William Prideaux Courtney

“ To a man in good health the wounds would not have been serious, but the minister had been for some time indisposed—a few days before the occurrence Swift had penned the prayer “Pray God preserve his health, everything depends upon it”—and the joy of the nation on his recovery knew no bounds. Both Houses presented an address to the crown, suitable response came from the queen, and on Harley’s reappearance in the Lower House the speaker made an oration which was spread broadcast through the country. ”

“ From the general election of 1734 until his elevation to the peerage Pulteney sat for Middlesex. For some years after this election the minister’s assailants made little progress in their attack, but in 1738 the troubles with Spain supplied them with the opportunity which they desired. Walpole long argued for peace, but he was feebly supported in his own cabinet, and the frenzy of the people for war knew no bounds. In an evil moment for his own reputation he consented to remain in office and to gratify popular passion with a war against Spain. ”

“ At the height of the combat in January 1769 Wilkes was elected an alderman for the city of London; in 1771 he served as sheriff for London and Middlesex, and as alderman he took an active part in the struggle between the corporation and the House of Commons by which freedom of publication of the parliamentary debates was obtained. His admirers endeavoured in 1772 to procure his election as lord mayor of London, but he was set aside by the aldermen, some of whom were allied with the ministry of Lord North, while others, as Oliver and Townshend, leant to the Liberalism of Lord Shelburne. ”

“ For three years he shared power with Townshend, but the jealous Walpole brooked no rival near the throne, and his brother-in-law withdrew from official life to Norfolk in May 1730. Before and after that event the administration was based on two principles, sound finance at home and freedom from the intrigues and wars which raged abroad. On the continent congresses and treaties were matters of annual arrangement, and if the work of the plenipotentiaries soon faded it was through their labours that England enjoyed many years of peace. Walpole’s influence received a serious blow in 1733. ”

“ After the accession of George, the Whigs for nearly half a century retamed the control of English politics. Walpole obtained the lucrative if unimportant post of paymaster general of the forces in the administration which was formed under the nominal rule of Lord Halifax, but of which Stanhope and Townshend were the guiding spirits. A committee of secrecy was appointed to inquire into the acts of the late ministry, and especially into the Peace of Utrecht, with a view to the impeachment of Harley and St John, and to Walpole was entrusted the place of chairman. ”

“ Harley’s statesmanship may seem but intrigue and finesse, but his character is set forth in the brightest colours in the poems of Pope and the prose of Swift. The Irish dean was his discriminating friend in the hours of prosperity, his unswerving advocate in adversity. The books and manuscripts which the 1st earl of Oxford and his son collected were among the glories of their age. ”

“ During the existence of the coalition ministry of North and Fox, the great seal was in commission (April to December 1783) , and Lord Loughborough held the leading place among the commissioners. For some time after that ministry’s fall he was considered the leader of the Whig party in the House of Lords, and, had the illness of the king brought about the return of the Whigs to power, the great seal would have been placed in his hands. The king’s restoration to health secured Pitt’s continuance in office, and disappointed the' expectations of the Whigs. ”

“ His enemies were active in opposition, while some of his colleagues were lukewarm in support. In the new House of Commons political parties were almost evenly balanced. Their strength was tried immediately on the opening of parliament. After the ministry had sustained some defeats on election petitions, the voting on the return for Chippenham was accepted as a decisive test of parties, and, as Walpole was beaten in the divisions, he resolved on resigning his places. On the 9th of February 1742 he was created earl of Orford, and two days later he ceased to be prime minister. ”

“ In 1792, during the period of the French Revolution, Lord Loughborough seceded from Fox, and on the 28th of January 1793 he received the great seal in the Tory cabinet of Pitt. The resignation of Pitt on the question of Catholic emancipation (1801) put an end to Wedderburn’s tenure of the Lord Chancellorship, for, much to his surprise, no place was found for him in Addington’s cabinet. His first Wife died in 1781 without leaving issue, and he married in the following year Charlotte, youngest daughter of William, Viscount Courtenay; but her only son died in childhood. ”

“ Lord Temple endeavoured to secure his exclusion on the ground that he had taken orders in the Church, and one of Gilray’s caricatures delineates the two politicians, Temple and Camelford, playing at battledore and shuttlecock, with Horne Tooke as the shuttlecock. The ministry of Addington would not support this suggestion, but a bill was at once introduced by them and carried into law, which rendered all persons in holy orders ineligible to sit in the House of Commons, and Horne Tooke sat for that parliament only. ”

“ He led the attack on the Tory Reform Bill of 1859. A reconciliation was then effected between the rival Whig leaders, and Lord John Russell consented to become foreign secretary in Lord Palmerston’s ministry (1860) and to accept an earldom (July 1861) . During the American War Earl Russell’s sympathies with the North restrained his country from taking sides in the contest, and he warmly sympathized with the efforts for the unification of Italy, but he was not equally successful in preventing the spoliation of Denmark. ”

“ The cost of the protracted war with France, and the danger to the national church, the chief proof of which lay in the prosecution of Sacheverell, were the weapons which he used to influence the masses of the people. Marlborough himself could not be dispensed with, but his relations were dismissed from their posts in turn. When the greatest of these, Lord Godolphin, was ejected from office, five commissioners to the treasury were appointed (August 10, 1710) , and among them figured Harley as chancellor of the exchequer. ”

“ With inexhaustible energy he promoted the legal proceedings over the riot in St George’s Fields, when a youth named Allen was killed, and exposed the irregularity in the judge’s order for the execution of two Spitalfields weavers. His dispute with George Onslow, member for Surrey, who at first supported and then threw over Wilkes for place, culminated in a civil action, ultimately decided, after the reversal of a verdict which had been obtained through the charge of Lord Mansfield, in Horne’s favour, and in the loss by his opponent of his seat in parliament. ”

