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

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

As its name suggests, the direction of the ‘Plot’ was attributed to the notoriously aggressive Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester. From 1716 he was the Pretender’s principal agent in England (not that he was necessarily entirely happy with the role). He was joined in its direction by a number of Jacobite peers sitting in the House of Lords. Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, William North, 6th Baron North (and 2nd Baron Grey), and the Irish peers Charles Butler, earl of Arran, and Charles Boyle, 4th earl of Orrery, had all been military officers, diplomats or statesmen during the reign of Queen Anne, but by 1720 were dedicated servants of the Pretender.

In the last days of 1721 Atterbury, Strafford, North, Arran and Sir Henry Goring pledged themselves to proceed with plans for a Stuart restoration formulated at the Jacobite court at St Germain-en-Laye. They would raise domestic uprisings in England during the general election scheduled for spring 1722, while St Germain would send over a small band of troops from Spain in support. The conspirators quickly became disunited, though. Orrery (who did not sign the letter to St Germain) insisted on the need for a more sizeable foreign invasion force, while North, Strafford and Arran were confident they could personally lead a domestic popular revolt. The plot, or what soon became separate individual plots, began to unravel and its timing had to be postponed to the late summer.

The situation grew worse for the plotters from 19 April 1722, after the death of Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland. As first lord of the Treasury in 1720-21, Sunderland had been deeply implicated in the bribery that allowed the South Sea Company to inflate its ‘Bubble’ and, after it had burst, he had negotiated with Atterbury and the Tories for their support during the parliamentary investigations.

As long as Sunderland had influence Atterbury could be relatively confident of being ‘screened’ from government interference. With him gone, though, Robert Walpole was likely to take the reins of government. Virulently anti-Jacobite, Walpole took action quickly when he learned from the French court, then in alliance with Britain, that the Jacobites were making military preparations on the continent. The correspondence between the English Jacobites and St Germain was intercepted, opened and read. One of the decipherers working on these coded letters was a clerical colleague of Atterbury, Edward Willes, who, after his codebreaking days were over, served as bishop of Bath and Wells. Couriers were taken up and interrogated. One suspect inadvertently revealed Atterbury as the principal addressee of the letters when she blithely chatted away about a little ‘spotted dog’ named Harlequin, which had been sent to Atterbury as a present for the bishop’s dying wife [HMC Portland, vii. 326].

The net was tightening on the Jacobite plotters, and after Goring successfully fled England on 23 August 1722, Atterbury was arrested the following day and sent to the Tower. There he proved ‘very boisterous’, and in one notorious incident scuffled with his gaoler, Colonel Williamson, ‘collared him, struck him, and threw him down’. A commentator thought it ‘pretty odd’ that Williamson would make public that he had been ‘beaten by a gouty bishop’ [HMC Portland, vii. 344].

Walpole’s government was selective in its targets when rounding up the Jacobites and investigating the conspiracy, owing in part to a lack of evidence to prove charges of treason. The principal victims were commoners, such as George Kelly and John Plunkett, both deprived of their estates. Christopher Layer, North’s lawyer and agent, was the only plotter executed, and even his sentence was continuously reprieved in the hope that he would turn king’s evidence. Orrery and North were arrested and imprisoned at about the same time as Atterbury, but proceedings against them were never commenced and they were both eventually discharged. Strafford was never even arrested and continued agitating against the government throughout 1722-23, while his colleagues languished in the Tower.

The government’s principal target was Atterbury, who already had a reputation as a disruptive troublemaker. Despite Atterbury’s forceful two-hour speech in his defence on 11 May, the House passed a bill of ‘pains and penalties’ against him four days later. While Layer, no longer useful as a potential witness, was executed shortly afterwards, Atterbury was allowed to go into exile. He died on the continent in 1732. Orrery, the nominal and ineffectual leader of a weakened Tory party, had died the previous year and North died in Spain in 1734, having converted to Catholicism and been commissioned an officer in the Spanish army. Strafford lasted until 1739, a Tory opponent to Walpole’s Whig ministry to the end. As he described himself in 1737, ‘he was bad with the last ministry, worse with this, and he did not doubt but he should be worse with the next’ [HMC Carlisle, 179]. By the end of the 1730s the Jacobite wing of the Tory party was hollowed out, and the party itself was left adrift until its next reshaping in the 1760s.

While the parliamentary proceedings of 1722-23 destroyed the Jacobites, and seriously damaged the larger Tory party by association, it only strengthened Walpole in his early years as prime minister. Arthur Onslow, the long-serving Speaker of the Commons, thought that the discovery and prosecution of the Jacobite plot was ‘the most fortunate and the greatest circumstance of Mr Walpole’s life. It fixed him with the King, and united for a time the whole body of Whigs to him, and gave him the universal credit of an able and vigilant Minister’ [HMC Onslow, 513].

