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00:07For thousands of years, the mountains, lakes and forests of Britain had been just geography.
00:14But in the late 1700s, they became something much more, the face of our nation.
00:21Our countryside became our country.
00:26When homesick travellers thought fondly of Britain, they thought of their landscape.
00:31Most of us still do.
00:34And it was, for the first time, a landscape of all the British nations.
00:39The wild places of Wales and Scotland, as well as the peaks of Northern England, rediscovered, relished, mapped.
00:50For centuries, going to the country had meant, for the gentry, a stroll through a manicured estate.
00:57An Arcadia as drowsy with sunshine as an Italian afternoon.
01:06But in the second half of the 18th century, there was a sudden change in the weather.
01:12The more adventurous Britons had had enough of make-believe sunshine and shepherds.
01:16They wanted the real thing.
01:18They wanted it rough.
01:20And they were prepared to go to places where no-one in their right mind a generation before would have
01:26dreamt of setting foot.
01:29But those who clambered up the crags weren't just out for thrills.
01:34In the wild places, they thought might have survived the kind of Britons who'd stayed miraculously untouched by the evils
01:42of town life, its corrupt politics and diseased bodies.
01:48If we could somehow learn from their childlike innocence, we could become like them and recapture what it meant to
01:56be free, to be a natural-born Briton.
02:01Nature, in the last decades of the 18th century, came to be something far more important than gardening or hiking.
02:09A love of nature became code for a crusade, a revolution even.
02:16And this time, the crusaders weren't going to be in chain mail.
02:20They would be poets, painters, hat journalists.
02:24Men and women who sensed a great change coming and were rushing to embrace it.
02:30What they saw coming was dark and dirty weather.
02:34Britain was about to be hit by an immense political cyclone, a revolution in France just over the Channel.
02:42The boldest of the poets and pamphleteers longed for the storm to strike here, too.
02:48More anxious souls were afraid that where there was lightning, there would also be fire and destruction.
03:00In the end, Britain would weather the storm.
03:04But as the Duke of Wellington once famously put it, it was the nearest run thing you ever saw in
03:10your life.
03:11Just how near run? Wait and see.
03:185th December a year?
03:344th September a year.
03:38Weplied a new generation to Amaz embora in Tokyo.
03:38We started regrouping on the beginning of the ADCANY project.
03:384th September a year.
03:48The journey to the guillotine and a world war would start with the dreams of a philosopher, but not any
03:57old philosopher.
03:59Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was buried here at Elmenonville, just outside Paris, reshaped the mental habits of an entire generation,
04:08turning them from creatures of thought to creatures of feeling.
04:12Before Rousseau, the highest compliment you could pay anybody was to say they were reasonable.
04:16After Rousseau, the compliment became Illa d'Alarm, he has soul.
04:23And the British couldn't get enough of it.
04:30In the spring of 1766, Rousseau, on the run from enemies, real and imagined, pitched up in Staffordshire.
04:42Richard Davenport moved out of his country house in the village of Wotton.
04:46So that the great man could have a comfortable asylum in which to commune with nature to his heart's content.
04:59Rousseau could have been forgiven for expecting a warm welcome.
05:02His two most famous books, A Meal, a manual on natural education, no books before 12, thinly disguised as a
05:10novel,
05:11and the weepy of the age, the new Eloise, featuring forbidden love between tutor and pupil, were smash hits among
05:19the sobbing and sighing classes.
05:26At a distance, Rousseau may have been popular, but close up, he was a paranoid, and in Derbyshire, he became
05:33convinced the servants were putting cinders in his soup.
05:36In 1768, after more imagined slights, he left England.
05:43But his ideas stayed and put down deep roots among the book-crazy gentry.
05:49Men like Brooke Boothby, one of his Derbyshire neighbours, who had himself painted by the local genius, Joseph Wright, as
05:57a man of feeling, in tune with the rhythms of nature.
06:04What appealed to men and women of feeling in the English provinces was Rousseau's belief that urbanity, the graces and
06:13fashions of metropolitan life,
06:14were symptoms of everything that was rotten about the old world, the cosmetic mask behind which lurked the poxy disfigurement
06:22of a deceitful, vicious, terminally diseased culture.
06:28The antidote was to scrub away the mask and restore grown men and women to their true nature, the simplicity
06:36of a child.
06:42Childhood was where Rousseau's revolution began.
06:47If it was to be properly preserved, the true nature of children had to be nourished, literally, from the breast.
06:57Since babies took their moral, as well as their physical sustenance, from their mother's milk, it had better be their
07:04own mother's milk.
07:06Professional wet nurses might contaminate them with vice and disease.
07:11So the virtuous, wholesomely patriotic life began at the nursing nipple.
07:21Another lesson from Rousseau, forget about book learning.
07:26Cramming little heads with facts and figures did terrible damage to their animal high spirits, their instinct for freedom.
07:35Get them outside.
07:37Let them romp.
07:41But in an age of high infant mortality, making a heavy emotional...
07:46Disciple of Rousseau, Brooke Boothby discovered, when his daughter Penelope died at the age of five,
07:53that romantic feeling could be as intense in sorrow as it had been in happiness.
08:01She was, in form and intellect, most exquisite.
08:06The unfortunate parents ventured their awe on this frail bark, and the wreck was total.
08:16The poignant memorial speaks of the terror of loss, of joy glimpsed, felt, experienced, and then cruelly destroyed.
08:26And that was the romantic vision of Britain, too.
08:29A paradise in peril.
08:43When men of feeling got off their high horses and left the sanctuary at their fantasy parks,
08:50what they saw was the ugly reality of the countryside.
08:56With the explosion in population, many thousands were leaving the land
09:01and becoming dependent on the machines of the new industrial revolution.
09:08Poets, like Oliver Goldsmith, were oppressed by a vision of deserted villages.
09:17Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn.
09:22Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn.
09:26Amidst thy bowers, the tyrant's hand is seen,
09:31and desolation saddens all thy greed.
09:33One only master grasps the whole domain,
09:38and half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
09:44Ill fares the land to hastening ills appray,
09:48where wealth accumulates and men decay.
