Conquest and Expansion

The Stuart dynasty is succeeded by the Hanoverians and attempts to restore Jacobite claimants to the throne are defeated. A series of wars confirm Great Britain as the foremost naval power, which helps defend and increase British commercial and political interests in India and the Americas. 

Queen Anne came to the throne at the age of 37 in March 1702. Her mother was a commoner and her father had been chased out of his kingdom by her sister’s Dutch husband because he was a Catholic. She had been brought up in the Anglican faith and stoutly defended and believed in it, but a considerable number of her people considered her Catholic young half-brother was the legitimate monarch. Possibly aware that she was the last Protestant in the Stuart family with a claim to the throne, Anne endured seventeen pregnancies as she tried to produce  further heirs, but only one child survived and he died aged eleven in 1700, after which she had no more pregnancies and suffered chronic ill-health for the rest of her life. Anne and her husband were overwhelmed with grief when their son died. The English parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701 in order to preclude a Catholic restoration: if neither the widowed King William nor Princess Anne produced a child, the crown would pass to Sophia of Hanover.

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Anne became close friends with Sarah Jennings Churchill Countess of Marlborough, whose husband was dismissed from court and military commands during the reign of William and Mary, when he was suspected of corresponding with ex-King James. Anne refused to give up her friendship with Sarah and, already denied a parliamentary allowance, she was also stripped of her guard of honour and banned from the royal court. Apart from a brief uncomfortable visit by the queen following the death of yet another new-born child, the sisters never met again. After Mary’s death, Anne and William became reconciled, but she remained excluded from any role in government. Marlborough was also restored to his former positions and Anne and Sarah Marlborough became the centre of social life in London, whilst the king spent much of his widowed years quietly at Hampton Court.

Anne became queen upon the death of King William III in March 1702. She appointed her husband Lord High Admiral and Marlborough was made Captain General of the army. Sarah Churchill was given numerous posts at court. Anne took a lively interest in affairs of state, and preferred to select her ministers from the Tory party, whereas William and Mary had favoured the Whigs. Her chief minister was the Lord Treasurer Lord Godolphin, closely supported by Marlborough. In her early years, Anne leaned heavily on the guidance of Godolphin who was profoundly versed in the details of finance and had years of experience in government under the last three monarchs. He was in a very real sense Marlborough's partner and together they were known as ‘the duumvirs’.

Two weeks after Queen Anne’s English coronation in April, the country became involved in the War of Spanish Succession. The earlier Nine Years War had involved armies of around 100,000 men which was unsustainable by any national economy of the period. Due to her financial strength, derived from expanding trade and growing colonial enterprises, England was the only member of the alliance able to operate on all fronts on land and sea against France. In the capable hands of Godolphin, aided by the new institution of the Bank of England, the Treasury funded the armies and alliances by which Marlborough was able to gain his great victories and blunt Louis XIV’s last attempt at imposing French hegemony on Europe.

The Grand Alliance of England, the Dutch Republic, the Habsburg Empire, the new kingdom of Prussia and various other German princedoms declared war on France, out of fear of an amalgamated Franco-Spanish Empire. England and the Dutch attacked French interests in North America, the Caribbean, India and other parts of Asia with their naval and trading resources, whilst the other members of the alliance provided most of the armed forces needed to contain France’s efforts on the Rhine and elsewhere in Europe. England also operated a campaign within Spain itself, which received support from the Catalonian minority and Portugal. Some significant gains were achieved there, especially the capture of Barcelona, but the campaign eventually petered out due to disagreements among the commanders. Spain proved a continuous drain of men and resources, and ultimately hampered chances of complete success in Flanders, the war's main theatre.

To begin with, things went badly for the alliance elsewhere: the barrier fortresses, built in the Spanish Netherlands as a forward defence of the Dutch Republic against a French attack, were soon overrun and France and its ally Bavaria scored victories over Habsburg forces in the upper Rhine/Danube area and threatened Vienna.

Although Marlborough lacked the experience of commanding a large army in the field, he was appointed to William of Orange’s old command of the English, Dutch and German forces in the north. He began well, capturing several towns in the Netherlands, for which the queen upgraded Marlborough to a dukedom. He was becoming admired for his adroit handling of his discordant Grand Alliance partners. In 1704, concerned that the French threat to Vienna might force the Habsburg emperor out of the alliance, Marlborough misled his Dutch allies and marched down the Rhine to link up with his imperial allies in southern Germany. By a combination of deception and superb administration he achieved his purpose; after a march of 250 miles, his army joined Imperial forces on the Danube, led by Prince Eugene of Savoy. In July he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Franco-Bavarian enemy at the battle of Blenheim. Bavaria was knocked out of the war and Louis XIV's hopes of an early victory were destroyed. Marlborough had become the most celebrated general of the age and even the Tories, who favoured a naval war, rather than engagement in a European land war where the enemy was strongest, were moved with patriotic admiration.

The next year was something of a stalemate, but in 1706 Marlborough routed the French in another great victory at Ramillies in the Spanish Netherlands, where town after town fell into his hands. Naturally, Sarah the Duchess was exuberant. The queen had granted her husband the royal manor of Woodstock where plans were afoot to build a rival to Versailles named Blenheim Palace. However, stresses in their close friendship were becoming apparent: Sarah was a strong supporter of the Whig cause, whereas Queen Anne preferred the Tories, who shared her care for the Anglican Church. Sarah and Godolphin insisted that the Marlboroughs' son in law, the Earl of Sunderland, a member of the Whig Junto, be appointed Secretary of State. Ultimately the queen, who disliked Sunderland, was forced to give him the seals of office, but she was becoming impatient with the duchess’s tactless and increasingly haughty manner. Anne found herself a new friend, Abigail Masham, who was a poor cousin of the duchess. She also turned to Robert Harley for advice, who gradually turned away from the Whigs and became an opponent of the duumvirate and the Junto.

