Hanoverian Britain

The Whig Supremacy, 1714-1760

Hanoverian Succession

• Not contested by Bolingbroke and Jacobites, and Jacobites were discredited by the ’15

• George I left his wife in Hanover and arrived with the elephant and the maypole, Mistresses Kielmansegee and Schulenburg

• A term of George’s ascension-No English war in favor of Hanover

• Whigs secure supremacy through 1716 Septennial Act (average life of P. was 6.5 years from 1716-1776)

George I (1660-1727)

Early Supremacy

• “The least government the better”

• Faction—not Party—matters

• Factions feud over Great Northern War and South Sea Bubble Crisis

• Robert Walpole and Charles Townshend lead opposition to James Stanhope and the Earl of Sunderland

Emergence of Walpole

• South Sea Bubble Crisis eliminated Stanhope/Sunderland and Walpole protected King from Parliamentary inquiry (“Robin Screen”)

• Walpole was master politician: Peace and Prosperity were his poles

• Managed both Crown and Commons• Used patronage power• Created “sinking fund” to pay off South Sea

bubble debt—people considered him a brilliant Financier

Walpole’s Team (Dramatis Personae)

• Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle (provided the $)

• Henry Pelham, ran the Treasury and Exchequer

• John Cartaret, Earl Granville, initially supporter then rival of Walpole

• Prince George (later George II), opposed his father—Reversionary Interest.

Newcastle and Pelham—Political Operatives of the Whig Supremacy

Excise Scheme (1733)

• Bolingbroke returned from exile—good Tories couldn’t support him because he was a deist, a rake, and scarred with Jacobitism

• Railed against excise scheme of Walpole in The Craftsman (gov’t. would tax everything and would enter private homes)

• For one of few times, Walpole failed to get bill passed; it was defeated in Lords

• Showed to opponents of Walpole that he could be bested

Walpole’s system

• Other than excise scheme, Walpole succeeded from 1721 to 1739.

• He kept government small and taxes low: salutary neglect toward colonies

• Walpole served G. II (got king’s income doubled) and enjoyed support of Queen Caroline of Ansbach, who was the brains of the family

• Success and political domination was his undoing

George II (1727-1760) and Queen Caroline

War of Jenkins’ Ear

• Robert Jenkins’ incident inspired anti-Spanish sentiment

• Walpole’s political opponents and the merchants thought that war with Spain would be profitable—rejected Spanish peace treaty that adjudicated England’s claim.

• War was successful (Porto Bello 1739) but costly [siege of Cartagena and of Cuba (1740) failed]

• Politicians then blamed Walpole for failures while demanding a bigger war.

War of the Austrian Succession• Spanish War merged with attempts by rival states

to seize territories belonging to Habsburg Queen Maria Theresa.

• Hanover was threatened by Prussia and France• Walpole quit (1742) and took a peerage (Oxford

and Mortimer)• John, Lord Cartaret, assumed control of commons

and got money for war through bribes, despite the fact that this was contrary to law.

• Cost of land war led Newcastle and Henry Pelham to oppose Cartaret in Commons.

War of the Austrian Succession

• Enigmatic but brilliant, William Pitt, built following in commons denouncing war.

• Jacobites rise in favor of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” in the ’45; defeated by William, Duke of Cumberland (Son of G. II) at Culloden Moor in 1746

• Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle (1748) ended war (Status quo antebellum)

“the Bonnie Prince” and the “Butcher”

Diplomatic Revolution

• In interest of protecting Hanover, England by 1756 allies with Prussia

• Austria (Habsburgs) and France ally (this is how Marie Antoinette wound up a French Queen)

• Balance of Power concept• Parties in War of Austrian Succession thus

change sides

So what?

• Diplomatic shifts follow problems in Parliament; Henry Pelham died and Duke of Newcastle needs someone to run Parliament for him

• Forces G. II to have to make Pitt his chief minister, as all others were not capable.

• Need for capable leadership was heightened when war erupted in Virginia in 1754, in India, and on the Continent by 1756

William Pitt, “The Great Commoner”

7 Years War• Really a general European War and in the empire

pitting France against Great Britain• Early on, war was a disaster for England• Pitt kept war going by reforming English military

—especially the navy—and using tax dollars to keep Frederick the Great of Prussia fighting on the continent (thereby protecting Hanover)

• 1757—Robert, Lord Clive, secures English interests in India

• 1759—annus mirabilis—Quiberon Bay and Quebec

Benjamin West’s “Death of Wolfe”

Treaty of Paris, 1763

• Ended war with England gaining a vast empire

• Politics of getting a new King (G. III) and how to manage parliament illustrate that the age of the Walpolean Whig supremacy were over

• These politics will do w/ George III

So does the Whig Supremacy Matter?

• Dominance of Patronage system• Parliamentary supremacy but not Parliamentary

independence; contrary to Lockean system of Crown, Lords, and Commons

• Background of G III’s constitutional issues• Walpole, Newcastle, and then Pitt, are magisterial

politicians whose aptitudes and foibles inspire imitation

• Not Prime Ministers—considered a term of derision—but laid foundation for party/PM governance