Part 30 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Era of Whig Domination, 1714-1761]

[Sidenote: Robert Walpole and his Policies]

Under George I (1714-1727) it became customary for the king to absent himself from cabinet-meetings. (It will be remembered that George could not speak English.) This tended to make the cabinet even more independent of the sovereign, as shown by the fact that Anne was the last to use her prerogative to veto bills. From 1714 to 1761 was the great era of Whig domination. Both George I and George II naturally favored the Whigs, because the Tories were supposed to desire a second restoration of the Stuarts. Certainly many of the Tories had partic.i.p.ated in the vain attempt of the ”Old Pretender” in 1715 to seat himself on the British throne as James III, and again in 1745 extreme Tories took part in the insurrection in Scotland, gallantly led by the Young Pretender, ”Prince Charlie” the grandson of James II. Under these circ.u.mstances practically all cla.s.ses rallied to the support of the Whigs, who stood for the Protestant monarchy. Great Whig landowners controlled the rural districts, and the aristocracy of the towns was won by the Whiggish policy of devotion to public credit and the protection of commerce. The extensive and continued power of the Whigs made it possible for Sir Robert Walpole, [Footnote: Created earl of Orford in 1742.] a great Whig leader, to hold office for twenty-one years (1721-1742), jealously watching and maintaining his supremacy under two sovereigns--George I (1714-1727) and George II (1727-1760).

Though disclaiming the t.i.tle, he was recognized by every one as the ”prime minister”--prime in importance, prime in power. The other ministers, nominally appointed by the sovereign, were in point of fact dependent upon him for office, and he, though nominally appointed by the crown, was really dependent only upon the support of a Whig majority in the Commons.

[Sidenote: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham]

Walpole's power was based on policy and political manipulation. His policy was twofold, the maintenance of peace and of prosperity. We shall see elsewhere how he kept England clear of costly Continental wars. [Footnote: See above, p. 256, and below, pp. 309 ff., 324 f.] His policy of prosperity was based on mercantilist ideas and consisted in strict attention to business methods in public finance, [Footnote: Walpole was called the ”best master of figures of any man of his time.”] the removal of duties on imported raw materials, and on exported manufactures. In spite of the great prosperity of the period, there was considerable criticism of Walpole's policy, and ”politics”

alone enabled him to persevere in it. By skillful partisan patronage, by bestowal of state offices and pensions upon members of Parliament, by open bribery, and by electioneering, he secured his ends and maintained his majority in the House of Commons.

Walpole's successors,--Henry Pelham and the duke of Newcastle,--like him represented the oligarchy of Whig n.o.bles and millionaires, and even outdid him in corrupt methods. Another section of the Whig party under the leaders.h.i.+p of William Pitt the elder (the earl of Chatham) won great popularity by its condemnation of political ”graft.” Pitt's fiery demands for war first against Spain (1739-1748) and then against France (1756-1763) were echoed by patriotic squires and by the merchants who wished to ruin French commerce and to throw off the restrictions laid by Spain on American commerce. Pitt had his way until George III, a monarch determined to destroy the power of the Whigs, appointed Tory ministers, such as Lord Bute and Lord North. The attempt of George III to regain the power his great-grandfather had lost, to rule as well as to reign, was in the end a failure, and later Hanoverians might well have joined George II in declaring that ”ministers are kings in this country.”

[Sidenote: Significance of English Const.i.tutional Development in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries]

This indeed is the salient fact in the evolution of const.i.tutional government in England. While in other countries late in the eighteenth century monarchs still ruled by divine right, in England Parliament and ministers were the real rulers, and, in theory at least, they ruled by the will of the people. That England was able to develop this form of government may have been due in part to her insular position, her const.i.tutional traditions, and the ill-advised conduct of the Stuart kings, but most of all it was due to the great commercial and industrial development which made her merchant cla.s.s rich and powerful enough to demand and secure a share in government.

[Sidenote: Great Britain Parliamentarian but not Democratic]

In their admiration for the English government, many popular writers have fallen into the error of confounding the struggle for parliamentary supremacy with the struggle for democracy. Nothing could be more misleading. The ”Glorious Revolution” of 1689 was a _coup d'etat_ engineered by the upper cla.s.ses, and the liberty it preserved was the liberty of n.o.bles, squires, and merchants--not the political liberty of the common people.

[Sidenote: The Unreformed Parliament]

The House of Commons was essentially undemocratic. Only one man in every ten had even the nominal right to vote. It is estimated that from 1760 to 1832 nearly one-half of the members owed their seats to patrons, and the reformed representatives of large towns were frequently chosen by a handful of rich merchants. In fact, the government was controlled by the upper cla.s.s of society, and by only a part of that. No representatives sat for the numerous manufacturing towns which had sprung into importance during the last few decades, and rich manufacturers everywhere complained that the country was being ruined by the selfish administration of great landowners and commercial aristocrats.

Certain it is that the Parliament of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while wonderfully earnest and successful in enriching England's landlords and in demolis.h.i.+ng every obstacle to British commerce, at the same time either willfully neglected or woefully failed to do away with intolerance in the Church and injustice in the courts, or to defend the great majority of the people from the greed of landlords and the avarice of employers.