Queen Anne, with Godolphin’s help, achieved her own success at this time. She was determined to secure the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, first promoted by her great grandfather James I & VI a century earlier. There was a briefly enforced union under Cromwell, but otherwise the two countries had never been able to reach mutual agreement on the terms for unification. Conditions rapidly altered later in the century and Anne seized the opportunity to explore the matter again. The Scottish economy had been damaged by the English Navigation Acts, which excluded Scottish merchant ships from English and colonial ports, and the wars which damaged Scotland’s trade with her major export market in the Dutch Republic. The trading slump was accompanied by a period of climatic disasters in the 1690s which were named The Seven Ill Years in Scotland. Extremely cold weather produced famine conditions, with severe loss of life. Many Scots emigrated to Ireland and the English colonies. In an effort to improve trade and the economy in general, Scots investors raised money to invest in a Scottish colony at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama, which was intended to promote trans-Pacific trade with countries in eastern Asia. It proved to be a disastrous failure; Darien was abandoned in 1700 and a significant amount of Scotland’s capital was lost. To complete the misery, the centre of Edinburgh was burnt down early in the same year.

Anne set up a commission from both countries to design a scheme for Union. The final proposals included an English payment of about £400,000, known as the Equivalent, which was to offset Scotland’s participation in the English National Debt. The Equivalent was used to compensate investors in the Darien Scheme. There were allegations of bribery and widespread discontent in Scotland, but in the end the Act of Union was put into effect in 1707. Scotland retained its own justice system and law courts, but sent MP’s to the London Parliament and selected Scottish peers attended the House of Lords. The Presbyterian Kirk was to remain the established Church of Scotland. The act also created customs and monetary Union and united the Privy Councils of the two countries which now became the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Marlborough continued to lead the army of the new nation. 1708 saw another victory at Oudenarde for the allied forces led by him and Prince Eugene. The fortress city of Lille fell and the French were forced out of most of the Spanish Netherlands.

However, the aftermath of the battle had unfortunate repercussions for the political position of the duke and his friends in government. As they rode to a thanksgiving service for the victory at St Paul’s, the queen and Sarah Churchill had heated words about the jewellery Anne was wearing in preference to the items chosen for her by Sarah. A letter from the Duke was produced which further offended Anne. As the argument continued during the service, the queen was outraged when the duchess told her to ‘be quiet’. That was the end of the famous friendship and the beginning of the end for Marlborough and the Whig government. Queen Anne turned for comfort to her new friend Abigail Masham. However, she knew that knowledge of Sarah’s loss of favour would have a damaging impact on the duke’s authority as Captain-General and so the duchess was allowed to retain all her offices at court. However, tension between the two women lingered on until early in 1711, when the relationship was finally ended.

1709 saw another victory for Marlborough and Eugene at Malplaquet, but it was extremely bloody and their casualties were much higher than the French, who suffered another defeat, but had not lost the war. The combatants held peace talks, but the Whigs insisted on the impossible condition that Louis XIV’s grandson Philip V should relinquish the Spanish throne and negotiations broke down; many thought Marlborough was deliberately prolonging the war for his own profit, but he himself shared some of the doubts about the Whig strategy. However, the country was tired of conflict and the Tories won a landslide victory at the General Election of 1710. Godolphin and his Whig colleagues were coldly dismissed by the queen to be succeeded by Robert Harley and a Tory administration. In January 1711 the queen finally forced Sarah Churchill to resign her court offices and Abigail Masham took over as Keeper of the Privy Purse.

With some reluctance Marlborough returned to a final, campaign in the spring of 1711. He and his allies swiftly deceived and outmanoeuvred the French army and penetrated the allegedly impregnable lines guarding the border without losing a single man. The French Marshal Villars was helpless to intervene as Marlborough besieged the fortress at Bouchain, which surrendered unconditionally on 12 September. It was another great victory and the way to Paris was now open, but Harley was seeking an end to the war and had put out peace feelers. He had a majority in the Commons, but the Whigs outvoted him in the House of Lords. Anne was persuaded to create twelve new peers, including Abigail Masham’s husband, to create a Tory majority in the upper house.

That same day, the last day of the year, the Duke of Marlborough was relieved of his command and charged with corruption.  Marlborough's dismissal and Godolphin's death the following year marked the end of an era. Between them, they had raised the new country of Great Britain to the highest rank in Europe, in terms of both economic and military power. Marlborough’s contribution is evident but Godolphin’s shrewd diplomatic and political policies did much to create the Union of Great Britain and reorganise the Treasury into the institution which served the country well for the remainder of the eighteenth century.

The Allies were stunned by Marlborough's dismissal. He was welcomed and fêted by the people and courts of Europe, where he was not only respected as a great general but also as a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Few had much regard for Harley, now ennobled as the Earl of Oxford, and his close ally Henry St John Viscount Bolingbroke, who issued restraining orders, which withheld British forces from further action and wrecked Prince Eugene’s Flemish campaign that year, whilst organising an expedition against Quebec which ended in disaster. The Habsburg Emperor had died and his successor the Archduke Charles was also the Habsburg candidate for the Spanish throne. For the British, a Habsburg Emperor on the Spanish throne was just as unacceptable as the existing Franco-Spanish royal relationship.

Eventually, the Tory ministers persuaded most of their continental allies into peace negotiations which were agreed at the Treaty of Utrecht in March 1713. The Bourbon possession of the Spanish crown was confirmed, but it was agreed the French and Spanish crowns were never to be amalgamated and the historic rights of Catalonia were to be respected. The Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria. British possession of Gibraltar and Menorca was confirmed, giving the Royal Navy a strong position in the western Mediterranean. Spain also conceded the Assiento to Britain, giving British traders the rights to export 4,800 African slaves per year to Spanish-American colonies for thirty years. Britain took control of part of Acadia (Nova Scotia) and St Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean from France and Louis XIV renounced his support for the Jacobite pretender to the British throne. Angered at losing their right to the Spanish throne, The Habsburgs and their German allies, including the Elector of Hanover, held out for a further year before signing the treaty.

