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 |
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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Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts repealed |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 |
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1722 |
Whigs: 389 |
Tories: 169 |
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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.