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The Duke of Newcastle and the Imperial Election Plan, 1749-1754

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Reed Browning
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Extract

To many of his contemporaries and to most of the historians who have subsequently dealt with him, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle (1693-1768), represents unredeemed mediocrity, or even the buffoon, in power. Lord Hervey ridiculed his “egregious folly and formal absurdity”; Horace Walpole described him as “a Secretary of State without intelligence, a duke without money, a man of infinite intrigue, without secrecy or policy, and a Minister despised and hated by his master, by all parties and Ministers”; Lord Waldegrave concluded that he “wants both spirit and capacity to be first in command: neither has he the smallest particle of that elevation of mind, or of that dignity of behaviour, which command respect and characterise the great statesman.”

More recent commentators, while often readier to look for redeeming characteristics in the Duke, have likewise tended to come to negative assessments. Basil Williams dismissed Newcastle as “woolly-minded and touchy … an essentially weak man without clear conceptions of his own”; Sir Lewis Namier wrote that “his nature and mind were warped, twisted, and stunted” and that “there was unconscious self-mortification in Newcastle's tenure of office”; J. H. Plumb portrayed a “dithering and twittering” Newcastle, a minister of unprepossessing intellectual gifts and given to excessive complaining and anxiety.

All these criticisms must face, however, one serious and recurring counterargument. Newcastle held major office for almost forty years – as Secretary of State (1724-54), as First Lord of the Treasury (1754-56, 1757-62), and as Lord Privy Seal (1765-66). Moreover, as early as 1717 he had been appointed to the Privy Council and been made Lord Chamberlain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , November 1967 , pp. 28 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1967

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References

1. LordHervey, John, Some Materials toward Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, ed. Sedgwick, Romney (London, 1931), III, 843Google Scholar.

2. Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, ed. Holland, Lord (London, 1847), I, 166Google Scholar.

3. LordWaldegrave, James, Memoirs from 1754 to 1758 (London, 1821), p. 14Google Scholar.

4. Williams, Basil, The Whig Supremacy (rev. ed.; London, 1962), pp. 334, 341Google Scholar.

5. SirNamier, Lewis, England in the Age of the American Revolution (London, 1930), pp. 77, 94Google Scholar.

6. Plumb, J. H., Sir Robert Walpole: the King's Minister (London, 1960), pp. 131, 75Google Scholar. The reader should bear in mind Plumb's faint praise of the Duke: “Through the incoherent, gushing torrent of words peeps both sense and judgment, often overlaid, mostly foolishly expressed, but unmistakably there” (p. 75).

7. Newcastle's critical contemporaries were, of course, aware of the Duke's remarkable political durability. They attributed it to the wide-ranging electoral influence his wealth gave him. Waldegrave, , Memoirs, p. 95Google Scholar, for example, emphasizes the Duke's influence with the Commons; Walpole, , Memoirs, I, 162,Google Scholar emphasizes his wealth. But Sir Lewis Namier and John Owen have shown that Newcastle's direct electoral influence was vastly exaggerated by these contemporaries; and wealth, although it certainly opened political doors, did not assure the possessor of a lengthy stay within — especially in positions of influence. SirNamier, Lewis, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd ed.; London, 1963), pp. 9–10, 145Google Scholar; Owen, John, The Rise of the Pelhams (London, 1957), p. 46.Google Scholar

