4 - ‘That Exploded Trick’: Newcastle, Fox and the Defeat of Leicester House Patriotism, October 1755–March 1756

Summary

as the Duke of Newcastle has so often turned in and out all men in England, he must employ some of the same dupes over again.

Horace Walpole to Mann, 21 Dec 1755: HW 20, p.516

Places, as you will see by the newspapers, are emptying and filling up every day. The Patriot of Monday is the Courtier of Tuesday; and the Courtier of Wednesday is the Patriot of Thursday. This, indeed, has more or less been long the case, but I really think never so impudently and so profligately as now.

Chesterfield to Dayrolles, 19 Dec 1755: Dobrée, v, 2169

As to Mr Pitt I always have been greatly prejudiced in his favour, but I know his ambition to be unbounded and if he sees his way at Leicester House, the warmth of his temper and his passions will carry him any lengths, his former oppositions sufficiently prove it.

Hartington to Devonshire, 8 Nov 1755: Dev 260/181.

THE COMPLETION OF THE SYSTEM

Fox's promotion became public on 26 September; a rumour of Pitt's resignation soon followed it. The junior Court, in its earlier preliminary moves against subsidies, had taken pains to enlist the assent of several senior figures. Now, they tried to take advantage of that prestige at once. Devonshire, in particular, was approached by both sides and looked on as the final arbiter of conscience; Fox had expected him to ‘come to town to the meeting of the Parliament on purpose to get [the Russian subsidy] condemned, which he can go farther towards effecting than any twenty lords in England’.