British Politics in the Age of Anne

623 Pages·2003·33.19 MB·English

by  Geoffrey Holmes

BRITISH POLITICS
IN THE AGE OF ANNE
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BRITISH POLITICS
IN THE AGE OF ANNE
GEOFFREY HOLMES
REVISED EDITION
THE HAMBLEDON PRESS
LONDON AND RONCEVERTE
Published by The Hambledon Press 1987
102 Gloucester Avenue, London NW1 8HX (U.K.)
309 Grecnbrier Avenue, Roncevertc WV 24970 (U.S.A.)
ISBN 0 907628 73 7 (Cased)
0 907628 74 5 (Paper)
©Geoffrey Holmes 1987
First Edition: Macmillan, London 1967
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Holmes, Geoffrey, 1928-
British politics in the age of Anne. — 2nd ed.
1. Great Britain — Politics and government —
1702-1714
I. Title
320.941 JN2121702
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Puhlication Data
Holmes, Geoffrey S., 1928-
British politics in the age of Anne.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Great Britain — Politics and government —
1702-1714. I. Title.
DA495.H59 1987 941.06'9 87-14833
Contents
INTRODUCTIONT OR EVISEDE DITIONi X
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION Ixvii
AN OTEO ND ATESA NDQ UOTATIONSIx xi
ABBREVIATIONS Ixxiii
INTRODUCTION I
PART ONE: The Character of Politics
1 Tory and Whig 1 3
2 The Substance of Conflict: Old Issues and New 5 1
3 The Substance of Conflict: Principles and Power 82
4 The "Country" Tradition 116
5 The Clash of Interests 148
PART TWO: The Working of Politics
6 The Managers, the Queen, and the Royal Closet 185
7 Parliament and the Parties: The Structure of the
Whig Party 217
8 The Structure of the Tory Party 247
9 The Parties in Action : Direction and Organisation 285
vi Contents
10 The Parties in Action : Power-Groups and Pressure-
Groups 322
11 The Court and the Parties in the House of Commons 345
12 The Court and the Parties in the House of Lords 382
Conclusion 405
APPENDICES
A. Party Allegiance in the House of Lords, 1701-14 421
B. The Queen's Servants in the House of Lords,
February 1714 436
C. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, as "Prime Minister" 440
LIST OF MANUSCRIPT SOURCES 443
AG UDIET OPO LTICIALC HRONOLOG1Y7 O,21-AG UDIET OPO LTICIALC HRONOLOG1Y7 O,214-44 94
NOTES 459
INDEX 519
TO
ELLA
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Introduction to
Revised Edition*
Party and Politics
IT is now twenty years since I finished writing British Politics in the Age of
Anne. That is a long time in the bustling, hyper-professional world of late
20th-century historical writing and scholarship. Few serious historical
studies can be entirely divorced from their context, least of all large-scale
works of analysis and interpretation. That being so, and because one can no
longer re-create the historiographical climate of the 1960s in which British
Politics was written, there is a sense in which to try to produce a 'revised
edition' is to attempt the impossible. I have not allowed this consideration to
oppress me unduly. There were, after all, many other aims in mind while the
original work was on the anvil besides that of refuting a particular
interpretation of the structure of early 18th-century politics.2 Thus the
reissuing of the book, twelve years after its going out of print, not only
enables me to make numerous corrections in the text, appendices and notes,
some to rectify misprints or minor factual slips, the rest to revise dates or
statistics and certain other items of information -in the light of fresh findings
or maturer thought. More important, it affords me an opportunity, through
the vehicle of a new Introduction, to consider what conclusions of substance
* I am indebted to David Hayton, Clyve Jones, Eveline Cruickshanks, Bill Speck and
John Beckett for assisting me in various ways during the preparation of this edition. I am
particularly grateful to Mr Jones for help with the Appendix of manuscript sources which
follows this Introduction, and to Dr Hayton both for advice on that Appendix and for
bringing to my attention a miscellany of errors in the original text and index which had
escaped my vigilance.
1. 'The historian writing in the age of Namier, or at least under his shadow . . .' - so
runs the book's very first sentence.
2. See pp. 1-6 below, and cf. pp. 405-18.