George III and Parliament*

Circumstances were auspicious when George III came to the throne in 1760, but soon his political actions were much criticized and he was accused from early in his reign until well into the 20th century of weakening the independence of parliament and undermining the constitution. Some contemporaries did defend him and these views received powerful support from Sir Lewis Namier and his followers in the 20th century. Both interpretations have their flaws, however, because of the failure to recognize the profound changes in the context in which George acted over his long reign and the subtle changes that occurred in Britain's unwritten constitution over that half century. By examining how the king appointed and dismissed ministers, sought to influence the composition of both houses of parliament, and endeavoured to shape government policy, this article seeks to revise our understanding of the king's relations with parliament and the constitution and to relocate our overall assessment of him between those offered by his many critics and defenders both during his reign and long afterwards.     

Speakers in the 17th-Century Irish Parliament*

In Ireland in the 17th century before the Battle of the Boyne, there were only five parliaments held. For these parliaments there was a total of 16 different individuals who acted as Speaker or made an attempt to become Speaker in the Commons or the Lords. This article will attempt to consider the possible criteria that may have been important in assessing the suitability of the candidates and also to see how many of those 16 are found to be suitable according to these conditions. We can be assured that the vast majority of those appointed and selected were politically reliable and that other issues such as legal training and legal experience are also common among most. However, ethnicity, religion (including attitudes to others' religion), family and marriage contacts, and administrative experience show that the Speakers did not always share a common background. To a certain extent, it may be deduced that these differences may be reflective of the changing political scene in Ireland over the course of this short 17th century. The performance and attributes of those who failed to become Speaker can also be useful in a study that attempts to understand the qualifications deemed desirable in a Speaker in 17th-century Ireland.     

Parliament,the Tories and Frederick,Prince of Wales*

The alliance between the tories and Frederick, Prince of Wales has usually appeared at best a passing interlude of opportunism in eighteenth‐century politics, dismissed alike by scholars upholding ‘jacobite’ or ‘Hanoverian’ constructions of the party's identity. This article offers a re‐examination of the relationship, assessing tory actions at Westminster against the larger hinterland of party literature and journalism. It argues that, especially after 1747, the association fronted a much more serious enterprise than is conventionally assumed, highlighting the continued political and ideological independence of the party into the 1750s and shaping the subsequent evolution of its identity. Intellectually, Frederick's image as a ‘Patriot King’ was driven by radical manifestos originating within the jacobite diaspora in Paris. Inside Westminster, his patronage changed the balance of power, bringing the tories to a point of primacy hitherto unmatched over the larger opposition. For four years, the promise of the prince of Wales provided the glue to hold the tory party together; his death threatened to unleash a process of fragmentation. The long‐term legacy of the alliance informed the direction of those who remained tories into the following decade, determining the section of the party that would gain the ascendancy within the reign of George III. By showing how a member of the ruling dynasty could be recast in a favourable and highly partisan political complexion, the pact with Frederick represented a decisive stage in the reinvention of English toryism, and its movement from mid‐century opposition towards rebirth as the loyalist champions of the house of Hanover.     

Why the History of Parliament Has Not Been Written*

There have been legions of individual studies of the history of the English/British/United Kingdom parliament, which is not surprising, since its history is widely acknowledged to be so closely bound up with the history of the nation state itself. But there have been remarkably few attempts to put the story together, to try to consider the long‐term development of parliament as an institution. What would such a story look like? This essay discusses some of the critiques of the whiggish narrative of constitutional and parliamentary development to recognise a common theme in whiggism's tendency to anthropomorphise parliament, to describe it as a single organism with agency and purpose. To forgo that temptation, however, makes it difficult to provide a satisfying narrative of parliament over time. The essay tries to imagine how one might construct a history of parliament as an institution which no longer sees it as an actor in its own story, but, instead, a complex collection of ideas, processes, customs, and conventions, which competing forces struggle to organise in order to achieve their goals, and which is also an arena and forum for that competition.