8. See especially the following: Haffenden, Philip, “Colonial Appointments and Patronage under the Duke of Newcastle, 1724–1739,” E.H.R., LXXVIII (1963), 417–35Google Scholar. Haffenden concluded that Newcastle based his colonial appointments primarily on the criterion of ability, and that he wisely recognized the need for greater autonomy within the overseas Empire. Knollenberg, Bernhard, Origin of the American Revolution, 1759–1766 (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. The later colonial policies of the Duke, as they are outlined in this work, were also just and fair, and Knollenberg concluded that Britain's difficulties with America in the 1760s may in part be attributed to the enforced disappearance of Newcastle's wise counsel. Mediger, Walther, Moskaus Weg nach Europa: der Aufstieg Russlands zum europäischen Machtstaat im Zeitalter Friedrichs des Grossen (Braunschweig, 1952)Google Scholar. Mediger disregarded the stereotype and found Newcastle to be a conscientious and hard-working Secretary, operating on essentially sound principles. Owen, Rise of the Pelhams. The Newcastle who emerged from Owen's work was an idiosyncratic but able minister of state. Even before the last two decades Newcastle had an occasional defender. See especially, Yorke, Philip C., The Life and Correspondence of Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (Cambridge, 1913)Google Scholar.

9. Austria had emphasized the Silesian and Italian theatres; Britain had been chiefly concerned with defeating France. Thus, although British subsidies had enabled Austrian troops to drive out the invading French and Bavarians and then to occupy foreign territory, British diplomacy had often seemed, to the Austrians, to be willing to sacrifice the very gains won with these funds.

10. This usage, although technically incorrect, is the most convenient and least controversial designation for the group of hereditable lands held by Maria Theresa.

11. During the mid-1720s, when Lord Townshend directed British foreign policy, Anglo-Austrian cooperation disappeared entirely. Sir Robert Walpole restored some of it after 1730 but refused to aid Austria in the War of the Polish Succession.

12. BM, Newcastle to Robert Keith, 3 Mar. 1748/9, Add. MSS, 32816, fols. 192–93. Wilkes, John, A Whig in Power: the Political Career of Henry Pelham (Evanston, 1964), pp. 85, 113Google Scholar, mistakenly asserted that the subsidy installment was not paid. See, however, Journals of the House of Commons, XXV, 804;Google ScholarCoxe, William, Memoirs of the Administration of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, collected from the family papers, and other authentic documents (London, 1829), II, 71–73Google Scholar.

13. BM, Newcastle to Charles Bentinck, 26 Sep. 1749 o.s., Add. MSS, 32818, fols. 271–72.

14. BM, Newcastle to William Bentinck, 29 Dec. 1749 o.s., ibid., 32819, fol. 305; see also, Newcastle to Henry Pelham, 22 May/2 June 1750, ibid., 32720, fol. 375.

15. BM, Keith to Newcastle, 31 Jan. 1750, ibid., 32820, fol. 102. The guarantee was not formally given until July.

16. BM, Newcastle to William Bentinck, ibid., 32817, fol. 25. The identities of the recipients of several of the cited letters correctly suggest that the Dutch government supported Britain's efforts at wooing Vienna.

17. BM, Newcastle to William Bentinck, 15 Aug. 1749 o.s., ibid., fol. 424; Newcastle to Lord Hardwicke, 25 Aug. 1749 o.s., and 6 Sep. 1749 o.s., ibid., 32719, fols. 69–74, 142–44.

18. On another occasion the author hopes to show that Austrian diplomacy during the interwar years was not as firmly oriented toward Versailles as most accounts suggest — that, in fact, for most people of influence in Vienna the restoration and maintenance of good relations with Britain were the primary foreign needs.

19. Anderson, M. S., Britain's Discovery of Russia (New York, 1958), p. 114Google Scholar.

20. In the twelfth century the title had meant something quite different, but the transformation to the eighteenth-century signification had begun as early as the fourteenth century. See Germershausen, Albert, Die Wahl Ferdinands IV., nebst einer Uebersicht über die Geschichte der römischen Königswahlen sett Einsetzung der Gold. Bulle (Celle, 1901)Google Scholar, passim.

21. The personal reason was George's hope to acquire permanent control of the coadjutorship of Osnabrück, a bishopric to which the Catholic see of Cologne and the Protestant House of Hanover, in accordance with the terms of the Westphalian settlement, alternately appointed coadjutors. George wanted to fill the post with his favorite son, the Duke of Cumberland.

