Page 16 - History 2020

Walpole Britain became virtually a one-party state. The Whig triumph was a big

factor in killing off the rage of party.

This episode had further significance. The incoming Whigs hoped to impeach all the
Tory leaders including Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, who was imprisoned in the
Tower to await his trial. However, he defended himself so effectively that after two
years it was dropped. Significantly, these were the last ministers ever to face
impeachment. One of Harley’s defenders said, “If the command of the Sovereign,
after mature deliberation in Council, followed by the approbation [approval] of two

parliaments, be not sufficient justification for ministers, whose life is safe?” This
voiced the recognition that because power had shifted from king to parliament,
impeachment was no longer appropriate. As Robert Tombs explains (“The English
and Their History”, 2014), “Parliament could no longer treat the king’s government as
a separate power; Parliament itself was ultimately responsible for policy.” The
government might be the “king’s ministers” but they now did parliament’s bidding,
not the king’s. This made impeachment a constitutional nonsense. It was a major

landmark; it meant that parliament and government were effectively merging. In
constitutional language, parliament was now the source of both legislative and
executive powers. In the way of our unwritten constitution, no single moment marks
this change; it had happened gradually, almost imperceptibly; but the recognition
that it had happened made it part of our unwritten constitution. The importance of
this cannot be over-stated: the blurring between parliament and government is a
distinctive feature, perhaps the distinctive feature, of our parliamentary system*.

*As we shall see in a later session, this was in marked contrast to the American constitution,
written around the principle of a strict “separation of powers” between the legislature (Congress)
and the executive (President). This is why US Presidents can still be impeached.

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As far as the 18 century is concerned, this merging of parliament with the executive
did not in itself ease the “rage of party” issue; quite the contrary. Parliament was
now the epicentre of the country’s political instability. But a solution was found;
critics called it “the Robinocracy”, the vast system of parliamentary patronage
created and operated by Whig leader Sir Robert Walpole.

First, a brief but important footnote: in 1716 parliament passed the Septennial Act.

This increased the maximum interval between elections to seven years not three. It
stayed at seven years till 1911. Making elections less frequent was a popular change.
Locally, elections were raucous, riotous (and to us, hopelessly corrupt) affairs. There
was no secret ballot till 1872; votes were openly recorded in a book. Voters were
bribed with money and favours, feasted and plied with beer, cajoled and threatened,
for days on end. The expense of this for candidates and, more significantly, their