deceased queen, Mary, and second daughter of the deposed
Stuart king, James II.
H. D. Traill,
William the Third,
chapters 14-15.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 21, chapters 7-10 (volume 5).
See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
Accession of Queen Anne.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
Union of rival East India Companies.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
The War of the Spanish Succession.
Failure at Cadiz.
The treasure ships in Vigo Bay.
Marlborough's first campaigns.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1702;
and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1711.
The War of the Spanish Succession in America
(called "Queen Anne's War").
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710;
CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.
{915}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1714.
The Age of Anne in literature.
"That which was once called the Augustan age of English
literature was specially marked by the growing development of
a distinct literary class. It was a period of transition from
the early system of the patronage of authors to the later
system of their professional independence. Patronage was being
changed into influence. The system of subscription, by which
Pope made his fortune, was a kind of joint-stock patronage.
The noble did not support the poet, but induced his friends to
subscribe. The noble, moreover, made another discovery. He found
that he could dispense a cheaper and more effective patronage
than of old by patronising at the public expense. During the
reign of Queen Anne, the author of a successful poem or an
effective pamphlet might look forward to a comfortable place.
The author had not to wear the livery, but to become the
political follower, of the great man. Gradually a separation
took place. The minister found it better to have a regular
corps of politicians and scribblers in his pay than
occasionally to recruit his ranks by enlisting men of literary
taste. And, on the other hand, authors, by slow degrees,
struggled into a more independent position as their public
increased. In the earlier part of the century, however, we
find a class of fairly cultivated people, sufficiently
numerous to form a literary audience, and yet not so numerous
as to split into entirely distinct fractions. The old
religious and political warfare has softened; the statesman
loses his place, but not his head; and though there is plenty
of bitterness, there is little violence. We have thus a
brilliant society of statesmen, authors, clergymen, and
lawyers, forming social clubs, meeting at coffee-houses,
talking scandal and politics, and intensely interested in the
new social phenomena which emerge as the old order decays;
more excitable, perhaps, than their fathers, but less
desperately in earnest, and waging a constant pamphleteering
warfare upon politics, literature, and theology, which is yet
consistent with a certain degree of friendly intercourse. The
essayist, the critic, and the novelist appear for the first
time in their modern shape; and the journalist is slowly
gaining some authority as the wielder of a political force.
The whole character of contemporary literature, in short, is
moulded by the social conditions of the class for which and by
which it was written, still more distinctly than by the ideas
current in contemporary speculation. ... Pope is the typical
representative of the poetical spirit of the day. He may or
may not be regarded as the intellectual superior of Swift or
Addison; and the most widely differing opinions may be formed
of the intrinsic merits of his poetry. The mere fact, however,
that his poetical dynasty was supreme to the end of the
century proved that, in some sense, he is a most
characteristic product. Nor is it hard to see the main sources
of his power. Pope had at least two great poetical qualities.
He was amongst the most keenly sensitive of men, and he had an
almost unique felicity of expression, which has enabled him to
coin more proverbs than any writer since Shakespeare.
Sensitive, it may be said, is a polite word for morbid, and
his felicity of phrase was more adapted to coin epigrams than
poetry. The controversy is here irrelevant. Pope, whether, as
I should say, a true poet, or, as some have said, only the
most sparkling of rhymesters, reflects the thoughts of his day
with a curious completeness. ... There is, however, another
wide province of literature in which writers of the eighteenth
century did work original in character and of permanent value.
If the seventeenth century is the great age of dramatists and
theologians, the eighteenth century was the age in which the
critic, the essayist, the satirist, the novelist, and the
moralist first appeared, or reached the highest mark.
Criticism, though still in its infancy, first became an
independent art with Addison. Addison and his various
colleagues set the first example of that kind of social essay
which is still popular. Satire had been practised in the
preceding century, and in the hands of Dryden had become a
formidable political weapon; but the social satire of which
Pope was, and remains, the chief master, began with the
century, and may be said to have expired with it, in spite of
the efforts of Byron and Gifford. De Foe, Richardson,
Fielding, and Smollett developed the modern novel out of very
crude rudiments; and two of the greatest men of the century,
Swift and Johnson, may be best described as practical
moralists in a vein peculiar to the time. ... The English
novel, as the word is now understood, begins with De Foe.
Though, like all other products of mind or body, it was
developed out of previously existing material, and is related
to the great family of stories with which men have amused
themselves in all ages, it is, perhaps, as nearly an original
creation as anything can be. The legends of saints which
amused the middle ages, or the chivalrous romances which were
popular throughout the seventeenth century, had become too
unreal to amuse living human beings. De Foe made the discovery
that a history might be equally interesting if the recorded
events had never happened."
L. Stephen,
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century,
chapter 12, sections 23-56 (volume 2).