09:57In 1769, the year that Oliver Goldsmith was writing his poem,
10:02a military officer with a social conscience,
10:05Philip Thickness, published a horrifying account of
10:09four persons starved to death in a pool house at Datchworth.
10:16To most complacent Britons,
10:18this was supposed to happen in rat-infested corners of the continent,
10:23not in Hertfordshire.
10:30For those who had eyes to see beyond the railings of their parklands,
10:34two painful questions presented themselves
10:37about the real state of the British countryside.
10:40What was to be done, and who was to blame?
10:43Was it the responsibility of the church?
10:46Had the church grown too fat,
10:48too respectable,
10:49too indifferent to its duties towards the unfortunate?
10:52Or was it a matter for the absentee landowning gentry
10:57whose estates were being run by hard-nosed men
11:00with an eye to bottom-line profit?
11:03Or was it wrong to think in terms of what had once been?
11:07Was that just applying a coat of whitewash
11:10to a building that was fundamentally rotten from top to bottom?
11:13Was the answer not charity, but politics?
11:18Thomas Buick certainly thought so.
11:22As a child outside Newcastle,
11:25he didn't need Rousseau to tell him about the freedom of fresh air.
11:30Buick had played truant from school,
11:33and instead of filling his slate with improving knowledge,
11:37he'd filled it compulsively with drawings,
11:40finding his way instinctively towards his vocation
11:44as the first great illustrator of British natural history.
11:52What's more, Buick's pictures weren't just meant for a gentleman's library.
11:57Ordinary people wanted a little book
12:00packed with images of the birds and animals of the British Isles.
12:13But Buick was looking at something else, too.
12:17Snuggled in between the plover and the waxwing
12:19was a portrait of his world,
12:22rain-soaked Northumberland,
12:24a tough, dark, gritty place,
12:27a world in a lot of pain.
12:31In his churchyard's dog's snarl.
12:36By his roadsides, poor bastards break rocks.
12:44In his garrets, blind old paupers slurped soup.
12:55All this made Thomas Buick very angry.
12:59All this made Thomas Buick a radical.
13:06In Newcastle, he mixed in debating clubs with men like himself,
13:11educated artisans, tradesmen and professionals,
13:14passionate in their devotion to liberty.
13:16It is by the good conduct
13:19and consequent character of the great mass of the people
13:23that a nation is exalted.
13:31And what fired Buick's radicalism wasn't just anger.
13:35It was an emotion new to politics, sympathy.
13:40What moved him was an overwhelming feeling
13:43for the victims of injustice, poverty and suffering.
13:46A recognition that deep down,
13:49we are all bonded by our shared human nature.
13:53It was a call to action echoed in pulpits up and down the country.
14:02How could you feel the suffering of others
14:04and not want to do all in your power to remedy it?
14:09For the first time, there was a politics of suffering,
14:13one that could no longer turn a blind eye to the plight of children,
14:17the aged, the sick and the poor.
14:21Yet bigwigs did turn a blind eye.
14:24They believed that the glorious revolution of 1688
14:28had sent James II and his Catholic despotism packing
14:32and had given birth to a land of the free.
14:36In 1788, with the 100th anniversary upon them,
14:40how tempting it was to continue patting themselves on the back
14:44as being the most enlightened country in the world.
14:48But for the likes of Buick and his friends,
14:50there was nothing to be complacent about.
14:53The real problem with the glorious revolution,
14:56the radicals argued,
14:58was that it had been hijacked by scoundrels
15:00who'd perverted it to satisfy their own greed and ambition.
15:04They'd packed parliament with sycophantic placemen
15:07and they'd sold their vote to pay their tailor's bill.
15:11The real forgotten lesson of 1688
15:14was that the people were entitled to resist,
15:17entitled to change their government,
15:19entitled to the kind of sovereign
15:21that understood the reality of a limited monarchy.
15:30If the memory of that first revolution was going to mean anything,
15:34a second revolution of justice
15:37would have to make good on its promise.
15:40Then, in Paris, on July 14, 1789,
15:44the world would learn just how limited a monarchy could be.
15:49The Bastille fell and nothing was the same again.
15:53Though the fortress had just eight prisoners in it,
15:57its eight grim towers and its cannon
15:59pointing into the heart of the city
16:01had become an emblem of everything detestable,
16:04about the old absolute monarchy.
16:08In Buick's world,
16:09toasts were drunk to the dawn of a new age of real liberty
16:13and the fall of despots.
16:17And it was noticed that it had been ordinary people,
16:21armed with muskets and slogans,
16:23who had stormed the citadel.
16:27The inspiring moral was that the people,
16:30if pushed too far,
16:32could and would take back their rights.
16:35Monarchy would be demolished.
16:39So, when Dr Richard Price,
16:42from his Unitarian pulpit in London,
16:44congratulated King George III
16:46for recovering his sanity,
16:48he had the cheek to warn him
16:50that unless he came to his political senses,
16:54he too would go the way of Louis XVI.
16:58May you be led to such a sense
17:00of the nature of your situation
17:02to consider yourself more properly
17:04the servant than the sovereign of the people.
17:10To the young,
17:12dressing down a king in the name of liberty
17:14was a heady pleasure.
17:18William Wordsworth
17:19had been born in the Lake District,
17:22across the Pennines from Buick.
17:24He too had grown up in love with nature.
17:27Now, that love
17:28would extend to all
17:30of downtrodden humanity.
17:35In 1790,
17:37on the first anniversary
17:38of the fall of the Bastille,
17:40at the age of 19,
17:42Wordsworth found himself in France.
17:44What he saw there,
17:46he described as
17:47human nature seeming born again.
17:54Unhoused beneath the evening star,
17:56we saw dances of liberty,
17:59and in late hours of darkness,
18:01dances in the open air.
18:04We rose at signal given,
18:06and formed a ring,
18:07and hand in hand,
18:09danced round and round the board.
18:12All hearts were open,
18:14every tongue was loud
18:15with amity and glee.
18:17We bore a name honoured in France,
18:20the name of Englishman,
18:23and hospitably they did give us hail,
18:26as their forerunners
18:27in a glorious course.
18:38But not everyone felt
18:40as blissfully as Wordsworth.
18:42Edmund Burke,
18:44the eloquent Irish MP,
18:46who'd been the militant friend
18:47of the Americans,
18:48now had a change of heart
18:50about revolution.
