Page 20 - History 2020

public agitation, but once his grip on royal favour faltered, his days were numbered.

He hung on until 1742 before resigning.

His biographer J.H. Plumb assesses Walpole shrewdly. He was neither an orator like
the Tory Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham nor a moral giant like the Victorian William
Gladstone nor a reformer like Sir Robert Peel. He is forever associated with
corruptly* exploiting the self-interest of avaricious politicians; even though this was
well established by the time he entered politics, he used patronage more openly and
ruthlessly than his predecessors, and brought to it his infinite capacity for detail.

Every place and every placeman was studied, filed, and made to pay a price in
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political allegiance. Family connections mattered hugely in 18 century politics.
Walpole placed his own Norfolk cousins in the heart of government. The press had a
field day. Walpole’s system brought the institutions of government into disrepute
and helped to foster demands for reform amongst radical middle classes in the later
eighteenth century.

In his favour, his reorganization of tax and financial administration helped keep
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Britain solvent during our later 18 century wars, and to this we owe our Empire and
thereby the Industrial Revolution. His policy of peace was criticized as weak and
unpatriotic by his war-mongering opponents, but his belief that peace and stability
were a better route to prosperity and security has a modern ring; Plumb suggests it is
probably shared by most of humanity. Walpole gave early modern England its longest
period of peace.

*Tombs says that, to modern eyes, English politics and administration in the age of Walpole may
look corrupt, but by contemporary standards they were remarkably uncorrupt. As for elections,
some constituencies, given the patch-work of differing qualifications to vote, had too many voters
to make bribery workable.

This was only achieved by his inhuman energy and exceptional insight into politics. In
a leisured age, Walpole worked as hard as any modern minister, or harder. He was up
at 6am dealing with letters, at the Treasury before 8am, and during sessions was
almost continuously in the House of Commons. He made time for hunting, drinking
and his mistress, but work was remorseless; bundles of papers followed him.
Treasury business, tax yields, foreign dispatches, electioneering, army promotions,
dissenters, colonists, Eton College, all things great and small received his detailed
attention. HIs knowledge plus his powers of argument made him formidable. Above

all he devoted many hours to the King and Queen, ensuring their absolute support.
His wide human contacts, skill in human relations, patience, memory and foresight,
gave him an unrivalled knowledge of the whole political landscape, a massive
advantage in times of crisis. He knew who could be discarded and who had to be