CGDL

Further reading:

E. Cruickshanks and H. Erskine-Hill, The Atterbury Plot (2004)

G. V. Bennet, The Tory Crisis in Church and State, 1688-1730: The Career of Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester (1976)

E. Cruickshanks, ‘Lord North, Christopher Layer and the Atterbury Plot, 1720-3’, in The Jacobite Challenge, ed. E. Cruickshanks and J. Black (1988)

On 13 February 1741, Sir Robert Walpole’s enemies made their most daring assault on the man who had dominated British politics for two decades: they proposed a motion in the House of Lords calling for a “Humble Address” to King George II. This address suggested that Walpole should be removed “from His Majesty’s Presence and Councils for ever.” While this motion was ultimately handily defeated – sources agree it was by at least 40 votes – it represented a growing weakness in the government, and the previously near-unassailable Walpole was now revealed to be mortal.

Just months before this debate, the War of the Austrian Succession had broken out when the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor (Emperor Charles VI) had died without a clear heir. This contributed greatly to the increasing sense of Walpole’s fallibility: Walpole’s opponents argued that he had failed to maintain a European balance of power and had allowed the House of Bourbon (which controlled France and Spain) to achieve dominance over the House of Habsburg (which controlled much of central and eastern Europe). Re-examining the speeches by two of the greatest statesmen in the Lords at that time, can give us an idea of the debate and the arguments in favour of each side.

The main proponent of the motion, and the first speaker in favour of it, was Lord Carteret (later 2nd Earl Granville). An opponent of Walpole since being forced out of government in 1725, he began his speech by contending that Walpole was the primary (or even sole) power in the government. He argued that this was not only “inconsistent with the Constitution” but also meant that responsibility for the actions of the government fell on Walpole’s head in particular. Carteret argued that while it was uncertain whether Walpole’s actions arose from “weakness or wickedness”, it was clear (to Carteret at least) that Walpole had repeatedly failed to advance the interests of Britain abroad. He highlighted two specific incidents. The first had occurred in 1725. The courts of France and Spain had become estranged after the French called off an arranged marriage between Mariana Victoria, eldest daughter of Philip V of Spain, and Louis XV, the young King of France.  This provoked anger in the Spanish royal court, and so Spain arranged an alliance with Austria. Both countries requested Britain’s presence as mediator, but Walpole’s government declined the offer. According to Carteret, this was emblematic of the administration’s unwillingness to do “any Thing that might disoblige the Court of France.”

Carteret also highlighted Walpole’s refusal to enter into the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735) as evidence of British unwillingness to support her Austrian ally against the Bourbons. Carteret declared that by British inaction, “the power of the House of Austria was diminished, the power of France increased, and the whole System of Europe turned upside down.” As Britain attempted to demonstrate that she had entirely recovered from the successive crises of Civil War, Glorious Revolution and Hanoverian Succession, keeping France and her Bourbons from achieving total continental supremacy became a primary goal of many leading political figures in Britain – and Walpole’s enemies charged him with utter failure in this regard.

Carteret’s speech was followed by one by Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle. A protégé of Walpole for two decades, he was Secretary of State for the Southern Department (a precursor to the Foreign Office), and stood by Walpole until the very last days of his premiership. A foundational part of Newcastle’s defence of Walpole was a rejection of Carteret’s assertion that Walpole bore responsibility for every action taken by the government. For example, he reminded the House that the 1725 Treaty of Hanover, which formed a defensive alliance between Britain, Hanover, France, and Prussia, had not been signed by Walpole and Walpole himself was not even present at the conference.

Newcastle’s speech can be seen as a summary of the overall attitudes of Walpole’s government towards foreign policy, and particularly with regard to the 1731 Treaty of Vienna. This Treaty, negotiated by Newcastle himself, established the Anglo-Austrian Alliance that would hold firm for two decades, and it ensured peace on the Continent (admittedly only for two years) without British military involvement. This latter part is crucial – Walpole’s government was, it was argued, committed to maintaining an army sufficient to defend Britain but without becoming engaged in foreign conflicts unless it was absolutely necessary. Newcastle reinforced this point later in his speech when he argued that the lack of a British defence of Gibraltar was justified because negotiations and treaties were a better way of solving issues than conflict, even in situations when Britain had been attacked. Newcastle’s speech encapsulated the policy goals of Walpole’s government, and demonstrated that even as Walpole’s power began to wane, his closest allies had not yet deserted him.

The motion to remove Walpole ultimately failed convincingly. But it was a show of force: it demonstrated there was at least substantial opposition to Walpole, and it was an indication that the mood of Parliament and the country at large was beginning to shift. We can see this motion, and its failure, as the beginning of the end for Walpole. His parliamentary enemies were coalescing in a way they had not managed since the Excise Crisis, and the tide was also turning amongst the political nation. Just two months after this debate, a general election was held in which Walpole’s government Whigs lost 44 seats to the opposition Whigs and only just clung on to a majority; a year later, Walpole was out of office.

