Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe success of two tory candidates at Marlborough in the general election of 1734 led to a petition to the Commons from the two defeated whig candidates, alleging corruption and malpractice by the winning side. The two tories had stood on the interest of the Bruce family, led by Charles, Lord Bruce. Bruce successfully organised a vast lobbying campaign against the petition. Most of the lobbyists were MPs, but a significant number were peers, or members of aristocratic families. Lists of lobbyists and those lobbied survive in the Ailesbury (Bruce) Manuscripts, enabling historians to reconstruct and evaluate the campaign. Bruce's lobbying is a fine example of aristocratic involvement in elections to the lower House, despite such interventions having been declared unparliamentary. His triumph damaged the political standing of the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who had previously declared his opposition to any candidate supported by Bruce in the borough. Bruce's lobbying also reveals extensive cross‐party co‐operation between both lobbyers and lobbied: his supporters included not only independent whigs, but many who usually voted with the ministry. This suggests that the classification of MPs in the early 18th century as either whig or tory is too simplistic and that there was more fluidity in party loyalty than has been suspected.

The Painted Chamber, adjacent to the old house of lords at Westminster, was the venue for conferences between the house of lords and house of commons designed to settle any disagreements between the two Houses. Information about the accommodation in the Painted Chamber and its furnishings is provided by a study of a plan by Sir Christopher Wren dated about 1703 and a painting by William Capon of 1799. This note discusses the layout of the accommodation in the early 17th century and how it changed after the Restoration in 1660 and again at the union with Ireland in 1801. It further considers how the furnishings dictated the use of the space by the managers of the conferences, and how the gentleman of the black rod regulated the use of the Painted Chamber by the public.

The excise crisis of 1733 was the first major parliamentary crisis Sir Robert Walpole's ministry faced in the house of commons. As a result of the huge public outcry, the proposal was dropped in the Commons, but the opposition to it in the house of lords was so great that the opposition lords switched their attack in 1734 to the accounts of the South Sea Company, and the ministry lost a crucial division in the Lords (the first such loss by any ministry for a generation). Walpole, with the king's approval, tried to discipline the members of the upper chamber by sacking some erstwhile supporters from their offices and the colonelcy of their regiments (the latter of which was considered by many to be an attack on property). This attempt to gain control alienated a further batch of lords who continued their opposition in the Lords well into 1735, particularly over the Scots' petition in that year against the ministry's conduct of the election of the Scottish representative peers in the summer of 1734. Some of the disciplined peers returned to the ministerial fold, but a number continued their opposition, some for the rest of the life of Walpole's ministry. The 1734–5 crisis in the Lords, which initially arose over the excise proposals, continued, largely fuelled by Walpole's treatment of some of the ministry's former supporters, and, in fact, can be considered a second separate crisis triggered by Walpole's treatment of the peerage.

During the occupancy of the office of clerk assistant in the house of lords by John Walker sr (1664–82) and his son John Walker jr (1682–1715) jottings appeared in the margins of the manuscript minutes (the preliminary stage of the Lords' journal compiled each day on which the House sat). These jottings are concerned with the work that the clerks assistant performed as part of their 'official' duties, such as those concerned with the registering of proxy votes. But there are other jottings which indicate that the clerks were performing jobs for the individual members of the Lords, helping them in their own private affairs as well as helping the peers and bishops perform as lords of parliament. This article looks at the working of this system for the years 1670–80, its origins and why it ceased.

There is much evidence for the parliamentary organisation of the whig junto in Queen Anne's reign, but little for its extra‐parliamentary organisation. This note gives evidence for such extra‐parliamentary organisation late in the reign of William III from letters by both James Vernon and Robert Harley, which describe meetings of the junto and some of its supporters in the country houses of followers in the summers of 1698, 1699 and 1700.

By the late 17th century it had been largely established as a part of the 'constitution' that the house of commons played the leading role in proposing financial legislation and that the house of lords by convention could not amend such bills, but only accept or reject them. From the late 1670s, the practice developed of the Commons 'tacking' money or supply bills to other, controversial legislation, to try to ensure that the Lords would pass the whole bill. This underhand proceeding sometimes worked, but at other times the Lords amended the non‐monetary parts in such a way as to render the bill unacceptable to the Commons, but such actions sometimes resulted in the loss of financial legislation necessary for the king's government. From the 1690s, the whig‐dominated Lords attempted to 'outlaw' tory‐backed tacking by protesting at its unparliamentary nature. This culminated in a formal declaration by the House in 1702 of the unconstitutionality of tacking. The last major attempt at tacking took place over the Occasional Conformity Bills of 1702–4. The final bill of 1704 essentially failed, however, because of the party strengths in the Lords when the tories were outvoted by the whigs. The Lords, however, continued to condemn tacking until at least 1709.