The Patriot Whigs, later the Patriot Party, were a group within the Whig Party in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

from 1725 to 1803. The group was formed in opposition to the government of

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

in 1725, when William Pulteney (later 1st Earl of Bath) and seventeen other Whigs joined with the

Tory Party The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed ...

in attacks against the ministry. By the mid-1730s, there were over one hundred opposition Whigs in the Commons, many of whom embraced the Patriot label. For many years, they provided a more effective opposition to the Walpole administration than the Tories were. The Whig Patriots believed that under Walpole, the executive had grown too powerful by the abuse of patronage and government

placemen In the political history of Britain, placemen were Members of Parliament who held paid office in the civil service, generally sinecures, simultaneously with their seat in the legislature. William and Mary Placemen exerted substantial influence ...

in the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

. They also accused Walpole personally of being too partisan, too important and too eager to keep competent potential rivals out of positions of influence. He was further suspected of enriching himself from the public purse. Discontent with Walpole among his fellow Whigs had first been brought to a crisis with the

South Sea Bubble South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

and his role as a "screen" to the South Sea directors, as well as the fact that he had made a profit despite the crash. Under Queen Anne, the Tories had sent Walpole to the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separa ...

for misappropriations as

Secretary at War The Secretary at War was a political position in the English and later British government, with some responsibility over the administration and organization of the Army, but not over military policy. The Secretary at War ran the War Office. Afte ...

, and even

radical Whigs The Radical Whigs were a group of British political commentators associated with the British Whig faction who were at the forefront of the Radical movement. Seventeenth century The radical Whigs ideology "arose from a series of political uphea ...

such as

John Tutchin John Tutchin (c.1660 or 1664 – 23 September 1707) was a radical Whig controversialist and gadfly English journalist (born in Lymington, Hampshire), whose ''The Observator'' and earlier political activism earned him multiple trips before the bar ...

had publicly accused him of siphoning off money. As self-declared "patriots", the Patriot Whigs were often critical of Britain's foreign policy, especially under the first two Hanoverian kings. Many were convinced that the traditional Whig policy, "

No Peace Without Spain No Peace Without Spain was a popular British political slogan of the early eighteenth century. It referred to the ongoing War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) in which Britain was a leading participant. It implied that no peace treaty cou ...

", had been correct and that Spain and France were potentially dangerous to Britain. In 1739, their attacks in Parliament against the Walpole ministry's policy toward Spain helped stir up widespread public anger, which led to the

War of Jenkins' Ear The War of Jenkins' Ear, or , was a conflict lasting from 1739 to 1748 between Britain and the Spanish Empire. The majority of the fighting took place in New Granada and the Caribbean Sea, with major operations largely ended by 1742. It is con ...

and ultimately to Walpole's fall three years later, during the

War of the Austrian Succession The War of the Austrian Succession () was a European conflict that took place between 1740 and 1748. Fought primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italy, the Atlantic and Mediterranean, related conflicts included King George's W ...

. An early focus for the Whig Patriots was ''

The Craftsman Craftsman may refer to: A profession *Artisan, a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative *Master craftsman, an artisan who has achieved such a standard that he may establish his own workshop and take o ...

'', a newspaper founded in 1726 by Pulteney and Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, the former Tory minister, who for a decade called for a "country" party coalition of non-Jacobite Tories and opposition Whigs to defeat Walpole and the

Court Whigs A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and carry out the administration of justice in Civil law (common law), civil, C ...

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

John Gay John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peac ...

, and

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...

all wrote for ''The Craftsman''. Bolingbroke's ''The Idea of a Patriot King'' (1738; published 1749) adopted the language of "patriotism" to critique political theories used by Walpole and his successors to justify their actions. Many of the anti-Walpolean

satires Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

of the 1730s mixed Tory and Patriot Whig stances, and some authors, such as

Henry Carey Henry Carey may refer to: *Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (1526–1596), politician, general, and potential illegitimate son of Henry VIII *Henry Carey, 1st Earl of Dover (1580–1666), English peer *Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth (1596–1661), ...

, simultaneously satirized Queen Caroline for her backing of Walpole and penned patriotic operas and songs such as ''

Rule, Britannia! "Rule, Britannia!" is a British patriotic song, originating from the 1740 poem "Rule, Britannia" by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne in the same year. It is most strongly associated with the Royal Navy, but is also used by the ...

'' and ''

God Save the King "God Save the King" is the national anthem, national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in ...

''). The Patriot Whigs never achieved power while Walpole remained in office, and their cohesion was undermined in 1742, when some of their leaders joined the government after Walpole's fall, and Pulteney was elevated to the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

.Dickinson, ''Walpole and the Whig Supremacy'' (1973) However,

William Pitt the Elder William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, (15 November 170811 May 1778) was a British statesman of the Whig group who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him Chatham or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish ...

would gather around himself the "Patriot Party", and even in office, he continued to use the language of the Patriot Whigs. The remnants of those who identified as Patriots would later join the unofficial "party" of his son,

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...

. Over the decades, those associations would contribute significant personnel and Parliamentary support to government ministries.

Notes

{{reflist

References

* Jeremy Black, ''British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole'' (London: Macmillan 1984; reissue Aldershott: Gregg Revivals 1993) * H. T. Dickinson, ''Walpole and the Whig Supremacy'' (London: English Universities Press 1973) * Christine Gerrard, ''The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth, 1725-1742'' (London: Oxford University Press, 1995) * Caroline Robbins, ''The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman: Studies in the Transmission, Development, and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II until the War with the Thirteen Colonies'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press1959; reissue Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund 2004) Whig factions Defunct political parties in the United Kingdom Politics of the Kingdom of Great Britain 1730s 1725 establishments in Great Britain 1803 disestablishments in the United Kingdom

See also

Notes

References