Robert Walpole, Prime Minister of Great Britain. Part II

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Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Elector of Hanover, First Lord of the Treasury, King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, King George II of Great Britain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, Robert Walpole, South Sea Bubble

Rise to power

Soon after Walpole returned to the Cabinet, Britain was swept by a wave of over-enthusiastic speculation which led to the South Sea Bubble. The Government had established a plan whereby the South Sea Company would assume the national debt of Great Britain in exchange for lucrative bonds. It was widely believed that the company would eventually reap an enormous profit through international trade in cloth, agricultural goods, and slaves.

Many in the country, including Walpole himself (who sold at the top of the market and made 1,000 per cent profit), frenziedly invested in the company. By the latter part of 1720, however, the company had begun to collapse as the price of its shares plunged.In 1721 a committee investigated the scandal, finding that there was corruption on the part of many in the Cabinet.

Among those implicated were John Aislabie (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), James Craggs the Elder (the Postmaster General), James Craggs the Younger (the Southern Secretary), and even Lords Stanhope and Sunderland (the heads of the Ministry).

Both Craggs the Elder and Craggs the Younger died in disgrace; the remainder were impeached for their corruption. Aislabie was found guilty and imprisoned, but the personal influence of Walpole saved both Stanhope and Sunderland. For his role in preventing these individuals and others from being punished, Walpole gained the nickname of “The Screen”, or “Screenmaster-General”.

Premiership under George I

Under the guidance of Walpole, Parliament attempted to deal with the financial crisis brought on by the South Sea Bubble. The estates of the directors of the South Sea Company were used to relieve the suffering of the victims, and the stock of the company was divided between the Bank of England and East India Company. The crisis had gravely damaged the credibility of the King and of the Whig Party, but Walpole defended both with skilful oratory in the House of Commons.

Walpole’s first year as prime minister was also marked by the discovery of a plot formed by Francis Atterbury, the bishop of Rochester. The exposure of the scheme crushed the hopes of the Jacobites whose previous attempts at rebellion (most notably the risings of 1715 and 1719) had also failed. The Tory Party was equally unfortunate even though Lord Bolingbroke, a Tory leader who fled to France to avoid punishment for his Jacobite sympathies, was permitted to return to Britain in 1723.

During the remainder of George I’s reign, Walpole’s ascendancy continued; the political power of the monarch was gradually diminishing and that of his ministers gradually increasing.

In 1724 the primary political rival of Walpole and Townshend in the Cabinet, Lord Carteret, was dismissed from the post of Southern Secretary and once again appointed to the lesser office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

In Ireland, Lord Carteret used his power to secretly aid in the controversy over Wood’s Halfpence and support Drapier’s Letters behind the scenes and cause harm to Walpole’s power. Walpole was able to recover from these events by removing the patent. However, Irish sentiment was situated against the English control.Townshend, working with the king, helped keep Great Britain at peace, especially by negotiating a treaty with France and Prussia in 1725.

Walpole was not consulted and stated that Townshend was “too precipitate” in his actions. Great Britain, free from Jacobite threats, from war, and from financial crises, grew prosperous, and Robert Walpole acquired the favour of George I.

In 1725 he persuaded the king to revive the Knighthood of the Bath and was himself invested with the order, and in 1726 was made a Knight of the Garter, earning him the nickname “Sir Bluestring”. His eldest son was granted a barony.

Premiership under George II

Walpole’s position was threatened in 1727 when George I died and was succeeded by George II. For a few days it seemed that Walpole would be dismissed but, on the advice of Queen Caroline, the King agreed to keep him in office.

Although the King disliked Townshend, he retained him as well. Over the next years Walpole continued to share power with Townshend but the two clashed over British foreign affairs, especially over policy regarding Austria. Gradually Walpole became the clearly dominant partner in government. His colleague retired on May 15, 1730 and this date is sometimes given as the beginning of Walpole’s unofficial tenure as prime minister.

Townshend’s departure enabled Walpole to conclude the Treaty of Vienna, creating the Anglo-Austrian alliance.OppositionWalpole, a polarising figure, had many opponents, the most important of whom were in the Country Party, such as Lord Bolingbroke (who had been his political enemy since the days of Queen Anne) and William Pulteney (a capable Whig statesman who felt snubbed when Walpole failed to include him in the Cabinet).Bolingbroke and Pulteney ran a periodical called The Craftsman in which they incessantly denounced the Prime Minister’s policies. Walpole was also satirised and parodied extensively; he was often compared to the criminal Jonathan Wild as, for example, John Gay did in his farcical Beggar’s Opera.

Life of George I, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover. Part IV.