"This so-called classic age of ours has long ceased to be
regarded with that complacency which led the most flourishing
part of it to adopt the epithet 'Augustan.' It will scarcely
be denied by its greatest admirer, if he be a man of wide
reading, that it cannot be ranked with the poorest of the five
great ages of literature. Deficient in the highest
intellectual beauty, in the qualities which awaken the fullest
critical enthusiasm, the eighteenth century will be enjoyed
more thoroughly by those who make it their special study than
by those who skim the entire surface of literature. It has,
although on the grand scale condemned as second-rate, a
remarkable fulness and sustained richness which endear it to
specialists. If it be compared, for instance, with the real
Augustan age in Rome, or with the Spanish period of literary
supremacy, it may claim to hold its own against these rivals
in spite of their superior rank, because of its more copious
interest. If it has neither a Horace nor a Calderon, it has a
great extent and variety of writers just below these in merit,
and far more numerous than what Rome or Spain can show during
those blossoming periods. It is, moreover, fertile at far more
points than either of these schools. This sustained and
variegated success, at a comparatively low level of effort,
strikes one as characteristic of an age more remarkable for
persistent vitality than for rapid and brilliant growth. The
Elizabethan vivida vis is absent, the Georgian glow has not
yet dawned, but there is a suffused prosaic light of
intelligence, of cultivated form, over the whole picture, and
during the first half of the period, at least, this is bright
enough to be very attractive. Perhaps, in closing, the
distinguishing mark of eighteenth-century literature may be
indicated as its mastery of prose as a vehicle for general
thought."
E. Gosse,
The Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature
(New Princeton Rev., July, 1888, page 21).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1703.
The Methuen Treaty with Portugal.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1703;
and SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.
{916}
England: A. D. 1703.
The Aylesbury election case.
"Ashby, a burgess of Aylesbury, sued the returning officer for
maliciously refusing his vote. Three judges of the King's
Bench decided, against the opinion of Chief Justice Holt, that
the verdict which a jury had given in favor of Ashby must be
set aside, as the action was not maintainable. The plaintiff
went to the House of Lords upon a writ of error, and there the
judgment was reversed by a large majority of Peers. The Lower
House maintained that 'the qualification of an elector is not
cognizable elsewhere than before the Commons of England'; that
Ashby was guilty of a breach of privilege; and that all
persons who should in future commence such an action, and all
attorneys and counsel conducting the same, are also guilty of
a high breach of privilege. The Lords, led by Somers, then
came to counter-resolutions. ... The prorogation of Parliament
put an end to the quarrel in that Session; but in the next it
was renewed with increased violence. The judgment against the
Returning Officer was followed up by Ashby levying his
damages. Other Aylesbury men brought new actions. The Commons
imprisoned the Aylesbury electors. The Lords took strong
measures that affected, or appeared to affect, the privileges
of the Commons. The Queen finally stopped the contest by a
prorogation; and the quarrel expired when the Parliament
expired under the Triennial Act. Lord Somers 'established the
doctrine which has been acted on ever since, that an action
lies against a Returning Officer for maliciously refusing the
vote of an elector.'"
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 5, chapter 17.
ALSO IN:
Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors: Somers,
chapter. 110 (volume 4).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1704-1707.
Marlborough's campaigns in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Campaigns in Spain.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1704;
SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704, to 1707;
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705, and 1706-1707.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1707.
The Union with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.
Hostility to the Union in Scotland.
Spread of Jacobitism.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1708-1709.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Oudenarde and Malplaquet.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709;
and SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1709.
The Barrier Treaty with Holland.
"The influence of the Whig party in the affairs of government
in England, always irksome to the Queen, had now began visibly
to decline; and the partiality she was suspected of
entertaining for her brother, with her known dislike of the
house of Hanover, inspired them with alarm, lest the Tories
might seek still further to propitiate her favour, by
altering, in his favour, the line of succession, as at present
established. They had, accordingly, made it one of the
preliminaries of the proposed treaty of peace, that the
Protestant succession, in England, should be secured by a
general guarantee, and now sought to repair, as far as
possible, the failure caused by the unsuccessful termination
of the conferences, by entering into a treaty to that effect
with the States. The Marquis Townshend, accordingly, repaired
for this purpose to the Hague, when the States consented to
enter into an engagement to maintain the present succession to
the crown, with their whole force, and to make the recognition
of that succession, and the expulsion of the Pretender from
France, an indispensable preliminary to any peace with that
kingdom. In return for this important guarantee, England was
to secure to the States a barrier, formed of the towns of
Nieuport, Furnes and the fort of Knokke, Menin, Lille, Ryssel,
Tournay, Conde, and Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Charleroi, Namur,
Lier, Halle, and some forts, besides the citadels of Ghent and
Dendermonde. It was afterwards asserted, in excuse for the
dereliction from that treaty on the part of England, that
Townshend had gone beyond his instructions; but it is quite
certain that it was ratified without hesitation by the queen,
whatever may have been her secret feelings regarding it."
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 3, chapter 11 (volume 3 ).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.
Opposition to the war.
Trial of Sacheverell.
Fall of the Whigs and Marlborough.