Designed as it was for the protection of selfish cla.s.s interests, the English government was nevertheless a step in the direction of democracy. The idea of representative government as expressed by Parliament and cabinet was as yet very narrow, but it was capable of being expanded without violent revolution, slowly but inevitably, so as to include the whole people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOUSE OF STUART]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HANOVERIAN SOVEREIGNS OF GREAT BRITAIN (1714-1915)]

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. Brief surveys: A. L. Cross, _History of England and Greater Britain (1914)_, ch. xxvii-xli; T. F. Tout, _An Advanced History of Great Britain (1906)_, Book VI, Book VII, ch. i, ii; Benjamin Terry, _A History of England (1901)_, Part III, Book III and Book IV, ch. i-iii; E. P. Cheyney, _A Short History of England (1904)_, ch. xiv-xvi, and, by the same author, _An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England (1901)_. More detailed narratives: J. F. Bright, _History of England_, 5 vols. (1884-1904), especially Vol. II, _Personal Monarchy_, 1485-1688, and Vol. III, _Const.i.tutional Monarchy, 1689-1837_; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. IV (1906). ch. viii-xi, xv-xix, Vol. V (1908), ch. v, ix-xi, xv; H. D. Traill and J. S. Mann (editors), _Social England_, illus. ed., 6 vols. in 12 (1909), Vol. IV; A. D. Innes, _History of England and the British Empire_, 4 vols.

(1914), Vol. II, ch. x-xvi; G. M. Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, 1603-1714 (1904), brilliant and suggestive; Leopold von Ranke, _History of England, Princ.i.p.ally in the Seventeenth Century_, Eng. trans., 6 vols. (1875), particularly valuable for foreign relations; Edward Dowden, _Puritan and Anglican_ (1901), an interesting study of literary and intellectual England in the seventeenth century; John Lingard, _History of England to 1688_, new ed. (1910) of an old but valuable work by a scholarly Roman Catholic, Vols. VII-X; H. W.

Clark, _History of English Nonconformity_, Vol. I (1911), Book II, ch.

i-iii, and Vol. II (1913), Book III, ch. i, ii, the best and most recent study of the role of the Protestant Dissenters; W. R. W.

Stephens and William Hunt (editors), _History of the Church of England_, the standard history of Anglicanism, of which Vol. V (1904), by W. H. Frere, treats of the years 1558-1625, and Vol. VI (1903), by W. H. Hutton, of the years 1625-1714. On Scotland during the period: P.

H. Brown, _History of Scotland_, 3 vols. (1899-1909), Vols. II, III; Andrew Lang, _A History of Scotland_ from the Roman Occupation, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1901-1907), Vols. III, IV. On Ireland: Richard Bagwell, _Ireland under the Tudors_, 3 vols. (1885-1890), and _Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum_, 2 vols. (1909). Convenient source- material: G. W. Prothero, _Select Statutes and Other Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trative of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I_, 4th ed.

(1913); S. R. Gardiner, _The Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments of the Puritan Revolution_, 1628-1660, 2d ed. (1899); C. G. Robertson, _Select Statutes, Cases, and Doc.u.ments, 1660-1832_ (1904); E. P. Cheyney, _Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources_ (1908); Frederick York Powell, _English History by Contemporary Writers_, 8 vols. (1887); C. A. Beard, _An Introduction to the English Historians_ (1906), a collection of extracts from famous secondary works.

THE ENGLISH CONSt.i.tUTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. F. W. Maitland, _The Const.i.tutional History of England_ (1908), Periods III, IV, special studies of the English government in 1625 and in 1702 by an eminent authority; D. J. Medley, _A Student's Manual of English Const.i.tutional History_, 5th ed. (1913), topical treatment, encyclopedic and dry; T. P. Taswell-Langmead, _English Const.i.tutional History_, 7th ed. rev. by P. A. Ashworth (1911), ch. xiii-xvi, narrative style and brief; Henry Hallam, _Const.i.tutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II_, an old work, first pub. in 1827, still useful, new ed., 3 vols. (1897).

The best summary of the evolution of English parliamentary government in the middle ages is A. B. White, _The Making of the English Const.i.tution, 449-1485_ (1908), Part III. In support of the pretensions of the Stuart kings; see J. N. Figgis, _The Divine Right of Kings_, 2d ed. (1914); and in opposition to them, see G. P.

Gooch, _English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_ (1898).

JAMES I AND CHARLES I. S. R. Gardiner, _The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution_, 7th ed. (1887), a brief survey in the ”Epochs of Modern History” Series by the most prolific and most distinguished writer on the period, and, by the same author, the elaborate _History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War_, 10 vols. (1883-1884), _History of the Great Civil War, 1642- 1640_, 4 vols. (1893), and _Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments of the Puritan Revolution_ (1899); F. C. Montague, _Political History of England, 1603-1660_ (1907), an accurate and strictly political narrative; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III, ch. xvi, xvii, on Spain and England in the time of James I. Clarendon's _History of the Great Rebellion_, the cla.s.sic work of a famous royalist of the seventeenth century, is strongly partisan and sometimes untrustworthy: the best edition is that of W. D. Macray, 6 vols. (1886). R. G. Usher, _The Rise and Fall of the High Commission_ (1913), is an account of one of the arbitrary royal courts. Valuable biographies: H. D. Traill, _Strafford_ (1889); W. H. Hutton, _Laud_ (1895); E. C. Wade, John Pym (1912); C. R.