18:52He too had lifted a glass
18:54to toast the dawn of liberty
18:56in July 1789.
18:59But when the lynching started,
19:01Burke decided the revolution
19:03was above all
19:04an act of violence,
19:06and he denounced it
19:07in his vitriolic reflections
19:10on the French Revolution.
19:13Amid forming plans
19:15for the good order
19:16of future society.
19:20They act amidst
19:21the tumultuous cries
19:23of a nixed mob
19:24of ferocious men and women
19:25lost to shame.
19:29It's hard to know
19:30which was more painful,
19:32the fact that Burke's
19:33savage denunciation
19:34came from an erstwhile
19:36friend of liberty and reform,
19:38or that it flung back
19:40into the teeth of the radicals
19:42some of the mushier
19:43platitudes about nature.
19:45They had taken it as read
19:47that nature filled your bosom
19:49with the love of mankind,
19:50that nature was fraternal,
19:52was cosmopolitan.
19:54Rubbish, said Burke.
19:55Nature is rooted in place.
19:57It teaches you to love
19:59your birthplace,
20:00your language,
20:01your customs,
20:02your habits.
20:03Nature is a patriot.
20:09What Burke hated most of all
20:11was the naivety
20:13of well-meaning
20:14Whig politicians,
20:15like his old friend
20:16Charles James Fox,
20:18putting a few slogans
20:19into the heads of people
20:21not educated enough
20:22to understand
20:23what they were wrecking.
20:27Democracy?
20:28Mobocracy, more like,
20:30said Burke.
20:32Heads stuck on pikes,
20:34the law of the lynch mob.
20:35We don't want that here.
20:40But for one unrepentant enthusiast,
20:43this was a travesty.
20:45Tom Paine,
20:47whose book Common Sense
20:48had supported the Americans
20:50in their revolution,
20:51now took on Edmund Burke.
20:54In 1791,
20:56he published his counterblast,
20:58The Rights of Man.
21:01It was a brilliantly calculated reply.
21:04Burke had used
21:05the most flowery language
21:07to describe
21:07the mob's
21:08ungallant assault
21:10on the Queen of France.
21:11So Paine,
21:13in contrast,
21:14used the earthy,
21:15direct street talk
21:17of ordinary people,
21:18the kind of people
21:19Burke referred to
21:20as the swinish multitude.
21:23And what Paine's message was,
21:25was that nature
21:26fought on the side
21:27of liberty.
21:29At our birth,
21:30he said,
21:30we had certain natural rights
21:32which no government,
21:34no sovereign,
21:35could violate
21:35and expect to survive.
21:39When Paine shouted,
21:41people listened.
21:42He sold 40,000 copies
21:45of The Rights of Man
21:46in a few months.
21:47And the people who bought them
21:49were people new to politics,
21:51men like Buick,
21:52men with grievances to air.
21:56As they became more vocal
21:57and more visible,
21:59the forces of order,
22:00the party of church and king,
22:02began to get distinctly nervous.
22:06The Prime Minister,
22:07William Pitt,
22:08barely in his thirties,
22:09once hailed as a friend of reform,
22:11was now firmly
22:12in the conservative camp.
22:14And he looked on
22:15at events in France
22:16with growing horror
22:18and disgust.
22:21It was time
22:22to batten down
22:23the hatches,
22:24mobilize the militia,
22:26beat the patriotic drum
22:27and make sure
22:28the likes of Tom Paine
22:30were gagged
22:31before they made mischief.
22:37Houses were burned,
22:39conspicuous Democrats
22:40roughed up.
22:45Tom Paine
22:46just got out
22:47in the nick of time.
22:48He was tried
22:49in proxy
22:50for treason.
22:54Those who stayed
22:55loyal to Paine
22:56came together
22:57in solidarity
22:58and defiance.
23:01One place
23:02where dangerous thoughts
23:03were positively welcome
23:05was 72 St Paul's
23:07Churchyard,
23:08where Joseph Johnson,
23:09the bachelor,
23:10Liverpudlian
23:11printer and publisher,
23:12acted as kindly uncle
23:14to all those
23:15he fondly called
23:16his ruffian gang.
23:20On any given Sunday,
23:22you'd find a mix
23:22of painters
23:23like William Blake,
23:24old-time agitators
23:26for parliamentary reform,
23:28celebrity Democrats
23:29like Tom Paine,
23:30and you'd find women,
23:32articulate,
23:33intelligent
23:34and impassioned.
23:36And among those women,
23:37the most striking
23:38of all
23:39was Mary Wollstonecraft.
23:40Mary Wollstonecraft.
23:41She was
23:42the spirit
23:43of the time.
23:44Mary Wollstonecraft
23:45was a one-woman revolution.
23:53Living a hand-to-mouth existence
23:55as a writer,
23:57given a roof
23:57over her head
23:58by Johnson,
24:00Mary burst into print
24:01in outrage
24:02at Burke's reflections.
24:04But while she was doing it,
24:06she also noticed
24:07that the rights of men
24:09weren't worth much
24:10if they excluded
24:11the other half
24:12of human society.
24:14So she produced
24:15her own amended version,
24:17a vindication
24:18of the rights
24:19of woman.
24:21If nature
24:22was going to be held up
24:23as the handmaid
24:24of liberty and equality,
24:25we'd better think
24:27about the natural state
24:28of women.
24:31The reason,
24:32she said,
24:32why women
24:33were so slighted
24:34was that
24:35from the time
24:36they were little girls,
24:37their entire being
24:39was designed
24:40with the sole
24:41and sovereign aim
24:42of pleasing men.
24:45She had no time
24:47for Rousseau's idea
24:48that women,
24:49by their very nature,
24:51could be no more
24:51than wives
24:52and mothers.
24:53There was nothing
24:54she could see
24:55in her nature
24:55which disqualified
24:57her from being
24:58a true citizen.
25:01For daring
25:02to say these things,
25:04Mary was abused
25:04as unnatural.
25:06Horace Walpole,
25:07the essayist,
25:08called her
25:09a hyena
25:09in petticoats.