The queen’s health was rapidly declining and the Tory ministers, like other public figures, began weighing up the consequences. The Tories were not convinced the Stuart right to the throne was ended; Bolingbroke had some secret interviews and other communications with the Stuart pretender. He and Oxford both warned James Francis Edward Stuart that he had little chance of gaining the throne unless he changed his religion, but he retained his Catholic belief. The Tory leadership was in disarray and Bolingbroke gradually superseded Oxford, who was forced out of office four days before the queen died in July 1714. On her deathbed, she appointed the Whig grandee Charles Talbot 1st Duke of Shrewsbury to the High Treasurer’s office. Significantly, at the very end Queen Anne also recalled Marlborough, the man who had done so much to add lustre to her reign.

In her prime, Anne was a patron of the theatre, poetry and music. She presided over an age of artistic, literary, scientific, economic and political advancement and most of her reign was a stable and prosperous time, despite the overseas wars that occupied much of the period. It was also notable for an absence of constitutional conflict between monarch and parliament, indicating that she was fortunate with the ministers who governed for most of her reign and was not heavy-handed with the royal prerogative. The Queen Anne period was elegant and well-ordered and established sure foundations for the time of expansion and prosperity which lay ahead.

Sophia of Hanover, Anne’s appointed successor, died two months before Anne and it was her son George who became the next ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. At first sight he was not a good candidate and there seemed a fair chance that the Jacobites might overthrow him. At the beginning of his reign his ability to speak English was restricted. He left his divorced wife imprisoned in Celle, where she was denied access to her children and was forbidden to remarry. His mistress Melusine acted as George’s hostess. Family problems extended into the next generation; indeed, the entire Hanoverian dynasty became infamous for its dreadful family relationships. However George was an experienced soldier and politician. In his reign Hanover had become a power-broker in Imperial German affairs and in the Baltic region, where Sweden and Russia vied for supremacy in the Great Northern War 1700-21. He had commanded the Imperial forces on the Rhine during the War of Spanish Succession and had a friendly relationship with the Duke of Marlborough.

Although George shared the continental admiration for Marlborough and gave him many military honours, the duke never became a leading figure in government again. He suffered a severe stroke in 1716, but his mind remained clear. He lived in the unfinished Blenheim palace for about three years before he suffered another stroke and died in June 1722, not long after his 72nd birthday. Marlborough was endowed with a comprehensive list of military accomplishments; he had an eye for territory and a fine sense of timing, which together with superior logistical skill and organisation, ensured he never fought a battle he did not win, nor laid siege to a town he did not take. The duchess lived for another twenty two years and remained a powerful figure in Whig circles.

George I arrived in England and was crowned in October 1714. The Whigs won an overwhelming victory in the General Election of 1715 and the Tories did not regain power for half a century. That year, some Tories, notably Viscount Bolingbroke, supported the Jacobite uprising in Scotland, but it was poorly planned, financed and activated and was soon put down. George showed good sense in promoting a moderate response: the income from forfeited estates was spent on schools for Scotland and paying off part of the national debt.

A tussle for power among the Whigs finally resulted in Sir Robert Walpole and his brother in law Lord Townshend taking power; they were wealthy Norfolk landowners whose families had little previous experience of state affairs, but Walpole in particular was ruthless in retaining his hold on power and dominated his opponents. In 1720 he became First Lord of the Treasury, and he is generally regarded as Great Britain’s first Prime Minister. He retained the position until 1742.

Walpole was famed for his financial expertise, earned in the days when he made a fortune whilst others were losing theirs in the crisis known as the South Sea Bubble. At that time the term ‘South Seas’ applied only to the waters surrounding South America. The South Sea Company was a joint stock company formed in September 1711 by a group organised by Robert Harley Lord Oxford to manage the National Debt which amounted to £9 million. Creditors surrendered their share of the debt to the company in return for shares in the South Sea Company of the same nominal value. The government would make an annual payment to the company of 6% interest plus expenses, which would then be redistributed to the shareholders as a dividend. National Debt stock was valued at the discounted rate of £55 per £100 nominal value, because the government's ability to repay in full was widely doubted. However, as the South Sea scheme promised to repay creditors the full nominal value of their loans, the shares would be worth at least their original value once the scheme became public knowledge. Anyone with advance knowledge could thus buy stock representing the debt cheaply and re-sell it at a high profit. This type of ‘insider-dealing’ was not unusual in an age which was renowned for corruption.

The company was also granted a monopoly to trade with Spanish South America, a potentially lucrative enterprise, but actually worthless at the time because Britain was at war with Spain. There was no money to invest in a trading venture and no realistic expectation that there would ever be a Spanish trade to exploit; nevertheless, the potential for great wealth was widely publicised at every opportunity, so as to encourage interest in the scheme. The Assiento de Negros which Spain granted as part of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 suddenly put potential value on the South Sea trading possibilities. The company was given charge of the Assiento to sell African slaves to Spanish America and offices were opened in seven separate Spanish colonial cities. Contracts were made with the Royal African Company to supply the slaves. Ten pounds was paid for a slave aged over 16, £8 for one under 16 but over 10. Two-thirds were to be male, and 90% adults. The company raised £200,000 to finance the operations.

