Page 15 - History 2020

Session 2: Burke and conservativism

What happened after the Glorious Revolution of 1688?
To re-cap. The 1688 revolution rid Britain of its last Catholic monarch, James II. When
William, Mary and then Anne failed to produce heirs, the 1701 Act of Succession
opened the way to the Hanoverian kings, but put shackles on them, effectively giving
parliament supremacy over the monarchy. Thus 1688 and 1701 together ruled out
any future Catholic monarchs and made parliament supreme. Despite this, the “rage
of party” continued. The Triennial Act (1694) required a general election every three

years. This was designed to strengthen parliament against the monarch, but its effect
was a perpetual election fever which encouraged instability. The perpetual battle
between Whigs and Tories raged at national and local level. Parliament itself had
become a source of political instability.

However, as historian J.H. Plumb noted (“The Coming of Political Stability in England
1775 – 1725”, 1968) British politics underwent a major transformation: political

stability broke out.

Why did political stability break out in Britain by 1725?
Plumb notes a number of factors. Some we have already noted: 1688 and 1701
guaranteed no more Catholic monarchs, the spectre that had haunted British politics
since Mary Tudor’s reign and fueled the Civil War. Gradually politics was ceasing to
be “civil war by other means”, in Richard Tomb’s memorable phrase (“The English
and their History” 2015). To be accurate, the Catholic spectre hadn’t quite been

banished. The Jacobites (rebels and conspirators loyal King James and his heirs)
continued their plotting. It was not a negligible threat, especially when they gained
help from the Catholic Kings of France; 1715 and 1745 saw the most serious of many
Jacobite risings, assassination attempts and plots.

However, in 1714 the Tories made a serious blunder which enabled the Whigs to

discredit them. The Tory leader, the charismatic Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke,
had negotiated the peace Treaty of Utrecht which so angered George I. Facing
impeachment (trial by parliament), Bolingbroke fled to France and scandalized
opinion in London by putting his services at the disposal of the exiled Stuarts who
Louis XIV had befriended. The Whigs were delighted; they could now discredit all
Tories by accusing them of habouring secret Jacobite sympathies. Even though
Bolingbroke later came home and made his peace with George I, Walpole as Whig
leader relentlessly played the Jacobite card against the Tories throughout his two
decades in office (1721 – 1742). It marginalized the Tories so effectively that under