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Elector of Hanover, First Lord of the Treasury, George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, South Sea Bubble

Within a year of George’s accession the Whigs won an overwhelming victory in the general election of 1715. Several members of the defeated Tory Party sympathised with the Jacobites, who sought to replace George with Anne’s Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart (called “James III and VIII” by his supporters and “the Pretender” by his opponents).

George’s distrust of the Tories aided the passing of power to the Whigs. Whig dominance grew to be so great under George that the Tories did not return to power for another half-century. After the election, the Whig-dominated Parliament passed the Septennial Act 1715, which extended the maximum duration of Parliament to seven years (although it could be dissolved earlier by the Sovereign).

After his accession in Great Britain, George’s relationship with his son (which had always been poor) worsened. George Augustus, Prince of Wales, encouraged opposition to his father’s policies, including measures designed to increase religious freedom in Britain and expand Hanover’s German territories at Sweden’s expense.

In 1717 the birth of a grandson (future Frederick-Louis, Prince of Wales) led to a major quarrel between George and the Prince of Wales. The king, supposedly following custom, appointed the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Newcastle, as one of the baptismal sponsors of the child. The king was angered when the Prince of Wales, disliking Newcastle, verbally insulted the Duke at the christening, which the Duke misunderstood as a challenge to a duel.

The Prince was told to leave the royal residence, St. James’s Palace. The Prince’s new home, Leicester House, became a meeting place for the king’s political opponents. George and his son were later reconciled at the insistence of Robert Walpole and the desire of the Princess of Wales, who had moved out with her husband but missed her children, who had been left in the king’s care. But after the quarrel at the baptism, father and son were never again on cordial terms.

George-Augustus (George II) as Prince of Wales in 1716. Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

In Hanover, the king was an absolute monarch. All government expenditure above 50 thalers (between 12 and 13 British pounds), and the appointment of all army officers, all ministers, and even government officials above the level of copyist, was in his personal control. By contrast in Great Britain, George had to govern through Parliament.

In 1715 when the Whigs came to power, George’s chief ministers included Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Townshend (Walpole’s brother-in-law), Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland. In 1717 Townshend was dismissed, and Walpole resigned from the Cabinet over disagreements with their colleagues; Stanhope became supreme in foreign affairs, and Sunderland the same in domestic matters.

The economic crisis, known as the South Sea Bubble, made George and his ministers extremely unpopular. In 1721 Lord Stanhope, though personally innocent, collapsed and died after a stressful debate in the House of Lords, and Lord Sunderland resigned from public office.

Sunderland, however, retained a degree of personal influence with George until his sudden death in 1722 allowed the rise of Sir Robert Walpole. Walpole became de facto Prime Minister, although the title was not formally applied to him (officially, he was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer). His management of the South Sea crisis, by rescheduling the debts and arranging some compensation, helped the return to financial stability.

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC (1676-1745), known between 1721 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British politician who is generally regarded as the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain.

As requested by Walpole, George revived the Order of the Bath in 1725, which enabled Walpole to reward or gain political supporters by offering them the honour. Walpole became extremely powerful and was largely able to appoint ministers of his own choosing.

Unlike his predecessor, Queen Anne, George rarely attended meetings of the cabinet; most of his communications were in private, and he only exercised substantial influence with respect to British foreign policy. With the aid of Lord Townshend, he arranged for the ratification by Great Britain, France and Prussia of the Treaty of Hanover, which was designed to counterbalance the Austro-Spanish Treaty of Vienna and protect British trade.

George, although increasingly reliant on Walpole, could still have replaced his ministers at will. Walpole was actually afraid of being removed from office towards the end of George I’s reign, but such fears were put to an end when George died during his sixth trip to his native Hanover since his accession as king.

King George suffered a stroke on the road between Delden and Nordhorn on June 9, 1727, and was taken by carriage to the Prince-Bishop’s palace at Osnabrück where he died in the early hours before dawn on June 11, 1727.

George surrounded by his family, in a painting by James Thornhill.

George I was buried in the chapel of Leine Palace in Hanover, but his remains were moved to the chapel at Herrenhausen Gardens after World War II. Leine Palace had burnt out entirely after British aerial bombings and the king’s remains, along with his parents’, were moved to the 19th-century mausoleum of King Ernst-August in the Berggarten. George was succeeded by his son, George-Augustus, who took the throne as George II.

It was widely assumed, even by Walpole for a time, that George II planned to remove Walpole from office but was prevented from doing so by his wife, Caroline of Ansbach. However, Walpole commanded a substantial majority in Parliament and George II had little choice but to retain him or risk ministerial instability. In subsequent reigns the power of the prime minister increased further at the expense of the power of the sovereign.