25:14Like Wordsworth
25:16before her,
25:17Mary Wollstonecraft
25:18hoped that
25:19in the new
25:20French Republic
25:20she'd find
25:21like-minded souls
25:23with whom
25:23to share
25:24her radical views.
25:27But what she
25:28landed in
25:29was the jumpy,
25:30paranoid dictatorship
25:32of the Jacobins.
25:35Rousseau's face
25:36and his books
25:37were everywhere.
25:39Slavishly obedient
25:40to his dogma,
25:42French women
25:42who meddled
25:43in politics
25:44were told
25:44to shut up
25:45and nurse their babies
25:46for the revolutionary
25:47fatherland.
25:50and those
25:50who didn't,
25:51who dared
25:52organise
25:52their own
25:53political clubs,
25:54were beaten up
25:55on the streets.
25:59In August 1792,
26:01the monarchy
26:02had been overthrown
26:03and a revolutionary
26:04republic created
26:06in its place.
26:07A month later,
26:09when Prussian
26:10and Austrian
26:10armies invaded
26:12from the east,
26:12the paranoia
26:13became bloody.
26:261,400 men
26:28and women
26:28held in Paris
26:29prisons
26:30were demonised
26:31as a fifth column
26:32and butchered
26:33in cold blood.
26:42In the 21st century,
26:44we reckon we know
26:45all about
26:46the split personality
26:47of revolutions.
26:48The transformation
26:49from the smiley face
26:51of liberty
26:51into the ugly reality
26:53of a terror
26:54and a police state.
26:56But at the end
26:57of the 18th century,
26:58no one was reading
26:59A Rough Guide
26:59to Revolution,
27:01especially not
27:01its most passionate
27:02enthusiast
27:03who'd witnessed
27:05first-hand
27:05the days of flowers
27:07and freedom
27:07and fraternity
27:09and for whom
27:10the slogan
27:11of liberty and equality
27:12was a natural partnership.
27:16To begin with,
27:18Mary shared
27:18the company
27:19and the optimism
27:20of expatriate Americans,
27:22Irish, English
27:23and Scots
27:23who met
27:24at White's Hotel
27:25in Paris.
27:26In the first flush
27:28of revolutionary bliss,
27:30a little spilt blood
27:31wasn't going
27:32to spoil
27:33the rapture
27:33of freedom.
27:35Mary herself wrote,
27:37Children of any growth
27:38will do mischief
27:39when they meddle
27:39with edged tools.
27:42But then,
27:43as the despotism
27:45of the crown
27:45was replaced
27:46by the despotism
27:47of a police state,
27:49doubts began
27:50and to creep in.
27:53Just a few weeks
27:54after she arrived,
27:56Mary saw
27:56Louis XVI
27:57going to his trial
27:59and unaccountably
28:01she found herself
28:01weeping
28:02at the dignity
28:03of his composure.
28:05It wasn't at all
28:06what she'd expected.
28:10Ironically,
28:11even the foremost spokesman
28:12for radical politics
28:14came under suspicion.
28:16In the summer
28:18of 1793,
28:19Tom Paine
28:20went from being
28:20a local hero
28:21to a pariah.
28:23He blotted
28:24his copybook
28:25some months earlier
28:26during the debates
28:27over the sentencing
28:28of Louis XVI.
28:30Even though
28:31Paine was the most
28:32famous anti-monarchist,
28:34he'd argued
28:34very bravely
28:35and very recklessly
28:36that since Louis
28:38was now
28:38an irrelevance,
28:39why sentence
28:40him to death?
28:42He'd also said
28:43that a really
28:44free republic
28:46owed it
28:46even to its
28:47worst enemies
28:48to protect them
28:50against oppression.
28:52Well,
28:53this not only
28:53made him unpopular
28:54but dangerously
28:56undesirable.
28:57And in the summer,
28:58the chickens
28:58came home to roost.
29:00Paine was arrested
29:01and locked up
29:02in the Luxembourg prison
29:04over there.
29:05He was saved
29:06from the guillotine
29:06only by an absolutely
29:08fantastic accident.
29:10When somebody
29:11was about to
29:11get the chop,
29:12someone came round
29:14and marked a cross
29:15on the door
29:16of their cell.
29:18In Paine's
29:19particular case,
29:20the doors
29:21happened to have
29:22been opened
29:22so that the cross
29:23was actually made
29:24on the inside
29:26of the door.
29:29When the door
29:30slammed shut,
29:31that cross
29:32was invisible.
29:33Paine escaped
29:35his date
29:35with the national
29:36razor, it was called,
29:38by a freak
29:39of fate.
29:42As the arrests
29:44and executions
29:45started to speed up,
29:47Mary's natural
29:48exuberance
29:48began to cool.
29:50She sat in her room,
29:52scared and despondent,
29:54writing to Joseph Johnson.
30:03I have seen eyes glare
30:05through a glass door
30:06opposite me
30:07and bloody hands
30:09shook at me.
30:10I wish I had even
30:12kept the cat with me
30:13as I want to see
30:14something alive.
30:16Death in so many
30:17frightful shapes
30:18has taken hold
30:19of my fancy.
30:21I'm going to bed
30:22and for the first
30:24time in my life
30:25I cannot put out
30:27the candle.
30:45By the spring
30:46of 1793,
30:47the war which
30:48had broken out
30:49between Britain
30:49and France
30:50had changed
30:51everything.
30:52Instead of being
30:53treated as
30:54honoured guests,
30:55the expatriates
30:56were suspected
30:57of being
30:58a fifth column,
30:59compromised by
31:00their friendship
31:01with French politicians
31:02guillotined as
31:03traitors to the
31:04republic.
31:07Mary must have
31:09felt it would
31:10be her turn
31:10any day.
31:14Salvation
31:14appeared in
31:15the good-looking
31:16shape of an
31:17American businessman
31:18and property
31:19speculator,
31:20Gilbert Imlay,
31:21who registered
31:22her as his
31:23American wife
31:24and thus free
31:25from the taint
31:26of being one
31:27of the enemies
31:27of France.
31:32Nursing their
31:33baby in a
31:34quiet garden
31:35on the outskirts
31:36of Paris,
31:37Mary the feminist
31:38had been saved
31:39from the revolution
31:40by motherhood.