The trade was not profitable, possibly due to a high Spanish import levy and a large percentage of the profits being reserved for the monarch and his financial advisors. Two years of interest payments were withheld and the company was allowed to issue new shares to stockholders to the value of the missed payments. A quarrel developed among the leadership and a faction supporting the Prince of Wales was ousted by one headed by the King. Things were made worse when the brief Quadruple Alliance War with Spain broke out in 1718. However, after rearranging its financial affairs, the company took on more government debt and issued further batches of shares, some free of charge to friends and notable public figures such as the king’s mistress. Stock was trading at £123 early in 1720 and began to rise. At the end of May it was worth £550. A ‘bubble’ was clearly developing similar to the Tulip Mania in Amsterdam a century before. The share price reached £1,000 in early August 1720, when sell orders caused it to fall back rapidly; before the year was out, it had dropped back to £100 per share. Those who had bought on credit were frequently forced into bankruptcy. Thousands, including many members of the aristocracy, were ruined. Fortunately for Robert Walpole, his personal wealth was greatly increased, as he had bought at the bottom and sold near the top of the market.

In 1721 a Parliamentary report revealed widespread fraud amongst the company directors and corruption in the Cabinet. Some died in disgrace and the rest were impeached. Robert Walpole took charge and sorted out the terrible mess. He was made Chancellor of Exchequer and then First Lord of the Treasury. He divided the South Sea Company into three: two parts were administered by the Bank of England and the Treasury, the third was put into a Sinking Fund which was a portion of the country’s income put aside to help pay off the National Debt every year. Eventually stability returned to the country. Some victims were compensated with money recovered from the company directors and Walpole ensured that the interests of King George and his mistress were protected. He also saved several key government officials from impeachment. In the process, Walpole was recognised as the saviour of the financial system and the dominant figure in British politics; he is credited with rescuing the Whig government and underwriting the Hanoverian Dynasty.

The King remained an active ruler in Hanover, where he made regular visits. He was prepared to leave Walpole with a fair amount of latitude as his principal minister in Great Britain. Walpole was a shrewd politician, adept at using bribery and corruption in his efforts to keep Parliament onside in order to retain power; he coined the phrase ‘every man has his price’. Throughout his time in power, he pursued a policy of peace abroad, low taxation and steady reduction of the national debt. However, when George I died in 1727, Walpole and his friends were in danger of losing their positions because the incoming King George II was not inclined to retain his father’s men, but Walpole was restored to favour through the support of George II’s wife Queen Caroline and continued to hold his office for another fifteen years.

They were good years for Britain’s economy. A naval victory won by Admiral Sir George Byng off Cape Passaro during the war of the Quadruple Alliance had smashed the Spanish fleet and established Britain’s dominance in the western Mediterranean. It also strengthened her naval reputation in other parts of the world. The East India Company now dominated the world of trade, sometimes to the detriment of home producers. In 1721 a Calico Act was passed to prevent the importation and sale of cheap and colourful cotton textiles from Asia, which threatened the livelihood of London’s silk workers. However raw cotton was allowed and it became the basis of a new indigenous industry, initially producing fustian for the domestic market. Production was soon concentrated in new cotton mills, where key elements of the Industrial Revolution developed with a series of mechanised spinning and weaving technologies which led to increased productivity and lower costs. Eventually, in 1774 the mill-owners campaigned for and won permission to produce pure cotton cloth, thus setting in motion the enormous Lancashire cotton business.

The East India Company continued to make large profits in other business avenues and thousands of young British men now looked to make their fortune in the East. One of the most successful was ‘Diamond’ Thomas Pitt, governor of the important company HQ at Madras, who settled in Cornwall when he retired to England. His grandson William Pitt entered Parliament in 1738 as member for Old Sarum, a notorious pocket borough owned by his family. Dissatisfied with Walpole’s administration, Pitt joined a Whig party faction known as the Patriots. He was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber by Frederick Prince of Wales, who had set up court in opposition to his father King George II.

Walpole continued to retain both the King’s support and a Parliamentary majority. In 1735 George II presented him with 10 Downing Street, which became the permanent London residence of the British Prime Minister. Walpole gradually reduced land taxes and increased excise duties. This earned him the thanks of the landed gentry, but merchants and traders were not enthralled and smuggling became a profitable sideline for many. Walpole was satirised by leading literary talents of the age, including John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson. Walpole responded with the Licensing Act of 1737 which regulated London theatres with a system of controls and censorship. That same year saw the death of Walpole's close friend Queen Caroline.

Opponents, led by William Pitt and George Grenville within his own party, stirred public opinion about a series of disputes in the Caribbean, where Spanish officials had boarded and searched British ships suspected of smuggling. Even the king and members of his cabinet called for a firm response, which Walpole resisted, until a Welsh sea captain named Jenkins claimed a Spanish official had cut off his ear in one such incident. Walpole was forced into what became known as the War of Captain Jenkins’ Ear. Vice Admiral Edward Vernon was sent to the West Indies and scored an acclaimed victory at Portobelo in Panama with a small force of six warships, but he suffered a serious defeat when he made a full-scale attempt to capture Cartagena de Indias in 1741.

A famine caused by extremely cold weather was causing a huge loss of life in Ireland at this time and the small scale war against Spain became enfolded with-in the much larger War of Austrian Succession. The Cartagena defeat and the Irish famine possibly contributed to a poor performance by the Whigs in the general election of 1741 which weakened Walpole’s grip on power; he resigned in February 1742 and was created Earl of Orford. Such was his reputation that he continued to maintain influence with George II and the succeeding administration until he died in March 1745. His valuable art collection, which included works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck and Velázquez, was later sold to Catherine the Great of Russia by his successors when they fell on hard times.

