THE HANOVERIAN SETTLEMENT_Lectures on Modern history

THE FIRST thing is to consider by what steps a government came into

existence entirely different from that of England in the seventeenth

century, and unlike anything that had previously been known in Europe.

The old order terminates with the Bill of Rights and the Act of

Settlement. What followed is not a development of that Act, but in

contradiction to it. With the new dynasty there is a new departure.

And the change was not effected by statute, but by that force which

makes the law, and is above the law, the logic of facts and the

opinion of the nation. The essential innovations, the cabinet, the

premier, and government by party, are still without legislative

sanction. The Act of Settlement was speedily unsettled. It separated

the administration from the legislature by excluding placemen from the

House of Commons; and it prohibited the king from visiting his foreign

dominions without leave. And it required the king to be advised by

the Privy Council, thereby rejecting a united cabinet, the exclusive

organ of a party. Both William and, at that time, Marlborough

preferred that all the leading men should be united in the

administration. Before the Act of Settlement, came into operation,

during the reign of Anne, the idea of a united cabinet taken from the

same party had prevailed, and at last even Harley could not be

tolerated by the Jacobites. If Bolingbroke had not made it impossible

for George I to trust the loyalty of the Tories, the rising of 1715

would have been fatal to them. The new dynasty governed by the Whigs,

that is, by one party, and by a cabinet, not by the council. As the

king understood neither English nor English affairs, he very rarely

presided. The cabinet decided in his absence, and then reported.

It is necessary to see what manner of man he was. A branch of the

ancient Guelphic House reigned at Hanover, and had succeeded by

politic and constant effort in consolidating half a dozen territories

into one important principality. It was the most rising and

prosperous of the German Houses. It acquired the ninth electorate in

1692; and it was manifestly appropriate when it was designated for

the English succession, because the first elector, who had

accomplished the greatness of his family, had married the youngest

daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, the Princess Palatine, who in an evil

hour was Queen of Bohemia. The Electress Sophia was a Calvinist. Her

husband was a Lutheran. His predecessor, who died in 1678, had been a

convert to Catholicism. Hanover had been the centre of reunion, and

there were Lutheran divines there who, under the commanding influence

of Leibnitz, went further than Tract No. 90 in the direction of Rome.

With their easy comprehension and impartial appreciation of religious

systems, the Guelphs of Hanover were not representative Protestants.

Some misgivings arose in the mind of William III, and it was thought

that he looked with suspicious favour on the young Frederic William,

the man who afterwards drilled the battalions which Frederic the Great

led to victory. A Hanoverian statesman wrote, in alarm, that William

seemed to prefer the Prussian prince, because he was a Protestant, to

the Hanoverian, who was a Lutheran. The implication is that the

Lutherans offered less resistance to Catholicism. But the fact also

was that Sophia was a Stuart by the mother's side, and did not wish

too loudly to proclaim that she was not a legitimist. There was a

little ostensible hesitation; and the electress so managed that the

crown should seem to be forced upon her. It was part of this decorous

comedy that her son never learnt English--a circumstance of the utmost

value, afterwards, to England. The Electress Sophia was not perhaps a

very estimable, though a very intelligent princess. But she was

eighty-four when the crown came within reach, and she died of rage at

an unfriendly letter from Queen Anne, betraying her Jacobite

propensity.