We can see this debate as a precursor to the increasing personalization of government, as the role of Prime Minister developed and became more formalized – Walpole’s rise and fall would prove to be emblematic of the careers of his successors, even to the present day. We can also chart the differences. One major contrast between the fall of recent Prime Ministers and this abortive attempt to remove Walpole is the location of the struggle. Modern battles of this sort occur primarily in back rooms or in the House of Commons – but in this period, before the threatened defanging of the Lords in 1832 and the actual removal of power in 1911, we can see that the Lords remained a genuinely equal political body. We can see overall, therefore, that while the structures around politics and the respective powers of the Houses have changed, the fundamental battles have remained the same. The forces of intra-party disagreements, foreign policy disasters and a poor election showing that triggered Walpole’s decline have forced the resignation of countless Prime Ministers since. Perhaps not all that much has changed in the last three centuries!

TO’D

Sunderland had been under enormous pressure for well over two years before, having been caught up in the South Sea Bubble, seen the death of his long-term political partner, Earl Stanhope, and been entangled in the mirky goings on of the Atterbury Plot. In the aftermath of the Bubble, Sunderland had been forced out as first lord of the treasury and replaced by Robert Walpole, but he was still widely thought of as the ‘premier’ minister. His death finally opened the way for Walpole to emerge as undisputed Prime Minister and brought an end to some of the spirit of the Augustan ‘rage of party’ that had survived Anne’s demise.

Sunderland had always been a controversial figure. His father, Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, had been a particularly mercurial political operator, emerging as a courtier in the later years of Charles II, becoming James II’s factotum, converting Catholicism (at the very worst moment), staging a return from exile after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and then operating as a minister ‘behind the curtain’ during the latter years of William III.

As a younger son, Charles had not been expected to inherit, but his hard-drinking older brother had died young leaving him to succeed as 3rd earl of Sunderland. Though much more capable than his brother and heavily influenced by a formative period in the Netherlands, Sunderland was also headstrong and given to outbursts of temper. Viscount Townshend wrote of one of his letters having been composed during ‘one of his frenzy fits’, while Lord Midleton, the Irish Lord Chancellor, noted him suffering explosive nose bleeds when he was crossed. Politically, he quickly identified himself with the ‘Junto Whigs’, but he was far and away the most radical of them.

Although talented, Sunderland split opinion. Queen Anne could not abide him but was eventually compelled to accept him coming into office. He was then the first targeted to be replaced when Robert Harley (earl of Oxford) and Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, staged their ministerial coup in 1710. Consequently, Sunderland was among the most eager to see members of the queen’s last ministry humbled, leading the charge for Oxford and several others to be impeached in 1715. After Oxford was acquitted, they remained on bad terms and ‘hot words’ only narrowly avoided turning into a duel after the Lords ordered them to keep the peace.

With George I safely on the throne Sunderland had his work cut out to assure the king that he was not simply a youthful radical. He was annoyed to be side-lined with appointment as lord lieutenant of Ireland and refused to take up his post there, using as an excuse his busyness in England and several bouts of poor health. Rather than punished, though, he was rewarded with appointment to the more pleasing role of lord privy seal and the government steadily came to be dominated by two pairings: the Norfolk based Walpole with his brother-in-law, Viscount Townshend; and Sunderland with the soldier-diplomat, James Stanhope.

By 1716 Sunderland and Stanhope had become influential enough to persuade the king to demote Townshend. This ultimately triggered a mass resignation and the beginnings of the ‘Whig Split’ along with a fissure at Court. Although engineered by Sunderland and Stanhope, the duke of Somerset hoped – wishfully – that Sunderland too ‘whoe hathe been false even to his best friends, will now fall unpityed’. [Coxe, Walpole, ii. 148] He could not have been more wrong.

From 1717 to 1721 Sunderland and Stanhope were the effective joint premiers. In spite of such successes, Sunderland found himself increasingly in hot water. To bolster his electoral position, he reached out to members of the Tory party, hoping to detach them from Walpole and Townshend’s opposition Whigs. He was even suspected of turning Jacobite in an effort to cling onto power. While this is unlikely, he undoubtedly courted those who were and may have made promises that he had no intention of keeping. It was certainly noticeable that after his death there was a rush to secure his papers as it was feared he had left behind compromising material.

Sunderland was also increasingly in financial trouble. Hearing that he was being considered for the Garter he confessed to his countess that ‘something more solid is much better and much wanted’.

It was no doubt this that contributed to Sunderland’s greatest blunder: his role in the South Sea disaster. He was at the centre of the web involving illegal selling of stocks and shares and as the value of the stocks plummeted, he wrote in increasingly desperate terms justifying his conduct:

I never thought of anything but of doing the best I could for the public, with honest intentions, and with as much prudence as my poor understanding is capable of.

In the end it was Walpole who was to prove instrumental in ensuring that Sunderland was exonerated from the Commons’ investigation into the scandal and Walpole who was the principal beneficiary. In 1721 he succeeded Sunderland as first lord of the treasury, with Sunderland shifted over to the influential – but marginalized – role of groom of the stole.

Walpole’s return by no means meant that Sunderland was finished. He was a powerful presence in Parliament, one contemporary noting, ‘when he gives the hint all his party takes it.’ He entered into the 1722 general election with gusto hoping that the result would strengthen his hand and enable him to stage another comeback. It was not to be. The effort finished him off and just a few weeks after the elections he succumbed to pleurisy.

