The Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna was a European conference convened by the Great Powers in Europe where European states met to determine boundaries of the continent after Napoleon I’s defeat. It was held from November 1, 1814 to June 8, 1815. The four Great Powers, who defeated Napoleon I, were Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain. The ‘fifth‘ power was France.
The main negotiators were Prince Metternich and his deputy, Baron Johann von Wessenberg from Austria, Karl August Von Hardenberg and his diplomat Wilhelm Von Humbolt, Count Karl Robert Nesselrode and Tsar Alexander I from Russia, and the Duke of Wellington, with his Foreign Secretary Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, from Great Britain. France was represented by Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. The Congress adopted policies that set European boundaries and negotiated treaties among European states.
Some of the policies they made were to adopt a ‘fair policy,’ of no great rewards or great punishments, some that attempted to restore the way life was before the war, and restored monarchies. Countries across Europe, such as Prussia and Great Britain, received territories back, while France gave up all that were conquered by Napoleon. According to several sources, the Congress of Vienna achieved a balanced settlement across Europe which caused no major conflicts for forty years.
Despite good intentions and order that the Congress of Vienna brought, Lord Byron despised it, calling it “that base pageant” (Nicolson 133). Byron and other Englishmen though the conference was full of entertainment and social festivity, rather than real political discussion. It was often criticized for ignoring demands of greater democracy and nationalism, which lead to the majority of conflicts in the nineteenth century (Bloy). One of the people that Byron and other Englishmen disliked was Foreign Secretary Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, who was also an Irish statesman.
Despite his several contributions to the Congress and Great Britain, he was often attacked for his peace treaties that were designed in a way which would be rejected by governments across Europe. Castelereagh entered Parliament as a Whig, but in 1795 his support shifted to William Pitt, the Prime Minister, and the Tories. It was Pitt who granted him the title of ‘Lord Castlereagh. ’ 1798 was a time of great turmoil in Ireland and Castlereagh played an important role in crushing the Irish uprising (Simkin).
Both Castlereagh and Pitt believed that uniting Ireland with the rest of Britain under a single Parliament would solve the religious conflicts ensuing there. He was also denounced because he defended many government policies, which were condemned by the people, and enacted by the House of Commons throughout his time. Byron’s fellow poets Thomas Moore and Percy Shelley both disliked Castlereagh. Byron hatred towards him was political and fueled by Moore. In his poetry, Fudge Family in Paris, Moore wrote: “That ‘twas an Irish head, an Irish heart, Made thee the fallen and tarnished thing thou art;
That, as the Centaur gave the infected vest In which he died, to rack his conqueror’s breast, We sent thee C——–gh. ” In a letter to John Murray, Byron wrote: “When you write, continue to address to me at Venice. Where do you suppose the books you sent to me are? At Turin! This comes of “the foreign office,” which is foreign enough, God knows, for any good it can be of to me, or anyone else, and be damned to it, to its last Clerk and first Charlatan, Castlereagh” (Prothero 108). Byron detested Castlereagh because of several condemning government policies, such as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act (1817) and the Six Acts (1819).
In my opinion, because Byron was an advocate of freedom and unconformity and never let anyone control him too much, these two Acts would have ‘sealed the deal’ for his opinion on Castlereagh. The Habeas Corpus Act was the right of legal action that allowed a prisoner to be released from unlawful detention. After the Peterloo Massacre, Lord Liverpool and the rest of the Tory government, including Castlereagh who was a leader of the House of Commons, introduced and passed the Six Acts by December 1819.
These Acts were six different measures that blocked training meetings and large public gatherings, possession of arms, scrutiny on what was considered blasphemous, and suppression of radical newspapers. The Tories hoped to reduce the possibility of an armed uprising and the rights of radical public opinion being published. The Whigs, whose party Byron identified with more, believed this to be a suppression of popular rights and liberties and warned that it was unreasonable to pass national laws to dal with internal problems that existed in only certain areas.
Castlereagh, along with Lord Liverpool, and Lord Sidmouth, publicly took responsibility for these repressive measures and the three men were scolded and booed whenever they appeared in public (Simkin). Castlereagh was also a part of the divorce proceedings against the Queen, whose side Byron was advocating. Byron may have also been influenced by the Italian family he was staying with, the Gambas, when he arrived in Genoa. As per the Treaty of Paris (1814), the Republic of Genoa was given to the King of Sardinia, by the Congress of Vienna, something that the citizens of Genoa felt was a betrayal.
