Features / Ken Speckle Papers: a tale of political intrigue

Being further extracts from a cache of the Rev. Ken Speckle’s papers, found earlier this year in ‘Da Pechts Hoose’ at Wadbister, Bressay, which, Dr Shilpitt was pleased to discover, also included fragments of notes penned by Speckle’s neighbour and former lodger, Dr Witney Garlick (to be included in a future episode).¹

My journal and commonplace book kept at the Manse of Stobister, Breezey Island, Zetland,this ninth day of September in the year of Our Lord 1825.

To Scharniecrick this forenoon with my jovial boatmen, Lowrie Stane and Brucie Barr, they seeming more eager to convey me thither than hitherto, doubtless due to my new-found ability to pay them handsomely for their labours.

After landing me at the Tollbooth the lads proceeded to the Toolbar, there to spend the few groats I had pressed upon them as a gratuity.

As we parted, Brucie Barr warned: “Watch oot fir dysel in yunder, Meenister. Hit’s chusta nestavipers!”

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“Hit’s fairly dat,” agreed Lowrie Stane, with a wink. “Whaar dirs siller dirs sharn, du keens.”

At the Toon Hoose Commissioner Theophilus greeted me with Mr Bigally and Sir Allastir Curmudgeon who, over a warming glass of punch, informed me of the precise terms and emoluments that I might expect in my recent appointment as aide de camp to Her Grace the Countess Coupkecks of Pinkrivlin for the duration of the parliamentary hustings. I had previously understood this to be a relatively modest monetary recompense for incidental expenses, such as my boat hires and purchases of cake and Hollands gin to treat the electors. When the sum of 28,000 pounds Scots was now disclosed as the salary I was dumbfounded and sat silent for some time, contemplating the enormous possibilities such wealth would open for my ministry to the Poor of Breezey (so long, so burdensome and so ill-rewarded).

At last Mr Bigally broke the silence: “Whit’s wrang, Meenister? Is yun no anyoch? Sir Allastir cudlikkly finna grenmairfirdee.”

I reassured the good fellow that this sum would indeed be sufficient, having calculated by mental arithmetick that it amounted to no less than 40,000 pounds Scots per annum, equivalent to more than 3,000 guineas Sterling, not including expenses. This in addition to my privy remittances for secret intelligences delivered to Mr McSwimmy at Holyrood.

Commissioner Theophilus then invited Sir Allastir to outline my duties, he having so long an acquaintance with the stratagems and manoeuvres necessary to gain and retain a seat in the legislature. Sir Allastir explained that with a candidate so weak, vacillating and ineffective it was absolutely necessary to create in the minds of the electors an impression of boldness, decisiveness and also of notable achievement in the publick offices held to date.

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“But, Honourable and Learned Sir, pray tell us how we may do this,” I asked, “For doth not the Book of Exodus, in Chapter Five, verses six to eight, tell us ‘Thou canst not make bricks without straw’?”

The Right Honourable Member and Privy Councillor allowed there was a difficulty in the present circumstances but there was no need to be dumbfounded, for it could be overcome by fairly simple means:

1.  I am to endeavour to minimise the candidate’s encounters with actual electors, for fear that she might utter some banal commonplace revealing her fundamental incomprehension of the mechanisms of politickal governance.
2. If absolutely obliged to attend publick hustings (for fear of losing face), she must be well rehearsed beforehand, with a prepared script of anodyne platitudes from which she is not to diverge.
3. On no account is the candidate to take spoken questions from His Majesty’s Press, and in particular she must ignore impertinent interrogations by Herr Martyr of Ye Zetland Intelligencer or Mr Olsterfry, the Town Crier. An exception can be made, however, for Ye Soaraway Times, which might be permitted two questions, submitted in writing beforehand, on the understanding that the written answers to these inquiries be printed verbatim and the galley proofs of the scribblers’ reports checked by the candidate’s agent.

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Sir Allastir observed, with some satisfaction: “It is our great good fortune that the local organ, formerly known as Washoot’s Weakly, has remained true to the Whig cause, despite the recent change of proprietorship. I think we may rest assured that this journal’s traditional editorial hostility to Levellers, Reformers, Diggers and the Jacobite Essenpee, this past century and a half, will become even more rabid and implacable. I intend to lunch the new Editor, as soon as possible.”.

