Gladstone, the Waldensians and his ‘New Departure’ 1
In February 1832 the 22-year-old William Ewart Gladstone, the future Prime Minister, and his brother John left England for a continental grand tour, visiting Belgium, France, Italy and Austria. An expected highlight, visiting the Waldensian valleys, proved to be a great disappointment to him. Gladstone, coming from a distinguished Evangelical Anglican background in Liverpool, had long held the ‘Vaudois’ to be great heroes and as a boy at Eton had writtenand published a poem entitled ‘The Song of the Vaudois Women’:
Farewell to the land where each spot that we trod
Was hallow’d by freedom, and sacred to God;
Farewell to the shades where the Vaudois have dwelt,
And the shrines of our faith, where our forefathers knelt.
Farewell to our mountains; no more than we raise
The suppliant pray’r, and the anthem of praise:
Too soon will our altars, and snow-cover’d heights,
The Monk, and the Bigot pollute with their rites.
But, say; shall we tamely bow down to the stroke,
And writhe ’neath our tyrants’ and conquerors’ yoke?
No. We fly to the hills, but our husbands will bleed
For their hearths and their homes, for their rights and their creed.
’Tis for these we contend; ’tis for these be ye brave;
May the God of our Fathers his votaries save.
May he be the guard of his once belov’d home,
From the priest-ridden despot, the vassal of Rome.
In vain are these hopes; yet we lingering stand,
To snatch one last look on our dear native land;
And to gaze on these roofs, which envelop’d in fires,
Shall gleam on the slaughter of husbands and sires.
O fly, sisters, fly; do we tarry to feel
The tyrant’s revenge, and the priest’s bigot zeal!
Approach, ye invaders! Afar will we flee,
But, God of our fathers, still kneel we to thee!
In 1826 he had written to his brother describing the Waldensians as having
‘alone kept the faith pure and undefiled from the days of the Apostles,’ and as
being ‘the parents of all the Reformed Churches, and more especially the cradle
in which our own was fostered.’ 3 Shortly before his visit to the Waldensian
villages, Gladstone recorded in his diary that this visit was what he wanted
7
2. Eton Miscellany, Vol. 2, 1827.
3. D.C. Lathbury (ed), Correspondence on Church and Religion by William
Ewart Gladstone (London, John Murray, 1910) Vol. 1, p. 7.
4. M.R.D. Foot (ed), The Gladstone Diaries, Vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1968) p. 440 (entry for 3 March 1832).
5. John Brooke & Mary Sorensen (eds), The Prime Minister’s Papers: W.E.
Gladstone: 1: Autobiographica (London, HMSO, 1971) p. 150.
6. Diaries pp. 442–4 (entries for 6 and 7 March 1832). W.S.F. Pickering
summarises this material in ‘The Visit of William Gladstone to the
Waldensians’ in The Waldensian Review No. 109, Winter 2006 but misses
Gladstone’s later reflections on the true significance of the journey.
7. Brooke & Sorenson, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 142. The recollections were written
in 1894. The verses ‘To Violets in a Vaudois Valley’ March 1832 are printed
in appendix 4 at pp. 232f.
8. Brooke & Sorenson, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 150.
9. Owen Chadwick, ‘Young Gladstone and Italy’, in Peter J. Jagger (ed),
Gladstone, Politics and Religion (London, Macmillan, 1895) p. 70.
10. Lathbury, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 7.
11. Diaries, 31 March 1832.
12. Diaries, 22 April 1832.
13. Diaries, 13 May 1832.
14. Brooke & Sorensen, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 143.
15. Brooke & Sorenson, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 150f.
16. Anne Isba, Gladstone and Dante: Victorian Statesm
Website
http://vociprotestanti.it/2012/09/19/il-generale-dei-valdesi-la-trasmissione-su-charles-beckwith/
The Times says….
In its 1824 review of William Gilly’s book about the Waldensian Church (which inspired General Beckwith to devote his life’s efforts to help this ancient church) The Times lists the support that the English had offered the Waldensian valleys, supporting the pastors financially for centuries:
Oliver Cromwell raised in 1655 a huge £16,000 for the Waldensian Church some of which was confiscated by Charles II.
William III renewed these grants
His wife Queen Mary left £500 a year for the support of the pastors of the Waldensian Church. This grant continued until the French occupation of 1797.
The Times also reported on an international Sunday School Convention held at the Guildhall, London in 1862 at which the moderator of the Waldensian Church Rev B Malan spoke in French.
Malan related that the Catholic Church has “ruined the family, conscience and society” of Italy and that the Waldensian valleys had to look alone to the Gospels. But with the help of its English friends down the centuries, the Waldensian Church had “not failed in its mission”. There were Sunday Schools in all the Vaudois valleys, with 2000 children being taught the Bible, also in all the Waldensian missionary stations, from Mont Blanc to Mount Etna. The first step in mission in Italy was always establishing in a local house a Sunday School where children could understand the Bible “in the language of Dante”.
He spoke emotionally about the support that General Beckwith had given the Waldensian Church. For good reason, England was regarded in Italy as a “bulwark of freedom”.
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