In April 1784, George Nevill, 17th Baron Abergavenny, was approached to ask whether he would accept promotion to an earldom. In the wake of Pitt the Younger’s success in the general election, it was time for debts to be repaid and right at the front of the queue was John Robinson. Robinson had formerly worked for Lord North as a political agent but had chosen to switch his allegiance to Pitt and put all of his energy into securing Pitt a handsome victory. Robinson’s daughter was married to Abergavenny’s heir, Henry, so the new peerage would ensure that Robinson would ultimately be grandfather to an earl.

Abergavenny had also made a political journey. Married back in the 1750s to a member of the Pelham clan, he had naturally found himself within the orbit of the Old Corps Whigs and then of the Rockinghams. A consistent opponent of North and his handling of the American crisis, he had distanced himself from the former Rockinghamites who had entered the coalition with North and ultimately helped to bring the Fox-North administration down. So, the earldom was a double reward.

It might all have been very different, as exactly 37 years previously, while a student at Christ Church, Oxford, Abergavenny had narrowly avoided being tried for murder.

The story, as told in the press and in private correspondence, was that one of the Christ Church scouts (servants) named John or William Franklin (the papers could not agree which) had been found early in the morning of 4 April 1747 in one of the college quadrangles, badly bruised and with a fractured skull. His hair had been shaved and his eyebrows burnt off. There were also tell-tale indications of him having been very drunk.

What appeared to have happened was that a group of students, one of them Claudius Amyand, had been holding one of their regular shared suppers in their rooms, but had decided to entertain themselves by making Franklin, who seemed to have had a reputation as being somewhat eccentric, extremely drunk. The regular attendees had taken the prank (as they viewed it) so far, but things had become more extreme when they were joined by others, who had not been part of the original group. The newcomers were Abergavenny, Lord Charles Scott, a younger son of the duke of Buccleuch, Francis Blake Delaval and Sackville Spencer Bale (later a clergyman and domestic chaplain to the 2nd duke of Dorset). They appear to have handled Franklin very roughly – making fun of him by shaving his head – and to have left him so drunk that he was utterly incapable. According to Frederick Campbell, Abergavenny and Scott retreated to their own rooms at this point, leaving it to the remainder of the party to drag Franklin ‘out to snore upon the stair-case’. [Hothams, 42]

It was unclear what happened next, but it was assumed that after being abandoned on the stairs, Franklin had fallen down, fracturing his skull. On being discovered in the morning, Abergavenny’s valet took Franklin home, where he was examined by a surgeon, but nothing could be done for him. That there may have been a more sinister explanation for his injuries was, however, indicated early on by the news that most of those believed to have taken part in the drinking session had fled, and it was gossiped that the two most responsible for his injuries had been Abergavenny and Scott. [Ward, 169]

Certainly, the coroner’s jury considered that there had been foul play and brought in a verdict of ‘wilful murder by persons unknown’. Some observers took a different view. Frederick Campbell reckoned that it had been a joke that had been carried too far and he was certain that none of those in the frame would ever be convicted. He also added that ‘there was not three of the jury but was drunk’. [Hothams, 42] Horace Walpole’s sympathies, unsurprisingly, were also with the students, commenting: ‘One pities the poor boys, who undoubtedly did not foresee the melancholy event of their sport’. He had nothing to say about the unfortunate Franklin, who had lost his life. [Walpole Corresp, xix. 387] The only one of the group who seemed to have played no role in what had happened to Franklin was Amyand, who had quit the supper party early.

Had Abergavenny been charged with murder, he would have been able to apply to the House of Lords to be tried before them, in the same way that had happened to Lord Mohun in the 1690s and was to happen again soon afterwards to Lord Ferrers and Lord Byron.

In the event, there was no need for Abergavenny to face the prospect of a trial in Westminster Hall. While the coroner’s jury had concluded that Franklin’s death had been murder, the grand jury that sat on the case during the summer assizes refused to bring in the bill triggering a trial. The grand jury was said to have been made up of some of the principal gentlemen of the county and to have deliberated for several hours before reaching their decision. No doubt they were reluctant to agree to a trial of students from gentry (or noble) backgrounds, but they may also have been swayed by the convenient death of Lord Charles Scott just a few weeks before the assizes, which left the proceedings lacking a key witness (or a likely defendant).

Whatever his role had been, Abergavenny walked away unscathed. In 1761 he applied to be recognized as Chief Larderer at the coronation of George III and Queen Charlotte, and in 1784 he had his status enhanced with promotion to the earldom. Blake Delaval was also able to cast off whatever opprobrium had attached to him, and just two years after Franklin’s death stood for Parliament for the first time (unsuccessfully). He later represented Hindon and Andover and in 1761 was made a knight of the Bath. What happened, truly, on that night in April 1747 was never discovered and justice for Franklin – or at least a full explanation of what had happened to him – was never achieved.

RDEE

Further reading:

The Hothams: being the chronicles of the Hothams of Scorborough and South Dalton…, ed. A.M.W. Stirling (2 vols, 1918)

Horace Walpole’s Correspondence (Yale edition)

W.R. Ward, Georgian Oxford: University Politics in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1958)

General Advertiser

Whitehall Evening Post

In July 1739, the General Evening Post reported the death of a Mr Kent at his house near Seven Dials. According to the paper, Kent occupied the post of chimney sweeper of the king’s palaces ‘a place of considerable profit’. Replacing him was one Mr Fatt and both men were described as ‘Blackmoors’ [an outdated term indicating Black heritage]. The role would have involved ensuring the upkeep of the chimneys at royal residences in London, such as St James’s Palace. Intriguingly, Treasury accounts from 1714 suggest that the holder of the post at that time was Anne Fatt, suggesting that the family had held the role before, under Queen Anne, and had now regained it, under George II.

Eighteenth and nineteenth-century commentators were often snide about chimney sweeps. The nature of their profession meant that they were frequently derided for being ‘unclean’, and this sometimes led to them being described as black, or depicted in prints with black skin. Consequently, some caution needs to be used when identifying a sweep’s heritage. However, the fact that the paper used the specific term ‘Blackmoor’ seems indicative of the fact that this was not a case of people being dealt with slightingly because of perceived uncleanliness.