"A 'deluge of blood' such as that of Malplaquet increased the
growing weariness of the war, and the rejection of the French
offers was unjustly attributed to a desire on the part of
Marlborough of lengthening out a contest which brought him
profit and power. The expulsion of Harley and St. John
[Bolingbroke] from the Ministry had given the Tories leaders
of a more vigorous stamp, and St. John brought into play a new
engine of political attack whose powers soon made themselves
felt. In the Examiner, and in a crowd of pamphlets and
periodicals which followed in its train, the humor of Prior,
the bitter irony of Swift, and St. John's own brilliant
sophistry spent themselves on the abuse of the war and of its
general. ... A sudden storm of popular passion showed the way
in which public opinion responded to these efforts. A
High-Church divine, Dr. Sacheverell, maintained the doctrine
of non-resistance [the doctrine, that is, of passive obedience
and non-resistance to government, implying a condemnation of
the Revolution of 1688 and of the Revolution settlement], in a
sermon at St. Paul's, with a boldness which deserved
prosecution; but in spite of the warning of Marlborough and of
Somers the Whig Ministers resolved on his impeachment. His
trial in 1710 at once widened into a great party struggle, and
the popular enthusiasm in Sacheverell's favor showed the
gathering hatred of the Whigs and the war. ... A small
majority of the peers found him guilty, but the light sentence
they inflicted was in effect an acquittal, and bonfires and
illuminations over the whole country welcomed it as a Tory
triumph. The turn of popular feeling freed Anne at once from
the pressure beneath which she had bent; and the skill of
Harley, whose cousin, Mrs. Masham, had succeeded the Duchess
of Marlborough in the Queen's favor, was employed in bringing
about the fall both of Marlborough and the Whig Ministers. ...
The return of a Tory House of Commons sealed his
[Marlborough's] fate. His wife was dismissed from court. A
masterly plan for a march into the heart of France in the
opening of 1711 was foiled by the withdrawal of a part of his
forces, and the negotiations which had for some time been
conducted between the French and English Ministers without his
knowledge marched rapidly to a close. ... At the opening of
1712 the Whig majority of the House of Lords was swamped by
the creation of twelve Tory peers. Marlborough was dismissed
from his command, charged with peculation, and condemned as
guilty by a vote of the House of Commons. He at once withdrew
from England, and with his withdrawal all opposition to the
peace was at an end."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
section 9, chapter 9.
{917}
Added to other reasons for opposition to the war, the death of
the Emperor Joseph I., which occurred in April, 1711, had
entirely reversed the situation in Europe out of which the war
proceeded. The Archduke Charles, whom the allies had been
striving to place on the Spanish throne, was now certain to be
elected Emperor. He received the imperial crown, in fact, in
December, 1711. By this change of fortune, therefore, he
became a more objectionable claimant of the Spanish crown than
Louis XIV. 's grandson had been.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.
Earl Stanhope,
History of England, Reign of Anne,
chapters 12-15.
"Round the fall of Marlborough has gathered the interest
attaching to the earliest political crisis at all resembling
those of quite recent times. It is at this moment that Party
Government in the modern sense actually commenced. William the
Third with military instinct had always been reluctant to
govern by means of a party. Bound as he was, closely, to the
Whigs, he employed Tory Ministers. ... The new idea of a
homogeneous government was working itself into shape under the
mild direction of Lord Somers; but the form finally taken
under Sir Robert Walpole, which has continued to the present
time, was as yet some way off. Marlborough's notions were
those of the late King. Both abroad and at home he carried out
the policy of William. He refused to rely wholly upon the
Whigs, and the extreme Tories were not given employment. The
Ministry of Godolphin was a composite administration,
containing at one time, in 1705, Tories like Harley and St.
John as well as Whigs such as Sunderland and Halifax. ... Lord
Somers was a type of statesman of a novel order at that time.
... In the beginning of the eighteenth century it was rare to
find a man attaining the highest political rank who was
unconnected by birth or training or marriage with any of the
great 'governing families,' as they have been called. Lord
Somers was the son of a Worcester attorney. ... It was
fortunate for England that Lord Somers should have been the
foremost man of the Whig party at the time when constitutional
government, as we now call it, was in course of construction.
By his prudent counsel the Whigs were guided through the
difficult years at the end of Queen Anne's reign; and from the
ordeal of seeing their rivals in power they certainly managed,
as a party, to emerge on the whole with credit. Although he
was not nominally their leader, the paramount influence in the
Tory party was Bolingbroke's; and that the Tories suffered from
the defects of his great qualities, no unprejudiced critic can
doubt. Between the two parties, and at the head of the
Treasury through the earlier years of the reign, stood
Godolphin, without whose masterly knowledge of finance and
careful attention to the details of administration
Marlborough's policy would have been baffled and his campaigns
remained unfought. To Godolphin, more than to any other one
man, is due the preponderance of the Treasury control in
public affairs. It was his administration, during the absence
of Marlborough on the Continent, which created for the office
of Lord Treasurer its paramount importance, and paved the way
for Sir Robert Walpole's government of England under the title
of First Lord of the Treasury. ... Marlborough saw and always
admitted that his victories were due in large measure to the
financial skill of Godolphin. To this statesman's lasting
credit it must be remembered that in a venal age, when the
standards of public honesty were so different from those which
now prevail, Godolphin died a poor man. ... Bolingbroke is
interesting to us as the most striking figure among the
originators of the new parliamentary system. With Marlborough
disappeared the type of Tudor statesmen modified by contact
with the Stuarts. He was the last of the Imperial Chancellors.