Sunderland’s sons Robert and Charles became in succession 4th and 5th earls of Sunderland. As a Churchill descendant, Charles ultimately became 3rd duke of Marlborough as well. Sunderland’s house in Northamptonshire, Althorp, was inherited by a younger son, John. His son (also John) was later made Earl Spencer, making Sunderland the progenitor of Princess Diana, and thus, of a future king.

RDEE

Further reading:
Henry Snyder, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, ed. Coxe

In 1742 Sir Robert Walpole left 10 Downing Street for the last time. His tenure there had been relatively short, the residence, cobbled together out of several houses, having only been his official base as Prime Minister since 1735. While the intention was that it would continue to serve future premiers, Walpole’s successor, Spencer Compton, earl of Wilmington, had no need of the house, enjoying a much smarter address in St James’s. Number 10 was thus taken over by the chancellor of the exchequer, Samuel Sandys and well into the next century prime ministers often eschewed Number 10 in favour of other houses.

Walpole’s departure did not mean an end to the Walpole family’s links to Downing Street. In 1738, not long after Walpole had moved into Number 10, his brother, Horatio Walpole, acquired several other houses in the street and some of these properties remained in family hands for much of the rest of the century.

In spite of the presence of the Prime Minister at Number 10 and of both Numbers 11 and 12 ultimately being employed as government offices, Downing Street was not an entirely fashionable address. Many of the houses – Number 10 included – had been built fairly shoddily when the street was developed by Sir George Downing in the late 17th century on land occupied by the former grand town residence, Hampden House. Technically, Sir Christopher Wren had been involved in the design, but in reality much of the work was quickly and cheaply done. Even the neat brick frontage was ‘fake’: the elevations comprising a mixture of bricks and rubble overpainted with neat lines of mortar to make it look like high quality brickwork.

Despite this, given the location, a number of MPs and others associated with Westminster did live in Downing Street alongside the Prime Minister and or the Chancellor. Samuel Martin, later notorious for his duel with John Wilkes, had an official residence there as secretary to the Treasury. He clearly thought it rather poky because when his father attempted to offload one of his younger sons on him, Martin protested that the place was ‘too small’ to accommodate him. William Wilberforce was another well-known MP to live there for at least a time.

However, many of the houses, or parts of them, were home to people unconnected with government or Parliament. One of the better-known temporary inhabitants of the street was James Boswell, who found lodgings in the house of Mr Terrie, chamber keeper to the office of trade and plantations. Boswell took an apartment ‘up two pair of stairs’ with the use of ‘a handsome parlour all the forenoon’ in return for 40 guineas a year. Dinner with the family at a shilling a time was also part of the deal. Boswell described the street at the time as ‘genteel’ and ‘very healthful’. A few years before Boswell was there, the novelist Tobias Smollett, who was also a surgeon, set up a practice in the street.

Of course, many of those living in the now demolished sections of old Downing Street were rather less well known than such literary figures. One way in which one can discover information about some of the lesser-known Downing Street addresses is through insurance records. They chart a story of frequent change of hands and of multiple occupancy of some of the properties. They also indicate people of varying social status. In 1791, Number 5 was occupied by Ann Somers, a spinster; by 1801 the house’s insurance was made out to another occupier, Mary Howard. Number 7 seems to have passed through several hands. In 1791, insurance was taken out by Mercy Abbott, in 1799 by Edward Raven, in 1802 by Charles Beaumont and in 1818 by Hannah Simpson. Mary Sparrow, a widow, had insurance covering Numbers 22 and 25 in 1816, so presumably let lodgings in at least one of those.

Perhaps the most flamboyant of all the residents of Downing Street in the period was ‘His Excellency Count Zenobio’, who had an insurance policy at Number 2 in 1791 (the same year as another policy was taken out for the same address by James Fowler). In 1794 Zenobio, a Venetian aristocrat, was ejected from the country for his radical activities. He later staged a return in 1807 during the Talents ministry probably thanks to his contacts among some of the old Foxite Whigs, and by the time of his death in 1818 he was living in Duke Street, Westminster.

If much of the housing stock in the 1730s was described as ‘very old and in bad repair’ by the early 19th century the impression is that parts of Downing Street were very shabby indeed. By the 1820s plans were afoot to redevelop the site once again and in 1825 Numbers 1 to 8 were demolished to make way for a new building designed by John Soane to house the Board of Trade and the Privy Council offices. Soane’s building was then itself remodelled under 20 years later by Charles Barry, architect of the present Palace of Westminster. The house Boswell had lodged in was one of those to disappear.

The owners of the houses scheduled for demolition were compensated fairly generously: the owner of Number 4 receiving £1,250 3s. 2d. for his trouble. The greatest sum went to the pub owners, Whitbreads, owners of the Axe and Gate, an inn that had stood at the corner of Downing Street and Whitehall for generations. Indeed, parts of what became Downing Street had originally been occupied by a brewery belonging to the Abbey of Abingdon. In return for the loss of the pub, Whitbreads received over £2,000.

The remaining buildings of Downing Street, then, mask a story of a very different sort of place to the centre of power: a street of ill-built lodging houses nestling beside finer London residences, with a venerable pub on the corner.

