When power passes from kings to nobles, then the acts of nobles constitute the genius of political history, as fully as the acts of kings constitute history when kings are absolute, and the acts of the people constitute history where the people are all-powerful.
A notice, therefore, of that great minister who headed the Whig party of aristocrats, and who, as their organ, swayed the councils of England for nearly forty years, demands our attention. His political career commenced during the reign of Anne, and continued during the reign of George I., and part of the reign of George II. George I., as a man or as a king, dwindled into insignificance, when compared with his prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Sir Robert Walpole. And he is great, chiefly, as the representative of the Whigs; that is, of the dominant party of rich and great men who sat in parliament; a party of politicians who professed more liberal principles than the Tories, but who were equally aristocratic in the social sympathies, and powerful from aristocratic connections. What did the great Dukes of Devonshire or Bedford care for the poor people, who, politically, composed no part of the nation? But they were Whigs, and King George himself was a Whig.
Sir Robert belonged to an ancient, wealthy, and honorable family; was born 1676, and received his first degree at King's College, Cambridge, in 1700. He entered parliament almost immediately after, became an active member, sat on several committees, and soon distinguished himself for his industry and ability. He was not eloquent, but acquired considerable skill as a debater. In 1705, Lord Godolphin, the prime minister of Anne, made him one of the council to Prince George of Denmark; in 1706, Marlborough selected him as secretary of war; in 1709, he was made treasurer of the navy; and in 1710, he was the acknowledged leader of the House of Commons. He lost office, however, when the Whigs lost power, in 1710; was subjected to cruel political persecution, and even impeached, and imprisoned in the Tower. This period is memorable for the intense bitterness and severe conflicts between the Whigs and Tories; not so much on account of difference of opinion on great political principles, as the struggle for the possession of place and power.
On the accession of George I., Walpole became paymaster of the forces, one of the most lucrative offices in the kingdom. Townshend was made secretary of state. The other great official dignitaries were the Lords Cowper, Marlborough, Wharton, Sunderland, Devonshire, Oxford, and Somerset; but Townshend and Walpole were the most influential. They impeached their great political enemies, Ormond and Bolingbroke, the most distinguished leaders of the Tory party. Bolingbroke, in genius and learning, had no equal in parliament, and was a rival of Walpole at Eton.
The first event of importance, under the new ministry, was the invasion of Great Britain by the The Pretender. Pretender—the Prince James Frederic Edward Stuart, only son of James II. His early days were spent at St. Germain's, the palace which the dethroned monarch enjoyed by the hospitality of Louis XIV. He was educated under influences entirely unfavorable to the recovery of his natural inheritance, and was a devotee to the pope and the interests of absolutism. But he had his adherents, who were called Jacobites, and who were chiefly to be found in the Highlands of Scotland. In 1705, an unsuccessful effort had been made to regain the throne of his father, but the disasters attending it prevented him from milking any renewed effort until the death of Anne.
When she died, many discontented Tories fanned the spirit of rebellion; and Bishop Atterbury, a distinguished divine, advocated the claims of the Pretender. Scotland was ripe for revolt. Alarming riots took place in England. William III. was burned in effigy at Smithfield. The Oxford students pulled down a Presbyterian meeting-house, and the sprig of oak was publicly displayed on the 29th of May. The Earl of Mar hurried into Scotland to fan the spirit of insurrection; while the gifted, brilliant, and banished Bolingbroke joined the standard of the chevalier. The venerable and popular Duke of Ormond also assisted him with his counsels.
Advised by these great nobles, assisted by the King of France, and flattered by the Jacobite faction, the Pretender made preparations to recover his rights. His prospects were apparently better than were those of William, when he landed in England. The Earl of Mar was at the head of ten thousand men; but the chevalier was no general, and was unequal to his circumstances. When he landed in Invasion of Scotland. Scotland, he surrendered himself to melancholy and inaction. His sadness and pusillanimity dispirited his devoted band of followers. He retreated before inferior forces, and finally fled from the country which he had invaded. The French king was obliged to desert his cause, and the Pretender retreated to Italy, and died at the advanced age of seventy-nine, after witnessing the defeat of his son, Charles Edward, whose romantic career and misfortunes cannot now be mentioned. By the flight of the Pretender from Scotland, in 1715, the insurrection was easily suppressed, and the country was not molested by the intrigues of the Stuart princes for thirty years.
The year which followed the invasion of Scotland was signalized by the passage of a great bill in parliament, which is one of the most important events in parliamentary history. In 1716, the famous Septennial Act, which prolonged parliament from three to seven years, was passed. So many evils, practically, resulted from frequent elections, that the Whigs resolved to make a change; and the change contributed greatly to the tranquillity of the country, and the establishment of the House of Brunswick. The duration of the English parliament has ever since, constitutionally, been extended to seven years, but the average duration of parliaments has been six years—the term of office of the senators of the United States.
After the passage of the Septennial Act, the efforts of Walpole were directed to a reduction of the national debt. He was then secretary of the treasury. But before he could complete his financial reforms, he was driven from office by the cabals of his colleagues, and the influence of the king's German favorites and mistresses. The Earl of Sunderland, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was at the head of the cabal party, and was much endeared to the Whigs by his steady attachment to their principles. He had expected, and probably deserved, to be placed at the head of the administration. When disappointed, he bent all his energies to undermine Townsend and Walpole, and succeeded for a while. But Walpole's opposition to the new administration was so powerful, that it did not last long. Sunderland had persuaded the king to renounce his constitutional prerogative of creating peers; and a bill, called the Peerage Bill, was proposed, which limited the House of Lords to its actual existing number, the tendency of which was to increase the power and rank of the existing peers, and to raise an eternal bar to the aspirations of all commoners to the peerage, and thus widen the gulf between the aristocracy and the people. Walpole presented these consequences so forcibly, and showed so clearly that the proposed bill would diminish the consequence of the landed gentry, and prove a grave to honorable merit, that the Commons were alarmed, and rejected the bill by a large and triumphant majority of two hundred and sixty-nine to one hundred and seventy-seven.
The defeat of this bill, and the great financial embarrassments of the country, led to the restoration of Walpole to office. His genius was eminently financial, and his talents were precisely those which have ever since been required of a minister—those which characterized Sir Robert Peel and William Pitt. The great problem of any government is, how to raise money for its great necessities; and the more complicated the relations of society are, the more difficult becomes the problem.