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

Between 5 and 7 July 2022, over 60 members of Boris Johnson’s government resigned, the highest number of resignations in a limited period in British political history. Few 18th-century governments saw as many departures, but many of the period’s administrations were formed following concerted ministerial resignations. Those resigning in 2022 aimed to topple their own prime minister and bring about a new government. Under the Georgians, it was usually the prime minister himself, and leading ministers, who resigned in order to force the king to choose between equally unpalatable ministers, often against his will.

George II in particular had strong opinions about his ministers. He preferred John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, a German-speaker advocate of a pro-Hanoverian policy. However, the king had been forced to agree to Granville’s departure as secretary of state in November 1744 after receiving what was in effect an ultimatum from Henry Pelham, first lord of the Treasury and effectively prime minister, and his elder brother, Thomas Pelham Holles, duke of Newcastle, the other secretary of state.

The king nevertheless continued to take advice from Granville who, against the wishes of the Pelhams, dissuaded George from taking the incendiary anti-Hanover orator, William Pitt the Elder, into government. The Pelhams, fearing that they too would be dismissed, engaged in a game of brinkmanship with the king. On 10 February 1746 they and the leading ministers in the government all resigned, followed by several more junior ministers, ‘down to the lowest clerks’. ‘The whole nation, which for four years had seemed possessed with a madness of seizing places, now ran into the opposite frenzy of quitting them’. [Horace Walpole, Memoirs of George II, i. 171-2] In the space of a few days in February 1746, somewhere in the region of 45 government ministers resigned, dismantling the government while the country was still threatened by the Jacobite rebels.

At first, George II turned to Granville and William Pulteney, earl of Bath, to form a new ministry. Over two days they struggled to form a government but got no further than choosing four ministers (including themselves). On the third day of this ‘meteor-like ministry’, with ‘no volunteers coming in’, Bath and Granville conceded defeat. The victorious Pelhamites laid further strict conditions on the king as they returned to office. Pitt was brought into the government, but as paymaster general rather that secretary at war. They also insisted that the king could only work with his official ministers and should discard non-ministerial advisers.

Ten years later George II was again forced to accept ministers he disliked. Henry Pelham died in March 1754 and was replaced by his brother Newcastle as first lord of the Treasury. Britain’s renewed war with France in 1755-6 started badly, culminating in the humiliating loss of Minorca in 1756. As a hostile parliamentary session approached in the autumn of 1756, Henry Fox, the government’s leader of the Commons, felt unsupported by Newcastle. In order to shore up his position, Fox tendered his resignation just before the session was set to commence. This time the ploy did not work. The king accepted Fox’s resignation and then turned reluctantly to Newcastle to form a ministry that would incorporate Pitt instead. ‘The Great Commoner’, though, refused to serve with Newcastle, prompting Newcastle in turn to tender his resignation. This time, apart from his friend the lord chancellor Philip Yorke, earl of Hardwicke, Newcastle could not persuade any more of his colleagues to resign with him. Eventually in early November William Cavendish, 4th duke of Devonshire, agreed to head a new government, with Pitt as secretary of state.

The way seemed clear, however, for Newcastle’s quick return to office as Pitt found it difficult to work with Devonshire’s cadre of loyal Whigs in the Commons. Most of all the king remained hostile towards Pitt and dismissed him from office in early April 1757. This time it took much longer to from a new administration. Fox tried first but, following his failure, over the summer a number of emissaries, most often Hardwicke, tried to negotiate with all the mutually antagonistic parties.

Eventually the king turned to James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave. Like the previous Bath-Granville government, Waldegrave’s was short-lived – only four days – before Newcastle threw in his trump card. Either independently or at Newcastle’s request, Robert Darcy, 4th earl of Holdernesse, secretary of state for the northern department, resigned. Significantly, Holdernesse tendered his resignation on 9 June, the day after Waldegrave was tasked with forming his ministry. Newcastle denied to Waldegrave that he had had any influence in Holdernesse’s departure, but at the same time seemed to threaten Waldegrave that ‘with a single Word, he could cause so many Resignations, as would give the Court a very empty appearance’. [Waldegrave, Memoirs, 203] Waldegrave also suspected that Newcastle was working behind his back, dissuading others from taking up the posts he offered them in his government.

