership on the class issues involved in this crime. For example, in describing the corpses laid out in the drawing room at the Chief Secretary's Lodge for the inquest, the Times emphasizes the contrast between the butchered bodies and the sumptuous surroundings:

The scene was one indescribably horrible. On a table at the window nearest the conservatory, the door of which was closed, lay the body of poor Mr. Burke, stark and ghastly, his finely-chiselled face [. . .] scarcely recognizable through the blood which filled his mouth, while his neck and chest bore gashes which looked as if inflicted by a butcher's knife. On a table at the other end of the room was stretched the body of Lord Frederick Cavendish, presenting an appalling spectacle, and the room, which recently had been full of life and gaiety, was now become a shambles, the sight being rendered more hideous by contrast with the associations of the place. The mirrors on the walls and the furniture which remained still in the room were suggestive of refinement, luxury, and social enjoyment, while the two mangled corpses, surrounded by a group of medical operators [. . .] their hands red with the blood of the victims, presented a sight which even those [End Page 53] familiar with the terrors of the battlefield could not look upon without emotion. ("Assassination of Lord F. Cavendish" 8)

The ghastly detail used in describing Burke's body and the blood on the hands of the medical men is rendered far more shocking by evoking the "refinement" and "luxury" of the room, and the "social enjoyment" one might imagine occurring there. The Times wants its readers to remember that it is the well-off, refined classes that are under attack here; the horror of the attack is compared with that of a battlefield, suggesting class war. Despite the fact that this is a crime committed by a small group of Irish nationalists, the Times uses the murders to convey a message about class-related problems. For this attack comes at a time when the middle classes, encouraged by some in the press, feel they are threatened from all sides, not only by the Irish, but by organized working-class groups and by the growing push towards political reform, movements which appear to be connected to international terrorism. Not only do the Irish want to rule themselves, but the English working classes want a greater voice in government. Not only is conciliation in the air, but so is democracy, and it is a frightening prospect for some.

"The flood of democracy was rising over the world"

Whereas democracy had been a positive concept in the United States since the Jacksonian era, in England it was seen by some as unpalatable Jacobinism. In his speech introducing the Second Reform Act of 1867, Disraeli had expressed his hope that it would "never be the fate of this country to live under a democracy" (qtd. in Read 145). But despite fears and protests, the series of Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884-85 brought the country slowly and steadily towards an increased franchise, towards a more democratic government.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the concept of democracy still appeared threatening for those who stood to lose power. Discussing democracy in 1885...

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