22. Horn, D. B., “The Origins of a Proposed Election of a King of the Romans, 1748–50,” E.H.R., XLII (1927), 361–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. BM, Add. MSS, 32816, fol. 312.

24. Farmington, Conn., Hanbury Williams to Newcastle, 25 May 1749, MS 10–10882, fols. 266–70. The Hanbury Williams papers are in the possession of Wilmarth Lewis.

25. Mediger, , Moskaus Weg, p. 347Google Scholar. As Horn has shown, vague ideas about the advisability of Joseph's election had occasionally been heard for several years. Horn, , “Origins,” E.H.R., XLII, 369nGoogle Scholar.

26. Newcastle to Earl of Holderness, n.d., printed by Bussemaker, Th. (ed.), Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d'Orange-Nassau (Leyden, 1909), fourth series, II, 25–26Google Scholar.

27. A copy of the treaty may be found in: Holland (Province) Staaten, , Secreete Resolutien van de Edele Groot Mog. Heeren Staaten van Holland en Westvriesland, beginnende met den jaare 1747 en eindigende met den jaare 1751 incluis (The Hague, 17--?), pp. 494–99Google Scholar. Ratifications were exchanged on 18 Mar. 1750. The history of the negotiations is narrated in Braubach, Max, “Die österreichische Diplomatie am Hofe des Kurfürsten Clemens August von Köln, 1740–1756,” Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein, insbesondere die alte erzdiözese Köln, CXIV (1929)Google Scholar.

28. BM, Pro Memoria (by Borch), 19 July 1750, Add. MSS, 32721, fol. 313.

29. BM, Charles Bentinck to Newcastle, 7 Apr. 1750, ibid., 32820, fols. 389–90.

30. Horn, , “Origins,” E.H.R., XLII, 366–67Google Scholar. Pelham's conversion cannot be precisely dated, but it occurred after 5 Feb. 1750. See Coxe, , Pelham Administration, II, 97.Google Scholar Pelham's new attitude was one of acceptance, not approval. When depressed, he could still sound quite hostile. See BM, Add. MSS, 32722, fol. 186. But from early in 1750 on, he accepted peacetime subsidies.

31. Droysen, Johann Gustav, Geschichte der preussischen Politik, Pt. 5, Friedrich der Grosse (Leipzig, 1886), II, 182Google Scholar.

32. Domestic events also influenced Newcastle's timing. In late March it was becoming obvious that Pelham's debt-conversion program would succeed. Parliament was scheduled to be prorogued on 12 Apr.

33. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna (hereafter cited as HHSA), dispatch from Count Richecourt, 29 Mar. /9 Apr. 1750, England, Berichte, fasc. 137.

34. HHSA, Mémoire instructif (for Richecourt), 17 May 1750, England, Weisungen, fasc. 138.

35. Gentleman's Magazine, XX (1750), 238Google Scholar, had a short article about the meeting at Hanover and the election plan.

36. HHSA, Mémoire instructif (for Richecourt), 17 May 1750, and Instructions und Anmerckung (for Johann von Vorster), 14 July 1750, England, Weisungen, fasc. 138.

37. Ratifications were exchanged on 22 Sep. 1750. The history of the negotiations is related in Pribram, Alfred Francis, Oesterreichische Staatsverträge: England (Vienna, 1913), II, 23–39Google Scholar.

38. Specifically, he proposed that an apparently irreconcilable difference between Bavaria's monetary demands against Austria and Austria's monetary offer to Bavaria be considered not simply as a bilateral problem but as an integral part of the subsidy negotiations.

39. Five separate documents were required to complete this settlement. This proliferation resulted from the need to maintain the fiction that Austria was not bribing Bavaria to vote for Joseph. See, Pribram, , Staatsverträge, pp. 23–39Google Scholar.

40. BM, 8/19 Sep. 1750, Add. MSS, 32722, fol. 371.

41. BM, Major General Borch to Newcastle, 26 Sep. 1750, ibid., 32823, fols. 333–34. A dispatch from Vorster to Vienna, 16 Oct. 1750, HHSA, R K Braunschweig-Hannover, fasc. 4a, indicated that Clemens August would abandon his other demands if granted the money he sought.