Bolingbroke and his successor Walpole were the earlier types
of constitutional statesmen among whom Mr. Pitt and, later,
Mr. Gladstone stand pre-eminent. ... He and his friends,
opponents of Marlborough, and contributors to his fall, are
interesting to us mainly as furnishing the first examples of
'Her Majesty's Opposition,' as the authors of party government
and the prototypes of cabinet ministers of to-day. Their ways
of thought, their style of speech and of writing, may be
dissimilar to those now in vogue, but they show greater
resemblance to those of modern politicians than to those of
the Ministers of William or of the Stuarts. Bolingbroke may
have appeared a strange product of the eighteenth century to
his contemporaries, but he would not have appeared peculiarly
misplaced among the colleagues of Lord Randolph Churchill or
Mr. Chamberlain."
R. B. Brett,
Footprints of Statesmen,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Marlborough,
chapters 89-107.
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Walpole,
volume 1, chapters 5-6.
G. Saintsbury,
Marlborough.
G. W. Cooke,
Memoirs of Bolingbroke,
volume 1, chapters 6-13.
J. C. Collins,
Bolingbroke.
A. Hassall,
Life of Bolingbroke,
chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714.
The Occasional Conformity Bill and the Schism Act.
"The Test Act, making the reception of the Anglican Sacrament
a necessary qualification for becoming a member of
corporations, and for the enjoyment of most civil offices, was
very efficacious in excluding Catholics, but was altogether
insufficient to exclude moderate Dissenters. ... Such men,
while habitually attending their own places of worship, had no
scruple about occasionally entering an Anglican church, or
receiving the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman. The
Independents, it is true, and some of the Baptists, censured
this practice, and Defoe wrote vehemently against it, but it
was very general, and was supported by a long list of imposing
authorities. ... In 1702, in 1703, and in 1704, measures for
suppressing occasional conformity were carried through the
Commons, but on each occasion they were defeated by the Whig
preponderance in the Lords." In 1711, the Whigs formed a
coalition with one section of the Tories to defeat the
negotiations which led to the Peace of Utrecht; but the Tories
"made it the condition of alliance that the Occasional
Conformity Bill should be accepted by the Whigs.
{918}
The bargain was made; the Dissenters were abandoned, and, on
the motion of Nottingham, a measure was carried providing that
all persons in places of profit or trust, and all common
councilmen in corporations, who, while holding office, were
proved to have attended any Nonconformist place of worship,
should forfeit the place, and should continue incapable of
public employment till they should depose that for a whole
year they had not attended a conventicle. The House of Commons
added a fine of £40, which was to be paid to the informer, and
with this addition the Bill became a law. Its effects during
the few years it continued in force were very inconsiderable,
for the great majority of conspicuous Dissenters remained in
office, abstaining from public worship in conventicles, but
having Dissenting ministers as private chaplains in their
houses. ... The object of the Occasional Conformity Bill was
to exclude the Dissenters from all Government positions of
power, dignity or profit. It was followed in 1714 by the
Schism Act, which was intended to crush their seminaries and
deprive them of the means of educating their children in their
faith. ... As carried through the House of Commons, it
provided that no one, under pain of three months'
imprisonment, should keep either a public or a private school,
or should even act as tutor or usher, unless he had obtained a
licence from the Bishop, had engaged to conform to the
Anglican liturgy, and had received the sacrament in some
Anglican church within the year. In order to prevent
occasional conformity it was further provided that if a
teacher so qualified were present at any other form of worship
he should at once become liable to three months' imprisonment,
and should be incapacitated for the rest of his life from
acting as schoolmaster or tutor. ... Some important clauses,
however, were introduced by the Whig party qualifying its
severity. They provided that Dissenters might have
school-mistresses to teach their children to read; that the
Act should not extend to any person instructing youth in
reading, writing, or arithmetic, in any part of mathematics
relating to navigation, or in any mechanical art only. ... The
facility with which this atrocious Act was carried, abundantly
shows the danger in which religious liberty was placed in the
latter years of the reign of Queen Anne."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 1.
The Schism Act was repealed in 1719, during the administration
of Lord Stanhope.
Cobbett's Parliamentary History,
volume 7, pages 567-587.
ALSO IN:
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 5, chapters 14-16.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1713.
Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession.
The Peace of Utrecht.
Acquisitions from Spain and France.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714;
CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713;
also, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713;
and SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1713.
Second Barrier Treaty with the Dutch.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1713-1715.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1713-1714.
The desertion of the Catalans.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.
The end of the Stuart line and the beginning of the
Hanoverians.