RDEE

Further reading

For insurance records, see collection at London Metropolitan Archives

J.R. Dinwiddy, Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780-1850 (1992)

Boswell’s London Journal, 1762-1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle

Survey of London XIV (St Margaret, Westminster)

Follow the research of our House of Lords 1715-1790 project on the ‘Georgian Lords‘ page.

Richard Reynolds (1674-1744), was chancellor of the diocese of Peterborough (1704-1718), rector of St. Peter’s, Northampton, 1706-1744), dean of Peterborough (1718-1721), bishop of Bangor (1721-1723) and then bishop of Lincoln (1723-44). He was a committed Whig, being excluded from the commission of the peace for Peterborough by the Tory ministry in 1712, along with the dean of Peterborough, White Kennett, the future bishop, and Richard Cumberland junior, the son of the current bishop; all three were re-instated in September 1714, after the arrival in England of George I.

Insofar as Reynolds has received any attention from historians, it has been because of his opposition to the administration of Sir Robert Walpole in the 1730s. To quote the leading ecclesiastical historian of the period, Reynolds was ‘the most consistent opponent of the Walpole ministry on the bench.’ [S. Taylor, ‘The Bishops at Westminster in the Mid-Eighteenth-Century’, Pillar of the Constitution, ed. C. Jones, 144]. He was recorded as voting against the ministry on such matters as the inquiries into the South Sea Company accounts in 1733, the army officers’ bill in 1734, the quaker tithes bill in 1736, and the Spanish Convention of 1739. In all, he signed nine protests in the Lords between 1735 and 1742.

What prompted this rare dissent from the government line? Thwarted ambition may have played a part. After all, unlike his three predecessors at Lincoln, Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, archbishop of Canterbury and Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, his elevation to Lincoln had not proved to be a stepping-stone to higher office in the Church. His promotion to Lincoln was probably the result of the influence of Walpole’s rival for power in 1721, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, a man with significant Northamptonshire links. With ecclesiastical power resting with Edmund Gibson, Walpole’s ‘Pope’, from 1723, Reynolds had sent letters vaguely critical of the management of the Church and its hierarchy to his friend and former superior, White Kennett, bishop of Peterborough, another cleric disappointed by his lack of promotion.

Reynolds’ disappointment manifested itself in declining attendance in the House of Lords. For the first eight sessions that he sat in the House of Lords (1721-28), his presence could be relied upon; it never fell below 60 per cent of the sittings, and three times it exceeded 80 per cent. Then in 1729 it fell to 18 per cent and 15 per cent the following year. Thereafter, only in 1733 (the year of the excise crisis) and 1741 (the year when Walpole fell under sustained attack) did his attendance reach respectable levels (above 40 per cent). In most sessions his opposition was characterized more by indifference and absenteeism than activism.

Reynolds’ lack of enthusiasm for the ministry may also have something to do with the problems he faced in trying to launch the careers of his sons. Around the end of the 1690s Reynolds had married Sarah Cumberland, daughter of Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough. They had seven sons surviving to adulthood (George, Charles, Anthony, Thomas, Octavius, Decimus, and Frederick), and one daughter, Anna Sophia, who died in 1737, unmarried, possibly as the result of her portion being deposited by a banker, whose business failed in 1720.

In the event, Reynolds was able to settle all of his sons into the Church, by a judicious use of the patronage available to him, but was unsuccessful in promoting their careers outside of his spheres of influence. In particular, the fate of his third son, Anthony, is instructive. Unlike his brothers, Anthony was destined not for the Church, but the army. In 1721 he became an ensign in the third company of foot guards, and in 1727 he was promoted to the rank of captain. In 1728 he was slated to accompany Major General Richard Sutton, MP for Newark, on a diplomatic mission to Germany. However, in February 1730 Anthony was hauled before a court martial for a duel he had fought in Hyde Park following an altercation with a Major Singleton at a masquerade in the Haymarket. The court martial found against him and following a report to the king he was reduced in the ranks, and subsequently left the army. A press report at the end of March 1731 assured its readers that Anthony Reynolds was not in holy orders. Indeed, at this point he was in America where he was a colonial official in New Hampshire. In mid-February 1743 he was appointed ‘principal register of Lincoln and register under his commissaries of the archdeaconries of Lincoln and Stow.’

The other sons were all employed in the Church from the outset of their careers. George Reynolds succeeded his father as chancellor of Peterborough in 1721, and henceforth was archdeacon of Lincoln from 1725 until his death in 1769, at which point he was still chancellor of Peterborough. His brother Charles was appointed by his father as chancellor of Lincoln in 1726, a post he retained until his death in 1766. The fourth son, Thomas, became rector of Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire and eventually secured appointment (along with his brother George) to the offices held by the long-serving clerical official, George Newell, who died in 1741. Octavius, Decimus and Frederick all joined the Church, and became prebends of Lincoln.

Reynolds’ reward for his conscientious application to the interests of his offspring was to be pilloried as a bishop given to lax standards regarding ordinations, in order to maximise their numbers, and hence to boost the income of his sons from the fees payable. One person even referred to it as a ‘shop’. Reynolds was, it was thought, ‘a good natured man; but his numerous family… occasioned the reproach’.