One of the weekly essays in the Scots Magazine for February 1740 noted the ‘Promotion of Mr Fat [sic] the Chimney-Sweeper’, and also employed terminology describing his heritage directly, which appears to confirm the identification. Making reference to a vacancy in one of the Cornish boroughs, the author suggested that he hoped to see Fatt promoted to Parliament, before remarking that the presence of a Black Member of the Commons might give rise to racist abuse. [Scots Magazine, ii. 56] A later essay, in the Oxford Magazine for 1770, also referred to Fatt as the only ‘Black-a-moor’ ever to have held a place at Court. [The Oxford Magazine or Universal Museum, v. 59]

The commentary surrounding Fatt’s appointment offers valuable insights into attitudes to the Black population of Britain in the period. It is interesting that a potentially lucrative contract was held in succession by Black British businessmen; also, that Fatt’s good fortune was the subject of comment in major periodicals. The reports help to add layers to our understanding of the composition of London society at the time. They show that members of the Black population were able to develop affluent careers, but also that their success was remarked upon, and not always favourably.

Fatt’s striking, if not wholly unusual, surname has also led to the likely identification of new voters. A decade after Fatt took over as sweep to the royal palaces, a by-election was held in Westminster after one of the constituency’s Members, Granville Leveson Gower, Viscount Trentham (later marquess of Stafford) accepted a place in government. Under the rules of the day, he was obliged to seek re-election, on this occasion triggering a contest after Sir George Vandeput, bt. chose to challenge for the seat. The initial result saw Trentham returned with 4,811 votes to Vandeput’s 4,654. Following a scrutiny, the numbers were revised down but Trentham still emerged with 4,103 votes, comfortably ahead of Vandeput, who was left with 3,933 votes.

According to the poll book, one of those voting for Trentham was William Fatt, who was identified as a ‘chimneysweeper’ from Pye Street in the parish of St Margaret and St John. As such, he was one of five men involved in the trade (one of them noted as a Chimney Doctor, rather than sweep), voting in the election. Although more work is needed to confirm the finding without doubt, it seems highly credible that this was the same man who, ten years earlier, had taken on the role of sweeper of the royal palaces. Assuming this to be the case, he thus joined John London as a second Black voter participating in the election.

Fatt’s name is not unique and unravelling the details of the family is complex. Two individuals, both named William Fatt, wrote wills in the 1770s, which were proved within three years of each other. It seems most likely that the first William Fatt, by then described as being of Castle Street, in St Giles in the Fields, whose will was proved in 1773 [TNA, PROB 11/984], was the man appointed to sweep the royal palaces in 1739 and who voted in the 1749 poll, even though the document makes no mention of a trade. This William Fatt referred to a daughter, Mary Knotgrass, which calls to mind the appearance in legal records from 1760 of William (a soot merchant from Swallow Street) and George Fatt (a victualler from Great Earl Street, Seven Dials), who stood bail of £40 each for Peter and Mary Nodgrass [sic]: possibly they were her brothers as William’s will mentioned four sons: William, George, Henry and Thomas.

The second William, almost certainly son of the elder William, died on 9 April 1776. He was buried in St Martin in the Fields, where a memorial was erected to him, his wife (Martha) and to sons-in-law, Thomas Angell (d. 1780) and another named Freeman. His will gave his trade as a chimney sweep, indicating a continuation of the family business. [TNA, PROB 11/1022] It referred to a house in Hampton, Middlesex, which he left to his daughter Mary, along with property at Sharrett (Sarratt) in Hertfordshire, which he left to another daughter, Anne. Both places also featured in the will of William the elder. Execution of the will was deputed jointly to Mary and to a carpenter from Piccadilly, named James Filewood, who received £10 for his trouble. By coincidence, Filewood also featured in the 1749 Westminster poll book.

The Hertfordshire property seems to have offered both William (the younger) and George Fatt further opportunities to vote. Both names appear in the 1774 poll book for the county. William, noted again as resident of Swallow Street, but also a householder in Sarratt, voted for William Plumer and Viscount Grimston. George Fatt, noted of London, but claiming rights as a householder at Great Gaddesden, also voted for Grimston but, unlike William, gave his other vote to Thomas Halsey. George Fatt then featured in the subsequent poll for the county in 1790. This time, he plumped for William Hale, who failed to be returned.

That the family business endured beyond the lives of the two Williams is indicated by the existence of a trade card from 1780 describing George Fatt as son of William and continuing the sweeping business from Sweeper’s Alley, Castle Street, Long Acre. It also noted that he had retained the role as sweeper to the king. George Fatt’s success in doing so appears to have been in spite of the efforts of ‘a great officer’, who had attempted to install his own porter in the role on William’s death. According to the press, ‘P.D.’ complained of the appointment of the man, who had been chosen in spite of knowing nothing of the business of chimney sweeping. [Morning Chronicle, 19 Apr. 1776]

This brief snapshot into the successful establishment of a family business, by people of Black heritage, is just a minor glimpse into the lives of Londoners in the eighteenth century. More work needs to be done to determine beyond doubt the family’s story. However, the findings suggest that there were many more people like them (and John London): successful business operators, who took the trouble to lodge their votes in eighteenth-century parliamentary elections.

RDEE

Further Reading:

Benita Cullingford, British Chimney Sweeps: Five Centuries of Chimney Sweeping (2001)

https://www.londonlives.org

ECPPEC

Following the prorogation of Parliament at the end of Mary 1775, the situation changed for the worse, as news of the armed confrontation at Lexington and Concord in April reached Britain. Following that, reports of Britain’s bloody pyrrhic victory in June at Bunker Hill (Charlestown) arrived in London on 25 July. Almost immediately the government of Lord North decided on sterner measures against the unruly colonists. The principal minister co-ordinating the deployment of troops was North’s step-brother, William Legge, 2nd earl of Dartmouth, secretary of state for America. The office had only existed since 1768 and Dartmouth, who came from a family that had long contributed officials, had held it since August 1772.

Dartmouth’s papers suggest that he was efficient in preparing for an increased military presence in America. As someone who had always sought conciliation, more troublesome to him were plans for a Royal Proclamation declaring the American colonies ‘in rebellion’ and thus that a state of war existed between Britain and America. On 1 February 1775, he had refused ‘to pronounce any certain opinion’ regarding the earl of Chatham’s conciliation bill, and even admitted he ‘had no objection to the bill being received’. [Almon, Parl. Reg., ii. 23] Similarly, in August, Dartmouth had feared that a formal declaration of war would jeopardize negotiations. He held off on agreeing to the Proclamation for as long as he could on the news that the Continental Congress was sending new proposals for a settlement: the so-called ‘Olive Branch Petition’. By late summer, however, the government was in belligerent mood, and on 23 August the Proclamation of Rebellion was promulgated.

