FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
d put an end to the dread that its influence could be used in any struggle against liberty. "The generality of the world here," said the new Whig Chancellor, Lord Cowper, to King George, "is so much in love with the advantages a king of Great Britain has to bestow without the least exceeding the bounds of law, that 'tis wholly in your majesty's power, by showing your power in good time to one or other of them, to give which party you please a clear majority in all succeeding parliaments." [Sidenote: The Whigs and Parliament.] It was no wonder therefore that in the first of the new king's parliaments an overwhelming majority appeared in support of the Whigs. But the continuance of that majority for more than thirty years was not wholly due to the unswerving support which the Crown gave its Ministers or to the secession of the Tories. In some measure it was due to the excellent organization of the Whig party. While their adversaries were divided by differences of principle and without leaders of real eminence, the Whigs stood as one man on the principles of the Revolution and produced great leaders who carried them into effect. They submitted with admirable discipline to the guidance of a knot of great nobles, to the houses of Bentinck, Manners, Campbell, and Cavendish, to the Fitzroys and Lennoxes, the Russells and Grenvilles, families whose resistance to the Stuarts, whose share in the Revolution, whose energy in setting the line of Hanover on the throne, gave them a claim to power. It was due yet more largely to the activity with which the Whigs devoted themselves to the gaining and preserving an ascendency in the House of Commons. The support of the commercial classes and of the great towns was secured not only by a resolute maintenance of public credit, but by the special attention which each ministry paid to questions of trade and finance. Peace and the reduction of the land-tax conciliated the farmers and the landowners, while the Jacobite sympathies of the bulk of the squires, and their consequent withdrawal from all share in politics, threw even the representation of the shires for a time into Whig hands. Of the county members, who formed the less numerous but the weightier part of the lower House, nine-tenths were for some years relatives and dependents of the great Whig families. Nor were coarser means of controlling Parliament neglected. The wealth of the Whig houses was lavishly spent in securing a monopol
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

support

 
majority
 

families

 

wholly

 

Parliament

 

houses

 
parliaments
 
Revolution
 

leaders

 

Lennoxes


Cavendish

 

Hanover

 

throne

 

maintenance

 

Fitzroys

 
credit
 

setting

 
Russells
 

energy

 

public


largely

 

resistance

 

devoted

 
commercial
 

gaining

 

ascendency

 

Commons

 

classes

 
Stuarts
 

preserving


Grenvilles

 

secured

 
activity
 

resolute

 

reduction

 

weightier

 
numerous
 
formed
 

shires

 

county


members
 

tenths

 

relatives

 

lavishly

 

wealth

 

securing

 

monopol

 
neglected
 

controlling

 
dependents