31:44But it was not
31:45to be a happy ending.
31:46As Mary became
31:49more devoted,
31:50Imlay's business
31:51trips became
31:52mysteriously prolonged.
31:56When she followed
31:57him as far as
31:58London,
31:59she found a new
32:00mistress.
32:02On a rainy night
32:04in October 1795,
32:06she walked around
32:07Putney long enough
32:08to make sure her
32:09best dress was
32:10heavily saturated.
32:12Then she jumped
32:13off the bridge
32:14into the Thames,
32:15leaving a note
32:16for Imlay.
32:17Let my wrongs
32:18sleep with me.
32:22But she was not
32:23to be allowed
32:24her poetic suicide.
32:25A boatman
32:26pulled her out.
32:30She was 37
32:31and she seemed
32:33to have lost
32:34everything
32:34except her child.
32:36Her faith in revolution,
32:38in the virtue
32:38of the people,
32:39her belief
32:40in the possibilities
32:41of an independent
32:42woman's life.
32:44The goodness
32:45of nature
32:46must have seemed
32:47a cruel joke.
32:53Some months later,
32:54she seemed
32:55to get a second
32:56chance at happiness
32:57in the unlikely form
32:58of William Godwin,
32:59a philosopher
33:00she had met
33:01once before
33:02at Joseph Johnson's.
33:06Godwin was
33:08notorious
33:08for his rejection
33:09of romance
33:10as well as
33:11marriage
33:11and private property.
33:13But Mary's fire
33:15burned bright enough
33:16to melt
33:17his icy principles.
33:20Though they'd agreed
33:22not to cohabit,
33:23the sworn enemy
33:24of matrimony
33:25and of feminists
33:26were wedded
33:27at St Pancras Church.
33:30And as her months
33:32of pregnancy passed,
33:33the two found themselves
33:35relaxing into
33:36conjugal cosiness
33:37to the point
33:38where Godwin
33:39was prepared,
33:40at least privately,
33:41to admit the force
33:42of emotion
33:43as well as thought,
33:45which is what
33:46made the end
33:47so unbearable.
33:51When the time
33:52for her labour came,
33:53Mary called
33:54a local midwife.
33:55But after the baby
33:57was born,
33:57another girl,
33:59the placenta
34:00remained firmly lodged
34:02somewhere at the top
34:02of the birth canal.
34:03Now, obstetric opinion
34:05at the time
34:06held that unless
34:07the placenta
34:08was promptly expelled,
34:10there was a lethal
34:11danger of infection.
34:13So, a doctor
34:15from Westminster Hospital
34:16was summoned
34:17and he stuck
34:18his hand up Mary
34:19and pulled.
34:21The placenta
34:22came away in pieces
34:24as Mary lay
34:25in agony,
34:27hemorrhaging.
34:30She had been
34:31through so many
34:32terrors,
34:32so many ordeals,
34:34come so close
34:35to death
34:36and had somehow
34:36managed to survive.
34:38This time,
34:39with so much
34:40to live for,
34:41there would be
34:41no escape.
34:43She died
34:44a week later
34:45of septicemia.
34:49Godwin wrote
34:49to a friend,
34:51My wife
34:52is now dead.
34:54I firmly believe
34:56there does not exist
34:56her equal
34:57in the world.
34:59I know from experience
35:00we were formed
35:01to make each other happy.
35:03I have not
35:04the least expectation
35:05that I can now
35:06ever know happiness again.
35:11She is rightly
35:12remembered
35:12as the founder
35:13of modern feminism
35:15for making a statement
35:17remarkable
35:17for its bravery
35:18and clarity
35:19that the whole
35:20nature of women
35:21was not to be
35:22confused with
35:23their biology.
35:25But nature,
35:26biology,
35:27had killed her.
35:34Beyond her deathbed,
35:36the relentless struggle
35:37between liberty
35:38and repression
35:39raged on,
35:41stopping for no one.
35:45Meeting with radicals
35:47could now
35:48get you into
35:48serious trouble.
35:50Happy as corpus
35:51had been suspended,
35:53printing presses
35:53were being smashed,
35:55the doors of freedom
35:56were slamming shut.
35:59And no wonder,
36:01for the stakes
36:02were as high
36:03as they could get.
36:05Republican France
36:05was on the march
36:07and Britain
36:07was vulnerable
36:09where it had always been,
36:10in Ireland.
36:23Irish Republicans
36:24had been among
36:25the friends
36:26of revolution
36:26at White's Hotel.
36:28They had dreamed
36:29of a great uprising
36:30against the English.
36:32But for the dreams
36:33to come true,
36:34an insurrection
36:35had to come inside
36:37with a French invasion.
36:41The French did come,
36:43but they came too late
36:44and on the wrong coast.
36:46By the time
36:47they got to Killala Bay
36:48in the west
36:49in the summer of 1798,
36:51the rebellion
36:52of the United Irishmen
36:53in the east
36:54had already been crushed
36:55by a British army
36:57at Vinegar Hill.
37:10Stranded in the wilds
37:11of County Mayo,
37:12a long, long way
37:13from Dublin,
37:14their only Irish help
37:16came from an improvised
37:17troop of peasants,
37:19schoolmasters
37:19and priests.
37:22All the bloody games
37:24we know so well
37:25started here.
37:26Masked men
37:27arriving at midnight,
37:28the stockpiling of arms,
37:30the mercilessness
37:32shown towards anyone
37:33even faintly suspected
37:34of collaborating
37:35with the English.
37:40Hit and run slaughter
37:41was not a strategy.
37:44The invasion stalled
37:45and went into retreat.
37:47Finally,
37:48the French capitulated.
37:52Wolf Tone,
37:54the Protestant Irish
37:55Republican leader
37:56who'd come with them
37:57was arrested
37:58and tried for treason,
38:00but committed suicide
38:01in prison
38:02before he could be hanged.
38:09At least 30,000
38:12Irish men and women
38:13died in 1798,
38:15another of the tragedies
38:17that scarred
38:18the country's history,
38:19but one which would be
38:21remembered indelibly,
38:23though not accurately,
38:24as a war of the Protestant
38:26English against the Catholic
38:28Irish.