Queen Anne died, after a short illness, on the morning of
August 1, 1714. The Tories, who had just gained control of the
ministry, were wholly unprepared for this emergency. They
assembled in Privy Council, on the 29th of July, when the
probably fatal issue of the Queen's illness became apparent,
and "a strange scene is said to have occurred. Argyle and
Somerset, though they had contributed largely by their
defection to the downfall of the Whig ministry of Godolphin,
were now again in opposition to the Tories, and had recently
been dismissed from their posts. Availing themselves of their
rank of Privy Councillors, they appeared unsummoned in the
council room, pleading the greatness of the emergency.
Shrewsbury, who had probably concocted the scene, rose and
warmly thanked them for their offer of assistance; and these
three men appear to have guided the course of events. ...
Shrewsbury, who was already Chamberlain and Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, became Lord Treasurer, and assumed the authority of
Prime Minister. Summons were at once sent to all Privy
Councillors, irrespective of party, to attend; and Somers and
several other of the Whig leaders were speedily at their post.
They had the great advantage of knowing clearly the policy
they should pursue, and their measures were taken with
admirable promptitude and energy. The guards of the Tower were
at once doubled. Four regiments were ordered to march from the
country to London, and all seamen to repair to their vessels.
An embargo was laid on all shipping. The fleet was equipped,
and speedy measures were taken to protect the seaports and to
secure tranquility in Scotland and Ireland. At the same time
despatches were sent to the Netherlands ordering seven of the
ten British battalions to embark without delay; to Lord
Strafford, the ambassador at the Hague, desiring the
States-General to fulfil their guarantee of the Protestant
succession in England; to the Elector, urging him to hasten to
Holland, where, on the death of the Queen, he would be met by
a British squadron, and escorted to his new kingdom." When the
Queen's death occurred, "the new King was at once proclaimed,
and it is a striking proof of the danger of the crisis that
the funds, which had fallen on a false rumour of the Queen's
recovery, rose at once when she died. Atterbury is said to
have urged Bolingbroke to proclaim James III. at Charing
Cross, and to have offered to head the procession in his lawn
sleeves, but the counsel was mere madness, and Bolingbroke saw
clearly that any attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement
would be now worse than useless. ... The more violent spirits
among the Jacobites now looked eagerly for a French invasion,
but the calmer members of the party perceived that such an
invasion was impossible. ... The Regency Act of 1705 came at
once into operation. The Hanoverian minister produced the
sealed list of the names of those to whom the Elector
entrusted the government before his arrival, and it was found
to consist of eighteen names taken from the leaders of the
Whig party. ... Parliament, in accordance with the provisions
of the Bill, was at once summoned, and it was soon evident
that there was nothing to fear. The moment for a restoration
was passed."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 1 (volume 1).
{919}
"George I., whom circumstances and the Act of Settlement had
thus called to be King of Great Britain and Ireland, had been
a sovereign prince for sixteen years, during which time he had
been Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second who ever
bore that title. By right of his father he was Elector; it was
by right of his mother that he now became ruler of the United
Kingdom. The father was Ernest Augustus, Sovereign Bishop of
Osnaburg, who, by the death of his elder brothers, had become
Duke of Hanover, and then Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. In
1692 he was raised by the Emperor to the dignity of Elector.
... The mother of George I. was Sophia, usually known as the
Electress Sophia. The title was merely one of honour, and only
meant wife of an Elector. ... The Electress Sophia was the
daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of King James I., and
Frederick, the Elector Palatine [whose election to the throne
of Bohemia and subsequent expulsion from that kingdom and from
his Palatine dominions were the first acts in the Thirty
Years' War]. ... The new royal house in England is sometimes
called the House of Hanover, sometimes the House of Brunswick.
It will be found that the latter name is more generally used
in histories written during the last century, the former in
books written in the present day. If the names were equally
applicable, the modern use is the more convenient, because
there is another, and in some respects well known, branch of
the House of Brunswick; but no other has a right to the name
of Hanover. It is, however, quite certain that, whatever the
English use may be, Hanover is properly the name of a town and
of a duchy, but that the electorate was Brunswick-Lüneburg.
... The House of Brunswick was of noble origin, tracing itself
back to a certain Guelph d'Este, nicknamed 'the Robust,' son
of an Italian nobleman, who had been seeking his fortunes in
Germany. Guelph married Judith, widow of the English King,
Harold, who fell on the hill of Senlac. ... One of Guelph's
descendants, later, married Maud, the daughter of King Henry
II., probably the most powerful king in Europe of his day, at
whose persuasion the Emperor conferred on the Guelphs the
duchy of Brunswick."
E. E. Morris,
The Early Hanoverians,
book 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
P. M. Thornton,
The Brunswick Accession,
chapters 1-10.
Sir A. Halliday,
Annals of the House of Hanover,
book 10 (volume 2).
J. McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
chapters 1-4.
W. M. Thackeray,
The Four Georges,
lecture 1.
A. W. Ward,
The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (English
History Review, volume 1).
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1701,
THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1714-1721.
First years of George I.
The rise of Walpole to power and the founding of Parliamentary
Government.