42. HHSA, Instructions (for Vorster), 10 Oct. 1750, St K Hannover, fasc. 6.

43. BM, Add. MSS, 32826, fols. 59–61. France undertook to pay a subsidy equivalent to £40,000 — identical to the subsidy the Sea Powers had promised. But France also undertook to pay certain past subsidies in arrears, and these exceeded the increase in subsidies that the Sea Powers were offering the elector.

44. HHSA, dispatch from Vorster, 23 June 1751, R K Braunschweig-Hannover, fasc. 4b.

45. Farmington, Conn., Hanbury Williams to Newcastle, 13 Sep. 1751, MS 17–10896, fols. 127–38. The tale of these negotiations is related by Horn, D. B., Sir Charles Hanbury Williams and European Diplomacy. 1747–1758 (London, 1930), ch. vGoogle Scholar.

46. Farmington, Conn., Hanbury Williams to Newcastle, 20 Oct. 1751, MS 17–10896, fol. 173; BM, Count Brühl to Count Flemming, n.d., Add. MSS, 32831, fols. 29–30. Thus the exchange of ratifications was delayed until 11 Nov. 1751.

47. Droysen, Geschichte, Pt. 5, II, has supplied the erroneous but widely accepted view that Prussia organized the opposition to the election plan. The proper assessment, emphasizing the leadership of France and the subservience of Prussia, was presented by Ebbecke, Otto Karl, Frankreichs Politik gegenüber dem deutschen Reiche in den Jahren 1748–1756 (Karlsruhe, 1931)Google Scholar, but this interesting corrective has usually been disregarded.

48. HHSA, Mémoire instructif (for Richecourt), Jan. 1751, England, Weisungen, fasc. 140.

49. HHSA, dispatch from Richecourt, 31 Jan/11 Feb. 1751, England, Berichte, fasc. 139.

50. The recognized importance of the debates was demonstrated by the presence in the audience of many foreign diplomats assigned to London. Horace Walpole's description of Newcastle's speech — “wild, incoherent, incomprehensible” — is widely known; much less known is the opinion of the Austrian Minister that the address was one “de feu, de solidité, et de sagesse.” Walpole, , Memoirs, I, 247;Google Scholar HHSA, dispatch from Richecourt, 31 Jan/11 Feb. 1752, England, Berichte, fasc. 142.

51. BM, Newcastle to Joseph Yorke, 4 Feb. 1752 o.s., Add. MSS, 32833, fols. 325–26.

52. BM, Holderness to Lord Albemarle, 27 Jan. 1752 o.s., ibid., fol. 236; Newcastle to Albemarle, 30 Jan. 1752 o.s.,ibid., fol. 279.

53. HHSA, Mémoire instructif (for Richecourt), Jan. 1751, England, Weisungen, fasc. 140.

54. HHSA, dispatch from Richecourt, 23 Aug./3 Sep. 1751, England, Berichte, fasc. 139.

55. BM, Newcastle to Albemarle, 4/15 May 1752, Add. MSS, 32835, fol. 371.

56. BM, Francis I to George II, 16 July 1752, ibid., 32839, fols. 70–74; Begleitungsschrift, ibid., fols. 124–30.

57. HHSA, Réponse verbale (to Earl of Hyndford and Keith), 5 Aug. 1752, Wahl- und Krönungsakten, Josef II, fasc. 87c. Austria agreed to pay half of the £100,000 that the Palatine was asking. When the Palatine raised its demand to £120,000, Vienna again agreed to supply half.

58. HHSA, dispatch from Vorster, 1 Aug. 1752, R K Braunschweig-Hannover, fasc. 4c. French protests had gone so far as to threaten the use of force to prevent the election. HHSA, dispatch from Zöhrern, 19/30 June 1752, England, Berichte, fasc. 142; BM, François de St. Contest to Marquis de Lamberty, 20 July 1752, Add. MSS, 32839, fol. 150.