38:34For Pitt
38:35and the Westminster
38:36politicians,
38:37it had been a close call.
38:39The enemy at the gates
38:40in Ireland,
38:41another huge French army
38:43camped on the Channel
38:44coast.
38:45A time for sweaty palms.
38:50And a time for all radicals
38:52to ask themselves
38:53difficult questions.
38:55How could you remain
38:56a cheerleader for revolution,
38:58knowing now what you knew,
39:00having seen the dreams
39:01turn to violence
39:03and bloodshed?
39:08The poet William Wordsworth
39:10had been as fervent as anyone
39:12in the early days
39:13of revolutionary hope.
39:15Now, those hopes
39:17were turning to doubts.
39:22By 1798,
39:24with the fate of Britain
39:25hanging in the balance,
39:27he was renting a house
39:28in Somerset,
39:29close to his friend
39:30Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
39:40Like Mary Wollstonecraft,
39:42Wordsworth had lost his heart
39:44in revolutionary France.
39:45But his lover
39:46and the mother of his child
39:48had been a royalist.
39:50Late in 1792,
39:52with war impending,
39:53he had to decide
39:55between staying
39:56at peril to his life
39:57or returning to England.
39:59He chose the latter path.
40:06Being a friend of the people
40:07now required him
40:09to be an enemy of France.
40:11Why?
40:12Because France,
40:13in the shape of Napoleon Bonaparte,
40:15had abandoned
40:15the cause of liberty
40:16and turned into nothing more
40:18than your communal garden tyrant,
40:21bent on forcing Britain
40:22to its knees.
40:30Wordsworth's other great love affair
40:32with nature
40:32was as strong as ever.
40:35Only now,
40:35nature made him think
40:36not of revolution,
40:38but of home.
40:39Sadder and wiser as he now was,
40:41how much of his old fire
40:43could he preserve?
40:47The solution
40:49was to abandon
40:50political dogma
40:51for poetry.
40:52Hope lay not
40:53in the torrents of blood
40:55spilled in Paris,
40:56but in the moral example
40:57of country people
40:58whose lives were lived
41:00in simplicity and decency
41:02close to English nature.
41:04The work of poetry now
41:06was to make audible
41:08the voices of the wounded
41:10and the destitute.
41:15She had a tall man's height
41:18or more.
41:19No bonnet screened her
41:20from the heat.
41:21A long, drab-coloured coat
41:23she wore,
41:24a mantle reaching
41:26to her feet.
41:27Before me begging
41:29did she stand,
41:30pouring out sorrows
41:32like the sea,
41:33grief after grief.
41:35On English land,
41:36such woes
41:38I knew could never be.
41:44Nature did still
41:45have the power
41:46to transform lives,
41:47but not through
41:48any kind of
41:49political agenda.
41:50A vote
41:51would never make
41:52one happy.
41:53A snowdrop in February
41:54or a mother's love
41:56for her newborn
41:57might.
42:03He returned to his roots
42:05in the Lake District,
42:06made his home
42:07at Grasmere.
42:12Nature meant something
42:14different now
42:14to Wordsworth
42:15and Coleridge.
42:16It was no longer
42:17something which connected
42:18them with the wider world.
42:20It was something
42:21which detached them
42:22from it.
42:23When they talked
42:23about liberty now,
42:24they no longer
42:25meant solidarity.
42:26They meant solitude.
42:30up in the lakes,
42:32the new affection
42:33for home
42:33might be as innocent
42:35as a summer picnic.
42:36But on the front line
42:38of the engulfing war,
42:40native loyalty
42:40meant something
42:41far more belligerent.
42:43Nature had been recruited
42:45for patriotic propaganda.
42:51each time invasion threatened,
42:54this inward,
42:54insular sense
42:55of Britishness
42:56became more
42:57emotionally charged.
43:00Anyone faintly suspected
43:02of radical sympathies
43:03was branded
43:04a collaborator.
43:07The country
43:08had never been
43:09so massively mobilized.
43:11Not just an immense
43:12army and navy,
43:14but a volunteer militia
43:15of 75,000.
43:17And in 1803,
43:19in case of invasion,
43:21another 300,000
43:23ready to spring to arms
43:25to defend
43:26hearth and home
43:27against the godless French.
43:31When Napoleon
43:32turned history teacher,
43:34putting on a show
43:35at the Bayer Tapestry
43:36to remind the British
43:37that if conquests
43:38happened before,
43:39they could certainly
43:40happen again.
43:41What he got in response
43:43was a rude noise
43:44from the back of the class.
43:50What's more,
43:52William Pitt
43:52was not about to go down
43:54with an arrow in his eye.
43:56His war government
43:57mobilized on a scale
43:58never seen before.
44:02When the king
44:03reviewed 27,000
44:05volunteers
44:05in Hyde Park
44:06in October 1803,
44:08half a million
44:09of his subjects
44:10cheered him on.
44:13This was Edmund Burke's
44:15loyalist dream
44:16come true.
44:17The territorial urge
44:19to defend
44:20hearth and home
44:21vindicated
44:22as the most
44:23natural passion
44:24of all.
44:31Wordsworth
44:32now added
44:33his voice
44:33to those
44:34who thought
44:35nature
44:35was not
44:36the cradle
44:36of democracy
44:37but the shrine
44:38of patriotism.
44:42Save this
44:43honoured land
44:44from every lord
44:45but British reason
44:47and the British sword.
44:55Burke's nostalgia
44:56for a merry England
44:58still hanging on
44:59deep in the
45:00English countryside
45:01spawned an
45:02extraordinary boom
45:04in everything
45:04historical.
45:06Suits of rusting
45:07armour were taken
45:08out of barns,
45:09polished up
45:10and set in
45:11entrance halls
45:11to trumpet
45:12the patriotic pride
45:14of the gentry.
45:18For more than
45:19a decade
45:20the war
45:21roared on
45:22as Britain
45:22confronted
45:23Napoleon's empire.
45:25Epic campaigns
45:26in Spain
45:27and Portugal.
45:28A world conflict
45:29from India
45:30to the Caribbean
45:31with spectacular
45:32naval victories
45:33like Trafalgar.
45:37During these
45:38rollercoaster years
45:40the country's
45:41woes
45:41were muffled.
