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CRAFTING
INNOVATIVE
PLACES
for Australia’s Knowledge
Economy

EDWARD J. BLAKELY and RICHARD HU

Foreword by Peter Newman
Crafting Innovative Places for Australia’s
Knowledge Economy
 Edward J. Blakely • Richard Hu

Crafting Innovative
Places for Australia’s
Knowledge Economy
Edward J. Blakely Richard Hu
University of California, Berkeley University of Canberra, Canberra
CA, USA ACT, Australia

ISBN 978-981-13-3617-1    ISBN 978-981-13-3618-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3618-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963991

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration ©: [dem10]

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-­01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
 Foreword: Smart Cities, Smart People,
and Smart Jobs

This is a book about creating places in smart cities that attract the kind of
work and workers Australia needs to be globally competitive and provide
a sustainable and liveable environment. It sounds kind of silly trying to
suggest that we need smart, innovation-driven cities—who would want a
dumb city that fails to attract creative people and knowledge jobs? But you
ask anyone about what worries them in the city where they live, and they
will come up with a long list of things that just seem dumb to them—like
why heavy traffic is dominated by so many single occupant cars, why the
heck can’t we be innovative by turning more to the sun and hydrogen for
making power, and why don’t we use these technologies to create local
jobs. We don’t have to be big like the United States when small nations
like Sweden and Denmark are doing this. Why do we have such boring
shopping centres, why don’t we solve poverty and crime in our cities, and
why don’t we make more goods in Australia? The truth is that unless we
develop our cities, we lose our best talent to overseas firms and cities, and
we cannot develop a sustainable and competitive economy that will main-
tain our high standard of living. Making good coffee and exporting coal
will not be good enough.
This book is not an instruction manual, but it does come up with some
serious suggestions that help to answer these kinds of questions. These
suggestions are based on analysis of the data and experiences in both
Australian and international cities. The authors look at how we compete
not just on economic criteria—we always do OK, but only just, on those
criteria—but on sustainability criteria. Qualities related to sustainability
get to the heart of why we like living and working here. The book ­identifies

v
vi FOREWORD: SMART CITIES, SMART PEOPLE, AND SMART JOBS

clear links between innovative places and competitive cities. If we make

innovative places for smart people to create new ideas, services, and prod-
ucts; good places for them to live and enjoy in our cities, then this will flow
through into how strongly we compete against international cities. This is
important because the new knowledge economy, a key part of being a
smart city, is going to depend on all these factors. Cities that are solving
their problems, becoming smarter all the time, are going to attract invest-
ment and talent, and generate new, technologically sophisticated jobs.
These are the cities that will win in the new economy.
Ed Blakely has spent a lifetime studying cities and advising national and
city leaders, including five US presidents. He also has done much to help
fix places with problems, such as New Orleans, where he was made the
Recovery Czar after Hurricane Katrina. He has made many important
contributions to urban policy and planning as an academic, and on a very
practical level has always been able to show what should happen next in
cities and how to deliver it.
Richard Hu is a different generation of urban planning academic and
has begun making a mark on how we create competitive and sustainable
cities. His work in combining urban design, urban development, and pol-
icy shows wisdom and balance. Ed and Richard have teamed up to write
an exciting new book, on a topic that is just beginning to shape policy and
practice: how do we attract and retain creative people and use the incred-
ible recent inventions in technology to make better cities? These cities will
not be just less dumb but really smart about how they solve the deeper
issues of urbanism and tackle the sheer need to be genuinely competitive.
In the end, this book is about making innovation-generating places for
smart people to do smart jobs, and Ed and Richard show us how to do it.
What I really like about the book is that we have an African American
Australian and a Chinese Australian telling us what we ought to do about
our cities because they love the place and their insights into our cities are
informed by their experiences of living and working in many other places.
They are part of the smart talent pool we need to guide us at this critical
juncture in shaping our nation in the global innovation race.

Curtin University Sustainability Peter Newman AO

Policy (CUSP) Institute, School of Design
and the Built Environment
Perth, WA, Australia 
 Acknowledgements

We thank the following people for their contribution to this book at dif-
ferent stages of its preparation. James Rousell, William Harris, Joseph
Sutton, and Sajeda Tuli provided research assistance with case studies, lit-
erature reviews, data collection and analysis, and map making. Coco Liu
helped with improving many of the illustrations. Henrik Bang reviewed a
draft of the Copenhagen case study. Britt Nichols at the Canberra
Innovation Network and Yimin Zhou supplied images, and Cécile Lefort
at the Reserve Bank of Australia provided data for our use. Justine
McNamara provided editing and copyediting assistance. We also thank
numerous colleagues and friends, whose names are not acknowledged
here, for their good thoughts and advice in our conversations and com-
munications with them, which informed the idea for this book and encour-
aged its fruition.

vii
 Contents

1 Rediscovering Places  1
A Flat and Uneven World   2
Globalisation: Decentralising and Centralising   5
Urbanisation: Quantitative and Qualitative   7
Innovation: Disrupting and Disrupted  10
How Should Australia Fit In  13
It’s All About Places  15
Approach and Organisation of the Book  18
References  21

2 The Lucky Country Still? 23

Introduction  23
Economic Development Shifts  24
Comparative, Competitive, and Collaborative Advantages  25
Cities in the Knowledge Economy  27
Luck and Ingenuity  30
Exporting Minerals or Ideas  32
Maintaining an Innovation Edge  36
Resource–Knowledge Transition  37
Australia in the OECD  43
Conclusion  46
References  47

ix
x Contents

3 Australian Cities in Competition 51

Introduction  51
Urban Competitiveness Revisited  52
Integrative Urban Competitiveness  52
The Sustainability Challenge  54
Sustainable Development  56
Global Competitiveness  58
Global Network Connectivity Index  59
Integrative Urban Competitiveness Index  61
Sydney–Singapore–Shanghai Comparison  65
Innovation Mobility  68
Competitiveness, Migration, and Mobility in Global Sydney  68
Intercity Migration  72
Knowledge-Based Agglomeration  73
Conclusion  77
Appendix: Methodological Note on the IUCI  80
References  81

4 Global Innovative Places 85

Introduction  85
United States  86
Silicon Valley, California  86
Emeryville, California  89
Boston’s Innovation District  91
Asia  94
Zhangjiang Science City, Shanghai  94
One-north, Singapore  97
Teheran Valley, Seoul  98
Tsukuba Science City, Japan 100
Bangalore Technology Parks, India 103
Europe 105
Soho, London 105
Tampere, Finland 107
Berlin, Germany 108
Copenhagen, Denmark 109
22@Barcelona, Spain 111
Enabling Factors 113
Conclusion 116
References 117
 Contents  xi

5 Dissecting Innovative Places121

Introduction 121
Innovative Place Approaches 122
The Anchor Approach 122
The Hub Approach 126
The Community Approach 128
The Stand-Alone Approach 129
Defining Attributes 130
Cluster 131
Anchor 133
Brand 135
Social Good 137
Governance 138
An Innovative Place Ecosystem 140
Collaboration 140
Acceleration 142
Urbanism 145
A Functioning Ecosystem 148
Lessons for Australia 149
Conclusion 152
References 153

6 Pursuing Innovation in Australian Cities155

Introduction 155
The Imperatives for Pursuing Innovation 156
Seeking an Australian Way 157
The Essential Role of Governments 159
Translating Rhetoric into Action 161
Innovative Places in Australian Cities 163
Sydney 164
Melbourne 171
Adelaide 174
Canberra 177
Innovative Assets in Australian Cities 183
Conclusion 186
Appendix: Methodological Note on the KCI 187
References 188
xii Contents

7 The Art of Crafting191

Introduction 191
Crafting Tools 192
Milieu 194
Catalyst 196
Collaboration 197
Place Making 200
Financing 202
New Directions for Regional Australia 204
Crafting Regional Opportunities 207
Strategic Elements 211
The Crafting Paradigm 214
Conclusion 216
References 216

8 The Smart Way Forward219

Introduction 219
Smart Opportunities 220
Smart Work 222
Artificial Intelligence 228
Low-Tech Innovation 230
National Smart Cities Agenda 231
City Deals 233
Not a National Urban Policy Yet 238
Co-design and Co-creation 240
Federal Government 241
State Governments 245
Local Institutions 247
The Timing Is Right 250
Conclusion 251
References 253

Index257
 Abbreviations

ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics

ACT Australian Capital Territory
AI Artificial intelligence
ALP Australian Labor Party
APS Advanced producer services
APS Australian Public Service
ASGS Australian Statistical Geography Standard
ATP Australian Technology Park
AV Autonomous vehicle
BART Bay Area Rapid Transit
BRA Boston Redevelopment Authority
BRIC Brazil, Russia, India, and China
CBD Central business district
CBR Confident, bold, ready
CCMIL City Centre Marketing and Improvements Levy
CDFI Community Development Finance Institution
CIN Canberra Innovation Network
COAG Council of Australian Governments
Comac Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China
CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
CSR Corporate social responsibility
EU European Union
FDI Foreign direct investment
GaWC Globalisation and World Cities Research Network
GCI Global Competitiveness Index
GDP Gross domestic product
GIS Geographic information system

xiii
xiv ABBREVIATIONS

GloMo Global Mobility Index

GMI Global Migration Index
GNCI Global Network Connectivity Index
GSC Greater Sydney Commission
ICT Information and communication technology
IM Internal migrants
IMTQ Internal migrants with tertiary qualifications
IoT Internet of things
IP Intellectual property
IPO Initial public offering
ISR Innovation, science, and research
IT Information technology
IUCI Integrative Urban Competitiveness Index
JBEI Joint BioEnergy Institute
KBUD Knowledge-based urban development
KCI Knowledge City Index
KPCB Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
LDA London Development Agency
LGA Local government area
MBP Melbourne Biomedical Precinct
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NBN National broadband network
NSW New South Wales
NYSE New York Stock Exchange
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PPGIS Public participation geographic information system
R&D Research and development
RDA Regional Development Australia
RMIT Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
SCP Smart Cities Plan
SEZ Special economic zone
SME Small and medium enterprises
SUA Significant Urban Area
TNC Transnational corporation
TOD Transit-oriented development
UCSF University of California at San Francisco
UNSW University of New South Wales
UTS University of Technology Sydney
WTO World Trade Organization
WWI World War I
WWII World War II
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Australia’s international merchandise trade, 1948–2017 5