Thus, when Parliament resumed on 26 October, Britain and the colonies were formally at war. Even Lord North ‘had changed his pacific language and was now for vigorous measures’. [H. Walpole, Last Journals, i. 490] One result was a ministerial reshuffle over 9-10 November. This gave the government a radically new complexion, and Dartmouth was moved from the American office, apparently unwillingly.

To soften the blow, the king offered Dartmouth his choice of being appointed groom of the stole, secretary of state for the southern department, or taking a pension. Dartmouth turned them all down and instead insisted on taking over as lord privy seal. The king had intended the place for Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth, but made him secretary of state for the southern province instead. Dartmouth, George III complained, was not ‘in the least accommodating’ by ‘carrying obstinacy greatly too far’. [Fortescue, iii. 282-88]

The man who Replaced Dartmouth as secretary of state for America was Lord George Germain, a younger son of the duke of Dorset. Horace Walpole described him as ‘of very sound parts, of distinguished bravery, and of an honourable eloquence, but hot, haughty, ambitious, obstinate’. [Walpole, Mems. of George II (Yale), i. 190]

In 1758 Germain (at that point known as Sackville) had been sent to Germany as second-in-command of the British forces and was later promoted commander-in-chief. At the battle of Minden on 1 August 1759, though, he failed to obey orders given by his superior, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, commander-in-chief of the Allied army, to lead the British cavalry against the shattered French forces. The prince charged him with disobedience, while Sackville held that he had received conflicting orders, often delivered in German, and had been stationed on difficult terrain. He was castigated as a coward, even a traitor, by the enemies he had gained by his high-handed behaviour. Ever self-confident, Sackville insisted on convening a court martial so he could justify himself. According to Walpole, ‘Nothing was timid, nothing humble, in his behaviour’ [Mems. of George II, iii. 101-105], but the court declared him ‘unfit to serve… in any military capacity whatsoever’.

The shame of Minden always hung over Sackville, and for the next decade and a half he worked to rehabilitate his reputation. His chances were improved by the death of George II, who had developed a violent personal dislike of him. Sackville looked forward to better treatment from George III, but even he was unwilling to take a disgraced soldier back into favour immediately. Sackville relied for his slow recovery on his service in the Commons, where he advocated a firm line against the colonists, arguing at one point that ‘The ministers… must perceive how ill they are requited for that extraordinary lenity and indulgence with which they treated… these undutiful children’.[HMC Stopford-Sackville, i. 119]

In 1769 Sackville took the surname Germain, after inheriting property from Lady Elizabeth Germain. He continued speaking against the colonists throughout the first half of the 1770s and on 7 February 1775 he was the Commons’ messenger to the Lords requesting a conference on the address declaring Massachusetts in rebellion. He seemed, thus, an obvious choice as North looked for a new direction in the morass of the American crisis. Walpole summarized the effect that the change had on the war and the ultimate loss in America: ‘Till Lord George came into place, there had been no spirit or sense in the conduct of the war… [He was] indefatigable in laying plans for raising and hiring troops’. [Walpole, Last Journals i. 511, ii. 49]  Some contemporaries went so far as to suggest that Germain’s belligerence towards the Americans was an attempt to put to rest the shame of Minden. As Edward Gibbon put it, Germain hoped to ‘reconquer Germany in America’.

CGDL

Further reading:

P.D.G. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773-1776 (Oxford, 1991)

Andrew O’Shaughnessy, The Men who Lost America (Yale, 2013), esp. ch. 5

Alan Valentine, Lord George Germain (Oxford, 1962)

HMC Dartmouth

HMC Stopford Sackville, vols. I and II

The structure of mid-eighteenth-century politics was often defined as much by social custom as by constitutional form. What Leslie Mitchell has called the ‘circle of acquaintances’ of the ruling, largely Whig, elite revolved around familiar settings: the Court, the clubs of St James’s, the country house, grand residences of Piccadilly and, not least, the racecourse. (Mitchell, 23) In these arenas powerbrokers met, exchanged intelligence, and frequently determined the fate of ministries.

Horse racing in particular lay at the heart of the intersection between politics and courtly society. One of the clearest examples came with the formation of the 2nd marquess of Rockingham’s first ministry in July 1765, an unlikely coalition negotiated not in the council chamber, but at Newmarket in May and at Ascot in June. Horace Walpole remarked drily that ‘the new ministry was formed at the races’. (Albemarle, i. 199)

By the spring of 1765, George III was determined to be rid of his overbearing minister, George Grenville, who had been in office since April 1763. The task of taking the pulse of the political nation, fell to the king’s uncle, William Augustus, duke of Cumberland. (Brooke, 88–89)

The choice of alternatives was limited. William Pitt the Elder, still sulking in opposition, twice refused to serve. The veteran duke of Newcastle, nearing 72, was unpalatable to most. A younger generation of Whigs: Henry Bilson Legge, Philip Yorke, earl of Hardwicke, and William Cavendish, 4th duke of Devonshire, had all died in the preceding two years.

Cumberland had toured the great country houses in the summer of 1764, including Chatsworth, Wentworth Woodhouse and Woburn, discovering that the Whigs remained unenthusiastic about a return to power without Pitt. The stalemate seemed unbreakable. Yet the solution would not be found in the names listed in the London Gazette, but in the pages of the Newmarket Calendar.

By the 1750s and 1760s horse racing had become a central ritual of aristocratic and political life. Already favoured by Charles II in the seventeenth century, by the 1740s Newmarket was the undisputed capital of the turf. The Racing Calendar, first published in 1727 by John Cheny, recorded results and pedigrees, turning the turf into a semi-official world of statistics and reputations. Ascot, founded in 1711 by Queen Anne, had by the 1760s become a highlight of the London season, attracting large crowds and royal patronage. (Morton, 56–61) Both courses were more than sporting venues: they were theatres of status, where political alliances were cultivated over wagers, where a minister could be sounded out between heats, and where a successful stable enhanced a nobleman’s standing. As one contemporary put it, ‘the turf is the true parliament of our nobility’. (Lowerson, 14)

By 1765, Rockingham was already a figure of considerable weight within the Whig aristocracy, though not yet tested as a statesman. Born into immense wealth and heir to Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, he inherited his title in December 1750. In politics he aligned with the ‘Old Corps’ Whigs grouped around Newcastle, and from 1752 served as a gentleman of the Bedchamber to George II and George III, before resigning in 1762 in protest over Newcastle’s dismissal. Contemporaries described him as reserved, upright, and cautious: ‘[his] talents were not brilliant, but his integrity and firmness of purpose were unimpeachable’. (Albemarle, i. 73) Though ‘naturally diffident, he never failed in the discharge of what he considered a public duty’. (i. 74)

