Once upon a time "the great and the good" might have aptly described a gathering of the Ulster Unionist Council. For the governing body of the Ulster Unionist Party was long considered the servile instrument of unionism's ruling elite. In that sense alone its mirror image in Britain was the Conservative Party's National Union.
Dukes and earls, colonels and captains mingled with knights of the realm. Big businessmen and big farmers lunched side-by-side at the Constitutional Club, or the Reform in Belfast, before the annual consultation with a rank and file whose sole purpose was to applaud the Stormont government of the day.
There were working-class delegates to be sure, from the Shankill and elsewhere. But back in the good old days the lower orders knew their place. Indeed they were to the fore in urging devotion to the leadership.
The turnout of what was once contemptuously called the furcoat brigade - well-heeled ladies from Belmont, Cherryvalley, North Down's gold coast and the substantial farm-holdings of Fermanagh and Tyrone - was given as explanation for John Taylor's defeat of the populist Harold McCusker in the 1984 battle for the European nomination.
In other circumstances the late Upper Bann MP could easily have sat on the Labour benches at Westminster. That alone caused some of the party's surviving grandees to view him with suspicion. And he certainly heard the whispered asides about his working-class origins.
Today Mr Taylor is the most obvious representative of the party's old establishment. Asked to define the essential difference between him and David Trimble, one wag invokes Alan Clark's famous diary comment on Michael Heseltine and replies: "The Trimbles had to buy their own furniture."
Sir Reg Empey seemed rather unimpressed by his knighthood, and clearly isn't a man who would consider a bauble any substitute for real political clout. The recently ennobled Lords Denis Rogan and John Laird - down-to-earth, unassuming men both - will almost certainly have bought the best of their furniture. Self-made men, they testify to the transition from big-house unionism to meritocracy.
Doubtless some still are seekers after an OBE or an MBE. But the UUP's age of deference is long since gone. Ken Maginnis certainly won't doff his cap to his friend the Lord Rogan. Think middle England and that probably tells you how the 800-plus delegates to today's council would see themselves. Middle Ulster. Unionism's broad church - a representative cross-section of unionist society.
Teachers and students, baby barristers and baby boomers, farmers, doctors, stockbrokers and insurance salesmen, butchers, housewives and small shop owners.
There is no mystery to the identity of the men and women who comprise the Ulster Unionist Council. They are for the most part ordinary, solid, unpretentious, honest men and women of the kind who are the mainstay of any political party. They are the people who organise the raffles, cake sales and coffee mornings; who stuff the envelopes and trudge the streets at election time. They are the metaphorical backbone without whom the Trimbles, Taylors, Donaldsons, Thompsons, and Empeys would not ultimately be able to strut the electoral stage.
And that backbone is about to be tested as never before.
Next Saturday they will make their way to the Ulster Hall knowing that the future of their party, and the political future of Northern Ireland, quite literally rest upon their decision. Up to 125 are entitled to attend as representatives of the Orange Order, still an affiliated organisation.
There has long been talk of Mr Trimble's intention to break the historic link as part of his modernising programme. But, with all else he has had to contend with, it is perhaps unsurprising that the UUP leader has not yet cracked his equivalent of Labour's old Clause IV.
Too much can be made of the Orange influence. In truth, like the order itself, many feel it to have been a declining factor in UUP affairs over recent years. Certainly the delegates representing the various county grand lodges do not appear to work as a cohesive group. And mandating their delegates would be next to impossible anyway. There are no block votes at the UUC: the Orange delegates, along with the 100 or so drawn from the Women's Unionist Council, the Young Unionists and around 635 from the parliamentary constituency associations, will determine the fate of the Belfast Agreement, and of Mr Trimble, by secret ballot.
Mr Trimble yesterday expressed the hope that the short campaign would be conducted with an air of civility. His wish may well be granted, at least to a degree, since each side is conscious of the DUP waiting, as one MP put it, "like vultures, ready to feast off the party's carcass". Ensuring that there is an Ulster Unionist Party left at the end of all this occupies both sides.
Inside the hall it will be another matter entirely. No quarter will be given as Mr Trimble defends his dramatic policy shift and carries the challenge to his opponents - people, he will say, who would replace what he considers the real prospect now of decommissioning with the certainty that it will never happen.
Nor will any quarter be expected, as his opponents - including some who until this past week were counted allies - condemn him for abandoning his "no guns no government" policy, and proposing to enter government with Sinn Fein while the IRA's arsenal and command structure remain intact.
Most of the heavy hitters have already declared, although the Trimbleistas seem still to think they have a chance of persuading John Taylor back onside. The anti-agreement MPs appear equally convinced that Mr Taylor will be with them and that, together with Jeffrey Donaldson, he will make the qualitative difference to their charge.
It is now clear that the Sinn Fein/UUP deal and the entire Mitchell review came within minutes of collapse a week ago on Thursday. Faced with Mr Taylor's opposition, David Trimble told the others he had "the quantity but not the quality" of the majority needed to carry the council.
Not even Peter Mandelson's persuasive powers would have talked him round had Ken Maginnis rejected the deal. And the support of MEP Jim Nicholson would further bolster Mr Trimble's prospects.
However, this is not a battle to be determined by the elected representatives alone. A host of other players, unknown to the political world at large but key to the direction of unionism, will be heard with bated breath.
The Cooper/Ferguson clan from Fermanagh still carry clout. Belfast's Lord Mayor, Bob Stoker, like his opposite number from Ballymena, James Currie, will have influence, as will Jack Allen (Foyle) and Lord Rogan, the party chairman. And insiders say a pivotal role will be played by key constituency chairmen, such as Don McConnell (Lagan Valley) and Tom Fleming (East Londonderry).
Mr Fleming was a major help to Mr Trimble in overcoming the original opposition at the time of last year's referendum, headed by people like his own MP, William Ross. And it is the Tom Flemings who will call this one: the ordinary "five nines" who, against near universal press prediction, put Mr Trimble into the job four years ago and now have the opportunity to take him out. For all his evident bullishness, Mr Trimble knows his council well. And he will know it is not to be taken for granted.