The War of Austrian Succession was fundamentally a dispute about the balance of power in Europe and marked the rise of Prussia as a major power. The Emperor Charles VI died in 1740 leaving a daughter Maria Theresa to inherit his Habsburg lands, which had become known as the Austrian monarchy or empire. As a woman, she was not able to seek election as the Holy Roman Emperor, which had been a Habsburg title since 1440, but she hoped to install her husband Francis of Lorraine in her place. Prussia aimed to seize the rich province of Silesia, whilst France, as always, had eyes on the Austrian Netherlands and Spain wanted to regain its lost duchies in Italy. The British tried to avoid sending large numbers of troops to the Continent and looked for colonial and trading gains arising from their naval power. However, King George II was born in Hanover, he was an Imperial Elector and was determined to protect his country and play a part in the reorganisation of European power. Britain could not remain a disinterested spectator in the European struggle.

Britain was finally dragged into the war in support of Maria Theresa when she was attacked on two fronts by Prussia and France. In 1742 a sizable British force was sent to aid the defence of Hanover. The following year, commanded by George II (the last time a British king would lead an army in battle), an allied army gained a confused victory at Dettingen, but the French later gained a clear victory at Fontenoy. Once Prussia had achieved its aim of winning Silesia, Frederick the Great was content to sign a treaty in 1745 which confirmed his conquest and recognised Maria Theresa’s husband as the Holy Roman Emperor.

In July 1745, with a promise of French support, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, known as the Young Pretender, landed in Scotland. He quickly assembled an army, composed of supporters in the Highlands and anti-unionist Presbyterians elsewhere in Scotland, in support of his father’s Jacobite claim to the throne. By September he was in Edinburgh and won the battle of Preston Pans. The Jacobites advanced into England and panic overtook London. By the time he reached Derby in September, Bonnie Prince Charlie, as he came to be known, realised the anticipated support was not available in England and a French supporting force failed to materialise. He withdrew to Culloden, where a British army commanded by the king’s younger son the Duke of Cumberland destroyed the Jacobites in the last major land battle fought on British soil. Charles Edward himself effected an escape whilst being hunted throughout the highlands and islands, but many highlanders were slaughtered in the subsequent manhunt and measures were put in place to eradicate the Gaelic culture which had supported the Jacobite cause.

In the Netherlands, the French were now at the gates of the Dutch Republic and were no longer spellbound by the memory of Marlborough’s triumphs, but the finance minister warned Louis XV that the French economy had been reduced to a ‘catastrophic state’ by the British naval blockade. A new power had also entered the equation; a Russian army arrived in the Rhineland to support Maria Theresa. France was in no condition to take on another enemy and was willing to meet a deputation sent by Thomas Holles the Duke of Newcastle to discuss an end to the war. Newcastle had served as Britain’s Secretary of State through most of Walpole’s ministry. His chief talent was as manager of the Whig Party from 1715; using patronage and bribery, he won elections and continued to maintain the party in power until 1761. He was frequently criticised by William Pitt, but continued in office when his brother Henry Pelham became prime minister in 1743.

The War of Austrian Succession was finally brought to an end by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, forced on the other combatants by Britain and France in 1748. Maria Theresa retained most of the Habsburg lands, but Prussia retained its conquest of Silesia. France surrendered the Austrian Netherlands, which it had completely conquered, thus demonstrating Louis XV’s absolute need for a peace deal, while Spain held onto gains in northern Italy. Britain had proved itself the predominant naval power once again, but returned Louisbourg, the guardian of the seaway into New France, Canada, in exchange for the return of the important East India Company station at Madras which the French had overrun. The peace was regarded as a truce by Britain and France, with unfinished business to be concluded later. Maria Theresa was furious that Britain recognised the Prussian conquest of Silesia without Austrian agreement and a major rearrangement of alliances was to be expected.

Although some of Pitt’s Patriot friends were taken into the new Pelham/Newcastle administration in 1744, Pitt himself was not granted a position because of Newcastle’s annoyance at his part in the downfall of Walpole and the king’s anger about his views on Hanover. He was however admired in other circles and Sarah dowager Duchess of Marlborough left him a legacy of £10,000, as an ‘acknowledgment of the noble defence he had made for the support of the laws of England and to prevent the ruin of his country’. Pitt trimmed his position about the deployment of British troops to protect Hanover and, after the ’45 Jacobite Rebellion and further reverses in Europe, Pitt was taken into the Pelham/Newcastle administration and became Paymaster General. He earned popular approval for refusing the usual practice of appropriating the interest on all the money controlled by the Paymaster and also a commission of 1/2% on all foreign subsidies. Henry Pelham had also set an example of self-denying honesty when he held the position, but he did not possess Pitt’s gift of opportunist self-promotion.

With the onset of peace in 1748, the Pelham government was able to reduce spending on the army, navy and foreign subsidies. The land tax and interest rates were reduced and a fund was once more set up to reduce the National Debt. The Navy was reorganised and, in 1752, Britain came up to date by adopting the Gregorian calendar which was first used by Catholic countries in 1582. Corruption and the national curse of gin drinking were discouraged and political opposition was weakened when the Prince of Wales died in 1751. On Pelham’s death in 1754, power moved seamlessly into the hands of his brother the Duke of Newcastle. That year, the Whigs won another large election victory. Newcastle’s policy of paying subsidies to continental allies in an attempt to maintain the fraying peace with France was fiercely attacked once more by William Pitt, who was dismissed from the government.

Britain and most European countries were reviewing their diplomatic options. Maria Theresa was determined to regain Silesia and considered France a more reliable military partner for that purpose. Russia under Czarina Elizabeth was concerned about Prussian ambitions in Poland and signed up to support the Austrian cause, whilst Britain chose to make an alliance with Frederick the Great, because he would provide better military support for the king’s homeland of Hanover. France, having lost Prussian support, was impelled to make a defensive pact with its long-term enemy Austria. When war broke out in 1756, few believed the small Prussian state could withstand the combined forces of the three powers ranged against it. However, fortune, fortitude and Frederick’s military abilities all helped hold the line.