Rockingham’s early military service during the 1745 rebellion had brought him into contact with Cumberland, though he was too young to serve at Culloden. Nevertheless, the brief experience fostered a respect for Cumberland which endured. Their connexion was renewed in later years on the turf. Like Cumberland, Rockingham was a passionate breeder and owner of racehorses, and he became known as ‘the Racing Marquess’. (Albemarle, i. 165)

Cumberland was equally at home on the turf, and in June 1765 he held court at Ascot, where the outlines of a new administration were hammered out. As well as Rockingham, the new ministry was to include Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd duke of Grafton, a great-grandson of Charles II. Not yet 30, Grafton brought youth and royal blood; Rockingham brought wealth, influence, and respectability. Their conversations at Ascot and Newmarket were, as Albemarle noted, ‘held not in the closet, but at the races’. (i. 199)

After the private conversations at Ascot and Newmarket, the decisive moment came at Claremont, Newcastle’s Surrey residence, on 10 June 1765. Gathered there were the ‘Old Corps’, Newcastle, Rockingham, Grafton, and leading allies from the Hardwicke and Devonshire factions to decide whether to enter office and, if so, on what terms. Crucially, Cumberland presided over the discussions. As Albemarle recorded, Cumberland ‘placed before them the situation of the King and pressed upon the leading Whigs the necessity of union if they were to serve with credit and effect’. ( i. 197)

The meeting was animated but uncertain. Pitt’s refusal to serve left the field open, yet no single candidate commanded unanimous enthusiasm. It was Cumberland who resolved the impasse. Having already sounded out Grafton and secured his willingness to serve under Rockingham, he now urged the party to unite behind the young marquess. Newcastle, initially hesitant, yielded when Cumberland assured him that George III would accept Rockingham as a conciliatory figure around whom the Whigs could rally.

The following day, Cumberland carried Rockingham’s name to the king, who accepted Cumberland’s counsel. With royal assent secured, the outlines of the ministry began to take shape.

Rockingham later admitted to Newcastle that he accepted office only reluctantly, ‘from a sense of duty to the King and to the cause’. (Albemarle, i. 207) His modesty stood in contrast to Pitt’s hauteur and Newcastle’s scheming. Pamphleteers and satirists delighted in the horse racing connexion: ‘From Jockeys to Ministers’, they jibed, suggesting the Newmarket Calendar was a better guide to government than the London Gazette.

The Rockingham ministry of 1765 was born out of weakness as much as strength. It was a government of compromise, stitched together by Cumberland’s personal authority and the trust he could command in the convivial world of the turf. Rockingham himself, inexperienced and cautious, owed his elevation less to dazzling ability than to the combination of fortune, birth, and connexions that made him acceptable when others were impossible. Yet the path by which he entered office reminds us how profoundly mid-eighteenth-century politics was embedded in aristocratic sociability. Walpole dismissed him as ‘a very insignificant young man’ (Albemarle, i. 218), while Edward Gibbon sneered that ‘the nation was governed by the jockey club’ (i. 220). In the eyes of many contemporaries, he remained ‘the Racing Marquess’, proof that what happened on the turf could have consequences far beyond the paddock. After Rockingham’s resignation in 1766, the independent Member, Velters Cornewall, quipped that he was ‘a jockey, but a good and high-bred racer, indeed.’

ICdeF

Further Reading
Albemarle, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham and his Contemporaries (1852)
John Brooke, King George III (1972)
John Lowerson, Sport and the English Middle Classes (1993)
L.G. Mitchell, The Whig World (2005)
Charles Morton, History of Horse Racing (2004)

Every 30 January, the rhythm of the parliamentary session in the 17th and 18th centuries was adjusted to make way for the annual commemoration sermon, marking the death of Charles I in 1649. It usually fell to the most junior of the bishops to preach to the Lords in Westminster Abbey, while a senior member of the clergy would perform the same service for the Commons in St Margaret’s. Themed as they were around the subject of expiation for the sins of the nation, the sermons became steadily less well attended as the years went by and by the second half of the 18th century some, like John Wilkes, thought that they should be scrapped and replaced with a day of national rejoicing. Wilkes always made a point of staying away from the chamber on 30 January.

In a similar (though more celebratory) way, the date of the current monarch’s accession was also the occasion for the Members decamping from their chambers and heading across the way to listen to a sermon. For those living under George I, this took place on 1 August and the very first anniversary of his accession in 1715 was marked with an address by the newly minted bishop of Oxford, John Potter (1673/4-1747).

Potter’s background was unusual, though not entirely unique, for an 18th-century bishop. His father had been a linen draper in Wakefield and, more to the point, had been a nonconformist. Potter had been raised as such and educated at the local grammar school (now one of the constituent parts of the Wakefield Grammar School Foundation). From there he proceeded to Oxford, where he transformed himself into a high church Anglican, much to his father’s disgust. Although high church, and with a particular interest in patristics (the study of the early church), Potter remained a confirmed Whig and quickly attracted patronage from some extremely influential people.

From University College, where he had been an undergraduate, Potter proceeded to Lincoln College as a fellow and in 1699, the year of his ordination to the priesthood, he was appointed one of the chaplains to Bishop Hough of Lichfield and Coventry. In 1704, he traded up becoming one of Archbishop Tenison’s chaplains and was thought so closely tied to Tenison that he was known as his ‘darling scribbler’. Two years later, he achieved the key promotion to royal chaplain.

As a clergyman at Court and with close connexions to Oxford, it is perhaps not surprising that he came to the notice of the duke and duchess of Marlborough, and when the regius professorship of divinity became vacant at Oxford, he was their candidate for the place. In his way was the rival claim of George Smalridge, backed by Robert Harley and others, but in the end the Marlboroughs won out (as was so often the case) and in 1708 Potter became Professor Potter.

For the next few years, Potter focused his attentions on his role at the university, never apparently being considered seriously for any of the vacant bishoprics that came up. Indeed, in 1714 it was Smalridge who was promoted first, taking on the poverty-stricken bishopric of Bristol. However, soon after the accession of George I another opportunity arose following the death of Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury. Thus, when Bishop Talbot of Oxford was translated to Burnet’s vacant see, Potter was appointed to replace him at Oxford.

