How Londoners voted

My friend, Professor Penelope J. Corfield of Royal Holloway, University of London, and her colleagues, have just launched this fantastic new website on the electoral history of London in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The digitisation of poll books and other electoral data will allow scholars to investigate how individuals voted.

The eighteenth century: an overview

Hogarth, 'Polling: The Humours
of an election, 1755'
Note the absence of a secret ballot
Public Domain

There are many excellent books on this subject. I have relied particularly, though by no means exclusively, on the relevant volumes of the New Oxford History of England.

Historians write about a ‘long eighteenth century’, meaning the (relatively stable) period between the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 and the Great Reform Act of 1832. The start of the premiership of William Pitt the Younger at the end of 1783 is often seen as a ‘half-way mark’ in this long century.

For all the differences of historical interpretation, the period possesses a certain unity and witnessed some hugely important developments.

The king and his prime minister

George I
reigned 1714-27
Public Domain

George I

George Louis, Elector of Hanover, owed his accession not to divine hereditary right, but to the Act of Settlement of 1701. He was the son of the Electress Sophia, the most direct Protestant descendant of James I.

He finally arrived at Greenwich on 18 September, having been delayed by contrary winds and by his own lack of urgency. Although he had known since 1701 that he was likely to be king, he had not troubled to learn to speak English with any proficiency.

The limits of George’s power were defined by the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. He had to be a Protestant, he was forbidden to give office, title or estate to a foreigner without Parliament’s consent, he could appoint but could not dismiss a judge, he could appoint and dismiss ministers and dictate foreign policy. He controlled a vast amount of patronage. But he needed Parliament (a) for money and (b) because no minister could survive long without its support.

The Whig supremacy

On 10 April 1716 the Whigs passed the Septennial Act, on the grounds that the Triennial Act of 1694 had fomented feuds and party strife and occasioned ruinous expense. But the Scottish Whig, Lord Islay, gave the game away: frequent elections rendered ‘government dependent on the caprice of the multitude and very precarious’. The Whigs had moved a long way from their radical origins in the reign of Charles II and were now firmly oligarchical.

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole
prime minister 1721-42
Public Domain

The financial collapse occasioned by the South Sea Bubble led to the appointment of the Norfolk squire Robert Walpole as First Lord of the Treasury. This was not seen at the time as a particularly momentous move. The king disliked Walpole, as did most politicians, who resented his obvious love of power and lack of scruple. He came to be unofficially referred to as Prime Minister – a term of abuse. In 1735 he moved into 10 Downing Street (then no 5), the residence of a Mr Chicken, and he secured the property as a residence for all future First Lords of the Treasury.

George II, r. 1727-60
When he became king, 
he kept on Walpole
as prime minister.
Public Domain

After twenty-one years in power, Walpole lost office, not because he had lost an election, or because he had lost the favour of the king (George II from 1727) but because he had lost the support of the Commons. This was therefore an event of great constitutional significance. To survive, an eighteenth-century prime minister needed both the support of the monarch and a majority in the Commons.

The Act of Settlement and the Union of Parliaments

The Treaty of Union, March 1707
Public Domain

The Princess Anne’s only surviving child, the duke of Gloucester died of smallpox on 30 July 1700. This raised the question of the Protestant succession, which was resolved by the Act of Settlement in May 1701, which established the succession, on Anne’s death, on the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her heirs.

Because the Act of Settlement had been passed by the English Parliament, there were concerns that Scotland might chose a different monarch from England.  Between April and July 1706 Union Commissioners convened in London. 25 articles were drawn up, which were ratified by the Scots Parliament in January 1707 and by Westminster on 6 March. The Act of Union was passed in March.

Key features were the establishing of:

1. A single kingdom of ‘Great Britain’ with the succession vested in the Hanoverians. This state comprised c. 1 million Scots and some 5 m. English.
2. A single Parliament at Westminster by expanding the Commons and Lords to include 45 MPs from Scottish constituencies to join 513 English MPs (a 12:1 ration compared with England) and 16 elected Scots peers to join the 45 English peers. This low representation flattered the country’s economic strength (38:1) but grossly under-represented the population ratio (5:1) between the two kingdoms.
3. A British free trade area and the use of English standards of coins, weights and measures within it.
4. An equality of Scots and English in colonial trade.
5. A unified fiscal system based upon that already in place in England.

But the Scottish privy council continued, no change was made to Scotland’s legal system,  the Presbyterian settlement, the universities, burghs or hereditable jurisdictions. Scotland therefore remained a distinct country.

Scotland’s last Parliament was dissolved in April and the Union came into effect on 1 May 1707. The flags of St George and St Andrew were merged.

The Glorious Revolution: Scotland and Ireland

Scotland

John Graham of Claverhouse
Viscount Dundee
1648-89
Public Domain

Scottish politicians found themselves reacting to events in England. In December 1688 James’s ministers fled Edinburgh in the wake of anti-Catholic rioting, leaving the control of the city to radical Presbyterians.

In January 1689 William summoned a Convention of Estates to meet in Edinburgh on 14 March. Scottish Jacobites (supporters of James) refused to attend and on 4 April members voted, with only five against, that James had attempted ‘the subversion of the Protestant religion, and the violation of the laws and liberties of the kingdom.’ The Claim of Right, the Scottish equivalent of the Bill of Rights, was accepted on 11 April. 

It was also a Presbyterian revolution. On 22 July William reluctantly agreed to an act abolishing bishops.  664 ministers were dismissed in the following decades and many Episcopalians, who still held to divine right monarchy, looked to the restoration of the Stuarts to secure their rights.

The Glorious Revolution

William III
by Sir Godfrey Kneller
Public domain

There is a useful account and analysis on the History of Parliament site.

The decision to invade

When did William decide to invade England? By April 1688, that is, before the birth of the Prince of Wales, William told Admiral Edward Russell, then visiting his palace at Het Loo, that he was considering an English invasion. He had come to believe that James’s actions were threatening the monarchy. He believed that an English republic would be a disaster for Holland; another Cromwell, bent on colonial expansion and commercial enterprise, would have ruined his whole European strategy, which was to protect the United Provinces (the Netherlands) from the ambitions of Louis XIV.

Louis XIV, by Hyacinthe Rigaud .
William's life was devoted
to resisting his territorial
ambitions
Licensed under Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons

In June, William sent an emissary to England on the pretext of a congratulatory message on the birth of the prince. The real purpose was to procure the letter of invitation from ‘the immortal seven’. But the invitation was vaguely worded and there is no evidence that the signatories were inviting William to seize the throne.

James II

James II and VII
Sir Godfrey Kneller
Public domain

A Catholic accession

James came to the throne with a clear aim: to establish the rights of Catholics to worship without persecution and to take full part in the political life of the country. However, to do this,  he would have to persuade Parliament to repeal the penal laws -  the Corporation Act of 1661 and the Test Acts of 1673 and 1678. He believed that once this was done, Catholicism would triumph without any compulsion from the state. However, this belief shows his political naivety. He failed to understand the profound anti-popery of the majority of his subjects, and was unable to realize that his actions were likely to be misinterpreted. In his attempts to alleviate the rigours of religious discrimination, he had to fall back on the royal prerogative at a time when, thanks in part to the policies of Louis XIV in France, the association of ‘popery’ and ‘arbitrary power’ was taken for granted. His naturally authoritarian temperament did not help.