Michael Dobbs - To play the king

Stamper held his stare, spreading his lips in the coldest of smiles. Then he closed the door behind him.

The lunch had started excellently. Both Mickey Quillington and his first cousin, Lord Chesholm of Kinsale, appreciated a good claret and the cellar of the House of Lords dining room had a large number from which to choose. They had chosen to drink Leoville-Barton but were unable to decide between the '82 and '85 vintage. So they had ordered a bottle of both and slipped gently into mid-afternoon in the warm embrace of the elegant mahogany panelling and attentive staff. Chesholm was a good twenty years older than Quillington and substantially more wealthy, and the impecunious younger peer had hoped to use the lunch for the launch of an appeal to family solidarity which would involve his relative in leasing several hundred of Quillington's Oxfordshire acres at a generous rate, but sadly his tactics had gone awry. The claret proved too much for the elderly peer to manage and he couldn't concentrate, repeatedly exclaiming that he didn't live in Oxfordshire. The bill, although heavily subsidized, still reflected the exceptional nature of the wine and Quillington felt bruised. Maybe the old bugger would regain his wits by teatime.

They were attending the House to voice objection to a Bill which sought a total ban on fox-hunting, and the debate was well underway by the time they took their places on the deep-red morocco benches in the Gothic chamber. Within minutes Chesholm was asleep while Quillington slouched with his knees tucked beneath his chin as he listened with growing resentment to a former polytechnic lecturer, recently elevated to the life-peerage for his diligence in the study of trade union matters, expounding his belief in the decay and corruption of those who still believed they owned the countryside as if by divine right. Debates in the Lords are conducted in far less pompous and vitriolic style than in the Lower Chamber, as befits its aristocratic and almost familial atmosphere, but the lack of outright rudeness did not prevent the peer from putting across his point of view forcefully and effectively. From around the Chamber, uncharacteristically packed for the occasion by hereditary peers and noble backwoodsmen from distant rural parts, came a growl of wounded pride, like a stuck boar at bay. Such displays of emotion are not commonplace in the Upper Chamber, but such a concentration of hereditary peers was also unusual outside the circumstance of state funeral or Royal wedding. It may not have been the Lords at their norm, nor even at their best, but it was certainly their Lordships at their most decorous.

Quillington cleared his throat; the debate was threatening to spoil the warm glow left by the claret. The poly-peer had broadened his attack from fox-hunting itself to those who hunted, and Quillington took great exception. He was not the type of person who rode roughshod over others' rights; he'd never forced any farm labourer out of a tied cottage, and any damage inadvertently caused while hunting was always paid for. Blast the man, the Quillingtons had been dedicated custodians. It had cost them their fortune and his father's health and had left his mother with little but years of tearful widowhood. Yet here was an oaf who had spent all his working life in some overheated lecture room living off an inflation-proofed salary, accusing him of being no better than a scrounger. It was too much, really too bloody much. This sort of wheedling and insolent insinuation had gone on for too long, harking back to a style of class warfare which was fifty years out of date.

' 'Bout time we put them in their place, don't you think, Chesy?' Almost before he realized it, Quillington was on his feet.

'This debate is only nominally about fox-hunting, that is merely the excuse. Behind it lies an insidious attack on the traditions and values which have not only held our countryside together, not only held this House together, but have held the whole of society together. There are wreckers in the land, some maybe even amongst our number here' – he deliberately avoided looking at the previous speaker, so that everyone would know precisely whom he meant – 'who in the name of democracy would force their own narrow, militant opinions upon the rest, the silent majority which is the true and glorious backbone of Britain.'

He licked his lips, there was a flush in his cheeks, a mixture of Leoville-Barton and real emotion that succeeded in engulfing the unease he customarily felt in public, which on more than one occasion had left him tongue-tied and floundering at the opening of the annual village fete. 'They want revolution, no less. They would abandon our traditions, abolish this Chamber, stamp on our rights.' Quillington waved a finger at the canopied Throne which dominated one end of the hall and stood empty and forlorn. 'They even seek to reduce to silence and insignificance our own Royal Family.'

Several of Their Lordships raised a collective eyebrow. The rules about discussion of the Royal Family were very restrictive, particularly in a debate on blood sports. 'To the point, my Lord,' one growled in warning.

'But, noble Lords, this is the point,' protested Quillington. 'We are not here to rubber-stamp what comes from the Lower House. We are here to offer counsel, advice, warning. And we do so, just as the Monarch does, because we represent the true long-term interests of this country. We represent the values which have made our nation great over previous centuries and which will continue to guide her well into the next century. We are not here to be swayed by every passing fashion and fad. We do not suffer from the corruption of having to get ourselves elected, of having to pretend that we are all things to all men, of making promises we know we cannot keep. We are here to represent what is immutable and constant in society.'

Mutters of 'Hear, hear' could be heard from the crowded benches around Quillington. The Lord Chancellor drummed his fingers as he concentrated in bewigged and ermined splendour from his seat on the Woolsack; the speech was most unusual, but really rather a splendid entertainment.

'It may seem a long way from the plottings of hunt-saboteurs to assaults on Buckingham Palace, but what we have seen of both recently should encourage us to stand firm in our beliefs, not to run for the cover of undergrowth like terrified vermin.' His long, thin arms were extended theatrically away from his body, as if trying to haul in their sympathy. He needn't have bothered, peers were beginning to nod and tap their knees to indicate support. 'Both this House and the Royal Family are here to defend those timeless aspects of the national interest, unfettered by the selfishness of The Other Place. There is no need for this House to kowtow to the muscle and money of commercial interests!' The poly-peer was sitting upright, ready to try and intervene. He was sure Quillington was about to go too far. 'Not for us the temptations of bribing the public with their own money, we are here to defend the public against shortsightedness and falsehood. And at no time is that duty more pressing upon us than when we have a new Cabinet and a Prime Minister who have not even been elected by the people. Let him go to the country promising to castrate the Monarch and abolish the House of Lords if he dare, but until he has won that right and power at an election, let us not allow him to do quietly and privately what he has not yet been able to do publicly.'

The poly-peer had had enough. He was not quite sure what transgression Quillington was making, but the emotional temperature in the Chamber had soared, shouts of support for Quillington were coming from all sides, and the poly-peer suddenly felt the Chamber close in around him like a courtroom dock. 'Order! The noble Lord must restrain himself,' he interjected.