Fig. 1.2 Urban and rural population percentages in the world, 1950–2050 7
Fig. 1.3 Innovative firms in OECD’s National Innovation Surveys 11
Fig. 1.4 Place-based innovation in globalisation and urbanisation 19
Fig. 2.1 Pudong New Area, Shanghai 26
Fig. 2.2 Australia’s top 10 exports and imports, 2017 34
Fig. 2.3 Australia’s business investment in mining and non-mining
sectors in nominal GDP 36
Fig. 2.4 Employment structure by industry sectors in Australia,
1984–201738
Fig. 2.5 Government investment in R&D by nations, 2011 39
Fig. 2.6 Australian government’s investment in R&D, 2015–16 41
Fig. 2.7 Australia’s signature innovation contributions 43
Fig. 2.8 Comparative performance of national science and innovation
systems for Australia and OECD  45
Fig. 3.1 Quality of living and population density of global cities 54
Fig. 3.2 Integrative Urban Competitiveness Index 62
Fig. 3.3 Sydney–Singapore–Shanghai comparison 66
Fig. 3.4 Global competitiveness, global migration, and global mobility
in the Greater Sydney Region 69
Fig. 3.5 Intercity migrants in Australian capital cities, 2011–16 72
Fig. 3.6 Concentration of knowledge workers in Central Melbourne,
201178
Fig. 4.1 Silicon Valley venture investment, 2002–17 88
Fig. 4.2 Emeryville labs, California 90
Fig. 4.3 District Hall, Boston’s Innovation District 93

xv
xvi List of Figures

Fig. 4.4 Pudong Software Park, Zhangjiang Science City 96

Fig. 4.5 One-north Business Park, Singapore 97
Fig. 4.6 Civic Garden, Tsukuba Science City 101
Fig. 4.7 Tsukuba Express Line 103
Fig. 4.8 Soho, London 106
Fig. 4.9 Las Ramblas Street, Barcelona 112
Fig. 5.1 Mission Bay’s lab space, San Francisco 125
Fig. 5.2 Urban hub in San Francisco 127
Fig. 5.3 Tsukuba Centre 130
Fig. 5.4 Education and R&D clusters, Tsukuba Science City 132
Fig. 5.5 UCSF’s presence at Mission Bay, San Francisco 135
Fig. 5.6 Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute, Zhangjiang
Science City 136
Fig. 5.7 Mechanism of an innovative place ecosystem 141
Fig. 5.8 Collaborative value chain in Soho, London 143
Fig. 5.9 Zhangjiang Administrative Service Centre 144
Fig. 5.10 Networking event on Brilliant Cities in Canberra 146
Fig. 5.11 Place making in Zhangjiang Science City 151
Fig. 6.1 RMIT Campus in Downtown Melbourne 158
Fig. 6.2 Government-sponsored affordable housing in Emeryville,
California160
Fig. 6.3 Australian businesses by industry sectors, 2016–17 162
Fig. 6.4 Knowledge clusters in the Greater Sydney region, 2016 165
Fig. 6.5 Macquarie Park, Sydney 166
Fig. 6.6 Workspace in Australian Technology Park, Sydney 168
Fig. 6.7 Western Sydney University in Parramatta CBD 169
Fig. 6.8 Knowledge clusters in the Greater Melbourne region 172
Fig. 6.9 A Church as a creative centre in Adelaide 176
Fig. 6.10 Smart work in the public sector and private sector in Australia 179
Fig. 6.11 Knowledge clusters in Canberra, 2016 180
Fig. 6.12 Urban renewal and gentrification in Braddon, Canberra 182
Fig. 6.13 Knowledge City Index of Australian cities 185
Fig. 7.1 Public space in Barcelona 195
Fig. 7.2 Co-working space for start-ups, Canberra Innovation Network 199
Fig. 7.3 Innovation hub in Granville Island, Vancouver 201
Fig. 7.4 Financing workshop invitation, Canberra Innovation Network 203
Fig. 7.5 Growth in Australian Sea Change Communities, 2006–11 204
Fig. 7.6 The Twelve Apostles limestone stacks, Victoria 209
Fig. 7.7 Crafting paradigm for innovative places 214
Fig. 8.1 National domestic spending on R&D, 2015 220
 List of Figures  xvii

Fig. 8.2 National domestic spending on R&D, 2000–15 221

Fig. 8.3 Smart workers by industry, occupation, and qualification in
Australia224
Fig. 8.4 Smart workspace at Canberra Airport 226
Fig. 8.5 Western Sydney City Deal 234
Fig. 8.6 Co-design and co-creation for innovative places 242
Fig. 8.7 Local institutions’ roles in making innovative places 248
Fig. 8.8 Collaborative Innovation Lab, Canberra Innovation Network 250
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Population and employment in Australian capital cities 15

Table 2.1 The world’s most liveable cities, 2016 32
Table 3.1 Global Network Connectivity Index, 2016 60
Table 3.2 Intercity migrants in Australian capital cities, 2011–16 74
Table 3.3 Dimensions, indicators, and measures for the IUCI 80
Table 4.1 Zhangjiang development phases 94
Table 4.2 Enabling factors of global innovative places 114
Table 5.1 Innovative place approaches 123
Table 6.1 Twenty-five cities in Australia 184
Table 6.2 Indicators and measures of the Knowledge City Index 187
Table 8.1 Australian government’s City Deals 235

xix
 CHAPTER 1

Rediscovering Places

In this book, we call for rediscovering the role of places in incubating

innovation to drive Australia’s knowledge economy, drawing upon experi-
ences and practices around the world. We unpack the new imperatives and
paradigms of innovative place making within the contemporary forces of
globalisation, urbanisation, and especially innovation. We integrate plan-
ning, policy, economics, and urban design to forge a ‘crafting’ approach to
co-creating and co-designing innovative places. The world is changing
fast, with mounting uncertainty and unpredictability. The power to solve
the problems of a post-industrial society lies in communities (Katz and
Nowak 2017). This shifting of power towards a local level is occurring not
only in the United States and Europe, but also in Asia and other develop-
ing regions. Australia is no exception.
Cities have drawn much attention as we have sought to understand and
respond to contemporary transformations and challenges. ‘Cities are the
new countries’ (OECD 2016) is not an exaggerated claim. As of 2018, the
world urbanisation rate is 55 per cent, and is projected to reach nearly 70
per cent in 2050 (United Nations 2018). More than two-thirds of us will
be city dwellers by the middle of this century: our world is urban. There
has been a power restructuring from nation states to cities, and this trend
will continue with further growth of cities. But cities are still complex
systems and are often too large a spatial unit to allow us to fully under-
stand our society’s diversity and nuances. Places—within and outside

© The Author(s) 2019 1

E. J. Blakely, R. Hu, Crafting Innovative
Places for Australia’s Knowledge Economy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3618-8_1
2 E. J. BLAKELY AND R. HU

cities—deserve attention, in both knowledge building and policymaking.

Numerous places are innovative nodes interlinked globally and digitally.
Place-based innovation capacity is shaping the global competitiveness of
nations and cities.
In this introductory chapter, we contextualise the macro forces that
underpin our interest in places. We start with the popular thesis of ‘a flat
world’ and argue that the world is also more uneven than ever, socially,
economically, and environmentally, and especially in terms of innovation
capacity. The increasingly uneven world is interlinked with the two inter-
weaving contemporary forces of globalisation and urbanisation. Both have
been widely discussed and debated, but our concern is with their impacts
on cities and places. We then move on to our focal point of innovation and
its disruptive effects. We briefly outline the challenges for Australia’s econ-
omy within these broad contexts. The chapter concludes by describing the
overall approach and organisation of this book.