The elector, who ascended the throne of England two months after his

mother's death, was neither a tyrant, nor a coward, nor a fool; he was

only unintellectual and brutally selfish. There were ladies in his

company who received English titles, and offended one part of the

public by their morals and the remainder by their ugliness. One was

created Duchess of Kendal, and Walpole said of her that she was Queen

of England if ever there was one. But she sold her influence for

money, amounting sometimes to L10,000, and Walpole at last complained

to his master. The king laughed in his face, and replied, in his

dog-Latin, that no doubt his minister also was paid by the people whom

he recommended. There was a deeper taint on his reputation. He had

married the only daughter of his neighbour and kinsman, the duke of

Celle, thereby securing the succession to his dominions. Her mother

was not of royal birth, and she was treated so cruelly by her husband

and by the Electress Sophia that she resolved to escape from her

misery by flight. In her despair she accepted the assistance of Count

Konigsmarck, whom the envoy Stepney described as a profligate

adventurer. The secret was betrayed; the princess was divorced, and

spent the long remainder of her life at Ahlden, a remote country house

which had belonged to her father. This was no more than had happened

in many great families tried by the temptation of irresponsible

monarchy, but there was a superadded tragedy; for Count Konigsmarck

disappeared and was never seen again. As part of the scheme to run

away with the princess, he had transferred his services to Saxony,

where he was made a general. For that reason, and still more for the

persuasive supplications of his sister, the beautiful Aurora von

Konigsmarck, the Elector Augustus the Strong caused some inquiry to be

made. It led to no result. But Aurora became the mother of the

Marshal of Saxony, who defeated the English at Fontenoy, and conquered

the Austrian Netherlands for the French. From the marshal was

descended George Sand, the most famous Frenchwoman of the last

generation. The Hanoverian government issued a lying report, but

attempted no defence. Nobody doubted that Konigsmarck had been made

away with, and that the author of the crime was the King of England,

whose proper destination therefore should have been not St. James's

but Newgate, and indeed not Newgate but Tyburn. Such was the

character that preceded the founder of our reigning line of kings,

and such were the weapons in the hands of his dynastic foes.

His most dangerous enemy was the Prince of Wales; not the Stuart who

held his court in Lorraine, but his own eldest son. For George II

believed in the prisoner of Ahlden; believed that his mother had been

cruelly treated, wrongfully accused, and unjustly divorced, and was

therefore able to see his father by an exceedingly clear light. Thence

arose a bitter enmity between them, and that tendency to opposition in

the princes of Wales which became a family tradition and a salutary

factor in the Constitution.

George I found that, as long as he respected English institutions,

things went very well with him, and he made no attempt to overturn

them. The fear that a sovereign who was nominally absolute in one

place could never govern under a constitution in another proved to be

unnecessary. His interests, and those of his continental advisers,

were mainly continental. In political science he had long had the

ablest counsellor in Europe at his elbow, Leibnitz, the friend of the

electress. And although that great man did not enjoy unbroken favour,

it was not easy to be blind to the flood of light which he poured on

every subject. Leibnitz had been instrumental in securing the

succession, and he abounded in expositions of constitutional policy.

He professed himself so good a Whig that he attributed to that cause

his unpopularity with many people in England, especially at Cambridge,

and most of all at Trinity. He seems not to have known that his

rival, Newton, was as good a Whig as himself, and indeed a much better

one. It was characteristic of his mind ever to impute the broad

divisions of opinion among men to ignorance or incapacity to

understand each other. With a more scientific method, he thought that

many disputes could be settled, and many adversaries reconciled. For

many years it was his favourite occupation to show that there was no

real cause for a breach at the Reformation, and that people called

themselves Protestants not knowing what was really meant by Catholic.

He assured the Catholics that the Confession of Augsburg, rightly

understood, was sound Catholicism; and he assured the Lutherans that

there was nothing in the Council of Trent with which they were forced,

in consistency, to quarrel. With the same maxim, that men are

generally right in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny, he

taught that Whig and Tory are alike necessary portions of truth, that

they complete each other, that they need each other, that a true

philosophy of politics includes the two. He also said that the past

is a law for the future, and that the will of Providence consecrates

those things which are permitted to succeed and to endure. This is

pure conservatism. The Whig seeks that which ought to be elsewhere

than in that which is. His standing purpose is to effect change, for

the past is essentially Tory.

The influence of the most enlightened German on the new German dynasty

was not favourable to party government, and would have combined better

with the system of William III. They consulted an enlightened

Englishman, and Lord Cowper drew up an important political paper,

showing that the king ought to depend on the Whigs. Moreover,

Bolingbroke, at the last moment, by his Stuart intrigue, compelled

George I to come in as the nominee of a party. To Bolingbroke's

intrigues the House of Hanover owed that which it most needed, the

prestige of victory. He had found comfort in the reflection that,

although it might be impossible to prevent the heralds from

proclaiming the new monarchy, the new monarch would soon make himself

odious, and would be more easy to expel than to exclude. The mass of

the people was Tory, and the majority of Tories were Jacobites. There

was the assured co-operation of the sects discontented with the Union,

and a part of the very small army would be held fast by the sullen

anger of the Irish.