Potter’s 1 August sermon was his first major opportunity to make his mark in his new role. Unsurprisingly, he attracted criticism from Jacobite Tory opponents like Thomas Hearne, at that point still in post as one of the librarians at the Bodleian, but soon to be forced out as he was unwilling to take the oaths to George I. Recording the sermon a few weeks later, Hearne noted that it had been preached by ‘our present sneaking, poor-spirited, cringing, whiggish bishop’. The content, he thought, was ‘vile, silly, injudicious, illiterate, & roguish stuff, sufficiently showing what the author is’. [Hearne, v. 122] Hearne never lost an opportunity of deriding Potter using terms like ‘snivelling’ or ‘white-livered’ to describe him. [Hearne, vi. 123; ix. 360]

Potter’s chosen text was Psalm 20, verse 5: ‘We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners’. His theme, obviously enough, was the blessings the nation had received by the peaceful succession of the House of Hanover, and how narrowly they had avoided the prospect of civil war. Not only was the nation peaceful, he urged but he may also have had half a mind on his own significant progress when he argued:

Neither can there be any just complaint, that arts and industry, virtue and public services want suitable encouragement; where the way lies open for ever man to advance himself to the highest honours and preferments and after he hath enjoyed the fruits of all his labour in his own person, there is as great certainty… that he shall transmit them entire to his posterity…

As well as lauding the prospect before them under the house of Hanover, Potter also allowed himself some predictable venting against the horrors of life under a Catholic sovereign. Even other religions, he suggested, might be ‘kind and merciful’. He also trotted out the familiar theme of the importance of divine providence in settling King George among them.

Over the next few years, Potter developed his role in the Church, becoming a close associate of William Wake, archbishop of Canterbury, and co-operating with him closely in opposing two pieces of government-backed legislation. He attracted attention for wading into the ‘Bangorian controversy’, criticizing the apparent Arianism of Benjamin Hoadly, bishop of Bangor. Even Hearne had to acknowledge that he did so ‘very deservedly’. [Hearne, vii. 82] He also became close to the Princess of Wales, the future Queen Caroline.

When George I died it was widely rumoured that Potter would be promoted to Bath and Wells. Although that proved not to be the case (he seems to have turned the promotion down) he was the person selected to preach the new king and queen’s coronation sermon in October 1727. Controversially, for a Whig, he used high church terminology to justify George’s claim to the throne by hereditary right. [Smith, 37] More controversially, for a Whig, he also emphasized the need for the new king’s subjects to give their ‘entire submission to his authority’.

It was to be another decade before Potter was finally rewarded with a richer diocese. On Wake’s death in 1737, it was Potter who became Archbishop of Canterbury, rather than Bishop Hare of Chichester, backed by Sir Robert Walpole. The translation was widely attributed to the queen’s personal intervention and came just a few months before her death later that year.

Potter may not be the best-remembered of 18th-century bishops, or indeed a particularly memorable Archbishop of Canterbury. Much more attention is paid to his younger son, Thomas, a Member of Parliament, associate of the so-called Hellfire Club and a generally archetypal Georgian rake. But Potter was important in showing that the Church of England was able to adapt in the period, adopt language used by the Jacobites to justify the Hanoverian monarchy and was open to advancing the son of a Yorkshire linen draper, and a nonconformist one at that, to the highest place in the Church.

RDEE

Further reading:
J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688-1832
Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. C.E. Doble
Hannah Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714-1760
The Theological Works of the most reverend Dr John Potter, late Archbishop of Canterbury

The duke of Cambridge was the English title bestowed in 1706 on George Augustus, the electoral prince of Hanover (and future British king, George II), and it was by this title that the prince was often publicly known in Britain before his father, the elector, succeeded Queen Anne as George I in August 1714. Although the prince did not actually set foot on British soil until his arrival with his father in September 1714, his name was frequently at the centre of political manoeuvring to have a member of the Hanoverian royal family installed in England while Queen Anne was still alive.

In June 1706 Lord Halifax, one of the Whig Junto leaders, headed a mission to Hanover to convey formally to the Dowager Electress Sophia, as heiress presumptive to the English throne, the texts of the Regency and Naturalisation Acts passed during the 1705-6 session. Appropriately, the event coincided with the coming-of-age of the Pretender the same month. On behalf of the queen, Halifax also bestowed the order of the Garter on the prince as a further mark of her commitment to the Hanoverian succession, but soon found that the prince eyed the prospect of the British succession with greater apparent interest than his father and was keen to become an English duke.

In accordance with the queen’s orders a patent was issued on 9 December, though she was apprehensive that it would provoke a renewal of earlier attempts to establish a Hanoverian presence in Britain which at all costs she wished to avoid. Previous initiatives had focussed on the Electress Sophia herself, but the prince’s entitlement to a seat in the Upper House from 1706 provided a specific excuse for inviting him to England in addition to (or instead of) the aging electress. It was understood that for the time being the war would prevent the prince’s coming to England, though the question of procuring a writ for his summons to the Lords was nevertheless exploited by both Whigs and Tories for their own political ends. In 1708, for example, it was used by the Junto ministers to put pressure on the queen to admit more Whigs to the ministry.

By 1713-14 the ‘writ issue’ had become a complex and significant bargaining point in the fluctuating relationship between the courts of Hanover and St James’s and in Lord Treasurer Oxford’s efforts to prop up his weakening ministry. While assuring the queen that her own wishes would be met, the dissension from within the ministry led by Viscount Bolingbroke left him no option but to use the promise of an invitation to the prince to entice support from the Whigs. Oxford had so far been able to control this policy, believing the elector would in fact hold firm to his determination never to allow his mother or his son to take up residence in England. Thus when the elector unexpectedly issued a memorial in May 1714 requesting that the queen invite his son to Great Britain, it dealt a severe blow to Oxford’s ministerial credibility and his professed ability to manage Hanover. Oxford was obliged to inform the Hanoverian royal family that none of its members would be welcome during the queen’s lifetime.

This is a revised version of the article ‘The Duke of Cambridge and the Hanoverian Succession, 1706-14’ by Andrew A. Hanham, originally posted on historyofparliamentonline.org.

One of the seminal moments of Pulteney’s career occurred at the end of the parliamentary session on 31 May 1725 when he was dismissed from his post as cofferer of the household, on account of his opposition earlier in the session, most notably over the Civil List bill. There followed a period of opposition which ended only with the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole from the Treasury on 3 February 1742. Pulteney then entered the Cabinet, but consistent with his oft-repeated pledge not to take office, he did not take an administrative post. On 14 July, the penultimate day of the 1741-2 session, he was raised to the earldom of Bath, taking his seat in the Lords on the following day.

