The Prime Ministers
Andrew Shaw with the first in our new series
COMMONLY regarded as this country’s first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole ruled for more than 20 years – arguably one of the most impressive records in British political history, and one that required a deft balancing of the contradictory demands of Parliament, the monarchy, the press, wealthy voters and the public itself. He managed this feat through a combination of cunning intellect, political moderacy and genuinely brilliant management skills. Oh, and some light corruption.
Royal patronages were common at the time, but Walpole used his favour with the kings he ruled under to take this to the next level, rewarding those who served him well with congratulatory titles and earning himself the nickname “Sir BlueString”. Still, once at the top the only way is down, and it’s truly remarkable just how long he was able to put that off for.
Before diving into Walpole’s life, it’s important to look at the political system he would become involved with. The Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 had tipped the balance of power away from the monarchy after King James II had dissolved Parliament to try to force a new chamber to support him unequivocally. Suddenly, the Royal Family were forced to agree to unprecedented restrictions from Parliament, which emerged from the era as the real political powerhouse.
Parliament in the 1700s may have been more democratic than an absolute monarchy, but it was still stunningly rigged. More than 97 per cent of the country couldn’t vote, elections weren’t held by secret ballot, and constituencies had never been updated to reflect shifts in population, meaning they could be owned by anyone with enough money to control the few voters that lived there.
At the start of Walpole’s parliamentary career, there were 513 seats in the House of Commons, but by the time he came to power that had risen to 558. Another major change was the Septennial Act of 1716, which extended the maximum length of a parliament from three years to seven in an attempt to reduce expenses.
Born in 1676, Robert Walpole came from an extremely privileged background, but having two older brothers meant his destiny lay in the clergy. He attended Eton in 1690, before matriculating to the University of Cambridge in 1696. The deaths of his last older brother and father within a few years of each other forced him to leave Cambridge and inherit the Walpole estate, as well as his father’s seat in Parliament.
His father had been a member of the Whig party, which at the time favoured liberty, parliamentary supremacy, protectionism and antiCatholicism, so Robert Walpole chose to continue that legacy, representing the rotten borough of Castle Rising, before moving to the neighbouring (and equally rotten) constituency of King’s Lynn, where he would remain for the vast majority of his career.
It was Queen Anne who gave Walpole his first position of real power, putting him on the council for her husband Prince George of Denmark in 1705. His silver tongue and moderation earned him much praise and allowed him to work with leaders from both the Tory government and the Whigs, leading to him being promoted first to Secretary at War and then briefly to Treasurer of the Navy.
But while Walpole was climbing the ranks, the Whig government was falling in popularity. Having barely won the 1708 election, they spent the next couple of years irritating Queen Anne, warring with France and impeaching Henry Sacheverell, a conservative clergyman who had accused them of betraying the church. The impeachment inspired some of the most intense riots of the 18th century and helped hand the 1710 election to the Tories.
Worse was to come when Walpole was impeached on charges of venality and corruption, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for six months. Fortunately, this only turned him into a sort of martyr, and upon being released he was re-elected in King’s
Lynn in the 1713 general election and his popularity was restored.
His party suffered another terrible election, but luck smiled on him once again when Queen Anne died a year later. Her successor, King George I, didn’t trust the Tories, and suddenly the Whigs were back in favour. After a successful election in 1715, Walpole was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, making him one of the most powerful men in England.
Ahead of him were Earl James Stanhope and the Earl of Sunderland, Charles Spencer, who enjoyed more of the King’s support. He resigned from their cabinet after they forced out his brother-in-law and Secretary of State, Lord Townshend, but after cultivating a close friendship with Princess Caroline of Wales and proving to be a difficult backbench adversary, he was welcomed back as Paymaster General of the Forces.
But the newly unified government soon had a much bigger problem: the South Sea Bubble. The South Sea Company started out as a slave trade company, but made a deal with Parliament in 1720 to take over the national debt. This sent their stock soaring from £128 in January to more than £1,000 in early August, making the company worth twice as much as the total value of land in England. The stock sank like a stone as investors scrambled to get out, and less than two months later it was back to £150.
Walpole had seen it coming, selling at the top of the market and making 1,000 per cent profit, which went towards the creation of Houghton
Hall, his family’s estate in Norfolk, and his famous art collection. Others weren’t so lucky. Isaac Newton made a cool £7,000 and supposedly quipped that he could “calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people”, which, while very droll, didn’t save him from jumping back into the frenzy months later and reportedly losing £20,000 or more, equating to millions in today’s money.
As the public bayed for blood, Walpole calmly averted a disaster for his party and King by paying victims with money he seized from the company’s directors. When the dust settled and the public’s faith in the financial system had been restored, Walpole had the full backing of his party and the King, who would later tell a plotting Stanhope, “I will never part with him again”.
After Stanhope’s death and Sunderland’s resignation, Walpole was made First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons in April 1721, which is where we can start considering him our country’s first Prime Minister.
His mandate quickly grew even larger thanks to the foiling of a plot to overthrow the King and a strong performance in the 1722 general election, the first of four consecutive elections he would win. But now that he was decisively the country’s leader, what did he actually believe in?