"The accession of the house of Hanover in the person of the
great-grandson of James I. was once called by a Whig of this
generation the greatest miracle in our history. It took place
without domestic or foreign disturbance. ... Within our own
borders a short lull followed the sharp agitations of the last
six months. The new king appointed an exclusively Whig
Ministry. The office of Lord Treasurer was not revived, and
the title disappears from political history. Lord Townshend
was made principal Secretary of State, and assumed the part of
first Minister. Mr. Walpole [Sir Robert] took the subaltern
office of paymaster of the forces, holding along with it the
paymastership of Chelsea Hospital. Although he had at first no
seat in the inner Council or Cabinet, which seems to have
consisted of eight members, only one of them a commoner, it is
evident that from the outset his influence was hardly second
to that of Townshend himself. In little more than a year
(October 1715) he had made himself so prominent and valuable
in the House of Commons, that the opportunity of a vacancy was
taken to appoint him to be First Commissioner of the Treasury
and Chancellor of the Exchequer. ... Besides excluding their
opponents from power, the Whigs instantly took more positive
measures. The new Parliament was strongly Whig. A secret
committee was at once appointed to inquire into the
negotiations for the Peace. Walpole was chairman, took the
lead in its proceedings, and drew the report." On Walpole's
report, the House "directed the impeachment of Oxford,
Bolingbroke, and Ormond for high treason, and other high
crimes and misdemeanours mainly relating to the Peace of
Utrecht. ... The proceedings against Oxford and Bolingbroke
are the last instance in our history of a political
impeachment. They are the last ministers who were ever made
personally responsible for giving bad advice and pursuing a
discredited policy, and since then a political mistake has
ceased to be a crime. ... The affair came to an abortive end.
... The opening years of the new reign mark one of the least
attractive periods in political history. George I. ... cared
very little for his new kingdom, and knew very little about
its people or its institutions. ... His expeditions to Hanover
threw the management of all domestic affairs almost without
control into the hands of his English ministers. If the two
first Hanoverian kings had been Englishmen instead of Germans,
if they had been men of talent and ambition, or even men of
strong and commanding will without much talent, Walpole would
never have been able to lay the foundations of government by
the House of Commons and by Cabinet so firmly that even the
obdurate will of George III. was unable to overthrow it
See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
Happily for the system now established, circumstances
compelled the first two sovereigns of the Hanoverian line to
strike a bargain with the English Whigs, and it was faithfully
kept until the accession of the third George. The king was to
manage the affairs of Hanover, and the Whigs were to govern
England. It was an excellent bargain for England. Smooth as
this operation may seem in historic description, Walpole found
its early stages rough and thorny." The king was not easily
brought to understand that England would not make war for
Hanoverian objects, nor allow her foreign policy to be shaped
by the ambitions of the Electorate. Differences arose which
drove Townshend from the Cabinet, and divided the Whig party.
Walpole retired from the government with Townshend, and was in
opposition for three years, while Lord Stanhope and the Earl of
Sunderland controlled the administration. The Whig schism came
to an end in 1720, and Townshend and Walpole rejoined the
administration, the latter as Paymaster of the Forces without
a seat in the Cabinet. "His opposition was at an end, but he
took no part in the active work of government. ... Before many
months had passed the country was overtaken by the memorable
disasters of the South Sea Bubble.
See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
{920}
All eyes were turned to Walpole. Though he had privately
dabbled in South Sea stock on his own account, his public
predictions came back to men's minds; they remembered that he
had been called the best man for figures in the House, and the
disgrace of' his most important colleagues only made his
sagacity the more prominent. ... He returned to his old posts,
and once more became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor
of the Exchequer (April 1721), while Townshend was again
Secretary of State. Walpole held his offices practically
without a break for twenty-one years. The younger Pitt had an
almost equal span of unbroken supremacy, but with that
exception there is no parallel to Walpole's long tenure of
power. To estimate aright the vast significance of this
extraordinary stability, we must remember that the country had
just passed through eighty years of revolution. A man of 80 in
1721 could recall the execution of Charles I., the protectorate
of Oliver, the fall of Richard Cromwell, the restoration of
Charles II., the exile of James II., the change of the order
of succession to William of Orange, the reactionary ministry
of Anne, and finally the second change to the House of
Hanover. The interposition, after so long a series of violent
perturbations as this, of twenty years of settled system and
continuous order under one man, makes Walpole's government of
capital and decisive importance in our history, and
constitutes not an artificial division like the reign of a
king, but a true and definite period, with a beginning, an
end, a significance, and a unity of its own."
J. Morley,
Walpole,
chapters 3-4.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,
chapters 9-21 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1715.
The Jacobite rising.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1716.
The Septennial Act.
