SPRING BOOKS
Sir Robert Walpole
BY L. B. NAMIER
TWO themes run through the' book, intertwining as they must : the pattern of politics and the life-work of the man whose term of office as the King's Minister in the House of Commons, that is as its manager and leader, opens an era in British constitutional history. For the significance of Walpole's Premiership will hardly be impaired when the film of legend which has long covered his performance is finally removed, and the picture is seen in its natural colours. But this work of restoration, though clearly adumbrated, belongs to a later instalment of the biography : the present volume,* which bears the subtitle 'The Making of a Statesman,' covers 'the neglected part of his career—his rise to power from 1;00 to 1722: years 'ignored by historians, including Coxe.' And little serious research into the home politics of Walpole has been done by British scholars since Archdeacon Coxe pub- lished his remarkable work in 1798, while that of foreign historians, foremost Professors Vaucher and W. Michael. concentrates wholly or largely on the international aspects of the period. .
Implied in the legend which makes Walpole at the height of his power into a modern Prime Minister relying on a party majority in the House of Commons is that of him as a resolute exponent of party principles and practice, and an unbending Whig who established Whig supremacy in Parliament and Administration; and although the true facts were never in dispute, the obvious conclusions were not drawn from them. If ever a clear division could be expected between Whig and Tory in the eighteenth century, it is in its first half, and especially in its second decade. Yet even then internecine struggles within either party when in office—between Harley and Bolingbroke, and between the Sunderland-Stanhope and the Walpole-Townshend sets—cut across so-called party divi- sions, and there was hardly a Minister. Whig or Tory, who at some time did not seek support with the opposite party against a rival within his own; and even in the constituencies, staunch Whig or Tory patrons would at times return political opponents if that suited their personal or family interest. Still, there was a Whig and a Tory mentality, and there were their exponents in Parliament. the country Whigs and the country Tories. But to gain or retain the support of independent Members of either denomination was only one aspect of the struggle for office carried on by the leading politicians at the centre : most essen- tial for these was to 'obtain the support of the Crown and the disposal of its patronage, the main cement of eighteenth- century politics and the most potent single factor in elections. And the situation was still further complicated by the regularly recurring struggle between the King and his heir: that dichotomy in Court politics produced a situation which. in Walpole's words, was 'not to be managed without difficulty.' Nation-wide party organisations based on anonymous electoral SIR Rouurr WALPOLE: The Making of a Statesmen!. By 3. H. Plumb. (The Cresset Press, 30s.) masses have created dehydrated political systems whose pattern and concepts must not be applied even remotely to the intensely personal politics of Walpole's age. These have to be explored and described in their own terms : which Dr. Plumb does admirably in crisp and lively narrative.
Seeing that the Parliamentary politics of the 'mixed govern- ment' type only start with the Revolution, it is remarkable how much of the Parliamentary and Cabinet business is already transacted some twenty-five years later in forms and terms basically continued throughout the century. There is already a small Effective Cabinet beside a large formal body which will gradually atrophy, and fifty years later be referred to as the Nominal Cabinet. There are already meetings between leading Ministers and the 'men of business' in the House of Commons, its front-benchers (not back-benchers as Dr. Plumb calls them on page 192). There are already meetings of the Government supporters at the Cockpit before the opening of the session. Most important of all, there already emerges the pattern of a parliamentary opposition.
When, in 1717, the breach between the two Whig factions became 'open, avowed and irreconcilable,' Walpole and his friends denounced the Septennial Act 'which they had done their utmost to promote'; supported the continuation of the Schism Act with its discrimination against Dissenters: attacked Stanhope's tendencies towards religious toleration; voted against maintaining 'that small standing army which had become a symbol of whiggery and a guarantee of the Protestant succession'; and refused to proceed with the prosecution of Lord Oxford, in which Walpole had previously played a fore- most part. `No country gentleman could have been more rabid in his attacks on placemen and pensioners or more ardent in his support of the Church.' To get back into office on his own terms,' Walpole 'was prepared to be both opportunist and ruthless.' His apologists 'pass over this period of his political life as quickly as decency allows,' obscuring the fact that Walpole created the pattern of eighteenth-century oppositions no less than of its governments.
There was urgency in Walpole's quest for employment, for he, as so many eighteenth-oentury politicians, desperately needed its emoluments. On the death of his father in 1700 he had inherited an estate of about £2,000 a year, and he received a £7,000 dowry with his wife. But both were grossly extravagant, and within a short time Walpole was deep in debt. 'Your creditors tire my heart out,' wrote his Lynn attorney in 1704. 'There is scarcely a letter in the seven years' correspondence from his mother,' writes Dr. Plumb, 'that does not contain complaints about his failure to pay her jointure.' About Walpole's financial straits and his subsequent sudden rise to wealth Dr. Plumb has a new story to tell; and he has explored the subject with meticulous care. That his account raises more questions than it answers is hardly surprising : a man habitually careless in financial matters does not go out of his way to leave a tidy account of dubious transactions. As Secretary-at-War, 1708-10, Walpole for the first time handled big money, and he was subsequently accused of peculations on a grand scale. 'There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to show,' writes Dr. Plumb, `that Walpole himself took any bribes or percentages on contracts. But . . . his wealth grew immeasur- ably during these years and just how this happened we do not know.'