A Flat and Uneven World

‘The world is flat’, as claimed and popularised by Thomas Friedman
(2007): people around the world are on a more even playing field today
than ever before. Individuals have easier access to stocks of knowledge
worldwide due to information and communication technology (ICT)
advances and accelerated globalisation. This has increased expectations for
standards of living and access to opportunities. Commodities and services
have global outreach, with a level of ease and efficiency unimaginable
decades ago. A tribesman in Kenya uses his mobile phone to communicate
the number of cattle he has in his herd. A New York banker uses the same
technology to price her goods and commodities for trade around the
world, which may even involve the tribesman’s herd. Knowledge access is
being democratised. It promotes business exchange and social interaction
at unprecedented speeds and scales. For the first time in human history, we
all share the same ideas, ambitions, abilities, and problems.
Technologies have transformed and are continuing to transform the
labour-intensive agricultural and industrial sectors. These sectors tradi-
tionally consumed an enormous amount of energy, paired with tremen-
dous use of human resources. Technology has been liberating human
beings, physically and intellectually. Recent advances in information tech-
nology have particularly brought about intellectual liberation. Frey and
Osborne (2017, p. 258) observe that ‘historically, computerisation has
 REDISCOVERING PLACES 3

largely been confined to manual and cognitive routine tasks involving

explicit rule-based activities… [it] is now spreading to domains commonly
defined as non-routine’. The exponential advance of technologies poses
questions about the future roles of both people and places in situations
not experienced before in human history.
In previous eras, physical and natural endowments largely determined
economic outcomes. Port Kembla in the city of Wollongong on Australia’s
east coast contained the country’s largest steelworks. This area was one of
the wealthiest in Australia with a significant economic advantage at its
peak in the 1980s. The comparative advantage this area possessed in natu-
ral resources could not be simply imitated elsewhere. But while these sorts
of mineral and infrastructure advantages were central to the economies of
the industrial era, in the new information era, goods and services can be
produced and accessed anywhere. We live in an age of minimal barriers to
economic activities. Goods and services are more fluid than ever before.
Even raw materials such as steel can be fashioned from recycling waste, or
transported at low cost, as seen from the production of automobile frames
and ship hulls in resource-poor nations like Japan and Bangladesh. The
ability to cheaply transport resources and goods across borders has allowed
industries to thrive in places where this was previously impossible.
Physical locations continue to enjoy useful advantages, but a loca-
tion’s natural endowments no longer determine only its economic des-
tiny. While natural settings such as rivers, streams, seashores, and valleys
remain useful, their present utility differs from the past. These idyllic
venues now attract talented and creative people, who produce goods and
services for transmission and consumption globally. It is in the context of
this transition from resource to knowledge primacy that we need to re-
examine our economic development strategies. It is now possible to
reduce our need for and use of raw materials and mineral resources,
which require rivers, airports, rail yards, and other infrastructure to
transport. More and more, we are substituting lighter and smarter goods
composed from materials that do not require as much energy either to
create or to transfer to the end user.
Technology has enabled global outreach of and access to products and
services, creating ‘a flat world’:

Whenever civilisation has gone through a major technological revolution,

the world has changed in profound and unsettling ways. But there is some-
thing about the flattening of the world that is going to be qualitatively dif-
4 E. J. BLAKELY AND R. HU

ferent from the great changes of previous era: the speed and breadth with
which it is taking hold…This flattening process is happening at warp speed
and directly or indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once.
The faster and broader this transition to a new era, the greater the potential
for disruption, as opposed to an orderly transfer of power from the old win-
ners to the new winners. (Friedman 2007, p. 49)

But the technological capacity and innovation that have enabled this
remarkable change is much more ‘uneven’. Technologies agglomerate
in certain places that enjoy a global competitive advantage. ‘Speed and
breadth’, as argued by Friedman (2007), are not the only attributes
that make the current changes different from those of the past; there is
also the ‘scale and impact’ of the changes. One important attribute of
the flattening process is that the world is, at the same time, becoming
increasingly uneven and volatile. Fewer barriers to trade and immigra-
tion have meant greater flows of information and people across the
globe, giving certain locations higher concentrations of wealth and
innovation capacity, while other locations are deprived of those assets.
This technology-enabled unevenness is place-based, and makes under-
standing places much more critical in a technology age than in earlier
times.
An oxymoron seemingly: the world is flat and uneven. One manifesta-
tion of this dichotomy is a global human capital imbalance, as knowledge
workers flow from less desirable to more welcoming places and cultures.
Attracting globally mobile human capital is the key to a strong and com-
petitive local or national economy. Growing a creative culture and
enhancing liveability have been primary urban policy goals in recent
decades. Cities brand globally as creative, sustainable, and liveable places.
Technological advancements and policy liberalisation have spurred flows
of people and information, generating global inequities in human capital
and wealth. Successful cities are human capital magnets, attracting people
from less competitive and attractive cities and countries. In this sense, we
live in a flat and uneven world. This has been driven by three contempo-
rary transformative forces: globalisation, urbanisation, and innovation.
The third of these forces is a central focus of this book but must be
understood and examined in the context of both globalisation and
urbanisation.
 REDISCOVERING PLACES 5

Globalisation: Decentralising and Centralising

The globe is the primary competitive framework today, rather than coun-
try or region. There is scant room for local forces unless they have global
penetration. Not that small businesses cannot pursue a local strategy. They
can! And indeed, it is the local level, as represented by places, that we
engage with in this book. But very often a local business relies on global
taste or a global market, and is dependent on the global transfer of money,
information, knowledge, and design. Global engagement is pervasive. We
are participating in the global economy or no economy. This seems harsh,
but it is a reality. Globalisation does not please everyone. There are those
who prefer to fight this trend, justifying their resistance through religious
dogma or populist political philosophy to push against this trend. This is
not going to work. Globalisation is irreversible, and resistance is futile.
Globalisation should be well understood, incorporated, and managed, not
only by nation states and international institutions, which have proven to
be flawed in recent decades, but by agents operating on smaller and more
flexible scales such as cities and regions, and further downward to places,
as we argue in this book.
Globalisation is not a recent phenomenon in human history. Human
efforts to explore the globe date back thousands of years. What differenti-
ates contemporary globalisation (from the late 1970s onwards) is its pace
and intensity. Global forces have been developing at an unprecedented
and accelerating speed, and their impacts are transformational, not

Fig. 1.1 Australia’s international merchandise trade, 1948–2017

Source: World Trade Organization (2018), created by the authors
6 E. J. BLAKELY AND R. HU

t­ ransitional. One manifestation is international trade. Measured by current

prices, Australia’s international merchandise trade was negligible in the
post–World War II (WWII) decades; it surged tremendously from the
1980s, when Australia floated its currency, liberalised its financial system,
and lifted tariffs to integrate with the world economy (Fig. 1.1).
Many factors have accelerated recent globalisation. Amongst these, our
focus is on technology and the knowledge economy, and the neoliberal
policies that have contributed to their dominance. The declining cost of
transport has increased incentives for both businesses and individuals to
engage, trade, and communicate on a global scale. Reductions in trans-
port costs have also enabled a more intensive exploitation of economies of
scale. During the twentieth century, the costs of transporting goods
declined in real terms by over 90 per cent (Glaeser and Kohlhase 2004).
Widespread application of ICT has facilitated the globalisation of services,
knowledge, and innovation. Geographic barriers have broken down; com-
munication and transactions over vast distances are easy and costless. Free
information flow has become the greatest threat to nations’ sovereignty
worldwide (Beck 2000). Citizens readily engage with one another across
nations, anytime and anywhere.
The advance of ICT and the rise of the knowledge economy are inter-
woven and mutually facilitating (Pratchett et al. 2015). The impact of ICT
is revolutionary. The newest round of its development has been user-­
centric, mobile, and ubiquitous, massively expanding its access and use.
Technological advancement is reshaping the knowledge economy, which
has evolved during the decades since WWII in the transformation from
industrial to post-industrial production and society. The surge of the
knowledge economy and its rapid development since the 1990s have been
largely facilitated by the advancement of ICT (Hu 2016). ICT has reduced
costs and enhanced efficiency in the production, transmission, distribu-
tion, and use of knowledge.
Globalisation is neoliberal. Firms, cities, and countries are competing
on the global stage to maximise interests and opportunities through win-
ning against competitors. Neoliberalism has dominated the multi-scalar
policymaking—international, national, and local—that has collectively
shaped global integration and competition. Globalisation has generated
winners and losers. The uneven outcomes of globalisation have contrib-
uted to the recent rise of populism and conservatism in the United States
and the United Kingdom. The Trump presidency and Brexit exemplify
these new political phenomena. Neoliberalism still penetrates every aspect
 REDISCOVERING PLACES 7

of our lives: international trade, finance, tourism, migration, and internet

access. If ICT has broken down the physical and geographical barriers to
globalisation, neoliberalism has dismantled the ideological and political
barriers.
Globalisation is an ongoing process, not a political-economic position
(Harvey 1995). Despite discontent and resistance, no country, no place,
no government, no agency, no individual can escape. Attitudes towards
globalisation are important. It is a threat to some, but it brings opportuni-
ties for those who change and adapt. Globalisation connects places, big
and small, near and far. The global connection of places involves both
decentralising and centralising processes: places are interlinked, with
power decentralised from hierarchical structures of nation states and cities;
some places have centralised power and capacity that could not have been
possible in the pre-global age. This process of decentralising and centralis-
ing is discussed further in the context of urbanisation below.