The easy suppression of the Jacobite rebellion was far from
putting an end to the fears of the loyal supporters of the
Hanoverian dynasty. They regarded with especial anxiety the
approaching Parliamentary elections. "As, by the existing
statute of 6 William and Mary [the Triennial Act, of 1694],
Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a
new election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great
probability of a renewal of the contest, or at least of very
serious riots during the election time. With this in view, the
ministers proposed that the existing Parliament should be
continued for a term of seven instead of three years. This,
which was meant for a temporary measure, has never been
repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are
held. It has been often objected to this action of Parliament,
that it was acting arbitrarily in thus increasing its own
duration. 'It was a direct usurpation,' it has been said, 'of
the rights of the people, analogous to the act of the Long
Parliament in declaring itself indestructible.' It has been
regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in
liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the
peculiar conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the
constituencies for the support of the popular liberty. The
return of members in the smaller boroughs was in the hands of
corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the counties, of great
landowners; in the larger towns, of small place-holders under
Government. A general election in fact only gave fresh
occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of
the House of Lords--freedom and independence in the presence
of these two permanent powers could be secured only by the
greater permanence of the third element of the Legislature,
the House of Commons. It was thus that, though no doubt in
some degree a party measure for securing a more lengthened
tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received,
upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation
of the best statesmen of the time."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 3, page 938.
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
volume 1, chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1717-1719.
The Triple Alliance.
The Quadruple Alliance.
War with Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725;
also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1720.
The South Sea Bubble.
See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1721-1742.
Development of the Cabinet System of ministerial government.
See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1725.
The Alliance of Hanover.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1726-1731.
Fresh differences with Spain.
Gibraltar besieged.
The Treaty of Seville.
The Second Treaty of Vienna.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1727.
Accession of King George II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1727-1741.
Walpole's administration under George II.
"The management of public affairs during the six years of
George the First's reign in which Walpole was Prime Minister,
was easy. ... His political fortunes seemed to be ruined by
George the First's death [1727]. That King's successor had
ransacked a very copious vocabulary of abuse, in order to
stigmatise the minister and his associates. Rogue and rascal,
scoundrel and fool, were his commonest utterances when Robert
Walpole's name was mentioned. ... Walpole bowed meekly to the
coming storm," and an attempt was made to put Sir Spencer
Compton in his place. But Compton himself, as well as the king
and his sagacious queen, soon saw the futility of it, and the
old ministry was retained. "At first, Walpole was associated
with his brother-in-law, Townsend. But they soon disagreed,
and the rupture was total after the death of Walpole's sister,
Townsend's wife. ... After Townsend's dismissal, Walpole
reigned alone, if, indeed, he could be said to exercise sole
functions while Newcastle was tied to him. Long before he was
betrayed by this person, of whom he justly said that his name
was perfidy, he knew how dangerous was the association. But
Newcastle was the largest proprietor of rotten boroughs in the
kingdom, and, fool and knave as he was, he had wit enough to
guess at his own importance, and knavery enough to make his
market. Walpole's chief business lay in managing the King, the
Queen, the Church, the House of Commons, and perhaps the
people. I have already said, that before his accession George
hated Walpole. But there are hatreds and hatreds, equal in
fervency while they last, but different in duration. The King
hated Walpole because he had served his father well. But one
George was gone, and another George was in possession. Then
came before the man in possession the clear vision of
Walpole's consummate usefulness. The vision was made clearer
by the sagacious hints of the Queen. It became clear as
noonday when Walpole contrived to add £115,000 to the civil
list. ... Besides, Walpole was sincerely determined to support
the Hanoverian succession. He constantly insisted to George
that the final settlement of his House on the throne would be
fought out in England. ... Hence he was able to check one of
the King's ruling passions, a longing to engage in war. ...
{921}
It is generally understood that Walpole managed the House of
Commons by bribery; that the secret service money was thus
employed: and that this minister was the father of that
corruption which was reported to have disgraced the House
during the first half of the last century. I suspect that
these influences have been exaggerated. It is a stock story
that Walpole said he knew every man's price. It might have
been generally true, but the foundation of this apothegm is,
in all likelihood, a recorded saying of his about certain
members of the opposition. ... Walpole has been designated,
and with justice, as emphatically a peace minister. He held
'that the most pernicious circumstances in which this country
can be, are those of war, as we must be great losers while the
war lasts, and cannot be great gainers when it ends.' He kept
George the Second at peace, as well as he could, by insisting
on it that the safety of his dynasty lay in avoiding foreign
embroilments. He strove in vain against the war which broke
out in 1739. ... I do not intend to disparage Walpole's
administrative ability when I say that the country prospered
independently of any financial policy which he adopted or
carried out. ... Walpole let matters take their course, for he
understood that the highest merit of a minister consists in
his doing no mischief. But Walpole's praise lies in the fact,
that, with this evident growth of material prosperity, he
steadily set his face against gambling with it. He resolved,
as far as lay in his power, to keep the peace of Europe; and
he was seconded in his efforts by Cardinal Fleury. He
contrived to smooth away the difficulties which arose in 1727;
and on January 13, 1730, negotiated the treaty of Seville [see
SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731], the benefits of which lasted through
ten years of peace, and under which he reduced the army to
5,000 men." But the opposition to Walpole's peace policy
became a growing passion, which overcame him in 1741 and
forced him to resign. On his resignation he was raised to the
peerage, with the title of Earl of Orford, and defeated,
though with great difficulty, the determination of his enemies
to impeach him.
