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.’

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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)

At the beginning of 1775, pretty much every British politician agreed that something needed to be done about America, with many eager to find a way to reconcile both parties [Bradley, 19-20]. What they could not agree on, was how. Since the ending of the Seven Years War in 1763, relations between Britain and the American colonies had been difficult. In the aftermath of the war, there were large numbers of troops stationed in America, which annoyed many colonists, who viewed the presence of a standing army as a threat to their liberties. Matters became worse when George Grenville’s administration imposed the 1764 sugar duty and 1765 Stamp Act as a way of helping to pay for the colonies’ defence. In the aftermath of the latter, nine colonies convened the ‘Anti-Stamp Act Congress’ to condemn the ‘manifest tendency to subvert’ their rights and liberties. [Duffy]

Repeal of the acts by the Rockingham administration in 1766 went some way towards resetting relations, but it was to prove a very brief lull. The Townshend duties of 1767 ramped up tensions once more and in March 1770 matters boiled over with the Boston Massacre. Three years later, in response to Britain granting the East India Company a monopoly on supplying tea to the colonies, a group of patriots in disguise boarded several ships in the harbour at Boston and dumped their cargo of tea into the water, in the so-called Boston Tea Party. This in turn led to more punitive action from Britain with the ‘Coercive’ or ‘Intolerable’ acts, which were aimed at punishing the state of Massachusetts for its involvement.

It was in this context, that on 1 February 1775, William Pitt the Elder, now in the Lords as earl of Chatham, rose to his feet to propose a Provisional Act for settling relations with America. Throughout the ongoing crisis Chatham and his followers maintained a consistent approach, sitting in between the government of Lord North, and the opposition Whig grouping led by the marquess of Rockingham, by arguing for a middle way in approaching the problem. America should remain a colony of Britain, it was contended, but its concerns should be addressed and concessions offered to help stabilize relations.

Chatham’s speech on 1 February, set out in detail his plans for how this might be achieved. He hoped that ‘true reconcilement’ would ‘avert impending calamities’ and the accord ‘stand an everlasting monument of clemency and magnanimity in the benignant father of his people’. In answer to those who thought he was offering the colonies too much by way of concession, he insisted it was ‘a bill of assertion’, stating clearly an ongoing relationship between mother country and colonies, in which Parliament would retain supremacy.

Well-known for his fiery (and often very lengthy) harangues, Chatham had couched his speech in terms of moderation and compromise, but after the proposed bill was laid on the table an immediate intervention by the earl of Sandwich ‘instantly changed this appearance of concession on the part of the administration’. Sandwich objected that the Americans had already committed acts of rebellion and turned on Chatham for introducing a measure which ‘was no less unparliamentary than unprecedented’.

Over the course of a debate that engrossed the Lords until almost ten o’clock at night and featured at least eleven lengthy speeches, the honours appeared relatively evenly matched. Speaking in support of Chatham was the gaunt figure of Lord Lyttelton, who praised him for his extensive knowledge and his good intentions and who, although not agreeing with everything Chatham was proposing, argued that his effort deserved a much kinder reception than Sandwich had given it. Lyttelton was then followed by an ‘extremely animated’ Lord Shelburne, one of Chatham’s principal acolytes, who feared that the interruption of supplies of corn that was one result of the collapse in relations between Britain and America, would lead to widespread rioting. He concluded with a start warning:

Think, then, in time; Ireland naked and defenceless, England in an uproar from one end to the other for want of bread, and destitute of employment.

Not all of Chatham’s erstwhile colleagues were so supportive. The duke of Grafton, who had served with Chatham when prime minister and succeeded him in the office, complained about the ‘very unparliamentary manner in which the noble earl had hurried the bill into the House’. He also found fault with Chatham lumping so many different themes together within the one bill. They ought, he felt, to have been treated separately. His intervention later attracted a rebuke from Chatham, who was amused at being accused of rushing the bill into Parliament, when the crisis called for swift action, which he argued the government was incapable of doing.