Urbanisation: Quantitative and Qualitative

Since the Industrial Revolution, the world has experienced a shift in popu-
lation from rural to urban areas. In 2007, for the first time in human his-
tory, more people lived in cities than in the countryside. This trend is
continuing, simply shifting focus from the developed nations to the devel-
oping nations. As noted earlier, almost 70 per cent of the world’s popula-
tion will be living in cities by 2050, and the world is increasingly an urban
world (Fig. 1.2). China is experiencing the largest urbanisation process in
human history, expecting an urban population of one billion by the ­middle

Fig. 1.2 Urban and rural population percentages in the world, 1950–2050
Source: United Nations (2018), created by the authors
8 E. J. BLAKELY AND R. HU

of this century. A new round of urbanisation is moving elsewhere, includ-

ing to Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. Most of our problems
and challenges are now city-based.
But contemporary urbanisation is more than just the numbers of peo-
ple moving from the countryside to cities. It is a shift in the way we work
and live that penetrates all communities around the world. Urbanisation
can be summarised as a good cup of coffee, a fashion show, a television
programme, a computer app, popular music, or art. Richard Florida’s now
famous book The Rise of the Creative Class (2014) recounts how certain
locations have become magnets of opportunity because they have a stron-
ger urban feel and pull, therefore generating jobs in both the open and
underground market systems. It matters little whether Florida’s tome
describes an end state or creates a template for discovering new economic
dynamics. He hits the mark. His book captures the new economic base for
rising urbanism.
An urban feel is not limited to metropolitan communities. The mass
production of urbanism is easily visible in the coffee shops, jeans, hair
styles, and smart phones that now occupy every passenger on trains, buses,
and street corners across the world. The proliferation of social and techno-
logical trends is the best evidence for the global spread of urbanism.
Urbanism generates new expectations of lifestyles and forms of work.
Today a farmer in central Australia is a professional land manager. She can
milk her cows, track her sheep, and control her access to water. She does
all these time-consuming tasks herself, tasks that required dozens of peo-
ple before. The farmer can control hundreds of mundane tasks from the
desk console at home, or from an office tower in Sydney, or a hotel in
London while she is on holiday with family.
Today’s urbanisation differs from the urbanisation process that had
originated from the Industrial Revolution. It is mingled with globalisation
and generates new urban phenomena unwitnessed before. Because of the
concurrent processes of globalisation and urbanisation, a group of cities
are becoming so-called ‘the global city’, a term used to describe this recent
urban phenomenon and to capture the structural impact of contemporary
globalisation on cities (Sassen 2001). Cities are the new nodes of an inte-
grated global economy. Some cities become ‘global cities’ by playing more
important roles as the command and control centres of the global econ-
omy. As trade, politics, and socialisation become centred on the global
cities, these cities are becoming the new countries (Barber 2014; Katz and
Bradley 2013). Globalisation is a ‘denationalising’ force in which the
 REDISCOVERING PLACES 9

­ owers of cities and nations are shifting: cities are emerging as dominant
p
spatial scales and are superseding nation states as the central nodes of the
global economy (Sassen 2001). Networks of cities are overriding purely
political boundaries, expressed through their economic, political, and
social relations with one another; the integrated global economic system is
then a city-centred world of flows, in contrast to the traditional state-
centred world of boundaries (Taylor and Derudder 2016).
Sassen (2001) contends that global cities have grown out of both the
decentralisation and the centralisation of global economic activities, in line
with the decentralising and centralising effects of globalisation discussed
above. Production and retailing activities are spreading across the world,
but at the same time the specialised services to support them tend to con-
centrate within a few global cities. The transnational corporations (TNCs)
are increasingly important actors in the global economy, accelerating
global competition. The transition to a knowledge economy has led to
greater complexity in managing, controlling, and coordinating global
activities and organisations. In such a system, greater access to advanced
and specialised services is required. Such services are often referred to as
‘advanced producer services’ (APS), including financial, insurance, bank-
ing, legal, business, and professional services. The APS both benefit from
geographic proximity and act within the global network. Their complexity
and their intermediary nature require immediate access to communication
and simultaneous inputs and feedbacks (Sassen 2001). Global cities are
central places and provide the geographic contexts for these APS. Global
activities are further concentrated in the central business districts (CBDs)
of global cities.
Cities link with one another, forming a network of urban nodes to
underpin an integrated global economy. This intercity network comprises
complex relationships embedding competition, cooperation, and connec-
tivity (Taylor et al. 2011). To aspire to global city status and enhance
global competitiveness is the primary strategic goal for many cities in the
world, an important manifestation of the dominant neoliberal policy direc-
tion discussed above. Because the global city is defined by its role in the
global economy, an understanding of and approach to global competitive-
ness has been economy-centric. However, an economic focus is too nar-
row to capture the multiplicity of a city’s competitiveness and is likely to
hamper or limit effective policy responses. A city’s global competitiveness
lies in the level of integration of its capacity and assets. This includes not
only economic performance, but also liveability, human capital, i­ nnovation,
10 E. J. BLAKELY AND R. HU

infrastructure, and sustainability. This is truer today than ever before, due
to the nature of the knowledge economy and the necessity of nurturing
innovation and attracting talent to remain competitive, which we will fully
discuss in Chap. 3.
People claimed the death of cities and irrelevance of geography in the
early days of the ICT revolution several decades ago. This judgement was
based on a surface understanding of what the new technology would bring
to the world, but it failed to appreciate the underlying transformative
impacts. What we have seen is a growing urbanisation trend and the
increasing importance of cities. Cities accommodate and shape the way we
live and how we work, and more important, cities incubate the most valu-
able asset in a global knowledge economy—innovation. This qualitative
attribute differentiates today’s new urbanisation from the old urbanisation
that was marked only by the quantitative indicator of people’s movement
from the countryside to cities.

Innovation: Disrupting and Disrupted

Innovation holds the key to thriving in a knowledge economy. Innovation
is a buzzword today and calls to mind technologies such as computers and
digital communication and production. But innovation is any new way of
doing or performing traditional tasks, chores, and functions. It usually
involves applying new technologies to existing uses and accomplishing
tasks in more efficient and useful ways. This is often achieved through the
invention of disruptive technologies, services, or social practices. The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
(2005) classifies four types of innovation: product innovation, process
innovation, marketing innovation, and organisational innovation. The
OECD’s National Innovation Surveys reveal a high proportion of innova-
tive firms in manufacturing and services sectors, and an even higher pro-
portion of innovative firms in information and communication services
across different nations; and nearly 90 per cent of the firms surveyed
engage in research and development (R&D) activities (Fig. 1.3). Like glo-
balisation, innovation penetrates across the world.
Disruptive innovations create new markets and redefine the value of
commodities or services, revolutionising or replacing existing firms, mar-
kets, value chains, or networks (Yu and Hang 2010). One example is the
rapid rise in popularity of the sharing economy. The sharing economy is
essentially about collaborative consumption through sharing unused
 REDISCOVERING PLACES 11

Fig. 1.3 Innovative firms in OECD’s National Innovation Surveys

Note: Data for information and communication services are missing for Chile
and China; data for R&D are missing for China, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico,
and Sweden
Source: OECD (2017), created by the authors

s­ ervices and products (Hamari et al. 2015). It is not entirely new since it
does not challenge classic economic theories about transacting the unused.
However, the sharing economy’s recent surge has benefitted from
improved information technology that puts users in instant contact, and it
grew rapidly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008. Through
online connections, collaboration, and consumption, users access the shar-
ing economy to loan a product or service to another individual for a lim-
ited time (Hamari et al. 2015). The global financial crisis called into
question the notions of economic ownership and materialism, and led to a
push for more sustainable use of resources. The growth of the sharing
economy has involved a renewed belief in the importance of community,
driven by the global recession, concerns about the environment and
advances in technologies, and supported by the growth of peer-to-peer
networks (Botsman and Rogers 2010).
Uber is a prime example of the sharing economy. Uber is at its core a
digitally enabled mobile automobile service that moves people, goods, or
other materials to an end user or destination on demand. Nothing is new
in calling a car and paying to have yourself delivered to your desired loca-
tion. This has been practised for many years with taxis. The disruptive
innovation of Uber is the implementation of time-demand queuing using
digital technology. Uber is doing what Federal Express in the United
States did with packages two decades ago, using the taxi platform.
12 E. J. BLAKELY AND R. HU

