Age of Oligarchy?

The Age of Oligarchy?

Chronology

1714	George I nominates only 4 Tories to new administration, all Hanoverian supporters; Louis XIV rejects claims of Pretender who issues manifesto reasserting his right to Crown and Roman Catholicism; Bolingbroke dismissed; spasmodic Jacobite opposition leads to 3 proclamations - suppressing riots, enforcing laws against Papists and forbidding clergy discussing political matters from their pulpits; general election, Tories lose 141 seats
1715	Bolingbroke flees to France; Ormonde incites Jacobite riots and later joins Bolingbroke in France; both with Oxford and Strafford impeached; Acts of Attainder passed against them confiscating their estates; Jacobite rebellion, led by Earl of Mar in Scotland soon repressed leads to Tories banishment to wilderness; Tory JPs purged; cabinet becomes solely Whig
1716	Septennial Act passed with immediate effect
1717	Walpole and Townshend leave ministry, Sinking Fund established
1718	Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts repealed
1719	Peerage bill abandoned
1720	South Sea Bubble
1721	Stanhope-Sunderland ministry brought down replaced by Walpole - the Robinocracy begins
1722	General Election, Whigs have majority of over 200; ‘Atterbury Plot’ made public; Irish opposition to ‘Wood’s half-pence’
1723	Bill of Pains and Penalties passes Commons and Lords; Bolingbroke pardoned; Atterbury exiled; Workhouse Test Act passed; Cato’s letters against Anglican charity school movement
1725	Macclesfield impeached for corruption; City of London election bill disenfranchises 3,000 freemen; Malt Tax riots in Scotland; government back down in Ireland; Pultney heads opposition
1726	war with Spain
1727	Land tax doubled, raid Sinking Fund to balance budget; Walpole escapes censure; death of George I; attempt to replace Walpole with Spencer Compton rebuffed; general election - Tories at lowest strength since 1679
1729	Treaty of Seville signed with Spain
1732	Salt bill passed, reimposing salt tax
1733	Excise scheme to introduce tax on tobacco and wine fails; rebel peers dismissed from government
1734	General election, government lose ground to Tories and opposition Whigs
1736	Church issue revived, opposition Whigs propose to repeal Test Acts; Quaker Tithe bill supported by Walpole fails in Lords; Mortmain bill passes Commons; Porteous riots in Edinburgh; Gin Act passed
1737	Prince of Wales expelled from St James’s Palace sets up opposition court at Leicester House
1739	Convention of El Pardo signed with Spain, narrowly accepted by Commons leads to secession of opposition MPs led by Wyndham, Pultney and Sandys; war of ‘Jenkin’s ear’ declared against Spain; opposition secession abandoned
1741	Place bill passes Commons, lost in Lords; Heavy Irish mortality due to famine; general election, ministry loses further support; government candidate loses chair of Committee of Elections; George II in Hanover witholds aid to Maria Theresa of Spain and commits himself to supporting a Franco-Bavarian candidate to succeed her without consulting Britain
1742	Pultney calls for investigation into negotiations with foreign powers, rejected by only 3 votes; Walpole resigns; idea of ‘broad-bottomed’ ministry scuppered by Newcastle; new ministry headed by Wilmington (formerly Compton) and Carteret
1743	Wilmington dies, replaced by Pelham as first lord of the Treasury
1744	‘Broad-bottom’ administration constructed with Tories and former opposition Whigs after Carteret’s dismissal
1745	Young Pretender lands at Erisky, Western Isles - Highlanders army reaches Derby but starts to retreat north; Cumberland recalled from Netherlands
1746	Ministerial crisis, Newcastle, Pelham and others resign as George II tries to form new ministry round the figures of Granville and Bath, this collapses and they are returned to office with William Pitt; Jacobites routed at Culloden
1747	Prince of Wales’ Carlton House Declaration; General election produces large Tory losses
1751	Prince of Wales dies, his son, George, declared new Prince of Wales and his mother Regent in Regency bill; Parliamentary opposition is in disarray; Act abolishes ‘Julian’ style calendar
1753	Jewish Naturalisation Act and Hardwicke’s Marriage Act passed
1754	Death of Pelham, Newcastle becomes first lord of the Treasury; general election
1755	Pitt dismissed from ministry
1756	Newcastle and Fox resign; Devonshire and Pitt form coalition government
1757	Newcastle retakes first lord of the Treasury
1760	Death of George II

General Election Results, 1715-54 (Source: Holmes, Age of Oligarchy)

1715	Whigs: 341		Tories: 217
1722	Whigs: 389		Tories: 169
1727	Court Whigs: 415	Opposition Whigs: 15	Tories: 128
1734	Court Whigs: 330	Opposition Whigs: 83	Tories: 145
1741	Court Whigs: 286	Opposition Whigs: 131	Tories: 136
1747	Court Whigs: 338	Opposition Whigs: 97	Tories: 117
1754	Court Whigs: 368	Opposition Whigs: 42	Tories: 106	Uncertain: 26

The Pattern of Politics under the Age of Oligarchy

The Monarchs: George I and II actively promoted the development of the Whig oligarchy, despite Linda Colley’s view that they were keen to incorporate Tories into the administration; loss of monarchical power over the period though is notable

Political parties: the fate of political parties is under intense and not yet resolved debate. Namierite view is that Whigs and Tories no longer existed as separate entities, stress a 3-fold division of politics - country, court and factions. Cruickshanks and Colley have argued for the continuation of the Tory party despite the orthodoxy that puts them in the political wilderness after the Atterbury plot. The former equates Jacobitism with Toryism, the latter talks of a continuation of leadership, ideology and organisation. Hill also argues for the survival of the two competing ideologies of Whig and Tory. Speck uses division lists to compare parties in the Age of Anne with parties in the reigns of the first two Georges and notes that there is a court-country rather than a Whig-Tory split after 1715. It is notable at the electoral level, however that Whig-Tory splits remained and that the voters viewed candidates as Whigs or Tories and voted accordingly.