Pulteney lost a lot of popularity when entering the House of Lords, and he failed twice to attain major office in the years following: he was overlooked in favour of Henry Pelham, as first lord of the Treasury, upon the death of the earl of Wilmington in July 1743 and failed to construct a ministry when the Pelhams and most of their colleagues resigned in February 1746. From then on, his political career is deemed to have been over and he spent his time in ‘retirement’.

However, there was another side to Pulteney, related to the accumulation of power and influence. On the very day he took his seat in the Lords, a bill to prevent the marriage of lunatics received the royal assent. This was managed through the Commons by Pulteney’s long-term associate Phillips Gybbon and served to offer some protection to Pulteney’s investment in the reversion of the estates of the Newport, earls of Bradford.

The heir to the estates of Pulteney’s friend, Henry Newport, 3rd earl of Bradford (1683-1734) was Bradford’s illegitimate son, John Newport, whose mother Ann Smyth was on her deathbed. The reversion of Bradford’s estates had been granted to Pulteney (in return for paying for Newport’s maintenance and the debts of the third earl). Now Newport could not be married off by unscrupulous operators for the estates. Similarly, the third earl’s brother, Thomas Newport, who succeeded to the title as 4th earl of Bradford, was a certified lunatic.

The Bradford estates were destined for Pulteney’s son, William, Viscount Pulteney, who pre-deceased his father in June 1763. Sir Lewis Namier detailed the battle waged by Bath to become lord lieutenant of Shropshire following the accession of George III. Bath used his connexions with the new king and John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, to overcome the claims of his rival, Henry Arthur Herbert, created Baron Herbert of Chirbury in 1743 and promoted earl of Powys in 1748. In 1736 when Ann Smyth had petitioned for a bill to allow her son (at the time known as John Harrison) to be adopt the surname Newport, the first two-names on the drafting committee were Herbert and Pulteney, with Herbert managing the bill through the House.

The death of Viscount Pulteney did not end Bath’s interest in the Bradford estates. On 21 March 1764 a bill received the royal assent allowing the guardians of John Newport to make leases of his estates during his lunacy. It was managed through the Lords by Pulteney’s ally, Samuel Sandys, Baron Sandys, and through the Commons by John Rushout, the future Baron Northwick (son of Pulteney’s friend, Sir John Rushout, 4th bt.).

Bath turned 80 on 22 March, but continued to exhibit considerable vigour, sitting on eight of the 18 days remaining in the session, including on 2 April despite being begged by Lady Elizabeth Montagu ‘not to lose all this lovely morning in the House of Lords’ [https://emco.swansea.ac.uk/emco/letter-view/1297/]. Following the end of the session, Bath travelled to Shropshire, where he reviewed the militia at the end of May. Upon his return to London, he fell asleep in a garden, caught a fever and died on 7 July 1764.

The dynastic implications of Bath’s actions become clear if we look beyond the contemporary criticism levelled at him for leaving his estate to his elderly brother, General Harry Pulteney. In fact, the descent of the estates followed the intentions laid down by Henry Guy in his will of 1711 (which provided the basis of Bath’s wealth). Guy’s list of remainders ended with the male heirs of Daniel Pulteney, Bath’s cousin.

The ultimate beneficiary in 1767 was Frances Pulteney, daughter of Daniel and the wife of William Johnstone, who took the name Pulteney after Frances succeeded to the Pulteney estates. This William Pulteney succeeded his brother (Sir James Johnstone) as 5th baronet in 1794 and spent over 30 years as MP for Shrewsbury. His daughter and heir, Henrietta, was created successively Baroness Bath (1792) and countess of Bath (1803). Upon her marriage to Sir James Murray, 7th bt. in 1794 he also took the name Pulteney.

SNH

For the Swiss traveller César de Saussure the coronation of 1727 was ’the most solemn, magnificent, and sumptuous ceremony it is anyone’s lot in life to witness’. [Saussure, 239]. John Hervey, Lord Hervey, remembered that:

The Coronation was performed with all the pomp and magnificence that could be contrived; the present King differing so much from the last, that all the pageantry and splendour, badges and trappings of royalty, were as pleasing to the son as they were irksome to the father.

Hervey, Memoirs, i. 66

Saussure noted that English observers agreed that ‘the magnificence of the present coronation has far surpassed that of the preceding’. Indeed, while George I’s coronation in 1714 had cost £7,287, his son’s was budgeted at £9,430.

What impressed these observers most was the procession of the peers and the royal retinue from Westminster Hall to the Abbey that preceded the coronation. Saussure provided an account, cribbed from a printed list of the order of its participants. The peers and peeresses could be easily observed by the crowd, as an elevated walkway had been built between the Hall and the Abbey, and Saussure’s description of the details of their robes of state is rapturous. He was particularly impressed by the jewels – ‘the peeresses were covered with them’ – and Queen Caroline exhausted herself trying to march in a jewel-bedecked skirt.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu viewed the show with more cynicism. She thought that the goal of the participants was ‘to conceal vanity and gain admiration…. a visible satisfaction was diffused over every countenance as soon as the coronet was clapped on the head.’ [Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Letters, ed. Halsband, ii. 85-6] One person who, surprisingly, on this occasion did not stand on ceremony was Sarah Churchill, dowager duchess of Marlborough. Saussure recounted how:

When the duchesses were in front of our seats the procession was for a time brought to a stop. The Dowager Duchess of Marlborough took a drum from a drummer and seated herself on it. The crowd laughed and shouted at seeing the wife of the great and celebrated General Duke of Marlborough, more than seventy years of age, seated on a drum in her robes of state in such a solemn procession.

Saussure, 249-50

A number of lords of Parliament were involved in the planning, management and conduct of the ceremony. Peregrine Bertie, 2nd duke of Ancaster, was the hereditary lord great chamberlain, responsible for managing Westminster Hall. As such he enjoyed a number of unusual perquisites. He dressed the king for the coronation, for which he received enough crimson velvet for a robe of state, the clothes the king had worn the previous day and the furnishings of the room where he had slept.