The notion of cell disruption is central to innovation. The outer layer

remains the same, but the inner workings or core are altered dramatically.
Under the two forces of globalisation and urbanisation being discussed
here, a traditionally onerous activity, such as acquiring accommodation
during travel, can lead to disruptive innovations like Airbnb. These inno-
vations transform our use of space and can even alter the functions of a
place to a different land use. As a tourism application, Airbnb facilitates a
seamless exchange of spaces and services between end users and property
owners. The intermediary, which developed the technologies by deploy-
ing the application, has attracted capital and generated revenue through
defying the fundamental conventions of traditional deal making.
Intermediaries are not doing anything post-disruption but collecting roy-
alties. One of the most obvious forms of disruptive innovation is the devel-
opment of new forms and spaces of exchange. These exchanges employ
new platforms to sell goods that already exist or to make goods in unique
ways for end users with no base producer (firm or factory). Alibaba, a
China-based e-commerce company that set a record as the largest global
initial public offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in
2014, illustrates these new methods of exchanging goods and services,
which do not utilise or engage in traditional producer-consumer
relationships.
Technological changes are not the only path to innovation, but we
associate innovations with technology because software, hardware, and
ICT are the foundations of inventing and transacting new products and
services in a digital age. Products and services are based on engineered
platforms. Amazon started as an internet book provider and is now using
its platform to sell innumerable new and used goods, while also serving as
an internet cloud storage service for the online transfer of big databases.
In providing these services, Amazon enables small firms to dispense with
any form of cataloguing, warehousing, or delivery of operations and
responsibilities. Amazon’s capacity to provide intermediary services to
firms worldwide is technology-based.
Disruptive innovation has offered new opportunities to cities and
regions that have declined as the growth of industrialisation and manufac-
turing has stalled. Let’s look at Indian cities. India is emerging as a new
innovation capital through capitalising on ICT. Call centres and informa-
tion services have made several Indian cities and regions competitive glob-
ally. Cities such as Bangalore are rising innovation hubs through having
abundant local human capital and attracting highly educated immigrants,
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Caroline—a conclusion against which she protested with great
indignation. Her first step was to pass through France to St. Omer,
where she awaited the arrival of her legal advisers. The then
reigning French monarch had in the time of his own adversity
received substantial aid and continual courtesy from the Queen’s
father; but now, in the hour of the distresses of his former
benefactor’s daughter, he beset her passage through France with
difficulties, and commanded her to be treated with studied neglect.
However mortified, she was a woman of too much spirit to allow her
mortification to be visible, and for the lack of official honours she
found consolation in the sympathy of the people. On the first
intimation of the omission of her name from the Liturgy, the Queen
wrote thus, without consulting any one: ‘The Queen of this Relams
wishes to be informed, through the medium of Lord Liverpool, First
Minister to the King of this Relams, for which reason or motife the
Queen name has been left out of the general Prayer-books in
England, and especially to prevent all her subjects to pay her such
respect which is due to the Queen. It is equally a great omittance
towards the King that his Consort Queen should be obliged to
soummit to such great neglect, or rather araisin from a perfect
ignorance of the Archbishops of the real existence of the Queen
Caroline of England.’ It was finely remarked by Mr. Denman, after he
became the Solicitor-General (at Brougham’s recommendation), that
the Queen was included in the Liturgy, in the prayer ‘for all who are
desolate and oppressed.’
At the inn of St. Omer she was met by Mr. Brougham and Lord
Hutchinson. The latter came as the representative of the ministry,
with no credentials, however, nor even with the ministerial
proposition reduced to writing. The Queen refused to receive it in
any other form. Lord Hutchinson obeyed, and made a written
proposal to the effect that, as she was now without income by the
demise of George III., the King would grant her 50,000l. per annum,
on the special condition that she remained on the continent,
surrendered the title of Queen, adopted no title belonging to the royal
family of England, and never even visited the latter country under
any pretext. It was further stated that, if she set foot in England, the
negotiation would be at an end, the terms violated, and proceedings
be commenced against her Majesty forthwith.
It has been said that the Queen’s immediate and decided
rejection of these proposals, and her resolution to proceed to
England at once, were undoubted proofs of her innocence. The truth,
however, is, that the acceptance of such terms would have been a
tacit confession of her guilt, and, had she been as criminal as her
accusers endeavoured to prove her, her safest course would have
been that which she so spiritedly adopted. The infamy here was
undoubtedly on the part of the ministry. Here was a woman in whom
they asserted was to be found the most profligate of her sex, and to
her they made an offer of 50,000l. per annum, on condition that she
laid down the title of Queen of England, of which they said she was
entirely unworthy; and this sum was to be paid to her out of the taxes
of a people the majority of whom believed that she had been ‘more
sinned against than sinning.’
It has been believed, or at least has been reported, that the
Queen was counselled to the refusal of the compromise annuity of
50,000l. by Alderman Wood. The city dignitary, in such case, got little
thanks for his advice at the hands of Baron Bergami. The latter
individual, on hearing that Queen Caroline had declined to accept
the offer, and that the alderman was her adviser on the occasion,
declared that if he ever encountered the ex-mayor in Italy he would
kill him. The courier-baron’s ground of offence was, that, had the
Queen received the money, a great portion of it would have fallen to
his share, and that he considered himself as robbed by the
alderman, whom he would punish accordingly.
Caroline refused the proposals with scorn. In one of her
characteristic letters she said: ‘The 30th of April I shall be at Calais
for certain; my health is good, and my spirit is perfect. I have seen no
personnes of any kind who could give me any advice different to my
feelings and my sentiments of duty relatif of my present situation and
rank of life.’ Fearful of further obstacle on the part of the French
government, she proceeded at once to Calais, dismissed her Italian
court, and with Alderman Wood and Lady Anne Hamilton she went
on board the ‘Leopold’ sailing packet, then lying in the mud in the
harbour. No facilities were afforded her by the authorities; the
English inhabitants of Calais were even menaced with penalties if
they infringed the orders which had been given, and no compliment
was paid her, except by the master of the packet, who hoisted the
royal standard as soon as her Majesty set foot upon the humble
deck of his little vessel. She sat there as evening closed in, without
an attendant saving the lady already named and the alderman, who
not only gave her his escort now but offered her a home. She had
solicited from the government that a house might be provided for her,
but the application had been received with silent contempt.
Her progress from Dover to London was a perfect ovation. Mr.
Brougham had given her good advice at St. Omer. ‘If,’ he said, ‘your
Majesty shall determine to go to England before any new offer can
be made, I earnestly implore your Majesty to proceed in the most
private and secret manner possible. It may be very well for a
candidate at an election to be drawn into towns by the population,
and they will mean nothing but good in showing this attention to your
Majesty; but a Queen of England may well dispense with such marks
of popular favour, and my duty to your Majesty binds me to say very
plainly that I shall consider any such exhibition as both hurtful to your
Majesty’s real dignity and full of danger in its probable
consequences.’ ‘That Brougham is afraid,’ said the Queen; and so
he was—afraid of her, afraid of some scandal, unknown to him then,
coming out after her arrival. If he could have had his way he would
not have consented to her coming to England at all. The people saw
in her a victim of persecution, and for such there is generally a ready
sympathy. They were convinced, too, that she was a woman of spirit,
and for such there is ever abundant admiration. There was not a
town through which she passed upon her way that did not give her a
hearty welcome, and wish her well through the fiery ordeal which
awaited her. She reached London on the evening of the 7th of June,
1820, and the popular procession of which she was the chief portion
passed Carlton House on its route to the residence of Alderman
Wood, in South Audley Street. There Alderman Wood used to
spread a rug for her Majesty to tread upon, when, to satisfy the loud-
tongued mob, she appeared twenty times a day on the little balcony.
The Attorney-General would not allow his wife to call on her; and
Mrs. Denman received a similar prohibition from Mr. Denman, who,
subsequently, regretted the course he had taken.
The Queen had scarcely found refuge beneath the alderman’s
hospitable roof when Lord Liverpool in the House of Peers, and Lord
Castlereagh in the House of Commons, conveyed a message from
the King to the parliament, the subject of which was that, her Majesty
having thought proper to come to this country, some information
would be laid before them, on which they would have to come to an
ulterior decision, of vast importance to the peace and well-being of
the United Kingdom. Each minister bore a ‘green bag,’ which was
supposed and perhaps did contain minutes of the report made by the
Milan commissioners touching her Majesty’s conduct abroad. The
ministerial communications were made in the spirit and tone of men
who, if not ashamed of the message which they bore, were very
uncertain and infinitely afraid as to its ultimate consequences.
Not that they were wanting in an outward show of boldness. The
soldiers quartered at the King’s Mews, Charing Cross, had been so
disorderly some days previous, allegedly because they had not
sufficient accommodation, that they were drafted in two divisions to
Portsmouth. When the Queen was approaching London a mob
assembled in front of the guard-house, and called upon the soldiers
still remaining there to join them in a demonstration in favour of the
Queen. Lord Sidmouth, who was passing on his way to the House of
Lords, seeing what was going on, proceeded to the Horse Guards,
called out the troops there, and stood by while they roughly
dispersed the people. It was called putting a bold face upon the
matter, but less provocation on the part of a government has been
followed by revolution.
A desire to compromise the unhappy dispute was no doubt
sincerely entertained by ministers, and all hope was not abandoned,
even after the arrival of the Queen. Mr. Rush, the United States
ambassador to England at this period, permits us to see, in his
journal, when this attempt at compromise or amicable arrangement
of the affair was first entered upon by the respective parties. On the
15th of June that gentleman dined at Lord Castlereagh’s with all the
foreign ambassadors. ‘A very few minutes,’ he says, ‘after the last
course, Lord Castlereagh, looking to his chief guest for
acquiescence, made the signal for rising, and the company all went
to the drawing-room. So early a move was unusual: it seemed to cut
short, unexpectedly, the time generally given to conversation at
English dinners after the dinner ends. It was soon observed that his
lordship had left the drawing-room. This was still more unusual; and
now it came to be whispered that an extraordinary cause had
produced this unusual scene. It was whispered by one or another of
the corps that his lordship had retired into one of his own apartments
to meet the Duke of Wellington, as his colleague in the
administration, and also Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman, as counsel
for the Queen in the disputes pending between the King and Queen.’
Mr. Rush, after mentioning that the proceedings in parliament were
arrested for the moment by members purporting to be common
friends of both King and Queen, proceeds to state that ‘the dinner at
Lord Castlereagh’s was during this state of things, which explains
the incident at its close, the disputes having pressed with anxiety on
the King’s ministers. That his lordship did separate himself from his
guests for the purpose of holding a conference in another part of his
own house, in which the Duke of Wellington joined him as
representing the King, with Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman as
representing the Queen, was known from the former protocol,
afterwards published, of what took place on that very evening. It was
the first of the conferences held with a view to a compromise
between the royal disputants.’ On the 28th of June the American
ambassador was at the levée at Carlton House, where he learns that
‘the sensibilities of the King are intense, and nothing can ever
reconcile him.’ The same diplomatist then presents to us the
following graphic picture: ‘The day was hot, excessively so for
England. The King seemed to suffer. He remarked upon the heat to
me and others. It is possible that other heat may have aggravated in
him that of the weather. Before he came into the entrée room, from
his closet, —— of the diplomatic corps, taking me gently by the arm,
led me a few steps with him, which brought us into the recess of a