Lewis XIV, weary and inert, would not risk another war; but if he saw

his opportunity to interfere, he was not likely to neglect it. The

Pretender would be advised by his brother, Berwick, the victor of

Almanza. The insurgent forces would be led by the Duke of Ormonde,

who had succeeded Marlborough as commander-in-chief. Marlborough

himself had advanced money for the Jacobite rising, and was so much

suspected by the ministers that they would not let him take the

command.

The hopefulness of the situation darkened somewhat before the time for

action arrived. Lewis XIV died, and the Regent, having Philip of

Spain for a rival, required the good-will of England. Two miscreants,

to whom James had offered L20,000 if they would shoot the king and the

Prince of Wales, failed to earn their reward. The arrest of a leading

Jacobite, Sir William Wyndham, so scared his partisans, that Ormonde,

having sailed into Torbay, returned to St. Malo without landing. The

Highlanders rose, but there was no Dundee and no Montrose to make them

superior to regular troops. They fought with doubtful fortune at

Sheriffmuir, while the Borderers, finding no support in Lancashire,

surrendered at Preston. When James Stuart landed in Aberdeenshire,

the struggle was over. Cadogan was approaching at the head of the

Dutch auxiliaries, and the Pretender escaped by a back door from his

own men, and made his way to Gravelines. He had proved unequal to the

occasion, and was not gifted with political understanding. But he had

been instructed by Fenelon, and had learnt from him the doctrine of

toleration.

The strongest part of the case against the new order in England was

the treatment of the Irish Catholics; and James saw the whole thing in

the light of a religious conflict. Bolingbroke, who had been an

oppressor of Nonconformists, and had no sympathy with the prince's

motives, fell into disgrace. He was made responsible for the failure,

and was suspected of having told secrets to the ambassador, Stair, in

order to make his peace at home. He was allowed to return, and did

far more harm to the House of Hanover as a loyal subject than he had

done as a manager of insurrection.

Seven peers had been taken with arms in their hands; and, in order to

avoid questions which might have injured their friends, they pleaded

guilty, and threw themselves on the mercy of the king. As they were

more guilty than the followers whom they had led to their destruction,

they could not be pardoned. Some, amid universal applause, made their

escape from the Tower, and only two were sent to the scaffold. At the

last moment, when repentance did not avail, Derwentwater retracted the

declarations of loyalty he had made at his trial, and died protesting

his unswerving fidelity to the House of Stuart. The Tories were

effectually ruined. The militant part of them had been crushed. The

remainder had proved helplessly weak, and the last dying speech of

their honoured champion was taken as a proof that they were traitors

at heart, and that their professions of loyalty were interested and

insincere. Parliament displayed an enthusiastic attachment to the

dynasty and its ministers; they were ready for any expenditure, for

any armaments, and a force of 16,000 men was raised, for the better

security of the Whigs.

On this state of feeling the government introduced septennial

parliaments. Under the Triennial Act a general election would have

fallen due in 1717, too soon for safety after the Jacobite rising.

Opinion in the country had not been impressed by recent events, by the

utter weakness of the rebels, the overwhelming success of the

government, the significant menace of the dying leader, so deeply as

the House of Commons. The new establishment would be in peril with

the constituencies, but safe with their representatives. This was so

certain that the philosophic arguments, for legislative independence

and for popular control, were superfluous. The victors secured their

victory and perpetuated their power by extending their mandate from

three years to seven. The measure strengthened the House of Commons,

and prepared the long reign of the Whigs. The funds rose, and the

king took advantage of the improved situation to spend some months in

Hanover. There he had greater scope to devote himself to foreign

affairs, and to bring the Englishmen who attended him under the

influence of experienced foreigners. Thus, while the Tories were

prostrate and the Whigs supreme, a schism arose between the ministers

at Hanover and the ministers at home. Walpole and Townshend went out

of office; Stanhope and Sunderland formed a new administration, which

the South Sea Bubble overthrew. A great question of constitutional

principle opened between them and their former colleagues. The enmity

between the king and the Prince of Wales made it probable that the

ministers who had the confidence of the father would be dismissed on

his son's accession. George II, to carry out his purpose, would be

obliged to swamp the House of Lords with new peers. To prevent this,

it was proposed to limit the power of creation and to fix a maximum

number. As the Septennial Act had increased the power of the commons,

the Peerage Bill would, in their turn, have increased the power of the

peers, against the crown on one hand, against the commons on the

other. The Whigs were not prepared to diminish the House of Commons,

and not yet afraid that it would become too powerful, exposed as it

was to corruption, and elected, on a narrow franchise, by an

uneducated constituency. Burnet, the typical Whig, had protested

against such limitations as should quite change the form of our

government, and render the crown titular and precarious.

