Popular Politics
Sarah Richardson
What is Popular Politics?
• ‘Radicalism’ is an anachronistic term
• Support is episodic, activists are divided,
politicians are opportunistic.
• The 19th century definition is one who holds the
most advanced views of political reform along
democratic lines but this does not really apply in
the 18th century.
• Many of those arguing for electoral reform in the
early eighteenth century want to restrict the
franchise to create a purer, less corrupt
electorate.
18th century radicalism
• Hstorians increasingly recognise a lively out of doors political
culture.eg Colley, Krey, Langford, Rogers and Speck . Wilson has
included an imperial dimension to this.
• Radical tradition focused on a vigorous resistance to ruling cartels; a
sense of liberty and freedom among the English. Any attempts to
extend standing armies, erect military barracks, centralise the
police forces or tax collection met with fierce resistance.
• Less about progress and the creation of new rights and more about
the defence of rights that, it was perceived, had always been held
by the English people and were enshrined in documents such as the
Magna Carta and Bill of Rights.
• Popular politics is commercialised in this period: press and
pamphlet literature, production of ‘political’ artefacts, evolution of
a programme of accountability and reform.
Bonnie Prince
Charlie Scent
Bottle
Lecture structure
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•
•
•
Role of Whigs & Tories
Jacobites
Excise Crisis
Wilkes
Whigs & Tories
• Age of Whig Oligarchy: do Whigs and Tories exist as
separate entities in politics?
• ‘the Tories were pre-eminently the landed gentry,
unconnected with the Court - a social group rather than a
political party’. (Brooke)
• Traditional view stresses threefold division of politics, one
based on Court and Country partitions rather than political
parties.
• Period before 1760 sees a metamorphosis of the Whigs
from the party of the people to the party of established
wealth and the Tories from the party of established wealth
to the party of the people. So is popular politics mainly
associated with Toryism or country politics in this period?
Jacobite Chronology
1689
1692
1708
1715
1744
1745
1746
1747
1753
James lands at Kinsale in Ireland; siege of Londonderry; Dundee musters
Jacobites at Lochaber and launches Highland War;
Glencoe massacre;
Old Pretender arrives at Dunkirk and sail for Scotland but turn back
Bolingbroke flees to France; 4 leading Tories impeached; pro-Jacobite rioting
in Midlands and North; Mar raises rebellion at Braemar; captures Perth;
uprisings in Northumberland, Moffat, Rothbury, Kelso, Lancaster, Preston;
Old Pretender lands at Peterhead
British discover plot of French invasion, mass arrests
French defeat Cumberland at Fontenoy; Young Pretender lands at
Eriskay; capture Edinburgh; enter England but turn back at Derby;
French invasion cancelled; defeated at Culloden by Cumberland; Charles
returns to France
Jacobite demonstrations at Lichfield races
‘Elibank’ plot betrayed; Cameron executed - last man to die for Jacobite
cause
Culloden Today
The Battle of Culloden was fought
on this moor 16th April, 1746.
The graves of the Gallant
Highlanders who fought for
Scotland and Prince Charlie are
marked by the names of their
clans.
Interpretations
• Romantic tradition of Jacobitism. Jacobitism
was a genuine political movement
Cruickshanks argued in Political Untouchables
that the Tory party were Jacobites. Monod
that Jacobitism infiltrated all levels of society.
• Apathy, the Revolution settlement & power of
state kept Jacobites at bay and ultimately
defeated them. Jacobites were out of touch
and unpopular.
• Many Whig historians ignore Jacobitism or
dismiss it briefly.
Excise Crisis
• Walpole wanted to reduce the burden of the
land tax and shift government revenues to
other sources.
• Excise scheme of 1733 involved converting the
customs duties on tobacco and wine into
inland duties.
• Walpole had already introduced excise duties
on tea, chocolate, and coffee and in 1732 had
revived the salt duty
Walpole
(1676-1745)
(John
Wootton, c.
1730)
Opposition
• Tory country gentlemen held the view that it was their
duty to shield their inferiors. Price of this paternalism
was the land tax.
• Others opposed to all aspects of Walpole’s policies
• Excise duties involved giving extensive powers of
search to revenue officers, and a wide jurisdiction to
magistrates and excise commissioners.
• Englishman’s right to privacy on his own property and
also to trial by jury put at risk.
• Orchestrated campaign in the press which exploited
such fears.
From Eighteenth Century Collections
Online.
On a search for titles containing the
word ‘Excise’ between 1733 and 1735
there were 71 results.
"A panegyrick on Cardinal
Wolsey", an anonymous satire
on Sir Robert Walpole.
Commonplace book, Latin and
English prose and poetry in
several hands, c.1719-42 or
earlier, the main verse hand
probably 1730s. (Brotherton
Library, Leeds)
Aftermath
• George II stood by Walpole and as a result, he
recovered although serious damage was caused
• General election of 1734 was especially contentious.
• 136 contested elections [out of 558 seats in the House
of Commons], more than in any other general election
before 1832 except 1710 and 1722.
