Page 19 - History 2020

But there was another key factor to his ascendancy: an amazing mastery of the

details of government business that few have equaled (maybe just Elizabeth I’s
minister, Lord Burleigh, thinks Plumb. The nation was still small enough for one man
to become an expert on every detail of the affairs of the nation. This was Walpole’s
real secret, says Plumb, was that “he always knew more about everything than his
rivals or his colleagues. This vast competence bred authority and confidence, and his
contemporaries hesitated long before they opposed his policy. Always convincing,
usually right, the fountain of profit, the channel of promotion, Walpole was
irresistible at Court and dominant in the Commons. Perhaps no other prime minister

has enjoyed so much power for so long over both men and measures.”

Walpole was no overnight success. His lengthy apprenticeship included Treasurer of
the Navy, then Secretary of War. In his early thirties he learned finance under Lord
High Treasurer Godolphin. He also felt the sharp end, spending time in the Tower, on
trumped-up charges of corruption. His developed a life-long hatred of the Tories,
especially Bolingbroke. In office under George I showed his financial genius by

consolidating the National Debt, combining its various funds with their different
interest rates, then devising the Sinking Fund to start repaying it.

Then came the South Sea Bubble, to us a familiar saga of over-optimistic over-
investment causing a financial crash. Walpole avoided it; he’d resigned and gone into
opposition well before; his gambles were political, not financial. The South Sea
scandal gave him his big opportunity; rather that joining in the clamour, he
disregarded popular fury and public insults and used all his political skills to save the

government from falling and to shield the Court from blame. He emerged as the
dominant political figure. But he still a rival - his rash brother-in-law Lord Townshend,
who as foreign secretary favoured an aggressive foreign policy to which Walpole, as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was strongly opposed. Walpole isolated Townshend by
shifting discussion from the then very large cabinet to a more informal grouping of
half a dozen key ministers, especially when Townshend happened to be

accompanying the king on his visits to Hanover. Walpole then “managed” the smaller
group by lobbying them privately prior to meetings. Townshend was increasingly
isolated and eventually driven to resign. From this evolved our smaller modern
cabinet and the convention of collective cabinet responsibility, where dissenters
must resign. Walpole’s political machinations shaped our constitution.

Walpole fell for two reasons. His policy of peace lost out to Tory calls for a more
aggressive, commercially-orientated policy. Many were calling for war with France
and Spain, seen as obstacles to the growth of our trade and empire. Walpole came

under attack on more and more fronts. He was impervious to the political abuse and