William had been supposed up to the time of his accession to lean towards the Whig, or what we should now call the Liberal party. His manners were frank, familiar, and even rough. He cared little for Court ceremonial of any kind, and was in the habit of walking about the streets with his umbrella tucked under his arm, like any ordinary Londoner. All this told rather in his favor, so far as the outer public were concerned. There was supposed to be something rather English, something rather typical of John Bull in the easy-going manners of the new sovereign, which gave people an additional reason for welcoming him. The new sovereign, however, had come in for times of popular excitement, and even of trouble. There came a new revolution in France--only a dynastic revolution, to be sure, and not a national upheaval, but still it was a change which dethroned the newly restored legitimate line of sovereigns. The elder branch of the Bourbons was torn away and flung aside. There were to be no more kings of France, but only kings of the French. Charles the Tenth was deposed, and Louis Philippe, son of Philippe Egalite, was placed on the throne. Charles the Tenth was the last of the legitimate kings of France so far, and there does not {99} seem much chance in the immediate future for any restoration of the fallen dynasty. The overthrow of legitimacy in France had a strong effect on popular opinion in England. It was plain that Charles the Tenth and his system had come to ruin because the sovereign and his ministers would not move with the common movement of the times over the greater part of the European continent, and popular reformers in England took care that the lesson should not be thrown away over here. Great changes had been accomplished by popular movements even during the enfeebling and disheartening reign of George the Fourth. Great progress had been made towards the establishment of religious equality, or at all events towards the removal of religious disqualifications among the Dissenters and the Roman Catholics. There was a loud cry almost everywhere for some measure of political reform. The conditions of the country had been gradually undergoing a great change. England had been becoming less and less dependent for her prosperity on her mere agricultural resources, and had been growing more and more into a great manufacturing community. Huge towns like Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield were arising in the Northern and Midland regions. Liverpool was superseding Bristol as the great seaport of commercial traffic. Yet in most cases the old-fashioned principle still prevailed which in practice confined the Parliamentary representation of the country to the members who sat for the counties, and for what were called the pocket boroughs. The theory of the Constitution, as it was understood, held that the sovereign summoned at his own discretion and pleasure the persons whom he thought best