The earl marshal was also an hereditary office, held by the dukes of Norfolk since 1672. Thomas Howard, 8th duke of Norfolk, however, was a Catholic so deputized his duties to Talbot Yelverton, earl of Sussex. The earl marshal handled the arrangements for the coronation itself at Westminster Abbey, where he had authority over the area from the choir screen to the altar. Scaffolding was erected here to hold over 1,750 notables, including 140 foreigners, invited under the king’s authority to attend the consecration and coronation. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster for their part charged for gallery seating in the abbey’s nave. For his duties, the earl marshal was rewarded with a goblet with a lid of pure gold.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, not only conducted the coronation ceremony, but also planned the entire order of service, and his ‘Form and Order’ for the ceremony has served as the template for all later coronations. Another durable contribution from 1727 came from the king’s choice of composer, George Frederick Handel. His ‘Zadok the Priest’ has proved enduring, and has featured in every subsequent coronation. Its premiere may have been shaky, as Wake annotated his own copy of the order of service with the comment ‘The Anthem in confusion: all irregular in the Music’. [David Baldwin, The Chapel Royal, 224]. Wake may have been the most richly rewarded of those involved in the coronation. He received the throne, cushion, and stool on which the king was crowned, and even the pall used to cover his head during the anointing.

Absent from the coronation itself, Saussure was in the spectator galleries at the lavish banquet held afterwards in Westminster Hall. He described with admiration the technique used to ensure that the candles in the forty chandeliers were all lighted almost simultaneously upon the king’s entry, and the mock chivalry of the king’s Champion entering the Hall on horseback. He was also impressed by the tables groaning under the mountains of food, but was not among the guests who could partake. He and his neighbours were eventually able to share in the feast after some unnamed peers sitting at the tables below tied their excess food to lines lowered by the spectators from the galleries and then hoisted them back up. Once the royal party and peers had left, the doors were thrown open and the populace rushed in to ransack the Hall of the remaining food and furnishings. It was cleared in half an hour.

Despite the disorder that marked the end of the day, Saussure concluded his account in wonder:

I know I cannot possibly give you any correct idea of the magnificence and beauty of all these sights; the spectators on the stands and at the windows were likewise charming to contemplate. I am certain that at least two thousand people had left off wearing the late King’s mourning for that day, and were dressed with taste in bright colours. … As to the populace it was innumerable.

Saussure, 265

CGDL

Further reading:
César de Saussure, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II: The Letters of Monsieur César de Saussure to his Family, ed. Madame van Muyden (1902)
Andrew C. Thompson, George II (2011)
Roy Strong, Coronation: From the 8th to the 21st Century (2005).
The Form of the Proceeding to the Royal Coronation of Their Majesties King George II and Queen Caroline (1727)
The Form and Order of the Service that is to be performed and of the Ceremonies that are to be observed in the Coronation of Their Majesties King George II and Queen Caroline (1727)

William Cavendish, 4th duke of Devonshire, served as prime minister for only 225 days, making his the fifth shortest tenure of the office. As heir to one of the greatest Whig dynasties in the realm, Cavendish, known as marquess of Hartington from 1729, seemed destined for high government office. His great-grandfather had been one of the ‘Immortal Seven’ who invited William of Orange to invade England in 1688 and since then the family had dedicated themselves to preserving the Revolution political settlement.

In 1741 Hartington was returned to the Commons as a Member for Derbyshire, and worked strenuously on behalf of Sir Robert Walpole during his last days as premier in 1741-2. Hartington likewise supported the successive Whig ministries of the Pelham brothers, Henry and Thomas, duke of Newcastle. Already immensely wealthy through the Cavendish estates in Derbyshire, centred on Chatsworth, Hartington in 1748 married Charlotte, the only daughter and sole heir of Richard Boyle, 3rd earl of Burlington, who brought with her Boyle properties in Yorkshire (Bolton Abbey), Ireland (Lismore Castle) and London (Burlington House and Chiswick House).

Alongside his great wealth, Hartington was admired for his probity and manners. James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, felt that Hartington ‘had all the good qualities of his father, and seemed less averse to business’ [Waldegrave Memoirs and Speeches, 186]. Even the cynical Horace Walpole quipped that Cavendish father and son were ‘the fashionable models of goodness’. In June 1751 Hartington sat in the House of Lords under a writ of acceleration as Lord Cavendish of Hardwicke, before eventually succeeding to his father’s dukedom on 5 Dec. 1755. In April of that year he had also followed his father as lord lieutenant of Ireland, where his tactful diplomacy helped to conciliate the competing factions in Irish politics.

Devonshire’s services as the ‘crown prince of the Whigs’, as one contemporary dubbed him, were called on at a time of crisis. In May 1756 Britain declared war against France in what became the Seven Years’ War. The first months went disastrously for Britain, and the most damaging blow was the French conquest of Minorca in June. Newcastle, the prime minister, was pilloried for his incompetence, most particularly by the fiery Commons orator William Pitt the elder, who promised a torrid time for the ministry when parliament was set to resume in the autumn. Unwilling to face a hostile parliament and feeling unsupported by Newcastle, the ministry’s leader in the Commons Henry Fox resigned as secretary of state in October. His obvious replacement was Pitt, but he refused to work with Newcastle, who in turn resigned in November over the impasse. The government had collapsed and was leaderless just at the lowest point in a major global war.

George II turned to Devonshire after Pitt made it clear that the duke was one of the few people he felt he could work with. Reluctantly Devonshire, called back from Ireland, formed a government, which was ready by mid-November 1756. He saw it merely as a stopgap government, and insisted to the king that his tenure was only to last until the end of the parliamentary session. He became prime minister out of a sense of duty, not ambition. George II readily acknowledged that ‘The Duke of Devonshire has acted by me in the handsomest manner, and is in a very disagreeable situation entirely on my account’. [Waldegrave Memoirs and Speeches, 193]. Pitt was made secretary of state for the southern department, which gave him a place in the cabinet and a forum to make policy. Devonshire thus served as a unifying noble figurehead in a wartime government whose main driver was Pitt.

Pitt, however, still had to deal with the animosity of the royal family, which had never appreciated his anti-Hanoverian diatribes. In April 1757 the king’s son the duke of Cumberland insisted on Pitt’s removal before he would take command of the British forces in Germany. The king was only too happy to comply, and the government collapsed again, for the second time in five months. Over the following fraught weeks Fox, Devonshire, Newcastle, and Earl Waldegrave were all called on to form a workable government. None succeeded. Eventually, in June Philip Yorke, earl of Hardwicke, brought Pitt and Newcastle together and somehow forged an agreement whereby they could work together in government. In early July Newcastle returned to office, replacing Devonshire as first lord of the Treasury, with Pitt retaining his place as secretary of state. Devonshire did not vanish from politics after stepping aside. He was made lord chamberlain and continued to sit in cabinet, even though he did not hold a cabinet-level office. He continued in post until November 1762 when the new king George III dismissed him after Devonshire refused to attend a privy council meeting in protest against the king’s proposed peace terms with France.

