Peel’s Achievement

Abstract

The Conservative schism over the Corn Law question, and the fall of Peel’s ministry, inaugurated a period of confusion and instability in British party politics which extended well beyond Peel’s death in July 1850. For the last four years of his life, Peel’s determination to occupy an independent position, free from party associations and obligations, did more than anything else to perpetuate the incoherence of the political scene at Westminster. Some contemporaries, indeed, felt that he was guilty of inconsistency in the way he behaved. On the one hand, Peel repeatedly asserted to his friends that he had no wish to return to office, and yet, on the other hand, he evidently had no intention of retiring from political life, as he retained his seat in the House of Commons and regularly attended and spoke in the debates.¹ Complete uncertainty therefore surrounded the intentions of Peel and his Free Trade Conservative followers: would they seek a rapprochement with the main body of Conservatives, or else gravitate towards Lord John Russell’s Whig government (which had replaced Peel’s ministry in June 1846), or at least organise themselves into a proper third party, until their political destiny became clearer? In practice, Peel was unwilling to countenance any of these courses of action, and this guaranteed that no government could possibly be formed on secure parliamentary foundations.