George II (Penguin Monarchs): Not Just a British Monarch by Davies Norman

Author:Davies, Norman [Davies, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Biography
ISBN: 9780141978437
Amazon: 0141978430
Goodreads: 60798402
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-05-27T07:00:00+00:00

One imagines George Augustus, baffled by the verbiage, longing for the conclusion, as if waiting for the verb at the end of a prolix German sentence. Occasionally, proceedings could be raucous. In 1728, Kitty Douglas, Duchess of Queensberry, repeatedly took a bevy of noisy peeresses to the Lords’ gallery demanding the release of John Gay, the poet and dramatist, who was well known to the monarch, having served in Hanover as a diplomat, and who was briefly detained for his persistent mockery of Walpole.

The king-elector’s dealings with the Commons followed a well-worn pattern. Traditionally, he only entered the Commons’ Chamber during the opening session to outline his financial demands: ‘Gentlemen of the Commons! I have ordered Estimates to be set before you for the service of the ensuing year, and I must desire you to grant such supplies as the circumstances of affairs require …’19

A furious debate would then erupt. Opposition MPs, such as the fiery Jacobite William Shippen, would denounce the billowing costs of the national debt. Crown ministers would beg to differ, and at the closing vote would always ‘have the numbers’. Thanks to careful management by Walpole and Newcastle, the king-elector’s government controlled the Commons and not vice versa. ‘The power of ministerial influence was now so great,’ Tories lamented, ‘that nothing could check it.’20

At the start of the reign, George Augustus had not enjoyed such a comfortable position. In 1733, he and his chief minister, Walpole, were forced to withdraw an Excise Bill owing to mounting opposition in the Commons. Only after that humiliation did they put measures in place to prevent a repetition.

The king-elector stood aloof from the general elections, held in 1727, 1734, 1741, 1747 and 1754. In ‘the golden age of the rotten boroughs’ voting was often uproarious and shamelessly rigged.21 Peers of the realm typically dominated their counties and shoed their hand-picked parliamentary candidates into their seats, before using their ‘squadrons’ of clients and placemen to pass their desired legislation.

After the abortive Jacobite Rising of 1745, when George Augustus could project a more assertive political image, his chosen medium was opera. Filled with soaring music, Handel’s production of Solomon (1749) employed unabashed absolutist imagery worthy of Versailles:

From East to West

Who so wise as Solomon?

Who like Israel’s king is blessed,

Who so worthy of a throne?22

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.