“Great Events From Little Causes Spring”
Exemplifications of this poetic saw are very numerous in the highways and byeways of History, ancient and modern; all tending to show the springs which have set the world in motion, and how the most trivial circumstances have occasioned the subversion of empires, and erected new ones in their stead. Infinite are the consequences which follow from a single, and often apparently a very insignificant, circumstance. Paley himself narrowly escaped being a baker; here was a decision upon which hung in one scale, perhaps, the immortal interests of thousands, and in the other, the gratification of the taste of the good people of Giggleswick for hot rolls. Cromwell was near being strangled in his cradle by a monkey; here was this wretched ape wielding in his paws the destiny of nations. Then, again, how different in their kind, as well as in their magnitude, are these consequences from anything that might have been, à priori, expected. Henry VIII. is smitten with the beauty of a girl of eighteen, and ere long—
“The Reformation beams from Bullen’s eyes.”
The Mission of St. Augustine is one of the most striking instances in all history of the vast results which may flow from a very small beginning,—of the immense effects produced by a single thought in the heart of a single man, carried out conscientiously, deliberately, and fearlessly. Nothing in itself could seem more trivial than the meeting of Gregory with the three Yorkshire boys in the market-place at Rome; yet this roused a feeling in his mind which he never lost; and through all the obstacles which were thrown first in his own way, and then in that of Augustine, his highest desire concerning it was more than realised. From Canterbury, the first English Christian city—from Kent, the first English Christian kingdom—has by degrees arisen the whole constitution of Church and State in England, which now binds together the whole British empire. And from the Christianity here established has flowed, by direct consequences, first, the Christianity of Germany—then, after a long interval, of North America—and, lastly, we may trust, in time, of all India and all Australasia.—Stanley’s Historical Memoirs of Canterbury.
Wars have frequently been brought about by trivial causes. In the cathedral of Modena, in the marble tower called “La Ghirlandina,” is kept the old worm-eaten wooden bucket which was the cause of the civil war, or rather affray, between the Modenese and Bolognese, in the time of Frederic II., Nov. 15, 1325. It was long suspended by the chain which fastened the gate of Bologna, through which the Modenese forced their passage, and seized the prize, which was deposited in the cathedral by the victors, the Geminiani, as a trophy of the defeat of the Petronii, with wonderful triumph. The event is the subject of Tassoni’s Secchia Rapita, or Rape of the Bucket, the first modern mock-heroic poem.
When the palace of the Trianon was building for Louis XIV., at the end of the park of Versailles, the monarch went to inspect the work, accompanied by Louvois, secretary-at-war, and superintendent of the building: Louis remarked that one of the windows was out of shape, and smaller than the rest, which Louvois denied. The king had the window measured, and finding that he had judged rightly, treated Louvois with contumely before the whole court. This treatment so incensed the minister, that when he returned home, he was heard to say, that he would find better employment for a monarch than that of insulting his favourites. Louvois was as good as his word, for by his insolence and haughtiness he insulted the other powers, and occasioned the bloody war of 1688.
An instance pregnant with mightier results could not, perhaps, be quoted than the following:—When many Puritans emigrated, or were about to emigrate, to America, in 1637, Cromwell, either despairing of his fortunes at home, or indignant at the rule of government which prevailed, resolved to quit his native country, in search of those civil and religious privileges of which he could freely partake in the New World. Eight ships were lying in the Thames, ready to sail: in one of them, says Hume, (quoting Mather and other authorities,) were embarked Hazelrig, Hampden, Pym, and Cromwell. A proclamation was issued, and the vessels were detained by Order in Council. The King had, indeed, cause to rue the exercise of his authority. In the same year, Hampden’s memorable trial—the great cause of Ship-money—occurred. What events rapidly followed!
At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, when the Protestant religion was restored, the question whether there should be Saints’ Days in the Calendar was considered by the Convocation, and sharply and fully debated. The Saints’ Days were carried only by a single vote: 59 members voted for Saints’ Days, 58 for omitting them.—Literary Remains of H. Fynes Clinton.
Bishop Burnet relates that the Habeas Corpus Act passed by a mere mistake; that one peer was counted for ten, and that made a majority for the measure.—Earl Stanhope’s Speech, 1856.
The House of Brunswick and the Casting Vote.—Sir Arthur Owen, bart., of Orielton, in the county of Pembroke, is the individual who is asserted to have given the casting vote which placed the Brunswick dynasty on the throne of England. A lady, in 1856, residing at Haverfordwest, remembered her grandmother, who was staying at Orielton, at the time when Sir Arthur Owen rode to London on horseback, for the purpose of recording his vote: he arrived at the precise juncture when his single vote caused the scale to preponderate in favour of the descendants of the Electress Sophia. (I. Pavin Phillips, Haverfordwest.—Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No. 31.) Another account, which Mr. Phillips thinks the correct one, states that Sir Arthur Owen made the number even; and that it was Mr. Griffith Rice, M.P. for Carmarthenshire, who gave the casting vote. (See Debrett’s Baronetage, 1824.)
The Discovery of America is referred to by Humboldt as a “wonderful concatenation of trivial circumstances which undeniably exercised an influence on the course of the world’s destiny:”
Washington Irving has justly observed that if Columbus had resisted the counsel of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and continued to steer westward, he would have entered the Gulf Stream and been borne to Florida, and from thence, probably, to Cape Hatteras and Virginia,—a circumstance of incalculable importance, since it might have been the means of giving to the United States of North America a Catholic Spanish population, in the place of the Protestant English one by which those regions were subsequently colonised. “It seems to me like an inspiration,” said Pinzon to the Admiral, “that my heart dictates to me that we ought to steer in a different direction.” It was on the strength of this circumstance that in the celebrated lawsuit which Pinzon carried on against the heirs of Columbus, between 1513 and 1515, he maintained that the discovery of America was alone due to him. This inspiration Pinzon owed, as related by an old sailor of Moguez, at the same trial, to the flight of a flock of parrots which he had observed in the evening flying towards the south-west, in order, as he might well have conjectured, to roost on trees on the land. Never has a flight of birds been attended by more important results. It may even be said that it has decided the first colonization in the New Continent, and the original of the Roman and Germanic races of men.
The Act to recharter the first Bank of the United States was defeated by the casting vote of Vice-president Clinton (ex-officio President of the Senate), and the Tariff Act of 1846 was ordered to be engrossed by the casting vote of Vice-president Dallas.
That the Past is the Guide for the Present is thus argued:—Every political treatise referring to events which have engrossed the attention of the day, either as modifications or as changes of our social system, must be valuable in later years. It must necessarily recommend or condemn measures on account of their probable operation in the time to come; it must in some degree be a prophecy, or else it is practically worthless. The politician studies the past merely as his guide for the future. If he is learned, wise, and at all an adept in the science which he professes—than which no other is of so momentous an import—he will consider past history as the barometer which must guide him in predicating the approach either of a tempest or a calm. Temporary clamour or occasional obstruction will not lead him to forsake clear principles of action, or to recommend a grand constitutional remedy in the case of a trifling local disease. He must look forward beyond the sphere of immediate action—resolute in this belief, that one false step, however small, may upset the equilibrium of the State.—Blackwood’s Magazine, 1850.