Faced with a diminishing pool of candidates from which to fill places, Waldegrave gave up and the king was again forced to turn to Newcastle to build a working administration. It took several more weeks before Pitt and Newcastle, with Hardwicke acting as intermediary, could reach a modus vivendi. The new ministry was not confirmed until early July 1757, three months after Pitt’s dismissal, which had started the crisis of the ‘interministerium’ as Walpole dubbed it. Newcastle had ‘forced’ his way into office again, and brought with him Pitt, by his skilful use of the well-timed resignation.

From such inauspicious beginnings emerged the ministry of 1757-61, which is now considered one of the more successful among British governments. It oversaw Britain’s victory in the Seven Years War, which established the foundations for the first British empire in North America, and provided the basis for Britain’s global ambitions and conduct for decades to come.

CGDL

Further Reading:

Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, 3 vols., ed. Lord Holland (1847)
The memoirs & speeches of James, 2nd Earl Waldegrave 1742-1763, ed. J.C.D. Clark (1988)
Life and Correspondence of Philip Yorke, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, 3 vols, ed. Philip C. Yorke (1913)

The Browne family were ennobled as viscounts Montague in the mid-sixteenth century, the first Viscount taking his seat in the House of Lords in 1554. The 3rd Viscount last sat on 29 November 1678, having been disabled by the Test Act due to his Roman Catholic religion.

One constituency influenced by the Brownes was Midhurst, a burgage borough in Sussex with about 125 votes in 1711. Traditionally, the family’s influence was based on the ownership of the lordships of the borough and manor, and exercised from their estate at nearby Cowdray. When the 6th Viscount Montague succeeded to the title in 1717, the family’s influence was in eclipse and the influence of the Knight family was exercised in tandem with the duke of Somerset.

In 1721 Montague sold off Battle Abbey, but retained the family estates adjacent to Midhurst, and in 1722 he successfully defended his right to elect the bailiff of Midhurst (the returning officer in parliamentary elections). By 1734 he seems to have been selling burgages.

However, as a peer based in Sussex, Montague was used to having cordial relations with Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle, and his brother, Henry Pelham. By the 1740s he was a frequent correspondent of Newcastle’s, usually soliciting patronage for his relatives and tenants, in a similar manner to any other eighteenth-century aristocrat.

Politics in Midhurst was in flux in the later 1740s. The decision of the Pelhams to call an early election in 1747 (one year before the statutory limitation under the Septennial Act), caught Frederick, Prince of Wales by surprise. This led the Prince to believe that the ageing Somerset’s interest at Midhurst was under threat and with it the return to the Commons of one of its MPs, his servant and office-holder, Thomas Bootle. The threat does not seem to have materialized, but following Somerset’s death in 1748 (in his will he bequeathed his burgages to Bootle) we find Montague keen to protect his right to select the bailiff (and hence returning officer) for the borough.

Years later, Montague attributed his involvement in Midhurst elections to Henry Pelham:

when I embarked in elections, Mr. Pelham encouraged me, it was his own proposition, and it was in so kind, so friendly a manner, I would not but undertake what he thought would be of advantage to his and to your administration. He indeed embraced me, adding he meant to give me, tho a Roman Catholic, a credit in my own country.

In 1752 Montague had a state of the votes at Midhurst drawn up. The technique of dividing burgages had seen the electorate grow to 217 voters (with a further 14 “bad” votes). He claimed to have 104 votes, plus 45 independents and the 14 votes claimed by his opponents ‘having the fee thereof.’ The sitting Members, Sir John Peachey (sitting on the old Knight interest) had 40, and Bootle 17, with 15 independents (a total which included the 14 claimed by Montague). In conclusion, Montague informed Newcastle that ‘whatever two persons you are pleased to name, excepting the Peacheys, they shall have my interest at Midhurst.’