• In open constituencies government was heavily
defeated
• MPs who supported the excise scheme were severely
punished in the large constituencies
• Walpole retained a substantial majority of about eighty
but lost oligarchic control
Popular Politics?
• Excise crisis marked beginning of an organised
opposition that looked to some element of the
excluded public for support.
• Jacobitism as the main vocabulary of popular
opposition began to be displaced
• National dimension of agitation against the excise
• Constitutionalist discourse used by merchants for selfinterested reasons but demonstrated the possibility of
an extra parliamentary constitutionalist opposition
• Wilkes was the first mass movement to project the
ideology of popular constitutionalism into a political
programme
Wilkes
• Of middle class extraction - his father was a
wealthy distiller in Clerkenwell.
• Educated as a gentleman including a spell at
University abroad.
• Married a Buckinghamshire heiress
• Wilkes entered parliament in 1757.
• Wilkes was a publicist of immense skill and he
cultivated the press by associating himself with
the abstract cause of liberty
• Wilkite movement was far more than the
character of Wilkes himself. Indeed Wilkes told
George III that he was not a Wilkite. He provided
focus for discontent
John Wilkes (1725-1797), by Johan Zoffany, c.
1779-82 [shown with his daughter Mary WIlkes].
Wilkes Affair
• Wilkes a campaigned against Bute in his paper the North
Briton.
• Issue number 45 of contained a trenchant attack on Bute.
• To secure evidence against Wilkes a series of arrests and
searches were undertaken under the legitimacy of general
warrants issued directly by secretaries of state.
• The courts found general warrants to be illegal. Wilkes was
arrested whilst he was an MP and this was judged a breach
of parliamentary privilege. Thus Wilkes was expelled from
the House.
• Wilkes fled to exile on the continent. He returned in 1768
and began his campaign to be elected to parliament.
• Once elected as MP for Middx he surrendered to the
authorities and was sentenced to 22 months in the King’s
bench prison for his authorship of the article in the North
Briton.
Wilkes Elections
• In 1767-8 the state of the electoral system attracted
renewed attention. The corporation of Oxford was
discovered in an attempt to sell its representation in
order to pay off its debts.
• Wilkes began his election campaign for the City of
London. In the London election he was unsuccessful
but stood for Middlesex and swept the poll.
• Ejected from his seat at Middx but as often as he was
expelled the people re-elected him
• In December, Serjeant John Glynn, Wilkes' counsel in
his libel trial succeeded in a byelection in Middlesex
• Wilkes stood as an alderman in Farringdon and polled
1300 out of 1500 votes.
• Support for Wilkes had now spread beyond London
and there were 55,000 signatures on petitions in
support of his cause.
Wilkites and the Law
• Wilkites were strongly committed to reform: liberty of
press; more frequent elections; removal of placemen
from the Commons and a more fair and equal
representation.
• Moved from particular grievances to demands for a
structural reform programme
• Wilkites used the courts to generate drama from the
courtroom.
• View of the law dominated by four main themes:
accountability; the elimination of partial justice; right
to trial by jury; and governing by public consent rather
than by force.
• Wilkites used cases for their own political ends: eg the
printers cases of 1771. These centred on the right of
newspapers to publish parliamentary debates.
Portrayals of Wilkes
• Popular plebeian politics is seen in Wilkite images
as form of disorder.
• Politics is portrayed as contentious and divsive.
• Ramshackle buildings, unkempt rooms,
dishevelled dress etc convey the disorderliness of
popular politics.
• Popular prints also condemned social emulation.
Eg in tailor riding to Brentford. His unsteadiness
hints at a forthcoming fall and the rules for bad
horsemen is displayed in his pocket. Exceeding
one’s station in politics or horsemanship is foolish
and hazardous.
• Echoed by the blacksmith who neglects his work
for ill-informed and idle gossip.
Wilkes’ Supporters
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•
•
•
Main support came from London and the Home counties
Sporadic support for him from all over Britain.
‘essentially a product of the metropolis’.
Middling tradesmen supported him wholeheartedly eg the
coopers, hatters, jewellers of the London livery companies
and freemen.
• Supported by the London mob who chalked Wilkes and
Liberty on the streets of the city; smashed the windows of
Lord Bute and Lord Egmont; paraded the Boot and
Petticoat in the streets and burned effigies of Luttrell
outside the Tower of London. The great majority of these
were labourers, servants, journeymen and petty traders.
Conclusions
• Were the eighteenth century reform and agitation movements
really radical?
• Reformers’ ideal was a broad, propertied oligarchy in which the
lower orders should accept their place.
• No wish to curb the powers of the monarchy or reform the House
of Lords.
• Emphasised lower taxes and cheaper more economical government
but not poor relief or reform of economic injustices. Private
property rights were still sacrosanct.
• Radical opinion from at Wilkes on endorsed the principle of the
sovereignty of the people and the derivation of political power from
the populace.
• Often innately conservative movements
• The 'mob' played a peripheral role in the disquiet of the period and
often took to the streets for reasons other than political ones.