SNH

On 3 April 1721, 300 years ago today, Robert Walpole was handed the seals of office as first lord of the treasury. He was also appointed chancellor of the exchequer (the two jobs frequently went in tandem in this period). It was not the first time he had held the post, having been first lord of the treasury earlier in the reign of George I: a time when politics was dominated by two pairings – the partnerships of Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, and James Stanhope; and of Walpole and his brother-in-law, Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend. The uneasy alliance had not lasted long and in 1716 Sunderland and Stanhope had succeeded in easing out the other pair. The resulting ‘Whig Schism‘ coincided with a rupture within the royal family. George, Prince of Wales, was ejected from St James’s and went in search of an independent household of his own based at Leicester House, where he attracted a mixed bag of disillusioned Whigs, Tories and the core of the Walpole-Townshend group.

So, Walpole’s return to office in 1720, and his promotion to first lord in 1721 in the wake of the disaster of the South Sea Bubble, constituted more than just a personal achievement. It represented a healing of the schisms at court and in Parliament; but it was also a clear opportunity for his friends and family to make the most of his good fortune. The deaths in close succession of Stanhope (in 1721) and Sunderland (in 1722) further helped open the path for Walpole’s steady ascent.

In the course of his 20 years at the top, Walpole came to be viewed as a political giant. Terms used to describe him included ‘Leviathan’ and there were much-circulated cartoon satires of him in the guise of a modern-day colossus, straddling the political world. Historians have noted his extraordinary grasp of detail, and the extent of his reach into myriad areas of 18th-century life. A further indication of his dominance was his ability to make space for a number of family members in a range of government posts. In this way, his administration might be said not so much to have been a ‘Robinocracy’ as a ‘Walpolocracy’: an administration represented at all levels by ‘the family’ with Robert as the very prominent capo di tutti capi.

Indications that the Walpoles were the ones to watch came in advance of Robert’s own appointment as first lord. A short while before, the press reported the promotion of Robert’s brother, Captain Galfridus Walpole, as joint post-master general, taking over the place vacated following the suicide of James Craggs the Elder. Galfridus had previously had a successful naval career, though his further advancement was brought to a halt by his early death in 1726. That it was not just Robert and Galfridus, though, was made plain by a report in the London Journal for 15 April 1721. Previously an opposition newspaper, the London Journal came to be a warm supporter of Walpole and its account emphasized the extraordinary ascendancy of the family of the once obscure Norfolk squire. Beginning with a paean in praise of Walpole himself, it announced in hyperbolic terms:

Tis with no little pleasure and satisfaction that the lovers of liberty see a deserving patriot worthily restored to his majesty’s favour, and, like Gideon’s fleece, sucking up the dew of Heaven, whilst all about it lie bare and dry.

It then continued to highlight the triumph of the Walpole family, and how they were sharing in the distribution of largesse accompanying Robert’s restoration:

First Lord of the Treasury, Mr Walpole. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Walpole. Clerk of the Pells, Mr Walpole’s son. Customs of London, 2d son of Mr Walpole, in reversion. Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Walpole’s brother. Post-Master General, Mr Walpole’s brother. Secretary to Ireland, Mr Walpole’s brother. Secretary to the Post-Master General, Mr Walpole’s brother-in-law. All other Friends are justly restored to the employments they had lost.

The various family members highlighted by the paper were Walpole’s brothers Horatio and Galfridus; his heir, Robert, and second son Edward; and his brother-in-law Sir Charles Turner. Significantly, the paper omitted another key member of the family, Viscount Townshend, husband of Walpole’s sister, Dorothy. Like Walpole, he had been summoned back to government on the healing of the Whig split as lord president, and after Stanhope’s death he too had been restored to his former post of secretary of state.

Throughout his time in office, family remained important to Walpole, even after the crucial falling out with Townshend, who retired from office in 1730 fed up with being eclipsed by his once junior partner. After 1727 another in-law, George Cholmondeley, Viscount Malpas (later 3rd earl of Cholmondeley), married to Walpole’s daughter Mary, joined other members of the clan in government and continued to hold office beyond Walpole’s fall.

In spite of his careful construction of a ministry with family and friends occupying key posts, after 20 years at the top Walpole’s luck finally ran out. He did his utmost to put off the inevitable. He turned up to committees that had not seen him for years and put on a brave face looking ‘cheerful and composed’ and speaking ‘with spirit, ease & modest dignity’. [Campbell Correspondence, 81]. But commentators spotted that once loyal followers had begun to desert him, leaving Walpole himself trying to cling on in ever more desperate fashion:

He retired unwillingly and slowly: no shipwrecked pilot ever clung to the rudder of a sinking vessel with greater pertinacity than he did to the helm of state [Coxe, Walpole, iii. 245]

By the end of his premiership, Walpole was identified by many of the opposition as the key stumbling block and it is interesting that neither Cholmondeley (the former Malpas) nor Walpole’s brother Horatio shared in his fall, even though there were rumours of efforts to impeach both brothers. Walpole might have tried to keep things in the family, but his removal remained a lonely event as many of his former acolytes let him become the general scapegoat and concentrated on saving themselves.