59. Newcastle's “Projet pour concilier les projet et contreprojet” appears in BM, ibid., 32841, fols. 23–27. Baron Wrede's and Vorster's comments are appended.

60. Both Viennese documents — the “Déclaration ultérieure et finale” and a “Mémoire pour accompagner la déclaration ultérieure” — are in ibid., fols. 246–51, and in HHSA, Wahl- und Krönungsakten, Josef II, fasc. 87c.

61. BM, Newcastle to Pelham, 28 Sep. 1752, Add. MSS, 32729, fols. 368–69.

62. HHSA, dispatch from Zöhrern, 29 Sep. 1752, England, Berichte, fasc. 142.

63. BM, Newcastle to Hanbury Williams, 20 Feb. 1753, Add. MSS, 32843, fol. 28; see also, ibid., 55475, fol. 42; and Horn, , Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, pp. 140 ffGoogle Scholar.

64. Especially the difficulties Prussia was raising with respect to the so-called Silesian loan.

65. HHSA, dispatch from Colloredo, 6 Sep. 1754, England, Berichte, fasc. 144.

66. Williams, , Whig Supremacy, p. 344Google Scholar. The same term is used in Williams, Basil, Carteret and Newcastle: A Contrast in Contemporaries (Cambridge, 1943), p. 180Google Scholar.

67. See, Legg, L. G. Wickham (ed.), British Diplomatic Instructions, 1689–1789, VII, France, 1745–1789 (London, 1934), xiiGoogle Scholar; SirLodge, Richard, “The Continental Policy of Great Britain, 1740–60,” History, new series, XVI (1932), 302Google Scholar; Pribram, , Staatsverträge, p. 23Google Scholar.

68. Horn, , “Origins,” E.H.R., XLII, 367Google Scholar.

69. See, e.g., SirLodge, Richard, Great Britain and Prussia in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1923), p. 77Google Scholar; Mahon, Lord, History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, 1713–1783 (3rd ed., rev.; Boston, 1853), IV, 18–19Google Scholar; Robertson, C. Grant, England under the Hanoverians (New York, 1911), pp. 125–26Google Scholar; SirWard, A. W., Introduction, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919, eds. SirWard, A. W. and Gooch, G. P. (New York, 1922–1923), I, 92Google Scholar; Williams, , Whig Supremacy, p. 343Google Scholar.

70. The cloak of secrecy was apparently successfully drawn. There is no evidence that France knew a definite plan was afoot until Apr. 1750, the month in which Newcastle revealed the scheme to Austria. Ebbecke, , Frankreichs Politik, p. 46Google Scholar.

71. As suggested by Hassall, Arthur, The Balance of Power, 1715–1789 (New York, 1896), p. 217Google Scholar.

72. Dorn, Walter, Competition for Empire, 1740–1763 (2nd ed.; New York, 1963), p. 287Google Scholar, described Newcastle as “the very antithesis of a wild imperialist.”

73. BM, 27 Apr./8 May 1752, Add. MSS, 32835, fol. 291.

74. BM, 13/24 May 1752, ibid., 32727, fols. 166–67.

75. Newcastle's exact view is difficult to infer; he thought so little of potential problems stemming from the capitulation that he referred the entire issue to George's Hanoverian ministers. BM, Newcastle to Hyndford, 22 Apr./3 May 1752, ibid., 32835, fol. 209.

76. Münchhausen was George II's chief Hanoverian adviser. He held the office of Grossvogt, and his brother, Philip Adolf, was the Hanoverian minister in residence in London.

77. See, e.g., BM, Newcastle to Yorke, 24 Dec. 1751 o.s., Add. MSS, 32832, fol. 296.

78. HHSA, dispatch from Zöhrern, 17/28 July 1752, England, Berichte, fasc. 142.