45:43Patriotic propaganda
45:44drowned out
45:45any voices
45:46of complaint.
45:49The symphony
45:51of cannon
45:52and drum
45:52reached its
45:53climax
45:54on the rain
45:55sodden fields
45:56of Waterloo.
46:15Surveying the carnage
46:16the day after
46:17Wellington famously
46:18said that the next
46:20worst thing to a battle
46:21lost is a battle
46:22won.
46:27He didn't know
46:28how prophetic
46:29his words
46:30would be.
46:31Instead of
46:32tasting the fruits
46:33of victory
46:34the poor
46:35and the unemployed
46:36were looking
46:36for anything
46:37to eat.
46:39The economy
46:40of post-war
46:41Britain
46:41had fallen
46:42into the most
46:43terrible slump
46:44in living memory.
46:48Even before victory
46:49Napoleon's success
46:51had a mess at sealing
46:51off European markets
46:53together with a war
46:54against the United
46:55States in 1812
46:57had destroyed demand
46:58for British
46:59manufacturers.
47:01Tens of thousands
47:02of weavers
47:03and spinners
47:04were laid off
47:05or had their wages
47:06cut.
47:07Then hundreds
47:09of thousands more
47:10demobbed soldiers,
47:12munitions workers,
47:13makers of uniforms
47:14were thrown
47:15to the workhouse.
47:18Misery
47:19spilled into violence.
47:21Machines
47:21were smashed
47:22in Yorkshire
47:23and Lancashire.
47:27While multitudes
47:28were losing
47:29their jobs
47:30the guardians
47:31of nature
47:32were getting them.
47:33While a crisis
47:34was at its worst
47:35Wordsworth
47:36applied for
47:37and got
47:38a post as
47:39distributor
47:39of stamps
47:40for Westmoreland.
47:42Come election time
47:43ingratitude
47:44he campaigned
47:45for the local
47:46earl's candidate
47:47against a radical.
47:50He was the government's
47:51most obedient servant
47:53now.
47:55Those who had sat
47:57at his feet
47:5715 years earlier
47:59when he'd seemed
48:00to be the first
48:01true poet
48:02of the people
48:02were horrified.
48:05There would be
48:06other heroes now
48:07heroes
48:08for unpoetical times.
48:11William Cobbett
48:12for example.
48:13You'd never confuse
48:15William Cobbett
48:16with a poet.
48:17He'd run away
48:18from his father's farm
48:19at the age of 14
48:21and he mostly
48:22educated himself.
48:24But that was
48:24exactly why
48:25the kind of language
48:26he favoured
48:27earthy
48:28coarse
48:29direct
48:29and belligerent
48:30the language
48:31of the pub
48:32and the barnyard
48:33was such
48:34journalistic
48:35dynamite.
48:37The labourers
48:38seem miserably
48:39poor.
48:40Their dwellings
48:42are little better
48:42than pig beds
48:43and their looks
48:44indicate that their
48:45food is not nearly
48:47equal to that
48:47of a pig.
48:49Their wretched
48:50hovels are stuck
48:52upon boots of ground
48:53on the side of the road
48:54where the space
48:55has been wider
48:55than the road
48:56demanded.
49:01His tuppany trash
49:03the weekly
49:04political register
49:05was a one-man
49:06revolution
49:07in journalism
49:08belching outrage
49:09in 50,000
49:11copies a week.
49:15There's no doubt
49:16that until
49:17Cobbett came along
49:18no one had ever
49:19got to the
49:19ordinary people
49:20of Britain
49:21robbed of their
49:22birthright
49:22by a bunch
49:23of social parasites
49:24and turned them
49:26into political
49:27animals.
49:31Cobbett was
49:32capable of
49:33mobilising an army
49:34of hundreds of
49:35thousands of
49:36petitioners
49:36enough at any rate
49:38to make the
49:38government nervous
49:39and start muttering
49:40darkly about a
49:41new peasant's
49:42revolt.
49:44But at the
49:45critical moment
49:45where was he?
49:47In America
49:48arranging to ship
49:49home the bones
49:51of Tom Paine.
49:54But Cobbett's
49:55army, the
49:56foot soldiers
49:56of democracy
49:57didn't need
49:58holy relics.
49:59They needed
50:00a leader.
50:01What they got
50:02instead was a
50:04disaster.
50:05They hadn't been
50:06looking for it.
50:07The mass meeting
50:08that was called
50:09in August 1819
50:11at St Peter's
50:12Field in Manchester
50:12was, its
50:14organisers insisted,
50:15to be orderly,
50:16even nostalgic,
50:18demanding only
50:19that the rights
50:20of free-born
50:21Britons,
50:21habeas corpus,
50:23free press,
50:23the right to
50:24honest representation
50:26be restored.
50:27It would be a
50:28festival for liberty.
50:33The men of order
50:35in London
50:35and the magistrates
50:37in Lancashire
50:37saw it very
50:38differently.
50:40Manchester,
50:40with its grumbling,
50:42out-of-work
50:42cotton spinners
50:43and its over-educated
50:45rabble-rousers,
50:46was a den
50:47of conspiracy.
50:48It needed a lesson
50:49before revolution
50:51took root.
50:53The jittery
50:54Manchester yeomanry
50:55was happy to oblige,
50:57cutting away
50:58through the crowds
50:59to arrest the
51:00soapbox orator
51:01Henry Hunt.
51:04A small girl
51:05was trampled
51:06to death
51:06under their
51:07horses' hooves.
51:08The field
51:09turned into
51:10bloody chaos,
51:11the enraged crowd
51:12surrounding the
51:13yeomanry,
51:14regular mounted
51:15troops coming
51:16to extricate them,
51:18slicing their way
51:19through the bodies.
51:25Eleven were killed,
51:27hundreds more
51:28badly wounded.
51:30At least a hundred
51:31of the injured
51:31were women
51:32and small children.
51:37This is the way
51:39an eyewitness,
51:40the artisan
51:41Samuel Bamford,
51:42recalled it.
51:44In ten minutes
51:46the field
51:47was an open
51:48and almost
51:49deserted space.
