Spencer Perceval - Legacy

Legacy

Perceval was a small, slight, and very pale man, who usually dressed in black. Lord Eldon called him "Little P". He never sat for a full-sized portrait; likenesses are either miniatures or are based on a death mask by Joseph Nollekens. He is sometimes referred to as one of Britain's forgotten prime ministers, remembered only for the manner of his death. Although not considered an inspirational leader, he is generally seen as a devout, industrious, principled man who at the head of a weak government steered the country through difficult times. A contemporary MP Henry Grattan, used a naval analogy to describe Perceval: "He is not a ship-of-the-line, but he carries many guns, is tight-built and is out in all weathers". Perceval's modern biographer, Denis Gray, described him as "a herald of the Victorians".

Perceval was mourned by many; Lord Chief Justice Sir James Mansfield wept during his summing up to the jury at Bellingham's trial. But in some quarters he was unpopular and in Nottingham the crowds that gathered following his assassination were in more cheerful mood. Public monuments to Perceval were erected in Northampton, Lincoln's Inn and Westminster Abbey. Four biographies have been published: a book on his life and administration by Charles Verulam Williams which appeared soon after his death; his grandson Spencer Walpole's biography in 1894; Philip Treherne's short biography in 1909; Denis Gray's 500-page political biography in 1963. In addition there are three books about his assassination, one by Mollie Gillen, one by David Hanrahan, and the latest by Andro Linklater entitled Why Spencer Perceval Had To Die.

Perceval's assassination inspired poems such as Universal sympathy on the martyr'd statesman (1812):

One of Perceval's most noted critics, especially on the question of Catholic emancipation, was the cleric Sydney Smith. In Peter Plymley's Letters Smith writes:

If I lived at Hampstead upon stewed meats and claret; if I walked to church every Sunday before eleven young gentlemen of my own begetting, with their faces washed, and their hair pleasingly combed; if the Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort-- how awfully would I pause before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the cabins of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ireland!

American historian Henry Adams suggested that it was this picture of Perceval that stayed in the minds of Liberals for a whole generation.

He is also the eponymous subject of a 2007 song by British alternative rock band Iliketrains