St. John, Henry, Viscount BolingbrokeHenry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, oil on canvas by an unknown French artist, c. 1712–14; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
But the Tories had their own Achilles’ heel. They were deeply divided over who should succeed Anne, which became public during the queen’s serious illness in 1713. Though there were far more Hanoverian Tories than Jacobite Tories (supporters of James II and his son, James Edward, the Old Pretender), the prospect of the succession of a German Lutheran prince with Continental possessions to defend did not warm the hearts of isolationist Anglican country gentlemen. Both Oxford and Bolingbroke were in correspondence with James Edward, but Oxford made it plain that he would only support a Protestant succession. Bolingbroke’s position was more complicated. A brilliant politician, he realized that the Tories would have little to hope for from the Hanoverians and that they could only survive by creating huge majorities in Parliament and an unshakable alliance with the church. Conflict between Tory leaders and divisions within the rank and file combined to defeat Bolingbroke’s plans. After Anne died in August 1714, George I acceded to the British throne, and Bolingbroke, having tainted the Tory party with Jacobitism for the next half century, fled to France.
James Edward, the Old Pretender, detail of a painting attributed to L.G. Blanchet; in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, EdinburghCourtesy of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
Mark A. Kishlansky
John S. Morrill
18th-century Britain, 1714–1815
The state of Britain in 1714
When Georg Ludwig, elector of Hanover, became king of Great Britain on August 1, 1714, the country was in some respects bitterly divided. Fundamentally, however, it was prosperous, cohesive, and already a leading European and imperial power. Abroad, Britain’s involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713). It had acquired new colonies in Gibraltar, Minorca, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson’s Bay, as well as trading concessions in the Spanish New World. By contrast, Britain’s rivals, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic, were left weakened or war-weary by the conflict. It took France a decade to recover, and Spain and Holland were unable to reverse their military and economic decline. As a result Britain was able to remain aloof from war on the Continent for a quarter of a century after the Hanoverian succession, and this protracted peace was to be crucial to the new dynasty’s survival and success.
War had also strengthened the British state at home. The need to raise men and money had increased the size and scope of the executive as well as the power and prestige of the House of Commons. Taxation had accounted for 70 percent of Britain’s wartime expenditure (£93,644,560 between 1702 and 1713), so the Commons’ control over taxation became a powerful guarantee of its continuing importance.
Britain’s ability to pay for war on this scale demonstrated the extent of its wealth. Agriculture was still the bedrock of the economy, but trade was increasing, and more men and women were employed in industry in Britain than in any other European nation. Wealth, however, was unequally distributed, with almost a third of the national income belonging to only 5 percent of the population. But British society was not polarized simply between the rich and the poor; according to writer Daniel Defoe there were seven different and more subtle categories:
1. The great, who live profusely.
2. The rich, who live plentifully.
3. The middle sort, who live well.
4. The working trades, who labour hard, but feel no want.
5. The country people, farmers etc., who fare indifferently.
6. The poor, who fare hard.
7. The miserable, that really pinch and suffer want.
From 1700 to the 1740s Britain’s population remained stable at about seven million, and agricultural production increased. So, although men and women from Defoe’s 6th and 7th categories could still die of hunger and hunger-related diseases, in most regions of Britain there was usually enough basic food to go around. This was crucial to social stability and to popular acquiescence in the new Hanoverian regime.
But early 18th-century Britain also had its weaknesses. Its Celtic fringe—Wales, Ireland, and Scotland—had been barely assimilated. The vast majority of Welsh men and women could neither speak nor understand the English language. Most Irish men and women spoke Gaelic and belonged to the Roman Catholic church, in contrast with the population of the British mainland, which was staunchly Protestant. Scotland, which had only been united to England and Wales in 1707, still retained its traditional educational, religious, legal, and cultural practices. These internal divisions were made more dangerous by the existence of rival claimants to the British throne. James II, who had been expelled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, died 13 years later, but his son, James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, pressed his family’s claims from his exile in France. His Catholicism and Scottish ancestry ensured him wide support in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands; his cause also commanded sympathy among sections of the Welsh and English gentry and, arguably, among the masses.
Controversy over the succession sharpened partisan infighting between the Whig and Tory parties. About 50 Tory MPs (less than a seventh of the total number) may have been covert Jacobites in 1714. More generally, Tories differed from Whigs over religious issues and foreign policy. They were more anxious to preserve the privileges of the Anglican church and more hostile to military involvement in continental Europe than Whig politicians were inclined to be. These attitudes made the Tories vulnerable in 1714. The new king was a Lutheran by upbringing and wanted to establish wider religious toleration in his new kingdom. As a German he was deeply interested in European affairs. Consequently he regarded the Tory party as insular in its outlook as well as suspect in its allegiance. Britain from 1715 to 1742 The supremacy of the Whigs
Even before he arrived in Britain, George I had decided to exclude the two leading Tory ministers, Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. In their place he appointed two Whig politicians, Charles, Viscount Townshend, and James, Viscount Stanhope, as secretaries of state. Townshend’s brother-in-law, Robert Walpole, became paymaster general. Walpole, who came from a minor Norfolk gentry family, was an extremely able politician, shrewd, greedy, and undeviatingly Whig. He encouraged the new king’s partisan bias, turning it unremittingly to his advantage. A general election was held in February 1715, and, due in part to royal influence, the Whigs won 341 seats to the Tories’ 217. In December the Old Pretender landed in Scotland, provoking an armed rebellion that was quickly suppressed. The proved involvement of a small number of Tory landowners led to Tories being purged not only from state office but also from the higher ranks of the army and navy, the diplomatic service, and the judicial system. To make their capture of the state even more secure, the Whigs passed the Septennial Act in 1716. It allowed general elections to occur at seven-year intervals instead of every three years, as mandated by the Triennial Act of 1694. The intention was to tame the electorate, which during Anne’s reign had shown itself to be volatile and far more inclined to vote Tory than Whig.