51:50The hustings
51:51remained
51:52with a few
51:53broken and
51:53hewed flagstaves
51:55erect
51:55and a torn
51:57and gashed
51:57banner or two
51:58drooping,
51:59whilst over the
52:00whole field
52:01were strewed
52:01caps,
52:02bonnets,
52:03hats,
52:03shawls
52:04and shoes,
52:05trampled,
52:06torn and bloody.
52:08The yeomanry
52:09had dismounted,
52:10some were easing
52:11their horses'
52:11girths
52:12and some
52:13were wiping
52:14their sabres.
52:17Peterloo struck
52:19old-time radicals
52:20like Thomas Buick
52:21with nauseated
52:22horror.
52:24Unnatural
52:24was the word
52:25which rang
52:26through the
52:26denunciations.
52:27The selfish,
52:29wicked men
52:29who had done
52:30such a thing
52:30had forfeited
52:31forever the right
52:33to be thought of
52:34as the natural
52:35governing class
52:36of Britain.
52:41They have sinned
52:42themselves out
52:43of all shame.
52:45This phalanx
52:46have kept their
52:47ground and will
52:48do so until
52:49it is feared
52:49violence from
52:51an enraged
52:51people breaks
52:52them up.
52:53Or, perhaps
52:55till the growing
52:55opinions against
52:56such a crooked
52:57order of conducting
52:59the affairs of
52:59this great nation
53:00becomes apparent
53:02to an immense
53:03majority.
53:10thousands of
53:11people reacted
53:12to Peterloo
53:13by throwing
53:14themselves into
53:14campaigns of
53:15practical action,
53:17crusades which
53:18they embarked
53:19on with
53:19religious fervour.
53:23Those who
53:24laboured for
53:24change did
53:25so now,
53:26not only in
53:27secret political
53:28clubs, but in
53:29the light of
53:30churches and
53:31chapels.
53:33their targets
53:34were unnatural
53:35institutions, the
53:36monopoly of the
53:37Church of
53:38England, the
53:39ban on
53:39Catholic voters
53:40in Ireland, in
53:41the manufacturing
53:42towns a hue and
53:44cry to have
53:44their own MPs.
53:46Unless these
53:47things were done,
53:49a revolution, they
53:49said, would be
53:50more, not less
53:52likely.
53:55In 1830, a new
53:57revolution in
53:58France and a
53:59wave of violence
54:00in the English
54:01countryside,
54:01meant the votes
54:02for change could
54:03not be postponed.
54:05The Whigs took
54:06office for the
54:07first time since
54:08before 1789 as
54:10the champions of
54:11reform without
54:13revolution.
54:14And the
54:14Parliamentary
54:15Reform Act they
54:16passed in 1832
54:17made good on
54:18their word.
54:21But the English
54:23counties weren't
54:24the only place
54:25where it was
54:26said something had
54:27to be done to
54:28avert bloodshed.
54:29In Suriname,
54:31Guiana and in
54:31Jamaica, pushed
54:33to the edge by
54:33hope and
54:34desperation, there
54:35had been slave
54:36rebellions, put
54:38down with a
54:38ferocity which
54:39made Peterloo look
54:41like a picnic.
54:59The message of the
55:00romantics, we are
55:01all brothers and
55:02sisters beneath the
55:03skin, we all share
55:05praise be to God, the
55:06same nature, could at
55:08last be embraced, not
55:10as a cry for
55:11retribution, a call
55:12to the barricades, but
55:14as the anthem of a
55:15great and peaceful
55:17crusade.
55:19Abolitionism healed
55:21old wounds.
55:22It brought together
55:24Thomas Buick and
55:25William Wordsworth
55:26under the same
55:28great tent of
55:29righteousness.
55:36The organisers of
55:38the campaign used
55:39all the weaponry of
55:41the new age of good
55:42causes, the revival
55:43meeting complete with
55:45hymns, the propaganda
55:46tour and the travelling
55:47exhibition, models of
55:50slave ships, chests full
55:53of the merchandise that
55:54might be traded instead
55:55of slaves.
56:11In 1834, Britain
56:13abolished slavery, and
56:15at a time contrary to
56:16some legends, when the
56:18market for its products
56:19was becoming more, not
56:20less lucrative.
56:22It was the first great
56:2319th century victory for
56:25the party of humanity.
56:31So was the place where
56:33the regeneration of
56:34Britain would happen, not
56:35as the young Wordsworth
56:37had imagined, in the
56:38hills and dales, but in
56:39chapels, churches and
56:41town halls.
56:43He had always supposed
56:45that our redemption
56:46depended on escaping
56:47from cities, that the
56:49best of human nature
56:50withered and perished
56:51when a hedgerow turned
56:53into a street.
56:56Well, perhaps it was
56:57the end of his dream, of
56:59a return to the
57:00childlike innocence of
57:01uncorrupted nature.
57:03But that dream never
57:05had a chance of
57:06becoming real, not in a
57:07Britain powering its way
57:09to industrial modernity.
57:15What Wordsworth had
57:16wanted was that nature,
57:18the British countryside,
57:19should be the negation
57:21of the town.
57:22Instead, it had somehow
57:24become its accomplice.
57:28Instead of needing to
57:29get deep into the
57:30enfolding heart of the
57:31country, those who could
57:33never have made the trip
57:34in any case, could now
57:35find nature literally in
57:37their own backyard.
57:40In garden allotments
57:41given to them by the
57:42railway company, the echo
57:44of the old strips they'd
57:46lost to enclosures.
57:47in the little gardens
57:49attached to the
57:50terrace house, which
57:51stood in for the
57:52cottage lot they had
57:53left behind.
57:57For the first time, a
57:59park meant not the
58:00private estate of some
58:01aristocrat, but a
58:03public place in a town
58:04without barriers of
58:05class or property, laid
58:07out like here in
58:08Birkenhead in the
58:091840s with ponds and
58:12rambles and lawns, the
58:14kind of place where
58:15parents would bring
58:16their children to give
58:17them something of the
58:18pleasures of nature.
58:21It was not, I suppose,
58:23sublime, but neither was
58:25it at all ridiculous.
58:58because of the
58:58cattle.
58:58We were going to go to the
58:58called this
58:59and I would
58:59in a
59:00Mr.
59:01one
59:03said
59:13what