window. “Look!” said he. I looked, and saw nothing but the velvet
lawn covered by trees in the palace gardens. “Look again!” said he. I
did; and still my eye only took in another part of the same scene. “Try
once more,” said he, cautiously raising a finger in the right direction.
—— had a vein of drollery in him. I now for the first time beheld a
peacock displaying his plumage. At one moment he was in full pride,
and displayed it gloriously; at another he would halt, letting it drop,
as if dejected. “Of what does that remind you?” said ——. “Of
nothing,” said I; “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” for I threw the King’s
motto at him, and then added that I was a republican, he a
monarchist, and that if he dreamt of unholy comparisons where
royalty was concerned I would certainly tell upon him, that it might be
reported at his court. He quietly drew off from me, smiling, and I
afterwards saw him slyly take another member of the corps to the
same spot, to show him the same sight.’
Meanwhile, the contending parties in parliament wore about
them the air of men who were called upon to do battle, and who,
while resolved to accomplish their best, would have been glad to
have effected a compromise which, at least, should save the honour
of their principal. As Mr. Wilberforce remarked, there was a mutual
desire to ‘avoid that fatal green bag.’ There were many difficulties in
the way. The Queen, naturally enough, insisted on her name being
restored in the Liturgy; and none of her friends would have
consented for her, nor would she have done so for herself, that she
should reside abroad without being introduced by the British
ambassador to the court of the country in which she might take up
her residence. The government manifested too clearly an intention
not to help her in this respect, for they remarked that, though they
might request the ambassador to present, they could not compel the
court to receive her. They wanted her out of the way, bribed
splendidly to endure an indelible disgrace. She was wise enough, at
least, to perceive that to consent to such a course would be to strip
her of every friend, and to shut against her the door of every court in
Europe.
Mr. Wilberforce hoped to act the ‘Mr. Harmony’ of the crisis, by
bringing forward a motion expressive of the regret of parliament that
the two illustrious adversaries had not been able to complete an
amicable arrangement of their difficulties, and declaring that the
Queen would sacrifice nothing of her good name nor of the
righteousness of her cause, nor be held as shrinking from inquiry, by
consenting to accept the counsel of parliament, and forbearing to
press further the adoption of those propositions on which any
material difference of opinion is yet remaining. The Queen’s especial
advocate, Mr. Brougham, felicitously contrasted the eager desire of
ministers to get rid of her Majesty, by sending her out of the country
with all the pomp, splendour, and ceremonies connected with royalty,
with their meanness in allowing her to come over in a common
packet, and to seek shelter in the house of a private individual. He
added that the only basis on which any satisfactory negotiation could
be carried on with her Majesty was the restoration of her name to the
Liturgy. Mr. Denman, in alluding to the case of Sophia Dorothea,
which had been cited by ministers as precedent wherein they found
authority for omitting the Queen’s name from the Liturgy, remarked
that, ‘As to the case of the Queen of George I., to which allusions
had been made, it was not at all in point. She had been guilty of
certain practices in Hanover which compromised her character, and
was never considered Queen of England. On the continent she lived
under the designation of Princess of Halle; and though the Prince of
Wales had afterwards called her to this country for the purpose of
embarrassing the government of his father, to which he happened to
be opposed, still she was never recognised in any other character
than Electress of Hanover.’ In this statement it will be seen that the
speaker calls her Queen whom he denies to have been accounted
as such, and he adds that the Prince of Wales called her to this
country in his father’s lifetime, when he had no power to do so;
whereas he simply expressed to his friends his determination to
invite her over if she survived his father as Queen-dowager of
England. This invitation he never had the power of making, for his
mother’s demise preceded the decease of his father. Mr. Denman
was far happier in his allusion to a ministerial assertion that the
omission of the Queen’s name from the Liturgy was the act of the
King in his closet. This assertion was at once a meanness and a
falsehood, for, as Mr. Denman remarked, no one knew of any such
thing in this country as ‘the King in his closet.’ Indeed the ministers
were peculiarly unlucky in all they did; for while they asserted that
the omission was never made out of disrespect towards the Queen,
they acknowledged that it never would have been thought of but for
the revelations contained in the fatal green bag as to her Majesty’s
alleged conduct. Finally, the House agreed to Mr. Wilberforce’s
motion.
The announcement of the resolution to which the House of
Commons had come was made to her Majesty, now residing in
Portman Street, in an address conveyed to her by Mr. Wilberforce
and three other members of the Lower House. On this occasion all
the forms of a court were observed. The bearers of the address
appeared in full court dress. The Queen, in a dress of black satin,
with a wreath of laurel shaded with emeralds around her head,
surmounted by a ‘plume of feathers,’ stood in one portion of the little
drawing-room; behind her stood all the ladies of her household, in
the person of Lady Anne Hamilton, and on either side of her Mr.
Brougham and Mr. Denman, her Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor
Generals, in full-bottomed wigs and silk gowns. As the deputation
approached, the folding doors which divided the members in the
back drawing-room from the Queen and her court in the front
apartment were then thrown open, and the four gentlemen from the
House of Commons knelt on one knee and kissed her Majesty’s
hand. Having communicated to her the resolutions of the House, the
Queen, through the attorney-general, returned an answer of some
length, the substance of which, however, was, that with all her
respect for the House of Commons she could not bind herself to be
governed by its counsel until she knew the purport of the advice. In
short, she yielded nothing, but appealed to the nation. When the
assembled crowd learned the character of the royal reply its delight
was intense, and certainly public opinion was generally in favour of
the Queen and of the course now adopted by her. There was one
thing she and the public too supremely hated, and that was the
formation of a secret committee, formed principally too of ministerial
adherents, and charged with prosecuting the inquiry against her,
without letting her know who were her accusers or of what crimes
she was accused, and without affording her opportunity to procure
evidence to rebut the testimony brought against her. Against such a
proceeding she drew up a petition, which she requested the Lord
Chancellor to present. That eminent official, however, asserting that
he meant no disrespect, excused himself on the ground that he did
not know how to present such a document to the House, and that
there was nothing in the journals which could tend to enlighten him.
The petition, however, the chief prayer in which was that the
Queen’s counsel might be heard at the bar of the House against an
inquiry by secret committee, was presented by Lord Dacre, and the
prayer in question was agreed to.
The request of Mr. Brougham was for a delay of two months,
previous to the inquiry being further prosecuted, in order to leave
time for the assembling of witnesses for the defence—witnesses
whom the Queen was too poor to purchase, and too powerless to
compel to repair to England. Her Majesty’s Attorney-General asked
this the more earnestly as some of the witnesses on the King’s side
were of tainted character, and one of them was an ex-domestic of
the Queen’s, discharged from her service for robbing her of four
hundred napoleons. The learned advocate concluded by expressing
his confidence that the delay of two months would not be considered
too great an indulgence for the purpose of furthering the ends of
justice, and providing that a legal murder should not be committed
on the character of the first subject of the realm. The best point in Mr.
Denman’s speech in support of the request made by his leader was
in the quotation from a judgment delivered by a former lord
chancellor, and which was to this effect—it was delivered with the
eyes of the speaker keenly fixed on those of Lord Eldon—‘A judge
ought to prepare the way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare
His way, by raising valleys and taking down hills, so when there
appeareth on either side a high hand, violent prosecutions, cunning
advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the
virtue of a judge seen to make inequality equal, that he may plant his
judgment as upon an even ground.’
While the Lords were deliberating on the request for
postponement, Lord Castlereagh was inveighing in the Commons
against the Queen herself, for daring to refuse to yield to the wishes
of parliament, and rejecting the advice to be guided by its counsel.
Such rejection he interpreted as being a sort of insult which no other
member of the House of Brunswick would have ventured to commit.
‘That illustrious individual,’ he said, ‘might repent the step she had
taken.’ Meanwhile, the Commons suspended proceedings till the
course to be decided upon by the Lords was finally taken. In the
latter assembly Earl Grey made a last effort to stay the proceedings
altogether, by moving that the order for the meeting of the secret
committee to consider the papers in the ‘green bag’ should be
discharged. The motion was lost, but an incident in the debate which
arose upon it deserves to be noticed. The omission of the Queen’s
name from the Liturgy had been described as the act of the King in
his closet. Lord Holland now charged the Archbishop of Canterbury
as the adviser of the act; but Lord Liverpool accepted the
responsibility of it for himself and colleagues, as having been
adopted by the King in council, at the ministerial suggestion.
The Lords having resolved to commence proceedings by a
preliminary secret inquiry, the Queen protested against such a
course, but no reply was made to her protest. With the exception of
appearing to return answers to the addresses forwarded to her from
various parts of the country, she withdrew, as much as possible, from
all publicity. Her personal friends, however, were busier than she
required in drawing up projects for her which she could not sanction.
One of these busy advocates thought that she might fittingly
compromise the matter by gaining the restoration of her name in the
Liturgy, being crowned, holding one drawing-room, yearly, at
Kensington Palace, and having her permanent residence at
Hampton Court, with 55,000l. a year to uphold her dignity. The terms
were not illiberal; but if the Queen rejected them, it was, probably,
because she knew they would never be offered. Her own remark
upon them is said to have been, that she did not want a victory
without a battle, but a victory after showing that she had deserved it.
She was the more eager for battle from the fact that the contents
of the green bag were by no means unknown to her. At least, it has
been asserted that she had long held duplicates of some of the
evidence, if not of the report made by the Milan commissioners, and
she was satisfied she could rebut both. She possessed one, and it
was her solitary, advantage in this case. The ministers, if not in so
many words, yet by their proceedings, had stigmatised her as utterly
infamous, and yet they had considered it not beneath them to desire
to enter into negotiations with one whom they considered guilty of all
the implied infamy. The Queen’s rejection of the proposals to
compound ‘the stupendous felony’ raised up for her many a friend in
circles where she had been looked upon, if not as guilty, yet, at best,
as open to very grave suspicion.
The Queen’s health required her not to confine herself within the
narrow limits of her residence in Portman Street. She accordingly
paid one public visit to Guildhall, and occasionally repaired to
Blackheath. It was on her way back from one of these latter
excursions that she honoured Alderman Waithman’s shop with a
visit. The incident is perhaps as well worth noticing as that which
tells of the trip made by the young Queen Mary to the shop of Lady
Gresham, the lady mayoress, who appears to have dealt in millinery.
The city progresses of the Queen did her infinite injury. The very
lowest of the populace, who cared little more for her than as giving
opportunity for a little excitement, were wont on these occasions to
take the horses from her carriage, harness themselves to the
vehicle, and literally drag the Queen of England through the mud of
the metropolis. She could only suffer degradation and ridicule from
such a proceeding, which a little spirit might have prevented. Her
enemies bitterly derided her through their organs in the press. They
expressed an eagerness to get rid of her, and added their
indifference as to whether ‘the alien’ was finally disposed of as a
martyr or as a criminal. On the other hand, her over-zealous
partisans gave utterance to their convictions that there was a project
on foot to murder the Queen. Party spirit never wore so assassin-like
an aspect as it did at this moment. Caroline, it must be added, was
not displeased with these popular ovations. ‘I have derived,’ she
remarked in her reply to the City address, ‘unspeakable consolations
from the zealous and constant attachment of this warm-hearted, just,
and generous people, to live at home with and to cherish whom will
be the chief happiness of the remainder of my days.’ But her chief
occupation now was to look to her defence, for the time had arrived
when her accusers were to speak openly.
 CHAPTER IX.
QUEEN, PEERS, AND PEOPLE.

