The canny politician

Robert Walpole was the leading politician of early Georgian England, a moderate Whig who served both George I and II, including 21 years as the country’s premier minister. Coarse-tongued, heavy- girthed and cynical in his astuteness, he cultivated Caroline’s friendship for his own ends. In 1720, he brokered a reconciliation between George I and George Augustus and Caroline. Later he encouraged Caroline to consider him her means of exerting political influence: “Madam, I can do nothing without you.”