“ A fourth election then followed (13th of April) , when Colonel Henry Lawes Luttrell, with all the influence of the court and the Fox family in his favour, obtained 296 votes, while 1143 were given for Wilkes, but two days later the House declared that Luttrell had been duly elected. Through these audacious proceedings a storm of fury broke out throughout the country. In the cause of “Wilkes and liberty” high and low enlisted themselves. His prison cell was thronged daily by the chief of the Whigs, and large sums of money were subscribed for his support. ”

“ The impotence of their opponents, rather than the strength of their friends, kept the Whig ministry in power, and, although beaten by a majority of nearly two to one on Mr Locke King’s County Franchise Bill in February 1851, it could not divest itself of office. Lord Palmerston’s unauthorized recognition of the French coup d’état was followed by his dismissal from the post of foreign secretary (Dec. 1851) , but he had his revenge in the ejectment of his old colleagues in February 1852. ”

“ When Lord Bute was prime minister this legal satellite used, says Dr Johnson, to go on errands for him, and it is to Wedderburn’s credit that he first suggested to the premier the propriety of granting Johnson a pension. Through the favour of Lord Bute, he was returned to parliament for the Ayr burghs in 1761. In 1763 he became king’s counsel and bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, and for a short time went the northern circuits, but was more successful in obtaining business in the Court of Chancery. ”

“ On Sir Robert Peel’s resignation (1846) the task of forming an administration was entrusted to Lord John Russell, and he remained at the head of affairs from July 1846 to Feb. 1852, but his tenure of office was not marked by any great legislative enactments. His celebrated Durham letter (4th of Nov. 1850) on the threatened assumption of ecclesiastical titles by the Roman Catholic bishops weakened the attachment of the “Peelites” and alienated his Irish supporters. ”

“ WILKES, JOHN (1727-1797) , English politician, descended from a family long connected with Leighton-Buzzard in Bedfordshire, was born at Clerkenwell, London, on the 17th of October 1727, being the second son of Israel Wilkes, a rich distiller, and the owner, through his wife Sarah, daughter of John Heaton of Hoxton, of considerable house property in its north-eastern suburbs. After some training under private tuition John Wilkes was sent to the university of Leyden, matriculating there on the 8th of September 1744. ”

“ On the 23rd of May 1711 the minister became Baron Harley of Wigmore and earl of Oxford and Mortimer; on the 29th of May he was created lord treasurer, and on the 25th of October 1712 became a Knight of the Garter. Well might his friends exclaim that he had “grown by persecutions, turnings out, and stabbings.” ”

“ The Jacobites found that, although the lord treasurer was profuse in his expressions of good will for their cause, no steps were taken to ensure its triumph, and they no longer placed reliance in promises which were repeatedly made and repeatedly broken. ”

“ After travelling in Scotland and in Spain, he studied from the autumn of 1809 to 1812 at the university of Edinburgh, then the academic centre of Liberalism, and dwelt in the house of Professor John Playfair. ”

“ After several failures better fortune attended his efforts in another direction, for on the 3rd of May 1782 all the declarations and orders against him for his elections in Middlesex were ordered to be expunged from the journals of the House. In 1779 Wilkes was elected chamberlain of the city by a large majority, and the office became his freehold for life. He died at his house in Grosvenor Square, London, on the 26th of December 1797. ”

“ Pulteney’s resentment was not confined to his speeches in parliament. With Bolingbroke he set on foot in December 1726 the well-known periodical called the Craftsman, and in its pages the minister was incessantly denounced for many years. Lord Hervey published an attack on the Craftsman, and Pulteney, either openly or behind the person of Amhurst, its editor, replied to the attack. ”

“ His father was called to the bench in 1755, and for the next three years Wedderburn stuck to his practice in Edinburgh, during which period he employed his oratorical powers in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and passed his evenings in the social and argumentative clubs which abound in Edinburgh. In 1755 the precursor of the later Edinburgh Review was started, now chiefly remembered because in its pages Adam Smith criticized the dictionary of Dr Johnson, and because the contents of its two numbers were edited by Wedderburn. ”

“ One child, a daughter, was born to them (5th of August 1750) , and then Wilkes left his wife and removed to Westminster, where he kept open house for many young men about town possessing more wit than morals. ”

“ Through the liberality of his friends, his last days were freed from the pressure of poverty, and he was enabled to place his illegitimate son in a position which soon brought him wealth, and to leave a competency to his two illegitimate daughters. ”

“ ORFORD, ROBERT WALPOLE, 1st Earl of (1676-1745) , generally known as Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister of England from 1721 to 1742, was the third but eldest surviving son of Robert Walpole, M.P., of Houghton in Norfolk, by Mary, only daughter and heiress of Sir Jefl'ery BurweU, of Rougham, in Suffolk. The father, a jolly old squire of Whig poHtics who revelled in outdoor sport and the pleasures of the table, transmitted to his son the chief traits in his own character. ”

“ From the first his shrewdness in counsel and his zeal for the interests of the Whigs were generally recognized. In June 1705 he was appointed one of the council to Prince George of Denmark, the inactive husband of Queen Anne, and then lord high admiral of England. ”

“ General warrants were afterwards declared illegal, and Halifax himself, after a series of discreditable shifts, was cast in heavy sums, on actions brought against him by the persons whom he had injured—the total expenses incurred by the ministry in these lawless proceedings amounting to at least £100,000. ”

“ His praises whilst in retirement have been sung by two bishops, Zachary Pearce and Thomas Newton. He died on the 7th of July 1764, and was buried on the 17th of July in his own vault in Islip chapel, Westminster Abbey. ”