The secret committee on the Queen’s conduct—Encounter between the

Queen and Princess Sophia—Bill of Pains and Penalties brought into the
House of Lords—The Queen demands to know the charges against her—
Her demand refused—The Queen again petitions—Lord Liverpool’s
speech—The Queen’s indignant message to the Lords—Money spent to
procure witnesses against her—Public feeling against the Italian
witnesses—Dr. Parr’s advice to the Queen—His zealous advocacy of her
cause—Lord Erskine’s efforts in her favour—Her hearty protest against
legal oppression—Gross attack on her in a provincial paper—Cruel
persecution of her—Her sharp philippic against Ministers—Lord John
Russell’s letter to Mr. Wilberforce, and petition to the King—The Queen at
Brandenburgh House—Death of the Duchess of York—Her eccentricities
—Her character—Addresses to the Queen, and her replies.

The secret committee charged with examining the documents in the

sealed bags made their report early in July. This report was to the
effect that the documents contained allegations, supported by the
concurrent testimony of witnesses of various grades in life, which
deeply affected the honour of the Queen, charging her, as they did,
with a ‘continued series of conduct highly unbecoming her Majesty’s
rank and station, and of the most licentious character.’ The
committee reluctantly recommended that the matter should become
the subject of solemn inquiry by legislative proceeding.
The ministers postponed any explanation as to the course to be
adopted by them upon this report until the following day. The Queen
exhibited no symptoms of being daunted by it. She appeared in
public on the evening of the day on which the report was delivered,
and, if cheers could attest her innocence, the vox populi would have
done it that night. As the Queen’s carriage was passing in the vicinity
of Kensington Gate it encountered that bearing the Princess Sophia.
The two cousins passed each other without exchanging a sign of
recognition, and the doughty livery servants of the Princess showed
that they had adopted the prejudices or convictions of their portion of
the royal family by refusing obedience to the commands of the mob,
which had ordered them to uncover as they passed in presence of
the Queen.
On Wednesday, the 5th of July, Lord Liverpool brought in the
ever-famous Bill of Pains and Penalties, a bill of degradation and
divorce. Lord Liverpool had previously protested against a divorce.
Why he now turned to a still more dangerous expedient he explains
in a letter inserted in his Memoirs. ‘In the case of a private individual
the question of divorce is a question of personal relief. The law of
man, not the law of God, says properly in this case, we will not give
you the relief unless by your conduct you are entitled to it. But the
King does not, and cannot, apply for relief as an individual; his
accusation is a public accusation, resting on public grounds. Adultery
in a Queen is a crime against the State. The private offence is
merged in the public crime, and must follow the effect of it. How is it
possible to entertain a charge of recrimination against a King, who in
the eye of the law can do no wrong?’
The Queen demanded, by petition, to be furnished with the
specific charges brought against her, and to be heard by her counsel
in support of that demand. The House refused, and Lord Liverpool
went on with his Bill.
The Queen again interfered by petition, requesting to have the
nature of the charges against her distinctly stated, and to be heard in
support of her request by counsel. These requests were negatived.
Lord Liverpool then, in introducing the bill, did his utmost to save the
King from being unfavourably contrasted in his character of
complainant with the Queen in that of defendant. He alleged that
their Majesties were not before the House as individuals. The parties
concerned were the Queen as accused party and the State! The
question to be considered was whether, supposing the allegations to
be substantiated, impunity was to be extended to guilt, or justice be
permitted to triumph. The bill he thus introduced noticed the various
acts of indiscretion which have been already recorded. These were
the familiarity which existed between herself and her courier, whom
she had ennobled, and in honour of whom she had unauthorisedly
founded an order of chivalry, of which he had been appointed grand
master. The bill further accused her of most scandalous, vicious, and
disgraceful conduct ‘with the said Bergami,’ but was silent as to time
and place. The document concluded by proposing that Caroline
Amelia Elizabeth should be ‘deprived of her rank, rights, and
privileges as Queen, and that her marriage with the King be
dissolved and disannulled to all intents and purposes.’ The bill, in
short, pronounced her infamous. It was the penalty which she paid
for the exercise of much indiscretion. Earl Grey complained of the
want of specification, and asserted her Majesty’s right to be
furnished with the names of witnesses. Lord Liverpool, however,
treated the assertion as folly, and the claim made as unprecedented
and inexpedient.
A copy of the bill was delivered to the Queen by Sir Thomas
Tyrwhitt. She received it not without emotion, and this was
sufficiently great to give a confused tone to her observations on this
occasion. Had the bill, she said, been presented to her a quarter of a
century earlier, it might have served the King’s purpose better. She
added that, as she should never meet her husband again in this
world, she hoped, at least, to do so in the next, where certainly
justice would be rendered her.
To the Lords she sent a message expressive of her indignant
surprise that the bill should assume her as guilty simply upon the
report of a committee before whom not a single witness had been
examined. Her friends continued to harass the government. In the
Commons, Sir Ronald Ferguson attempted, though unsuccessfully,
to obtain information as to the authority for the organising of the
Milan commission for examining spies. That commission, he
intimated, originated with the vice-chancellor, Sir John Leach, and
had cost the country between thirty and forty thousand pounds, for
one half of which sum, he added, Italian witnesses might be
procured who would blast the character of every man and woman in
England.
 The feeling against Italians did not require to be excited. Those
who arrived at Dover to furnish evidence against the Queen were
very roughly treated; and so fearful were the ministers that
something worse might happen to them, that they were, after various
changes of residence in London, transferred to Holland, much to the
disgust of the Dutch, before they were finally cloistered up in Cotton
Garden, at hand to furnish the testimony, for the bringing of which
they received very liberal recompense.
Meanwhile, Dr. Parr, in ponderous sermons, exhorted her
Majesty not to despise the chastening of the Lord; and the Queen’s
devout deportment at divine service was cited by zealous advocates
as evidence in favour of her general propriety.
Indeed the Queen had no more zealous champion than the
almost octogenarian Parr. On the fly-leaf of the Prayer-book in the
reading-desk of his parish church at Hatton he entered (and one can
hardly say of Dr. Parr’s act on this occasion dispar sibi) a stringent
protest against the oppression to which she had been subjected;
adding a conviction entertained by him of her complete innocence,
and expressing a determination, although forbidden to pray for her
by name, to add a prayer for her mentally, after uttering the words in
the Liturgy, ‘all the Royal family.’ In his heart the stout old man
prayed fervently; nor did he confine himself to such service. A friend,
knowing his opinions, his admiration of the Queen, and the friendly
feelings which had long mutually existed between them, earnestly
begged of him not to interfere in her affairs at this conjuncture. Dr.
Parr answered the request by immediately ordering his trunk to be
packed, and by proceeding to London, where he entered on the
office of her Majesty’s chaplain, procured the nomination of the Rev.
M. Fellowes to the same office, and in conjunction with him, and
often alone, wrote those royal replies to popular addresses which are
remarkable for their force, and for the ability with which they are
made to metaphorically scourge the King, without appearing to treat
him with discourtesy.
There was as much zeal, and perhaps more discretion, in those
impartial peers who, on occasion of Lord Liverpool moving the
second reading of the Bill for the 17th of August, insisted on the
undoubted right of the Queen, as an accused party, to be made
acquainted with the names of the witnesses who had come over to
charge her with infamy. Lord Erskine was particularly urgent and
impressive on this point, but all to no purpose, except the extracting
an assurance from Lord Chancellor Eldon that the accused should
have, at a fitting season, a proper opportunity to sift the character of
every witness as far as possible. Lord Erskine repeatedly
endeavoured to obtain the full measure of justice for the accused
which he demanded. The Queen herself entered a hearty protest
against the legal oppression, and further begged by petition that, as
the names of the witnesses against her were withheld, she might at
least be furnished with a specification of the times and places, when
and where she was said to have acted improperly. The request was
characterised by Lord Eldon as ‘perfectly absurd,’ seeing that the
Queen could make no use of the information, if she intended, as
declared by her, to defend her case at the early period named, of the
17th of August. The reply was harsh, insulting, and illogical.
But to harshness and insult she became inured by daily
experience. It may be safely said that, if such a drama had to be
enacted in our own days, the press would certainly not distinguish
itself now exactly as it did then. Party spirit might be as strong, but
there would be more refinement in the expression of it. And
assuredly, not even a provincial paper would say of a person before
trial as a Western journal said of the Queen—that she was as much