France and Britain both had wider interests outside Europe; each was interested in the potential of North America, which explained the British annoyance at returning the stronghold of Louisbourg and the French willingness to sacrifice so much for its return at the Aix Peace. About 2 million people now inhabited the 13 British colonies and Pitt and his Patriot Whigs felt the time was ripe for them to expand into the interior. France had many fewer colonialists but was eager to link New France in Canada to Louisiana in the south via the Mississippi. In 1755 a force of British regulars was sent to seize the Ohio country and the French Fort Duquesne, but the mission ended in disaster with defeat by a combined Franco-Indian (Native American) force at the Battle of the Wilderness. The remnants, including a colonial lieutenant colonel named George Washington, retreated to Pennsylvania. This is known in America as the start of the French and Indian War.

The Royal Navy was more successful when it prevented French ships taking reinforcements up the St Lawrence to reinforce Canada. New England provincials also confronted French Acadians in what is now part of the Canadian Maritime Provinces and Maine in the USA. Acadian settlers and their native friends had remained in and around the British Nova Scotia colony when it was set up on conquered territory in 1713. In 1755 relations became strained and they refused an order from the governor to take an oath of allegiance to King George. Colonial militia were called in, burned their houses, took their livestock and deported three-quarters of the Acadian population to locations scattered throughout the British American colonies; many ended up as indentured labourers and some families were split up. After the fall of Louisbourg in 1758, thousands more Acadians were transported to France. Most of them later went to Louisiana where they founded the Cajun culture which still exists today. Further expulsions of Acadians continued up to 1778.

It is unlikely these Acadian events were noticed much in London at the time. In 1756 the fall of Menorca and Admiral John Byng’s failure to relieve it caused public uproar and resulted in the downfall of the Duke of Newcastle in November. William Pitt took office as Leader of the House of Commons and Secretary of State. However, the king remained unfriendly and Newcastle hovered in the wings.

In April 1757 Pitt was dismissed from office on account of his opposition to the continental policy and the circumstances surrounding the court-martial and execution of Admiral Byng. By this time he was widely admired for opposing corruption, his advocacy of imperialist expansion and his hostility towards France and Spain. He dominated the House of Commons with his commanding manner, debating skills and brilliant rhetoric. A public crescendo of support for Pitt overcame continued royal disapproval and parliamentary scheming and he was reinstated. Newcastle continued to act as prime minister, although Pitt was the real head of government. It was a public and democratic acclamation for the man known as ‘the Great Commoner’.

In the summer of 1757 the omens for a successful war were not great. The loss of Menorca had weakened British influence in the Mediterranean, the French had driven Britain out of the American hinterland and the Duke of Cumberland had been defeated and agreed to take Hanover out of the war, leaving Britain’s sole ally Prussia exposed to multiple threats from all quarters. King George quickly revoked Cumberland’s agreement and Pitt reversed his former opposition to involvement in Europe; British troops were sent to support the Prussian/Hanoverian forces now led by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick.

However, it was some time before news reached London that one of the most momentous and historic of all British victories had been won in India in June 1657. A young East India Company colonel named Robert Clive defeated the large but unreliable army of the Nawab of Bengal at the battle of Plassey with a much smaller force of British soldiers and Indian sepoys. He had earlier retaken the city of Calcutta, where British captives had been imprisoned and died in ‘the Black Hole’. The Nawab was killed by his own people, French influence in Bengal was eliminated and the British East India Company dominated its trade thereafter. In 1761 a Company force led by Eyre Coote took Pondicherry, the French trading fort and rival of Madras. Although Pondicherry was later returned at the peace settlement, French influence in India never recovered.

Allied hopes began to be restored in Europe in the spring of 1758 When Ferdinand drove the French out of Hanover and back across the River Rhine, persuading Pitt to agree to increased involvement in the German campaign. His intention was to tie down French forces in Europe while Britain’s naval supremacy was used to attack French possessions around the globe. Valuable French outposts in Senegal and the Gambia on the coast of West Africa were taken. Back in North America, a setback at Lake Ticonderoga was offset when Fort Duquesne together with the whole Ohio territory fell. The fort was replaced by a settlement named Pittsburg in honour of William Pitt. The great prize of Louisbourg, which guarded the entry into Canada, was also taken again, leaving the way clear for a young General James Wolfe to advance up the St Lawrence the following year. He was killed as his troops gained a spectacular victory by taking Quebec. The following year Montreal fell and the conquest of Canada was completed. French hopes of mounting an invasion on Britain in 1759 were destroyed by the British naval victories of Lagos and Quiberon Bay. The important French sugar island of Guadalupe was taken and Prince Ferdinand led an allied army to victory at Minden which kept French forces at bay in Germany. In Britain the year 1759 was celebrated as ‘The Annus Mirabilis’.

Things changed when the elderly King George II died in October 1760 to be succeeded by George III, who did not share his grandfather’s fond attachment to Hanover or his late-found toleration for Pitt. George II was never a popular king but he possessed a welcome steadiness of character. Over the years he earned the confidence of his people and the respect of foreign governments.

The war was now mainly a slugging match between Prussia and the Russian/Habsburg alliance in the East and a Prussian/ Hanoverian defence against France in West Germany. At this stage, Austria and Russia were eager to complete the defeat of Prussia, but France was willing to negotiate peace with Britain in the hope of regaining some of her losses. However, Pitt’s insistence that Britain should keep all its colonial conquests and continue to aid Prussia, whilst France substantially reduced its support of Austria was not acceptable to Louis XV and his ministers. In 1761 they brought a new player to the table. A family compact was agreed between Louis and Charles III of Spain. Britain was informed that Spain would declare war on Great Britain if France had not obtained peace by the following May 1st. When the government refused Pitt’s demand for an immediate declaration of war on Spain, he resigned in October. George III had already persuaded his friend the Earl of Bute to becoming Secretary of State.