RDEE

Further Reading

William Coxe, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, earl of Orford

J.E. Davies, ed. The Correspondence of John Campbell MP… (Parliamentary History: Texts & Studies 8)

10, Downing Street is now one of the most iconic buildings in the country. As the official residence of the Prime Minister it is widely recognizable, even though it appears on the face of it a rather modest terraced townhouse, located in a rather cramped street squeezed in between Whitehall and Horse Guards. Of course, the location is its key benefit, placing the occupant within easy access of the government buildings around them, just a few strides down Whitehall from Parliament, and a pleasant walk across the park to St James’s Palace.

In spite of this, for much of the 18th century, even though Number 10 (actually Number 5 for much of its early existence) remained the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, it was by no means always occupied by the Prime Minister. Many of the premiers possessed their own substantial townhouses in more pleasing locations and in better condition and were content to leave it to the chancellor of the exchequer, or indeed occasionally entirely unrelated tenants.

The building had originally been offered to Sir Robert Walpole by George II nearly a decade after Walpole had emerged as effective premier, and Walpole was said to have accepted on the understanding that the building would continue to be occupied thereafter by the First Lord of the Treasury. On 22 September 1735 Walpole took possession formally, though, in fact, he seems to have acquired the place rather in advance of this, featuring on the rate books from 1732. It was in January of that year that Baron Bothmer, the former owner of the principal building, had died, thereby enabling the king to offer the house to Walpole as an official residence appropriate to his by now well-established position as ‘Prime Minister’ (not that Walpole himself ever liked the term, or would admit to it). But it is not always appreciated that what we think of now as Number 10 in fact comprises a number of buildings cobbled together. Between 1732, when Walpole’s name first appeared on the rate books, and 1735 when he took formal possession, a considerable amount of work was undertaken in the street with neighbouring properties acquired and amalgamated into the residence. It is also worth noting that the grand Bothmer House, the core of the building, was thought of less as a house on Downing Street, and more one that faced onto St James’s Park.

If Downing Street was in an enviable strategic location, the state of the buildings acquired by Walpole were rather less so. In 1730, Bothmer had complained of ‘the ruinous condition of the premises’ and sought financial assistance to renovate his crumbling abode. Bothmer’s death offered an opportunity to undertake a significant refurbishment, with the works supervised by William Kent. In the meantime other neighbouring buildings were mopped up and by 1735 the rather humbler lodgings fronting onto Downing Street itself occupied by a Mr Chicken had been incorporated into the project after Chicken was persuaded to relocate. The extent of the changes carried out is hinted at in a letter from Walpole’s son, Horace, in which he referred to the newly amalgamated residence as ‘the palace in Downing-street’.

Just a month before Walpole officially took possession of his new townhouse, one newspaper reported that works were still ongoing in the street to make it more suitable for its new purpose:

The Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole has purchas’d several houses in Downing Street, Westminster in order to their being pull’d down to make the way more commodious for coaches to come to his levee at his house adjoining to the Treasury in St James’s-park. [Grub Street Journal, 7 Aug. 1735]

After three years of extensive renovations, Walpole finally moved into Number 10 on 22 September 1735 and the following day held his first levee there. Three days after moving in, the Walpoles were honoured with a visit from the queen, accompanied by the duke of Cumberland and princesses Amelia and Caroline, who joined Lady Walpole for breakfast. Their visit also took in the new Treasury building, which is an important reminder that it was not just the Prime Minister’s residence that was the focus of the recent building works and that there was a concerted effort to develop a number of government buildings in the area around the same time.

In spite of its increasing identification with government buildings, though, throughout the 18th century Downing Street remained a varied location. Unsurprisingly, a number of parliamentarians and government functionaries lodged there, enjoying many of the same benefits as the Prime Minister. In March 1731 the papers reported the death of Robert Corker, MP for Bossiney, who had lodged in the street, and in September of the same year the papers reported the arrival in town of the archbishop of York, who was also a resident of Downing Street. In the 1760s James Boswell lodged there in the house of Mr Terrie, chamber keeper to the office for trade and plantations and commented of the area:

The street was a genteel street, within a few steps of the Parade; near the House of Commons, and very healthful…

In spite of all the effort that had been put into the development of 10 Downing Street, on Walpole’s fall in 1742 it ceased to be the Prime Minister’s residence. The speed with which the family was ejected still rankled a few years on, and in 1745 Walpole’s son, Horace, complained to a friend how:

Four years ago I was mightily at my ease in Downing-street, and then the good woman, Sandys [Chancellor of the Exchequer, Samuel Sandys], took my lodgings over my head, and was in such a hurry to junket her neighbours, that I had scarce time allowed me to wrap my old china in a little hay…

After the death of Walpole’s successor, Wilmington, in 1743, other Prime Ministers followed suit by offering the premises to their chancellors, using the building as offices, or occasionally renting it out totenants with no particular connection to the government. It was not until Lord North became Prime Minister in the 1770s that the place once again became the premier’s formal residence, by which time the house was again in a poor state of repair. In the 1780s major alterations were carried out, altering substantially the interiors that Walpole would have known.

