Romanticism

the application of the HABEAS CORPUS, which protected citizens from indefinite

time of arrest without trial. That’s why many radicals were arrested and not tried for a

long time. After the Congress of Vienna (1815), England, which had resulted

victorious with her allies (Austria, Prussia and Russia), presented a conservative

system of government although she hadn’t joined the Holy Alliance of Czar

Alexander and had a moderate influence in the Congress. Parliament was divided into

two representative classes of the large landowners and the new industrial classes who

controlled everything through parliamentary power, but were also in a way open to

reforms in favour of the new urban poor (the proletariat) in order to avoid the

revolutionary danger whose disastrous effects they had already seen in France.

In spite of a progressive urbanization, according to the old electoral law, small towns

could send two representatives to Parliament whereas, great industrial towns were not

allowed to send any representative at all, as their existence as a political unit was not

recognized yet. That is why parliamentary life continued to be dominated by the

landed aristocracy and the high middle classes. After 1815, peace had not brought

any good life conditions in England, in fact, much of the work that the industry of

war had produced was no longer necessary and soldiers, on going back to their native

land, remained unemployed.

But the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution also determined social

disaster. The advent of the STEAM ENGINE by James Watt in 1765, had

contributed to the technological revolution that had caused hand workers to go to

work to factories, especially the textile industries in the new industrial towns,

Manchester and Birmingham; the steam engine was also used in mining and to make

the trains work, revolutionizing thus the transport system in England. But only the

high middle classes could take advantage of this welfare, because the labour class

lived massed (heaped up) in bad housing conditions and with a bad health system.

Nevertheless, the appalling conditions of the poor worried the ruling classes because

they could represent the cause for a possible rebellion or disease.

A policy of reforms started: 2