There followed four years in opposition and three elections, and by 1714 he was once more in debt (which suggests that `immeasurably' may be an exaggeration). He himself is now said to have chosen the Pay Office, the most lucrative govern- ment post, 'because he was very lean and needed to get some fat on his bones.' Next, expenditure restarted on a lavish scale; and yet debts were paid off, old mortgages discharged, and thousands of pounds were wisely invested. Between 1714 and 1717 £109,000 passed through his hands, and of this nearly £62,000 was invested—'where did these vast sums come from?' asks Dr. Plumb. 'Unfortunately, the credit side of Walpole's accounts throws little light on the sources of his wealth.' Between January 10 and May 11, 1716, £17,100 was paid by him into his private account in banknotes—'where Walpole obtained the bank notes will never be known.' But 'the facts of Walpole's sudden wealth are impressive and important'— his domestic circumstances now no longer hindered his political career. Even the loss of office in 1717 'seems to have made little difference to his personal expenditure . . . the account books read as if there had been no change in Walpole's fortune.' He was dabbling in various stock, but 'was selling far more than he was buying.' To give up splendour . . . would be tantamount to giving up his ambition.' But 'he could not continue to live as he did without office'—hence the urgency with which he was striving for it. He returned to the Pay Office in June, 1720, on the very eve of the South Sea crisis, in which he himself, contrary to established belief, suffered losses. How- ever, 'he had netted a small fortune . . . by skilful speculation
in other stocks.' and even his buying up land at inflated prices, and rebuilding Houghton, did not get him into serious financial straits. In the managing of elections and Members, and in profiteering at the Pay Office, Henry Fox was but a disciple of Walpole, though without Walpole's great compensating achievements.
Yet that with which Walpole is traditionally credited at his rise now recedes into the realm of fable. The story of him as a far-sighted financier, untouched by the hysteria of the South Sea Bubble, who, when the Bubble burst, repaired by his, constructive measures the country's ruined finances, bears little relation to the truth': but when, twenty-five years ago, an American scholar, C. B. Realey, challenged it, his reassessment of the evidence received little attention. Dr. Plumb, who has entered deeper into the subject, agrees with Realey that in the South Sea crisis Walpole had more luck than foresight. He favoured the Bank of England, and not the South Sea Company (which Harley had tried to set up as its rival), but criticised its scheme in detail only and not in essentials, and did not foresee the disaster. He himself had held South Sea stock, and although he sold out in January, 1720, he was eager `to get back into the South Sea's shares in June, when they reached their highest price'; and even as late as August 24. 1720, was prepared to Invest heavily in them and to encourage others to do so. But the order he sent from Norfolk reached London too late, or else, wrote his agent, 'you and your friends would have been sufferers by it.'
Nor was he the saviour of the nation's finances. 'Time was the healer, not Walpole. The scheme which goes by his name was invented by Jacombe [Walpole's financial agent]. and never put into practice.' It was not as a great financier but as political manager that Walpole saved the situation. By tenacity and skilful manipulation, by giving way where necessary and standing firm where this was essential, by sacrificing some and saving others among the Ministers responsible, he, at a time When neither the dynasty nor its political system was as yet firmly established, rescued both from ruin, laying the founda- tions of a stability in government such as 'had eluded England for generations past.' Moderation and common sense were the outstanding qualities he displayed during the crisis; and these established him as the supreme House of Commons man as which he deserves to be honoured and remembered. But even after Walpole had succeeded Sunderland at the Treasury, on April 3. 1721, he was not Prime Minister either in fact or in name. as Sunderland still 'disposed of a great deal of patronage, and still possessed the King's ear.' It was only on Sunderland's sudden death, April 19, 1722, that 'Robert Walpole became the first servant of King George 1, and his Premiership began.'
Sunderland's death no doubt facilitated and hastened Walpole's rise to the foremost position in the Administration. Yet his chances of attaining it anyhow, were probably better than Dr. Plumb seems to suggest : at a time when there was neither party nor whips to Secure a steady majority, the King's chief Minister had to be in the Commons, and membership of that House gave him a very marked advantage over rivals in the Lords. During the eighty-five years, 1721-1806, long-term stability was achieved by commoners only : by Walpole, Pelham, North, and Pitt. It is not the importance of public finance which gave the First • Lord of the Treasury his pre- eminent position, but Parliamentary management and patron- age; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who during that period had a separate existence only when the First Lord was a peer, was an Under-Secretary, and never before 1766 a member of the Effective Cabinet. And on this one point Dr. Plumb's scholarship, which deserves high praise, suffers a sudden black- out. On page 75 he places the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not the First Lord of the Treasury, in the small Effective Cabinet, and on pages 204 and 218 he makes Lord Halifax Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post which at no time could be held by a peer.
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