Although after Lord North it was increasingly common for Downing Street to be used by the Prime Minister, it remained a rather unloved residence for much of the 19th century, with some premiers tending to use it for official events rather than as a home for themselves and their families. It was not until Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister that this changed, and from then on that the place became, as Walpole had intended, a functioning official residence for the First Lord of the Treasury.

RDEE

Further Reading:

Boswell’s London Journal
Survey of London, vol. xiv
Letters of Horace Wapole, earl of Orford, (4 vols, 1842)

Party is a crucial theme in William Hogarth’s four election paintings from the second half of the 1750s. The paintings were in part inspired by the controversial Oxfordshire election of 1754, one of the last major strongholds of Tory-Jacobitism in eighteenth-century England. The four paintings depict how Tories dressed in blue and Whigs in orange entertain and canvass voters, the polling where Tories and Whigs alike engage in dubious practices to gain votes, and finally the ‘chairing’ of the winning candidate. The Oxfordshire election is often said to have been violently partisan to an unusual degree for mid-century politics, but it was mirrored by comparable developments elsewhere at the same time, notably in Bristol and Nottingham. In any event, Hogarth clearly captured something peculiar about eighteenth-century Britain: its party-dominated politics.

Parties or partisanship in a broad sense may be as old as the earliest societies where there was competition for office. But what did ‘party’ mean in eighteenth-century Britain? Some historians have applied lists of criteria to identify specific parties at particular moments, but such an approach may say more about how we understand the concept than about the period of enquiry. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) defined a political party as: ‘[a] number of persons confederated by similarity of designs or opinions in opposition to others; a faction’.

Johnson’s ostensibly simple definition hints that political party in the eighteenth century carried more than one meaning in British discourse, although many of them overlapped. (1) Party could simply mean internal division in general terms. (2) It could more specifically refer to the Whig and Tory parties. (3) It frequently related to religious divisions, such as Anglicans and Dissenters – a crucial division since the ‘Clarendon Code’ in the 1660s – or high churchmen and latitudinarians, with countless theological subcategories. (4) It could refer to the Court and Country ‘parties’, in other words those of government and opposition. (5) It could refer to the Jacobite threat. (6) It could mean political or parliamentary connection, that is, a smaller political group led by an identifiable leader, for example the Rockingham party connection. (7) It more rarely denoted different parts of the constitution, as in Commons and Lords. (8) Lastly, it could be synonymous with faction.

‘Faction’ in turn did not strictly correspond to our modern usage, when it denotes a splinter group or a party within a party. In the eighteenth century, it could broadly mean four things. Firstly, it could denote the Whig and Tory factions, in other words be interchangeable with party. Secondly, it could mean something akin to ‘interest-group’, notably an economic interest. Thirdly, it could refer to a party connection purely motivated by ambition and self-interest, with little or no interest in principles or opinions. This was sometimes described as a degenerated party, underlining the loose terminology. Finally, it could imply the even more negative connotation of a conspiracy within the state to destroy the constitution.

Following Sir Lewis Namier, the eighteenth century is often described as a period of personal factionalism followed by a clear two-party system in the nineteenth century. The truth is that most of the eighteenth century can be viewed as a period of fluctuation between personal factionalism and two-party division. Although ‘party spirit’ waxed and waned, and the British press was often quick to celebrate when it diminished, ‘party’ was a persistent key word in political debate. Moreover, the British parties continuously confounded foreign visitors and commentators in the Hanoverian period especially. Voltaire observed in his Letters on the English Nation (1733) that the prevalence of party spirit in the country meant that ‘[o]ne half of the nation [was] always the enemy of the other’.

Denouncing party division was a commonplace in eighteenth-century political discourse, and suspicion of party would remain strong at the end of the century, notably in William Pitt the Younger. Many paid lip service to the ideal of consensus. The most fundamental reason why parties were so widely disliked was that division was seen as posing an existential threat to the political community. But parties were also disliked for what we may call lesser reasons. One of the most common criticisms of party was that it impeded independence as it encouraged a form of herd mentality.

We should not exaggerate the dislike of party, however, since it could also be a powerful principle for rallying support. Sir Robert Walpole’s speech to followers and potential followers, at the height of the Excise Crisis of 1733, ahead of a crucial vote in the Commons, is a case in point. Walpole professed that he was ‘not pleading [his] own cause, but the cause of the Whig party’, adding that ‘it is in Whig principles I have lived, and in Whig principles I will die.’ Lord Hervey commented that the speech reignited ‘party spirit’ and helped secure a favourable outcome. Edmund Burke was thus not being anachronistic when he wrote in An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791) that Walpole had governed by ‘party attachments’. This example shows that it would be too simplistic to conclude that ‘party’ was simply an accusatory term at the time. Indeed, it often formed part of the glue which helped maintain co-operation between leading politicians in the eighteenth century.

MS

Further Reading

Max Skjönsberg, The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).