As short as it may have been, Devonshire’s term in office was not a failure and he achieved everything which he felt he had been asked to do. He had stabilized a leaderless government, and was conciliatory enough that even the demanding Pitt could work with him. Devonshire’s premiership provided a platform to bring Pitt off the backbenches, where he was used to sniping at the government, and into cabinet so that he could direct the war he felt he alone could win. Then, after having helped to bring the bitter rivals Pitt and Newcastle together, Devonshire was happy to step aside. Despite such painful beginnings, the Pitt-Newcastle administration that emerged from these negotiations has become renowned in British history, as it led the country to victory and unprecedented territorial expansion in the Seven Years’ War. Devonshire was, in effect, the ideal caretaker prime minister, as he kept the government intact and functioning until this more effective, and bellicose, ministry could be formed.

CGDL

Suggested reading:

William Cavendish, fourth duke of Devonshire, Memoranda on State of Affairs, 1759-1762, ed. Peter d. Brown and Karl W. Schweizer (Camden Society 4th Series, vol. 27, 1982).

The memoirs and speeches of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave 1742-1763, ed. J. C. D. Clark (1988), pp. 146-211.

John Pearson, Stags and Serpents: A History of the Cavendish family and the Dukes of Devonshire (2002), pp. 109-20.

Stanley Ayling, The Elder Pitt, earl of Chatham (1976).

Read about another Prime Minister to serve for only a short period of time, the 2nd earl of Shelburne, in this blog.

George II’s funeral, which took place just over a fortnight after his death on 25 October, has been described as having been ‘particularly spectacular’ [Black] and carried out ‘with respect and reverence’ [Brooke]. Unsurprisingly, Horace Walpole left a colourful account of what it was like to be there. In a letter to George Montagu he remarked ‘I had never seen a royal funeral’ so resolved to go along, walking as ‘a rag of quality, which I found would be… the easiest way of seeing it’.

Prior to the ceremony, the king had been carried from Kensington Palace, where he died, to lie in state in the Prince’s Chamber within the Palace of Westminster. Walpole described it as:

absolutely a noble sight. The prince’s chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands…

Speedy preparations had been made to ensure all was ready for receiving the king’s remains, which were conveyed on a hearse ‘of a new construction’. Scaffolding was erected from the Prince’s Chamber to the north gate, an additional organ installed in Westminster Abbey and files of soldiers lined the route to keep ‘the mob off’. The arrival of those intending to walk in the funeral procession was carefully choreographed, the chaplains arriving at six in the evening, nobles and gentry at seven – it was customary for funerals to take place at night. Once all were assembled, the procession set out, though according to one newspaper by mistake it began in darkness before the torches had been lit. Walpole clearly did not notice, as he reported approvingly:

The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns, – all this was very solemn.

For Walpole, though, the true ‘charm’ was the entrance to the Abbey. The funeral party was greeted by the dean and chapter with members of the choir and almsmen holding torches, so that ‘one saw it to greater advantage than by day’. There was further illumination from rockets sent up at certain points so the artillerymen knew when to start firing the minute guns.

Here things began to unravel. Following the elegant procession and the magical flickering of the torchlight, people pushed forward to get a decent view of the burial vault, sitting or standing ‘where they could or would’. The Yeomen of the Guard, borne down by the weight of the coffin, appealed for assistance, and the anthem, specially composed for the event by William Boyce, ‘The Souls of the Righteous are in the Hand of God’, was dismissed by Walpole as ‘immensurably [sic] tedious’: he thought it might have worked better at a wedding.

In the midst of all of this were two prominent figures: the late king’s son, the duke of Cumberland, wearing a long dark wig known as an ‘Adonis’, his great bulk ‘heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances’, and the Prime Minister, the duke of Newcastle, by turns weeping uncontrollably and tearing around the chapel trying to see who else was there. Cumberland, present as ‘chief mourner’, had recently suffered a stroke and was in poor health. Walpole could not resist observing how hard it must have been for him to stare into the vault, as he might well expect to be joining his father there quite soon. The papers noted that Cumberland, so often reviled as the brutal victor of Culloden, was seen to shed tears several times during the proceedings.

Even though these were strictly speaking private affairs, royal funerals in the period were very public events and often criticized for their lack of decorum. That of George II’s heir, Prince Frederick, nine years previously, is often held up as an occasion when especially little respect was shown to the departed – notably by members of his own family, who did not trouble to attend. On that occasion there had also been muddles on the day. Where Walpole had experienced a magical welcoming of George II’s cortege by the dean and chapter, at Prince Frederick’s funeral there had been a brief embarrassing stand-off as the Abbey authorities and heralds quarrelled about rights of access. Despite this, it has been indicated more recently that Prince Frederick was not snubbed in the way that is frequently repeated (largely because of a particularly partial account by George Bubb Dodington).

In terms of overall solemnity combined with occasional hiccoughs, George II’s funeral followed a well-worn pattern of similar royal events in the 18th century. As Walpole experienced, there was true drama and theatrical solemnity in the way the procession was guided by torchlight, and the added mystery of the vault illuminated by just a few lights held by attendants. But there were also less decorous moments. Events like these were, after all, by their very nature under-rehearsed. One newspaper, The Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser of 13 November 1761 reported that some ‘peace-officers’ observing the ceremony from scaffolds outside the abbey, had forgotten to wear mourning. It was noted too that neither Cumberland’s coachmen nor footmen were in mourning either. There were also the inevitable reports of problems within the crowd with some papers carrying stories of serious injuries and even deaths by people being crushed.

However, if there were occasional lapses in protocol, and some dreadful accidents among those watching the proceedings, all the indications are that George II was accorded considerable respect in his final journey. There was certainly no scrimping in making sure that everything was furnished as it should be. The cost of lighting Westminster Hall and the Abbey was said to have run to £1,000, and the cost of the entire funeral around £50,000 [Lloyd’s Evening Post, 12-14 November 1761]. The London Chronicle of 11-13 November reported that only five peers (barring those excused for various reasons) were missing from the ceremony. It also seems clear that London as a whole made a point of marking the king’s demise. Starting with St Paul’s Cathedral at six o’clock, all the London parishes followed suit in ringing their bells until 11 at night, joined by the sounding of guns firing through the evening.

RDEE

Further Reading:

Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. C.B. Lucas [pp.297-8]

Jeremy Black, George II: Puppet of the Politicians? (Exeter, 2007)

John Brooke, King George III (1972)

Robin Eagles, ‘ “No more to be said?” Reactions to the death of Frederick Lewis, prince of Wales’, HR lxxx (2007)

Andrew Thompson, George II (Yale, 2011)