Montague’s numerical superiority and determination to retain control of the election of the bailiff ensured that at the by-election which took place in January 1754 (following Bootle’s death) his candidate, John Sargent, recommended to him by Henry Pelham, was returned unopposed.

In the 1754 general election, Montague and Peachey elected to compromise and avoid a contest, each nominating one candidate in an unopposed return. At the end of 1755 Montague alerted Newcastle that he had recently purchased the 20 burgages belonging to the Bootle interest, thereby consolidating his interest.

In 1760 Peachey sold his interest to Sir William Peere Williams, who also purchased some independent votes, and who now claimed to Newcastle that he had a ‘clear’ majority. John Page, however, reported to Newcastle that, on the contrary’ the ‘clear’ majority lay with Montague.

A further examination of the state of the borough took place after the accession of George III when an election was imminent. It gave Montague 75 ‘indisputable votes’ to 64 for Peere Williams. However there were 20 ‘dubious votes, three ‘independents unpurchased’, and six ‘burgages vested in trustees’.

The uncertainty of a contested election saw much effort exerted to promote a compromise, Newcastle (at his most flattering), Henry Fox and John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, all played a part in ensuring that Montague and Williams returned one Member each.

From this point, if not before, Montague took a back seat and left matters to his son, also Anthony, the future 7th Viscount Montague, whose political ambitions became apparent when he succeeded his father in 1767. He promptly took the oaths and resumed the family’s seat in the House of Lords after an absence of almost 90 years.

SNH

On 17 June 1747 George II attended the House of Lords to grant his assent to some 59 new pieces of legislation. Having done so, he made a brief speech thanking both Houses for their service before leaving it to the Lord Chancellor (Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke) to prorogue the session. The next day, Parliament was dissolved. The decision to bring about an early termination was supposed to have been a secret, but as the duke of Richmond revealed to the duke of Newcastle earlier in the month, it was one everyone knew about: ‘I beg to know when the dissolution of the Parliament is no longer a secret, for every soul I meet with has it, & I look like a fool when I lye [sic], which I am not used to…’ [Richmond -Newcastle Correspondence, 246]. Like many peers in the period, Richmond was eager to play his part in the ensuing elections in a variety of constituencies where he was able to command interest.

Under the terms of the Septennial Act, the Parliament, elected in the summer of 1741, ought to have had another year to run, but the early dissolution had been resolved on, according to Dudley Ryder, ‘to disappoint the Prince [of Wales], who is beginning to intermeddle in most of the boroughs against the next Parliament in order to set up a violent opposition.’ The Westminster Journal of 6 June had a different take on it, suggesting that ‘the Reasons given for the sudden Dissolution of this Parliament, are of the utmost Weight for the Safety and Tranquillity of the kingdom, in order to prevent the pernicious intrigues of France at this critical juncture’.  Both were plausible reasons for the ministry to wish to go to the country early. Britain’s involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession had resulted in gains in America, but the country had been invaded by Jacobite forces backed by a resurgent France in 1745 and only days before the 1747 poll the army under the duke of Cumberland suffered a significant defeat at Lauffeldt. The beginning of peace negotiations the previous year had been widely criticized. A desire to strengthen the ministry’s hand in the pourparlers that would ultimately result in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) was undoubtedly a signal reason for wanting to get the election out of the way early.

As Ryder suggested, though, the ministry was also eager to counter the substantial effort being made by Frederick and his allies to build up an opposition movement founded on a coalition of dissident Whigs, Tories and the prince’s own household retainers. Newcastle and his brother, Henry Pelham (the prime minister) had every reason to be wary of Prince Frederick’s new alliance. It had been, after all, just such a grouping that had played a significant role in destabilizing and ultimately toppling Sir Robert Walpole early in 1742. In the early months of 1747 the prince had announced his intention of returning to opposition for as long as he remained Prince of Wales and on 4 June his movement released their non-partisan programme in the Carlton House Declaration. Heading the opposition, it should be stressed, was not something he expected to be confined to for much longer. George II was by now into his 60s and as the king’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather had all failed to make it past 70, there was every reason to expect Prince Frederick’s accession as king to be only a few years away. In the event, this was to be Frederick’s last general election at the head of the opposition, but only because it was to be him rather than his father who would die first.