Frederick the Great’s British subsidy was now in doubt and he saw that only luck could save him from destruction in the coming year.  Luck, in the form of the death of the Czarina Elizabeth, came to his aid in January 1762. She was succeeded by Peter III who admired Frederick and took immediate steps to bolster his hero’s situation. The Czar was murdered in July to be succeeded by his widow Catherine, but she never renewed the war against Frederick. Prussia began to gain the upper hand in the east and an armistice was signed in November.

Three months after Pitt’s resignation, the government adopted his advice and declared war on Spain. Britain captured the Spanish possessions of Havana in Cuba, and Manila in the Philippines as well as three French islands in the Caribbean: Martinique, St Lucia and Grenada. In May 1762 Bute was promoted to prime minister and all parties in the Seven Years War were, for various reasons, ready to make peace.

The Treaty of Paris between Great Britain, Hanover, France and Spain was concluded in February 1763. France renounced to Great Britain all of mainland North America east of the Mississippi River (excluding New Orleans and environs); the West Indian islands of Grenada, Saint Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago; and all French conquests made since 1749 in the East Indies. Great Britain restored to France the West Indian islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galante, La Désirade and Saint Lucia; the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland; the West African colony of Gorée (Senegal); and Belle-Île-en-Mer (off Brittany). Spain recovered Havana and Manila, ceded Florida to the British, and received Louisiana, including New Orleans, in compensation from the French. The British concessions to France in the West Indies were made partly in order to secure the French evacuation of Prussian enclaves in western Germany which France claimed it was obliged to occupy pending Austria’s settlement with Prussia. The French evacuated Hanover, Hesse, and Brunswick. The contemporaneous Austro-Prussian settlement left Central Eu-rope almost the same as it was before the outbreak of war.

Bute’s settlement with France fell well short of Pitt’s expectations because he hoped for a lasting peace with France and was afraid that, if he took too much, the whole of Europe would unite in envious hostility against Great Britain. However, his hope was not reciprocated: France went to war with Great Britain during the American Revolution and the British found no support among the other European powers.

Britain emerged from the war as the most powerful country in the world. Her navy was all-powerful on the seas, London was at the centre of a world-wide trading web and Britain ruled or managed an empire consisting of a variety of different administrations. Thirteen colonies with different charters, but mostly sharing the constitutional, legal and religious tenets of England, were thriving on the east coast of North America. Recently, for a brief period, the Peninsula of Florida was given to Britain by Spain and, inland, the Ohio territory as far as the Mississippi had fallen to Britain. To the north, the colony of Nova Scotia and the sparsely settled community on Newfoundland Island now found themselves neighbours to the newly-won French-speaking Quebecois and Acadian areas of Canada and the untracked northlands where the fur-trading British Hudson’s Bay Company ruled.

The Caribbean was speckled with islands ruled by Britain. Valued for sugar production, their economy, like that of neighbouring islands and the mainland countries of South and Central America relied on the labour of black slaves imported from West Africa. Slavery was also an important constituent of some colonial economies in North America. The slave trade was based on fortified trading posts on the west coast of Africa, where ships arrived to buy or barter for slaves usually brought by traders from the interior. British slaving interests had recently become dominant on the coast, following the decline in Dutch and Portuguese influence. Small outposts at other places in the world such as Gibraltar and St Helena were maintained to support, supply and protect the Royal Navy and British merchant ships.

The most important British trading area was in the East Indies. Bombay, Bengal and the Carnatic coast were important British-controlled territories in India, a huge and diverse sub-continent containing a varied mix of ethnic and religious peoples. The indigenous rulers of the territories were effectively the clients of the British East India Company, which funded its own private army and ran its own fleet of armed merchant ships. Britain and the rest of the empire relied on the Company for a regular supply of cotton, silk, indigo, spices, tea from China, opiates for laudanum (which was a cure-all for all sorts of maladies) and many other oriental products. At this stage the British government was not directly involved in Indian affairs. but a huge monopoly like the Company could not remain independent and politically unregulated for long.

George III was conscious that he was a real British king, born and bred in England, unlike his two predecessors who were German-born. He was determined to put an end his grandfather’s relaxed grasp on political affairs, but he struggled with the powers which 46 years of Hanoverian rule had ceded to Parliament, where the House of Commons now wielded real authority. In the early years, he and his ministers were troubled by John Wilkes, who published inflammatory and defamatory attacks on the king and Bute. Following the peace agreement, short-lived ministries struggled to make the best of the country’s new-found position of world authority.

Finance was a troubling problem for post-war administrations. The National Debt had nearly doubled in the war years. The perceived need to pay down the debt led to unpopular tax measures spread over the British Isles and the overseas colonies. In 1765 an act was passed which levied a stamp duty on every document in the British colonies in North America, leading to the first demands for no taxation without representation. In 1766 William Pitt became prime minister and was created the Earl of Chatham. He understood the democratic protests in America and repealed the Stamp Act. However, Parliament also declared its absolute authority in all respects in the colonies, which went against their call for a voice in government. Chatham had suffered a debilitating and painful illness for many years and he was now overtaken by a mental breakdown of some sort. He virtually ceased to function and his government colleagues were left to their own devices. In 1767, Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, imposed duties on tea, paper, and other goods in the American colonies. This caused further offence in the colonies, which were no longer threatened by a French presence in Canada and were becoming imbued with a growing sense of impatience with the intransigent ministers of the mother country.