After Sandwich, probably the fiercest critic of Chatham’s propositions from the government side came from Earl Gower, who was said to have risen to his feet ‘in a great heat, and condemned the bill in the warmest terms’. He was particularly irritated by what he perceived as Chatham’s decision to sanction the ‘traitorous proceedings of the [American] congress already held’ but also his suggestion that it be legalized ‘by ordaining that another shall be held on the 9th of May next’. When Chatham rose to answer Gower’s criticisms, Gower could not stop himself from making further interventions as the atmosphere in the Lords collapsed into general name-calling. Chatham’s final contribution to the day’s mud-slinging was to accuse the ministry’s conduct over the past few years of demonstrating:

one continued series of weakness, temerity, despotism, ignorance, futility, negligence, blundering, and the most notorious servility, incapacity, and corruption…

The final contributions of the day were attempts at moderation by the duke of Manchester and Chatham’s cousin, Earl Temple. Manchester feared that a civil war would end in the destruction of the empire, as had happened in the case of Rome and wished only ‘that one sober view should be taken of the great question, before perhaps we blindly rushed into a scene of confusion and civil strife’. Temple, meanwhile, pointed the finger of blame for the current problems at the repeal of the Stamp Act, but most of all appealed to the Lords not to reject out of hand Chatham’s propositions, which he believed were thoroughly well intentioned.

In spite of Temple’s last minute effort to persuade his colleagues to grant time to Chatham’s ideas, when the House divided the government secured a sizeable majority, voting to reject the bill by 68 to 32. A few days later, on 9 February, Massachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebellion. It was, of course, just the beginning of an affair that would ultimately result in all-out war a few months later.

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Further Reading:

James E. Bradley, Popular Politics and the American Revolution in England (1986)

Cobbett, Parliamentary History xviii (1774-1777)

Michael Duffy, ‘Contested Empires, 1756-1815’ in Paul Langford, ed. The Eighteenth Century (2002)

January 1766 ought in many ways to have been a moment of particular optimism for George III and his government. On New Year’s day, the Old Pretender (James Francis Edward Stuart) died and as no Catholic leader of any weight chose to recognize his heir, Charles Edward (Bonnie Prince Charlie) as ‘Charles III’ of England, the demise of the Pretender effectively brought to a close a chapter in the struggle between the Hanoverians and Stuarts for legitimacy. However, if matters had been settled neatly in the old world, pressures were mounting in the new.

In the early months of 1766, following pressure from both the American colonies and British merchants, the administration of the marquess of Rockingham presided over the repeal of the Stamp Act, which had been introduced only a year before under the previous administration headed by George Grenville. The duty, raised as part of an effort to recoup the huge expenditure of the Seven Years War (1756-63), which according to some estimates amounted to as much as £70 million, extended the principle of paying duty on certain products already familiar in Britain to the colonies. Thus the law required a stamp to be paid for certain items including licences for retailing wine (£4), for retailing wine and spirits (£3), letters of probate (10 shillings) and for each pack of playing cards (1 shilling). In addition, the stamp had to be paid for in British rather than colonial currency. It proved extremely unpopular in America, provoking riots in a number of places. It was also resented by some British merchants who feared loss of income as a result of American traders boycotting British goods.

Grenville’s decision to turn to the colonies had been prompted largely by the unpopularity of the 1763 Cider Tax but it can be argued that there was also a philosophical angle to the move. As Grenville was later to insist ‘Protection and obedience are reciprocal. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience.’ [cited in B. Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat, 536]. By insisting that the American colonists pay their share towards the upkeep of British troops, Grenville hoped to help defray the costs of the war without imposing further on the over-taxed and war-weary British population; but he also wished to emphasize the changing nature of the relationship between Britain and its developing empire.

As just one of a number of measures levied around the same time, the Stamp Act passed with little comment at Westminster, but unfortunately for Grenville, the Americans proved far less easy to convince and were quick to object to the new imposition. Why should they be taxed to maintain an army that they did not believe played any role in protecting them, and (perhaps more importantly) without having been properly consulted about the measure? The levy gave rise to the well-known slogan of ‘no taxation without representation’, harking back to one of the most famous tenets of Magna Carta, that no taxation might be raised without the consent of the monarch’s tenants in chief. For the Americans, that meant that property-holders in the states ought to have had a say in agreeing to such a new tax. The Virginia Assembly meeting in May 1765 was the first to condemn it and a meeting of freeholders in Boston in September 1765 (following on from rioting of the previous month) reflected similar views by dubbing the measure ‘very grievous, and we apprehend unconstitutional’. In October the ‘Stamp Act Congress’ convened in New York, at which representatives of many of the ’13 Colonies’ gathered to express their dissatisfaction with the Stamp Act and other levies.

