1 - The Accession of Newcastle, March–September 1754

Summary

though I see no symptoms at present of foul weather near at hand, yet I know that once in ten or twelve years in this country filthy humours will collect, the whole age turns sour upon a man's hands and the better he has deserved of the public in general the fairer chance he stands of mounting the pilory for his reward.

Legge to Keene, 9 August 1752: Rylands MSS, 668 no.4.

HENRY PELHAM AND HIS SUCCESSORS

Henry Pelham died at six on the morning of 6 March 1754. Men's immediate reaction of ‘confusion and consternation’ marked a fear, on the part of both the King and the people, that political tranquillity had died with the man who, pre-eminently, had come to personify it. Historians, too, have not succeeded in distinguishing a Pelhamite political consensus from Pelham's own personal contribution; and Horace Walpole, even without foreknowledge of the intrigues which were to follow, wrote: ‘all that calm, that supineness, of which I have lately talked to you so much, is at an end! There is no heir to such luck as his. The whole people of England can never agree a second time upon the same person for the residence of infallibility…‘ In part, this respect had stemmed from a widespread affection for Pelham's ‘most amiable composition’ as a man; in part, from the fact of his political blandness and broad acceptability. In part, too, it arose from Whig confidence in his skill as an election manager. In March, a general election was imminent; but there was no widespread expectation of another decisive Whig success.