given to drunkenness as to other vices, and that it was ridiculous to
hold up as an innocent victim a woman who, ‘if found on our
pavement, would be committed to Bridewell and whipped.’
But ministers themselves were not on a bed of roses. They were
exceedingly embarrassed by the Queen’s announcement that she
intended to be present every day in the House of Lords during the
progress of what was now properly called ‘The Queen’s Trial.’ Their
anger, too, was excited at the sharp philippics against them inserted
in her Majesty’s replies to the addresses presented to her. In those
replies the passages complained of wounded more than those
against whom they were pointed; and the authors of them had, no
doubt, some mirth over sentences intended to spoil it in the breasts
of ministers charged with rebelliously seeking to dethrone their lawful
Queen. The royal replies, too, were equally, but not so directly,
severe against those former counsellors and advocates of her
Majesty who were now arrayed on the side of her Majesty’s enemy.
These replies were, of course, not censured by the ministerial
opponents in either House of Parliament. The addresses which
called them forth, however, did not escape reproach from this
quarter. Lord John Russell, in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, does not
indeed go so far as reproach. He says: ‘I regret, though I cannot
severely blame, the language of many of the addresses that have
been presented to the Queen.’
Lord John acknowledged the political nullity of the Whigs at this
time, but he held that the Wilberforce party in the Commons were
sufficiently powerful to have successfully resisted the scandal which
the Government had brought upon the kingdom. ‘In your hands, sir,’
he says, ‘is perhaps the fate of this country. The future historian will
ask whether it was right to risk the welfare of England—her boasted
constitution, her national power—on the event of an inquiry into the
conduct of the Princess of Wales in her villa upon the Lake of Como?
From the majority which followed you in the House of Commons, he
will conclude you had the power to prevent the die being thrown. He
will ask if you wanted the inclination.’
To this letter Lord John Russell appended a form of petition to
the King, which may not uncourteously be termed the petition of the
powerless Whig statesman. This petition smartly and smartingly
complimented his Majesty upon his liberality in offering to allow his
Queen fifty thousand a year, and to introduce her to a foreign court,
at a time when he pretended to know that she was, allegedly,
perfectly worthless, as woman, wife, and mother. With the domestic
broils of King and Queen Lord John would not interfere; but, the King
having made of them an affair of state, the ‘humble petition’ informs
his Majesty that he has been exceedingly ill-advised. With excellent
spirit does Lord John place upon record his abhorrence of enacting
laws to suit a solitary case—laws ‘which at once create the offence,
regulate the proof, decide upon the evidence, and invent the
punishment.’ He asks if the Queen will escape from justice in the
event of the bill not passing? Are the ministers afraid lest she may so
defraud justice?—why, ‘that the Queen has not fled from justice is
not only the admission, but forms one of the chief charges, of her
prosecutors.’ Her prosecution, then, will not serve the State. Can the
revelation of her alleged iniquity at Como or Athens serve or
influence public morals in England? What is the situation of the
Queen? asks Lord John, who thus replies to his own query:
‘Separated from her husband during the first year of her marriage,
she has been forced out of that circle of domestic affections which
alone are able to keep a wife holy and safe from evil. For the period
to which the accusation extends she has been also removed from
the control of public opinion—the next remaining check the world can
afford on female behaviour.’ Lord John perhaps makes a low
estimate of female virtue when he thus concludes that women cease
to be ‘holy and safe from evil’ when they cease to have a share in
domestic affections or to be controlled by public opinion. There is
more sly humour in what follows than there is of correctness in the
noble lord’s estimation of female virtue. The drawer-up of the petition
reminds the King that what most distresses him is ‘the uncrowning a
royal head without necessity. We see much to alarm us in the
example, nothing to console us in the immediate benefit.’ Not, says
the petitioner, slyly, that we do not recognise the right of parliament
to alter the succession to the crown. ‘None respect more than we do
the Act of Settlement which took away the crown from its hereditary
successors and gave it to the House of Brunswick;’ and, as the writer
alludes to the possibility of the new subject of strife bringing the
country to the verge of a civil war, he of course intimates that
parliament may again be called upon to regulate the succession. The
sum of the petition is to let the Queen alone. ‘From her future
conduct your Majesty and the nation will be enabled to judge
whether the reports from Milan were well founded, or whether they
were the offspring of curiosity and malice.’ The prayer of the petition,
therefore, is that parliament be prorogued, and ‘thus end all
proceedings against the Queen.’
Of course this petition was really a political pamphlet, introduced
for no other purpose but the exposition of certain opinions. The
Queen’s replies to the popular addresses borrowed something of the
tone of this document, and were partly sarcastic, partly serious, in
regretting that an impartial tribunal was not to be found on this
occasion in the House of Lords.
Her Majesty now once more changed her residence from
Portman Street to Brandenburgh House, the old suburban residence
of the Margravine of Anspach, on the banks of the Thames, near
Hammersmith, where watch and ward were nightly kept by volunteer
sentinels from among some of the more enthusiastic inhabitants of
the vicinity. The distance, however, was too great to enable her
Majesty to repair conveniently to the House of Lords when her trial
should be in progress. The widow of Sir Philip Francis had
compassion upon her, and made her an offer, promptly accepted, of
the widow’s mansion in St. James’s Square. It was next to that of her
great enemy, Lord Castlereagh; and to reach the House of Lords she
would daily have to pass Carlton House, the residence of the
husband who was so blindly bent upon consigning her to infamy.
In the midst of these preparations for a great event died a
princess as unfortunate as Caroline, but one who bore her trials with
more wisdom. The Duchess of York, the wife of the second son of
Queen Charlotte, died on Friday, the 6th of August. Her married life
had been unhappy, and every day of it was a disgrace to her
profligate, unprincipled, and good-tempered husband. She endured
the sorrows which were of his inflicting with a silent dignity and some
eccentricity. In her seclusion at Oatlands this amiable, patient, and
much-loved lady passed a brief career, marked by active
beneficence. Her blue eyes, fair hair, and light complexion are still
favourite themes of admiration with those who have reason to
gratefully remember her. A great portion of her income was
expended in founding and maintaining schools, encouraging benefit
societies, and relieving the poor and distressed. But her
benevolence had an eccentric side, and the indulgence of it was the
only indulgence she allowed herself. She loved the brute creation,
and had an especial admiration for dogs. Of these she supported a
perfect colony; and daily might her canine friends, of every species
and in considerable numbers, be seen taking their airing in the park,
often with their benevolent hostess leading the way and taking
delight in witnessing their gambols. She, perhaps, was the more
attached to them because she had been so harshly used by man;
and a touch of misanthropy was probably the basis of her regard for
animals. The progeny of her established favourites were boarded out
among the villagers, and in the park was a cemetery solely devoted
as the burial-ground of her quadruped friends. They rested beneath
small tombstones, which bore the names, age, and characters of the
canine departed. In these things may be seen the weak side of her
character; but it was a weakness that might be easily pardoned. Her
character had its firm, and perhaps humorous, side. She had
patronised a party of strolling actors, and sent her foreign servants,
who could comprehend little, to listen to the moan of Shakspeare
murdered in a barn. Shortly after, an earnest and itinerant Wesleyan
hired the same locality, and the Duchess ordered the household
down to listen to the sermon. The foreigners among them pleaded
their ignorance of the language as an excuse for not going. ‘No, no,’
said the Duchess; ‘you were ready enough to go to the play, and you
shall also go to the preaching. I am going myself;’—and in the barn
at Weybridge the official successor of John Wesley expounded
Scripture to the lineal successor of Frederick the Great.
She had not the spirit of Caroline, and was all the happier for it.
The latter, indeed, was more harshly tried, but she in some degree
provoked the trial, and was now suffering the consequences of the
provocation. The Queen gave a few days to retirement, in
consequence of the death of the Duchess; and, this duty performed,
she was again in public, working with energy and determination to
accomplish the restoration of a name which had been tarnished by
her own indiscretion. And indiscretion is perhaps one of the most
ruinous ingredients in a character. It is a torch in the hand of the
careless, firing the very garments of the bearer.
The addresses to the Queen now became greater in number and
stronger in language. The replies to them also became more
energetic and menacing in expression. They were still popularly
ascribed to Dr. Parr, and, from whomsoever proceeding, the author
very well kept in view the personage for whom and the
circumstances under which he was speaking. Thus, to the
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