Not all of the colonies chose to oppose the measure. Newspapers reported that Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and the Grenadines, as well as Halifax in Canada had acceded to the tax. However, by the beginning of 1766 the Rockingham ministry, which had replaced Grenville’s in July 1765, had resolved on repealing the Stamp Act. The ministry’s stance was attacked by ‘the King’s Friends’ headed by the former prime minister, the earl of Bute, but attracted high profile support from William Pitt the Elder, who proved a particularly vocal advocate of repeal in the House of Commons (overcoming indisposition with gout to attend the session). Pitt also assisted the ministry in finding a way of saving face. The Stamp Act was to be repealed but at the same time a Declaratory Act would be put on the statute books, confirming the right of the ministry to tax the colonists where appropriate (for more on this watch this space in March).

Unsurprisingly, not everyone agreed with the ministry’s handling of the crisis. Grenville voiced his opposition to the scheme and his views were echoed in a letter to the London Chronicle of 4-6 February 1766 by Rev. James Scott (a noted supporter of the Stamp Act who wrote under the pen-name ‘Anti-Sejanus’), attacking the ministry but in particular the role of Pitt in arriving at what he saw as the present unhappy compromise:

The plan which the M—y now intend to pursue, is, if possible, ten times more absurd and ridiculous, than that on which they originally set out. It carries with it a flat contradiction in terms, and implies an absolute impossibility. Attend and marvel O indignant reader! They propose to repeal the Act, and yet to enforce the power of parliament over the colonies. Now light and darkness, fire and water, are not more diametrically opposite and repugnant, than these two propositions.

‘Absurd’ or ‘repugnant’ they may have been, but following careful management and a noteworthy debut in Parliament by the newly-elected Edmund Burke, in February the ministry carried it for repeal and the following month both repeal of the Stamp Act and the passage of the Declaratory Act received the royal assent.

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We’ll return to this subject later this year with more on the Declaratory Act – watch this space!

Further Reading:

• Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody: a thematic biography of Edmund Burke (1992)
• Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (1989)

On this blog we are publishing some tasters of ‘The Story of Parliament’ from a number of the academics who contributed to the book. Our fourth post looks at the origins of the Prime Minister’s office in the 18^th century, now of course the most important political post in the country.

This article was originally written by Dr Robin Eagles, Senior Research Fellow in the House of Lords 1660-1832 section.

One of the most significant political developments of the 18^th century was the emergence of the office of prime minister. Sir Robert Walpole (1722-42) is normally credited with being the first effective holder of the office, though Walpole never styled himself as such. He owed his position to holding in combination the offices of the first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, as well as being the principal government spokesman in the Commons. It was the first of these offices that was to become synonymous with the premiership. Walpole was notorious for presiding over a system based on corruption, but his significance was not so much the extent of his authority – it could be argued that the Earl of Godolphin (Lord High Treasurer from 1702-10) or Robert Harley (Lord High Treasurer from 1711-14) had wielded more extensive control over appointments – but his ability to maintain his position from the House of Commons for such a lengthy period. After Walpole’s fall and following the short-lived ministry of the Earl of Wilmington, the effective inheritor of Walpole’s mantle was Henry Pelham (1743-54), who again presided over the ministry from the Commons.

Government in the 18^th century, though, remained a collaborative affair with the king at times a very active partner. During the remainder of the century, only three prime ministers managed the government from the lower house: George Grenville (1763-65), Lord North (1770-80) and William Pitt (1783-1801, 1804-06). The other eight were all senior figures in the House of Lords, though the Duke of Portland (1783) for one was merely a figurehead presiding over the so-called Fox-North coalition. Even in the nineteenth century many prime ministers led the government from the Lords: only in the twentieth century did it become the firm convention for the position to be held by an MP.

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‘The Story of Parliament’ is available at the Parliamentary bookshop for £14.99. You can purchase it here.