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”At this Mr Bigally interjected: “Er, Loard forgie me for interruptin, Sir Allastir, bit sood dat no be axe da Editor oot tae lunch?”

“No, it should not, Sir. I employed the word ‘lunch’ as a transitive verb,” Sir Allastir replied curtly. “The Editor will be lunched, lest our candidate be lynched.”

“But how are we to communicate our candidate’s supposedly superior virtues to the electors, if we may not present her to them in person?” I inquired.

“Why, Sir, by printing vast quantities of pamphlets extolling her imaginary achievements and pasting them on walls, lamp posts and the doors and windows of our supporters,” he said.“

Anda doors an windaes o’ wir enemies an aa!” Commissioner Theophilus observed, with awry chuckle.

“Indeed, the decoration of Leveller and Jacobite fenestration with our messages of hope and glory is a legitimate activity, particularly in this contest, where we seek to roll back the forces of seditious combination and secession, thus securing the Union of His Hanoverian Majesty’s Crowns and Parliaments,” Sir Allastir agreed.

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“God save da King!” ejaculated Mr Bigally, waving his red, white and blue bonnet in the air with admirable patriotick fervour.

At this point I felt obliged to ask: “But, pray, have we sufficient funds for such printings, Sir Allastir, and is there not some limit set upon our expenditure by the authorities?”

“Do not distress yourself,” that worthy man replied, “In all my twenty four years in Parliament I have never been troubled upon that score for, as the Book of Genesis says, in Chapter Twenty Two, verse 14, ‘The Lord will provide’.”

“Wid dat be Lord Ashsack, wha’s muckle yacht you wir aboard dastreen?” Mr Bigally asked.

“No, Sir, it would not,” Sir Allastir replied, with some asperity. “My visit to Baron Ashsack’s sloop, the Lady Mammon, which, unfortunately, was noted by some spikeful hacks observing from the window of Ye Soaraway Times, was purely a call out of courtesy, as we are old acquaintances from the days of yore, when Mr Camrun was assembling a coalition betwixt The King’s Party and the Whigs, to keep the Leveller party out of office, the Baron supervising the necessary financial arrangements.“

His Lordship’s present voyage around the creeks of Zetland, as he told me, is purportedly to make a survey of whales and to purchase some lobsters for dinner, but this is but a cloak while his men of business surreptitiously recruit destitute kelp gatherers willing to sign bonds of indentured servitude and to labour five years upon his sugar cane plantations in Honduras, where the supply of slaves is threatened by the activities of Mr William Wilberforce, my fellow Member of Parliament. But speak no more of that matter, lest it become a subjectof idle and malicious speculation amongst the vulgar multitude… Now then, where was I?

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I reminded Sir Allastir of my worries concerning excessive and possibly unauthorised electoral expenditure. There really was no problem, he assured me, for he could use his own allowance as a sitting Member to pay for a news sheet, Da Libbingdem Times or suchlike, supposedly a routine parliamentary report to his constituents but incidentally promoting the Whig candidate at the forthcoming local poll. The cost of this production and its distribution, free of charge, to all electors need not therefore be included in my accounts of Lady Pinkrivlin’s election expenses. In addition, he would arrange for a limner to prepare flattering aquatints of Her Grace in various poses, heroically inspiring or reassuringly demure as occasion might demand, and make these available to the publick prints gratis. As long as he also appeared in these pictorial compositions they could plausibly be represented as chronicling his constituency duties rather than promoting Countess Coupkeck’s candidacy, and could thus be accounted for separately.

It was also, he vouchsafed, permissible to purchase advertisements in the press, where the veracity of the candidate’s statements would not be subject to editorial inquisition. This could be done well before the date when, by convention if not by law, all election spending must be tallied and reported.

“So, money, my dear Sir, is the least of our worries,” Sir Allastir concluded.

“Dookansaydatageen!” Commissioner Theophilus muttered through his gritted teeth.

Notes:
1 The Rev. Kenneth Speckle, it may be remembered, was banished to the remote charge of Stobister and Pendicles in 1785 after a misunderstanding concerning the communion wine accounts of a parish in Fife. It had previously been thought that Speckle did not survive the poverty and distress that so afflicted him in the early 1820s, but the latest find of his papers shows that he not only survived but prospered, despite his connection with the controversial jobbing philosopher and agitator Dr Witney Garlick.

The collected Ken Speckle Papers are published in book form here.

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