J. E. T. Rogers,
Historical Gleanings,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"It is impossible, I think, to consider his [Walpole's] career
with adequate attention without recognising in him a great
minister, although the merits of his administration were often
rather negative than positive, and although it exhibits few of
those dramatic incidents, and is but little susceptible of
that rhetorical colouring, on which the reputation of
statesmen largely depends. ... He was eminently true to the
character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity
the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their
needs, and he had a sufficient ascendancy in English politics
to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its
institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained,
though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of
religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its
tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The
landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were
reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which
divided the English nation were filled up. Parliamentary
government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of
normal and pacific action, and the habits of compromise, of
moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most
essential to its success, were greatly strengthened. These
were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very
manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own
character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of
his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring
sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign
with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power,
exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or
retaining it, and entirely destitute of that delicacy of
honour which marks a high-minded man. ... His estimate of
political integrity was very similar to his estimate of female
virtue. He governed by means of an assembly which was
saturated with corruption, and he fully acquiesced in its
conditions and resisted every attempt to improve it. ... It is
necessary to speak with much caution on this matter,
remembering that no statesman can emancipate himself from the
conditions of his time. ... The systematic corruption of
Members of Parliament is said to have begun under Charles II.,
in whose reign it was practised to the largest extent. It was
continued under his successor, and the number of scandals
rather increased than diminished after the Revolution. ... And
if corruption did not begin with Walpole, it is equally
certain that it did not end with him. His expenditure of
secret service money, large as it was, never equalled in an
equal space of time the expenditure of Bute. ... The real
charge against him is that in a period of profound peace, when
he exercised an almost unexampled ascendancy in politics, and
when public opinion was strongly in favour of the diminution
of corrupt influence in Parliament, he steadily and
successfully resisted every attempt at reform. ... It was his
settled policy to maintain his Parliamentary majority, not by
attracting to his ministry great orators, great writers, great
financiers, or great statesmen, ... but simply by engrossing
borough influence and extending the patronage of the Crown."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter. 3 (volume 1).
"But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender
back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we should
have had wars, which the nation was not strong enough nor
united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels and
good-humoured resistance, we might have had German despots
attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have had
revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a
quarter of a century of peace, freedom and material
prosperity, such as the country never enjoyed, until that
corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute tipsy cynic, that
courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen,
patriot and statesman governed it. ... In private life the old
pagan revelled in the lowest pleasures: he passed his Sundays
tippling at Richmond; and his holidays bawling after dogs, or
boozing at Houghton with Boors over beef and punch. He cared
for letters no more than his master did: he judged human
nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he
was right, and that men could be corrupted by means so base.
But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty
for us; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. ... He
gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and
ease, and freedom; the Three per Cents. nearly at par; and
wheat at five and six and twenty shillings a quarter."
W. M. Thackeray,
The Four Georges,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole,
chapters 31-59 (volume 1).
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 15-23 (volumes 2-3).
Lord Hervey,
Memoirs of the Reign of George II.
{922}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1731-1740.
The question of the Austrian Succession.
Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1732.
The grant of Georgia to General Oglethorpe.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1733.
The first Bourbon Family Compact.
Its hostility to Great Britain.
See FRANCE, A. D. 1733.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1733-1787
The great inventions which built up the
Cotton Manufacture.
See COTTON MANUFACTURE.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.
The War of Jenkins' Ear.
"In spite of Walpole's love of peace, and determined efforts
to preserve it, in the year 1739 a war broke out with Spain,
which is an illustration of the saying that the occasion of a
war may be trifling, though its real cause be very serious.
The war is often called the War of Jenkins' Ear. The story ran
that eight years before (1731) a certain Captain Jenkins,
skipper of the ship 'Rebecca,' of London, had been maltreated
by the Spaniards. His ship was sailing from Jamaica, and
hanging about the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, when it was
boarded by the Spanish coast guard. The Spaniards could find
no proof that Jenkins was smuggling, though they searched
narrowly, and being angry at their ill-success they hanged him
to the yardarm, lowering him just in time to save his life. At
length they pulled off his ear and told him to take it to his
king. ... Seven years later Captain Jenkins was examined by
the House of Commons, on which occasion some member asked him
how he felt when being maltreated, and Jenkins answered, 'I
recommended my soul to God and my cause to my country.' The
answer, whether made at the time or prepared for use in the
House of Commons, touched a chord of sympathy, and soon was
circulated through the country. 'No need of allies now,' said
one politician; 'the story of Jenkins will raise us
volunteers.' The truth of the matter is that this story from
its somewhat ridiculous aspect has remained in the minds of
men, but that it is only a specimen of many stories then
afloat, all pointing to insolence of Spaniards in insisting
upon what was after all strictly within their rights. But the
legal treaty rights of Spain were growing intolerable to
Englishmen, though not necessarily to the English Government;
and traders and sailors were breaking the international laws
which practically stopped the expansion of England in the New