Walpole defeated the Bill. It deprived government of one great means

of influence, by abolishing the hope of a peerage. He was not

prepared to sacrifice a legitimate species of patronage. He came

back, thereupon, to office, but not to a principal office; and he was

not a member of the Cabinet when the South Sea Company undertook to

reduce the National Debt. They offered only eight and a half years'

purchase; but the spirit of speculation was strong, and these bad

terms were widely accepted. The shares of the Company rose from 130

to 1000. As there was so much capital seeking investment, rival

enterprises were started, and were opposed by the South Sea Company.

Their ruin destroyed its credit; and after large sums had been won,

large sums were lost. Some had been impoverished, others enriched.

The country had not suffered, but the ministry fell. Walpole

inherited their power. The ground was cleared for his long

administration. It lasted so long that he did more than any other man

to establish the new system of government. He was more zealous to

retain his power than to make heroic use of it, and was a good

administrator but an indifferent legislator. In his time those things

were best which were done outside of parliament. Walpole made it his

business to yield to public opinion, and did it consistently in the

three critical moments of his career--in Wood's Halfpence, in the

Excise, and in the Spanish war. The same problem presented itself to

a greater man in the present century, and was decided on the opposite

principle. Guizot was himself persuaded that a measure of

parliamentary reform was inevitable, since the opinion of the country

was in its favour. But the opinion of parliament was against it, and

he preferred to fall, together with the monarchy, in obedience to

parliament, rather than to triumph by public opinion.

Walpole gave way in the affair of the Halfpence, that he might not

alienate those through whom he governed Ireland. The coins were good.

They were to contain twice the value of metal with which we are

satisfied, and it was never shown that they did not. The gains of the

contractor were exhorbitant. He was able to pay a heavy fee to the

Duchess of Kendal; and when the contract was revoked, he obtained an

excessive compensation. His Halfpence are historic because Swift, in

raising a tempest over the Irish grievance, employed the language of

revolution and national patriotism, as it had never been heard.

Again, the Excise Bill would have saved many hundreds of thousands of

pounds to the State, when a hundred thousand was more than a million

is now; but Walpole, in spite of his majority, yielded to the clamour

outside. And he did the same thing in regard to the Spanish war, the

last great crisis he encountered.

Walpole's main idea on taking the highest office, that which he

proclaimed in his first king's speech, was to divert the country from

frantic speculation to the legitimate profits of industry and trade.

The two great openings for trade were with the Mediterranean and with

Spanish America. That with the Mediterranean was somewhat neglected,

as the government relied more on the friendship of the piratical

Algerines than on the solid possession of Gibraltar and Minorca.

George I had written a letter to Philip V, dated 1st June, 1721, in

which he distinctly assured him of his "readiness to satisfy with

regard to your demand relating to the restitution of Gibraltar,

promising you to make use of the first favourable opportunity to

regulate this article with consent of my parliament." The English

ministry were not convinced of the importance of retaining Gibraltar,

and fully expected to be in a position to give it up to Spain for an

equivalent. Indeed, in January 1721, Stanhope had said to the French

envoy that in a year, when the financial position of England was

better and the temper of parliament improved, they would certainly

give up Gibraltar, for the merest shadow of an equivalent, as the

place was only a burden to them. But they had not counted on the

determination of the English people to hold it at all costs. Philip,

however, not perhaps without some reason, always regarded the

engagement as precise, and treated the continued retention as an act

of bad faith. In all that I have just said about Gibraltar, I have

been quoting a recent writer in the Historical Review.

The South American trade presented infinite possibilities. It was

pursued with difficulty against the resistance of the Spaniards, who

had the law on their side. It was considered worth a war, and the

strength of public feeling overcame the feeble scruples of the

minister. The war ended disastrously, but before the end Walpole had

been driven from office. It had been no part of his policy to promote

prosperity by arms, but it was part of his policy, and the deciding

part of it, to let the nation, in the last instance, regulate its own

affairs. Peace was a good thing; but profit was also a good thing;

and Walpole had no principle that made one a question of duty and the