He certainly believed in power, content with working alongside just a few choice supporters and keeping “men of brilliant talent out of his administrations”, according to historian William Coxe. In their place were a few choice supporters he could rely on to manage votes in
Parliament, including Edmund
Gibson, Bishop of London, who was nicknamed “Walpole’s Pope”.
Ever the cunning politician,
Walpole also saw the value in selfpromotion and propaganda, taking control of the Post Office to silence critical works of literature, bribe authors and attack his enemies. In his own words, he was “no saint, no spartan, no reformer”, and a vote for Walpole was essentially a vote for the status quo. Two decades in power saw, surprisingly, few major acts of legislation, but chief amongst them was an act which censured criticism of the government in theatres and another one which helped landlords secure rent more easily from tenants.
One of his strongest principles was an avid aversion to war, and he once boasted to the Queen that “there are 50,000 men slain in Europe and not one Englishman”. While his pacifist position was unpopular with some, it allowed him to keep taxes low and chip away at the land tax until it stood at just one shilling in the pound by the early 1730s. This disinterest in war extended initially to foreign affairs in general, which he left largely
in Townshend’s eager hands. But after Townshend negotiated a peace treaty with France and Prussia, which angered the country, Robert Walpole demanded to be included in all future developments. A significant rift began to develop between the two men, one which grew daily, according to the Marquis de Pozobueno, Spain’s ambassador in London.
Walpole’s supremacy was threatened when King George I died in 1727. Next in line was his son, George II, who had infamously called Walpole a “rogue and rascal”. Few thought he could survive, but three things saved him.
Firstly, he was good friends with Queen Caroline, having been smart enough to favour her instead of the King’s mistress Henrietta. Secondly, his supposed successor, Sir Spencer Compton, wasn’t looked upon highly, and finally, he alone controlled the Commons. This allowed him to offer George II a Civil List of £800,000 a year – far more than George I had been given – as well as £100,000 for the Queen. Twelve days after
George I’s death, Walpole was reappointed to his positions.
In the ensuing election, Walpole won the largest majority of his career, commanding almost three-quarters of the 558 MPs. The popular perception of him now was that of invincibility – slowly, even Townshend came to learn this. After one particular argument in 1729, colleagues had to restrain the men from drawing swords, and Townshend eventually resigned that year.
Now firmly in charge of foreign affairs, Walpole oversaw the conclusion of the Treaty of Vienna in 1731, which ended the alliance with France and established a new one with Austria. His relationship with the
King had grown so strong that he was offered 10 Downing Street as a gift in 1735, accepting it only on the condition that it would be the First Lord of the Treasury’s official residence. It was a humble gesture, although perhaps one that may have hidden the actual desire of not wanting to pay for its upkeep.
However, the 1730s would soon become far more challenging. His proposal to reimpose the salt tax cut the government’s majority to 29, which fell further still to just 17 over the Excise Bill of 1733. The stench of corruption, always merely hinted at before, was now starting to cling to the great man.
He won a reasonably comfortable majority in the 1734 election, but had bled seats to the Tories and even more to the “Patriot Whigs”, a group of disaffected Whigs that believed he’d abandoned their true policies. He was mocked in the works of Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson and John Gay, and was now widely slandered in the press.
The summer of 1736 saw riots in both London, due to an increase in the gin tax, and Edinburgh, over the deaths of innocent protestors. Queen Caroline’s death a year later further hampered some of the influence he had over the King.
His last few years in office were marred by increasing hostility towards Spain, culminating in 1739 with the War of Jenkins’ Ear, named after a mariner’s claim that his ear had been severed by a Spaniard. Walpole naturally opposed the war, but facing enthusiastic support from the House of Commons, the King and some in his own cabinet, he reluctantly gave in. “They now ring their bells,” he warned. “They will soon wring their hands.”
Against all this, it seems rather remarkable that Walpole was able to win the 1741 general election with an estimated 16-18 seat majority.
But any respite was short-lived. Within a year, the war with Spain had soured and the Commons was so bitterly divided it made conducting normal business impossible. After being defeated in a petition surrounding the validity of a Chippenham by-election by a single vote, Walpole finally stepped down on February 2, 1742.
He was elevated to the Lords as Earl of Orford and retired to Houghton
Hall on an annual pension of £4,000. Far more importantly, public opinion of him started to rise almost as soon as he was out of office.
The Earl of Orford saw out the rest of his life making occasional interventions in the Lords and enjoying his fine art collection before passing away on March 18, 1745.
For a man who once told Parliament “I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister”, he was quite the leader. Whip MP Edmund Burke called him “an intelligent, prudent and safe minister”, and, more recently, historian H.T. Dickinson called him “one of the greatest politicians in British history”.
Scottish essayist David Hume was more balanced in an assessment made just before Walpole’s resignation, writing “as I am a man, I love him; as I am a scholar, I hate him; as I am a Briton, I calmly wish his fall”.
But whether you see him as a skilled operator or a sleazy tyrant, Walpole was the first of his kind and ensured many more would follow him, although it would be some time before a Prime Minister dominated the country like he had.
ANDREW SHAW