As he lay in isolation from affairs at Westminster, Chatham also pondered the growing importance of affairs in India. He was beginning to consider a scheme for transferring the political powers of the East India Company to the crown, but in 1768 he felt impelled to resign from government. After recovering his faculties, Chatham appeared from time to time in the House of Lords with various attempts to modify the government’s attitude to the American colonists. His words fell on deaf ears and hostilities broke out in 1775. Chatham’s final parliamentary appearance was in 1778, when he passionately opposed a motion to conclude peace with the colonies on any terms, which he felt was a surrender to threats of intervention from his life-long enemy France. He fell in the chamber and was carried out to die and was honoured with a public funeral. Godolphin, Marlborough, Sir Robert Walpole, the Earl of Newcastle and William Pitt, between them had piloted Britain through one of the greatest periods of challenge and opportunity in its history. Of them all, Pitt probably earned the most respect from his contemporaries and historians.

In 1770 King George turned to Lord North and asked him to form a Tory administration. The following years were to deliver one of the greatest shocks the country had endured since the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Great Britain was financially sound and politically comfortable, with a constitution which forbade its monarch the unbridled power available to the absolutist rulers on the continent. It was protected by a powerful navy, supported by a burgeoning empire, buzzing with new businesses created by entrepreneurs like James Watt, Josiah Wedgewood and Richard Arkwright. The British people were intellectually stimulated by a host of talented men of letters and thinkers, such as David Hume and Adam Smith, who were leaders of ‘the Scottish Enlightenment’. And yet it was to find itself outfoxed and defeated by colonists, regarded by the king and his ministers as ungrateful kinsfolk, who sheltered under British protection until the French menace disappeared and were then unwilling to help defray the costs of that protection.

In those final years before the American Revolution, people could reflect on a century of change. The aristocracy and landed elite set the cultural tone and remained in dominant positions of power in central and local government. They lived in country houses which ranged from quietly stylish to opulent, often surrounded by a picturesque park and complemented by a garden designed by ‘Capability’ Brown or one of his fellow landscape gardeners. They were furnished with new furniture made by Chippendale and Hepplewhite and often displayed works of art brought home from visits to Italy and France, in addition to grand new portraits painted by the fashionable painters of the age such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough; they all turned to George Stubbs to paint their horses.

Lower down the social scale, society was changing and the population was in-creasing. Cities and towns became better organized and were often becoming pleasant places to live in. They were lively with shops, theatres, hostelries and eating establishments. Teachers set up schools and an assortment of musicians, dancing masters and booksellers set up business. People also came to town to consult lawyers, doctors and other professional people. Local bankers offered financial services to the better off. Insurance companies and fire engines were becoming available for the protection of citizens and property. Many municipal authorities endeavoured to provide a supply of clean water to their residents.

The better off town dwellers, in their new or renovated houses built of brick or stone, lived alongside the poorer folk who provided their domestic help and performed all the services necessary to a successful urban community. Life for these people could be subject to sudden upsets such as injury, illness and unemployment. Some unfortunates in town and country, suffering from permanent poor health or war injuries, were reliant on the poor law system; at any one time thousands were being transported across the length and breadth of the country from the place where they fell destitute to their true place of settlement. Some resorted to crime: children picked pockets; poachers took game from country estates whilst the highest class criminals were highwaymen holding up coaches and making off with the money and jewellery of the upper classes. Hundreds of greater and lesser criminals were hanged every year and some long-dead corpses were trussed in gibbets at public places as a warning to any inclined to follow the same path. Punishment was uppermost in the mind of justices and judges with little consideration for redemption.

The countryside was also being transformed and agriculture was undergoing a revolution. Strip farming in the medieval open arable fields of lowland Britain had more or less been abandoned. Arable was replacing sheep walks in the more fertile areas, where the land was often divided into rectangular fields farmed by yeomen or the tenant farmers of a manorial estate. Field edges and property boundaries were marked by hedges or, in the hill areas of the north, by dry-stone walls. Landowners, such as Sir Robert Walpole’s neighbour and fellow Whig politician Charles ‘Turnip’ Townshend, had transformed arable farming, bringing in new ideas such as the four course rotation and spreading marl to enrich the soil. Jethro Tull had introduced mechanisation into agriculture and Robert Bakewell was using selective breeding methods to produce specific improvements in farm animals. Agriculture in most of Britain’s favoured areas was now more than a subsistence existence; farmers hired labour, paid rent and bought seeds, breeding stock and other inputs which had to be paid for, and they worked the land to produce a surplus to be sold for cash to help pay for those inputs.

Men, whose forefathers had been villeins working their own piece of land, now laboured for the local farmers or worked in various parts of the local estate, such as the garden, stables or the woodyard. The villages also contained artisans, such as millers, thatchers and shoemakers, many of whom rented pieces of ground, or assarted a piece from the common in order to grow a few vegetables or raise chickens, ducks and geese which would help feed their families. The common wastes, which for hundreds of years had been supervised by the manorial court and utilised by the entire community for provision of turf and wood for fuel, or as a feeding ground for their fowl and animals, were now a diminishing asset.

Many farmers and landowners regarded the commons as obsolete. They could increase the country’s food production and improve their income if they were allowed to enclose the commons and share them out among those with farming interests in the community. It became usual for those seeking to enclose to do it through a private Act of Parliament which legalised the takeover of the common and regulated the way it was split into units and divided up between the local landowners and farmers. In the process, a landless working class was created who were not all able to find work on the new farms created out of what many regarded as ‘their land’. Some drifted to the local town or went to sea. Others began to find their way into areas where new industries were calling for a fresh supply of workers.

Many were still drawn to the old magnet of London, probably the largest city in the world, where more than 650,000 people lived and a huge variety of work was available, from ostlers and chimney sweeps to parlour maids and harlots. The twin city of London-Westminster was home to the monarch and his court; Parliament went into session there; the Law Courts were housed there; it was the nation’s chief port and financial centre; it was the hub of Britain’s communications. In London, the king and all the powerful people of the kingdoms were brought into regular proximity with a large and constantly fluctuating variety of their fellow countrymen and others. This provided a kind of democratic leverage not found in the courtly capitals of Europe, which remained somewhat aloof from the hurly-burly of life found in a capital like London.

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