By the early months of 1747 Frederick’s grouping had begun to make detailed preparations for the election they anticipated to be still 18 months away. Then, as now, the west country was considered a key battleground. There the prince expected to be able to draw on the resources of the duchy of Cornwall. In Scotland, it was hoped that Frederick’s ally, the duke of Argyll, would capitalize on gains made in 1741, and there were other areas of the country, including in the Pelhams’ own heartlands of Sussex, where the opposition aimed to mount a significant effort. In each of these the prince and his lieutenants had begun to lay the groundwork for the next election, but the ministry’s decision to bring the poll forward meant that few seats were adequately prepared for the contest.

The government commenced its campaign, quietly confident of success, but cautious about overstating their strength: ‘We despise the Opposition extreamly. I hope we are not mistaken’. [Richmond-Newcastle Correspondence, 247] The opposition, meanwhile, struggled to rally their unprepared forces. In the west Frederick was hobbled by the loss to the ministry’s ranks of Hugh Boscawen, 2nd Viscount Falmouth, who was able to bring to bear considerable electoral interest in a number of Cornish constituencies from his seat at Tregothnan. According to one of Frederick’s backers at Truro, one of the places where the Boscawens were particularly strong, ‘The majority of the electors here are so attached to the Tregothnan family… that the attempt you advise me to make in this place would I am persuaded, prove fruitless…’ [HMC Fortescue, i. 109] The sheer cost of attempting to ‘buy support’ (technically, of course, a crime even then) was also a problem for the prince’s grouping. The always outspoken Thomas Pitt, for whom the words ‘villain’ and ‘rascal’ were staples of his personal lexicon, expostulated on the state of affairs in Grampound:

I think we can carry it, but it must cost damnably dear. The villains had got a-head to that degree, and rise in their demands so extravagantly, that I have been very near damning them and kicking them to the devil at once. The dirty rascals dispise [sic] 20 guineas as much as a King’s Sergeant does a half guinea fee… [HMC Fortescue, i. 111]

Horace Walpole, who reported a rumour that Frederick had put aside £200,000 to fight the election, considered the money ill-spent, commenting cynically that ‘he had much better have saved it to buy the parliament after it is chosen’. [Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. C.B Lucas, 66]. He may have had a point. The election at Grampound resulted in a compromise with Thomas Hawkins securing one seat in the prince’s interest (with Pitt’s grudging support), while the other went to the ministry supporter, Lord George Bentinck. Elsewhere, the ministry demonstrated supremely assured management. At Seaford, where Newcastle held sway, the duke even sat at the returning officer’s desk to ensure that his preferred candidates were elected. Unsurprisingly, both seats went to his nominees and a subsequent petition complaining against Newcastle’s behaviour was thrown out in the Commons.

The overall result, albeit of an election that saw only 62 contests across the country, was a decisive victory for the government. Some 351 seats went to candidates in the ministry’s interest, with just 92 going to dissident Whigs and 115 to Tories. By the second week of July the opposition had descended into mutual recrimination and the launching of an investigation into how they had failed to carry the seats of which they had had such high hopes. The prince, meanwhile, whose personal grouping had been particularly badly mauled, attempted to play down the size of his defeat and to comfort his supporters. One seat at Grampound, he insisted, was more than he had hoped for; and as Francis Ayscough put it to the inconsolable Thomas Pitt:

Thank God, we have a master who values his friends and servants, not according to their success, but to their zeal and sincerity in his service; and, as no one can have shown more of this than you have done in the late troubles and fatigues you have undergone, so no one can be more in his favour and esteem. [HMC Fortescue, i. 121]

RDEE

Further Reading:

• The Correspondence of the dukes of Richmond and Newcastle 1724-1750, ed. T. McCann (Sussex Record Society lxxiii, 1984)
• Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford, 1989)
• Reed Browning, The Duke of Newcastle (Yale, 1975)