Nonetheless, because Castlereagh was among the leaders when this decision was taken, Byron’s detest for Castlereagh most likely worsened. Percy Shelley was Byron’s contemporary, a good friend, and a great poet of Romanticism as well. The Mask of Anarchy was a political poem written in 1819, but was not published until 1832, by Shelley, after the Peterloo Massacre, which occurred when a cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000-80,000 people that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
In his poem, Shelley condemned and mocked the government, allegorizing Castlereagh, who was the Foreign Secretary at the time, as “Murder,” Lord Chancellor Lord Eldon as “Fraud,” and Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth as “Hypocrisy. ” These three “masks” follow “Anarchy,” with who “Murder,” “Fraud,” and “Hypocrisy” try to take over England, but ultimately fail when the maiden “Hope” is revived and calls to the people of England. Shelly was more politically-inclined then Byron and strived to preach revolution through his writing.
Although Byron was not as politically involved in England as his contemporaries, but he attacked Castlereagh no less than them. Byron referred to Castlereagh in his letters as an “Irish Avatar,” “a wretch never named but with curses and jeers,” and attacked him in the Dedication to Don Juan as “the intellectual eunuch Castlereagh,” the “cold-blooded,” “smooth-faced, placid miscreant,” “the vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,” “a bungler even in its disgusting trade,” “a tinkering slave-maker,” and “a second Eutropius” (Prothero 109).
Despite facing the public and admitting to his bad policies, Castlereagh was not forgiven for his ‘sins,’ and his popularity nearly diminished towards the end of his life. This lead him to become very depressed, and despite help from his doctor and wife, who hid any dangerous items around him, Castlereagh cut his throat with a pen-knife in the room and died almost immediately in August 1822. Byron saw this as an opportunity to mock him. In a mock epitaph for Castleraegh, Byron wrote: “Posterity will ne’er survey a Nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh: Stop, traveller, and p—– ! ” Byron’s detest for Castlereagh can immediately lead one to question why he hated the political leader so intensely when Byron himself was not as interested in English politics as much as his contemporaries. The answer to this may lie in Byron’s poetry and his geographical expeditions. Because he was such an enthusiast of travel and foreign life, Byron was always more interested in spending his time away from England, which was constantly the source of his ‘disease’ of boredom.
Much of Byron’s large works were focused around traveling to the unknown and depictions of different characters in different cultures. Poems such as Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan, and The Giaour are only some examples of Byron’s inclinations and love for the world outside of England. In Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Byron writes in Canto II, Stanza 73: “Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! / Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! ” Throughout Childe Harold, Byron refers to the differences in the citizens of Albania and Greece, and mourns how Greece has given up its powers to the Ottoman Empire.
Thus, it can be said that though Byron did not preach directly to the English community, his revolutionary streaks were saved for all those outside of England. Because Castlereagh was responsible for taking the rights of English citizens and other unfavorable measures, Byron detested those who used their political and social powers to hurt others. Byron’s relationship with England and English citizens was always strained, but towards the end of his life it seems that Byron took what he learned from injustice in England and used that to fight for Greece.
When Byron died in April 1824, he died not only in the memory of the self-exiled, rebellious, and enchanting English poet, but also as a hero who fought for the side of freedom and revolution. Although Byron made have kept on a mask of his own in English society, mainly because of the issues he had with English society, he nevertheless preached revolution behind his works, and did something unconventional of his rebellious, politically uncaring character in his final days.
Works Cited Eisler, Benita. Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame. Knopf, 1999. Prothero, Rowland Edmund ed. Works of Lord Byron. London, 1889. Nicolson, Harold, ed. Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812-1822. New York, 1946. Bloy, Marjorie. “Lord Byron on Castlereagh. ” < http://www. historyhome. co. uk/people/byoncas. htm> Bloy, Marjorie. “The Congress of Vienna, 1 November 1814- 8 June 1815. ” < http://www. victorianweb. org/history/forpol/vienna. html > Donohue, Lacey. “Congress of Vienna. ” < http://www. pvhs. chico. k12. ca. us/~bsilva/projects/congress/vienessy. html > Wikipedia. “Congress of Vienna. ” < http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Congress_of_Vienna >
