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Paper Abstract: On 18th Cent. British political history. His conflicts with the policies of George III. Paper Introduction: John Wilkes became one of the most important figures in 18th century British political history, for many a symbol of liberty in a long constitutional struggle against executive tyranny, the center of a cause célèbre that was discussed in Europe and America as well as in England. In many ways, Wilkes appears as an unlikely character to play such an important role; as Shakespeare's MacBeth noted: "Some men are born great, some men achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Wilkes accepted the challenge of history with gusto and, at times, recklessness, and many of his contemporaries as well as historians have passed a harsh judgment. "In the course of 170 years," notes George Nobbe, "numerous abusive epithets have been coupled with the name of John Wilkes. His honesty has been questioned, his sincerity scorned. Any lie told of him has been Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Postgate finds it difficult tobelieve that the sudden outburst of strikes in 1768, in a year when thewhole working class was deeply stirred by the case of Wilkes, was unrelatedto political roots.[11] In his time and now, Wilkes manages to draw extreme views of himself;even those who defend his cause sometimes criticize his character andstyle. "Such invective was not unparalleled in contemporarypolitical life," argues Peter Quennell, "--fifty years later, the greattradition of personal invective was still preserved as a regular feature ofEnglish parliamentary government; but Wilkes' journalistic shafts wereusually well-directed and had a cruelly cutting edge."[5] George III decided to try to rule without the assistance, in otherwords, the domination, of the powerful Whig families, and devised a seriesof ministries which contained men more to his own liking; the great Whigsolidarity was quickly coming apart under such tactics. London: John Murray, 1917.----------------------- [1]George Nobbe, The North Briton: A Study in Political Propaganda(New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 264. A. Men have called him a hypocriticaldemagogue . A. [2]W. The House of Hanover found itself in a position where it had little choicebut to cooperate with the Whigs, the nominal opponents of a strongexecutive. London: Ward and Downey, 1888.Nobbe, George. Meanwhile, the gradualemigration of wealthier merchants meant that the influence of the smallershopkeepers and working freemen, and their politics were correspondinglydemocratic. Both John Wilkesand George III were small men cast in heroic historical roles, and eachleaves a great deal to be desired in character. [7]Ibid., 196. Horace Walpolebelieved that the economic conflicts of the period in the London area were"excited by the agents of Wilkes," and R. BibliographyFitzgerald, Percy. Under these conditions, thedevelopment of Whig oligarchy was rapid and complete. Wantonness rather than ambition or vengeance guided his hand and though he became the martyr of the best cause there was nothing in his principles or morals that led him to care under what government he lived. This victorious party, uniting against a common foe in these years,as it had in the days of Queen Anne, found that success created within itsranks a number of powerful factions which divided usually on personalgrounds rather than on matters of principle. Even acautious and prudent man would have some difficulty controlling a mass ofpeople aroused by his cause; for Wilkes, it was a question of constantlystanding on the verge of carrying the struggle too far. Vols. Ignorant of British politics, more than 5 years old, andunable to speak English, George I could place no personal trust in theTories, whose sympathies and conviction were assumed to lie with theStuarts. Winstanleyobserves, Parliament, "in former times had resisted the crown in the nameof the people, now [it] prevailed against the King in the interests of theWhig aristocracy."[3] Although George II insisted that he had a right to choose hisministers, he shared with his father the feeling that the Whigs were hissole protection from the menace which the Jacobites still presented to aking whose primary interest and concern lay in Hanover. As a number of scholars have pointed out, John Wilkes seemed at the outset to have had few of the virtues that are usually expected of a tribune of the people. Appleton and Company, 1874), 5. Despotism will ever reproach Freedom with the profligacy of such a saint."[9] George III and John Wilkes fit each other's psychology perfectly;each could and did develop an inordinate dislike for the other. [4]O. The King also gave over to the Whigsthe dispensation of the royal patronage and influence through rottenboroughs (certain election districts), pensions, selections for office, anda careful distribution of peerages. The poor, the workers, were a potentpolitical force in London, and thus in England. However, eventhough the Whigs were acting from personal gain and power as much asprinciple, the political issues of the time, including the Wilkes affair,were usually judged from the point of view of great constitutional issues. Throughoutthe struggle over the general warrants and then later in the Middlesexelection dispute, Wilkes had an uncanny sense of how to take a situationand escalate it in such a way as to infuriate and frighten a Kingdetermined to exert his authority. Any testimony to his discredit has been eagerly accepted,all efforts to learn the truth about this man have been heavilydiscounted."[1] One fact is undisputed: John Wilkes became "the mostpointed and virulent, persistent and audacious, the most sorely tried, and,in the end, the most successful" critic of the policy of George III and hisministers.[2] John Wilkes was born into a prosperous, middle class family in 1727,the son of a successful distiller and was raised in a Nonconformisttradition. As R. Wilkes answered with an abrupt refusal, stating thathe had already made a public pledge. John Wilkes came from a Whig familyand entered politics as a Whig partisan, but just as the Whig struggles ofthe 18th century against the Crown were as much over personal power as overgreat constitutional issues, the Wilkes affair concerned itself with thebattle for power among Whig families vis-à-vis George III as much as it didthe issue of liberty for which Wilkes gained lasting historical fame. Postgate concludes, Wilkes' intentionwas "to provoke the House of Commons into intemperate action," and he wasremarkably successful in that endeavor.[1 ] In the Middlesex election dispute, where Wilkes was continuallyelected to Parliament and continually expelled, he found the perfectcontext and issue to exploit: the cry of "Wilkes and Liberty" went up.Wilkes was able to rally a solid group of supporters who had more than justthe relatively narrow issue of liberty at stake. Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox: The Opposition Under George the Third. New York: Vanguard Press, 1929.Quennell, Peter. Although George III was insistent onkeeping Wilkes out of the Commons, his ministers, most particularly theDuke of Grafton, made an offer to Lord Temple, Wilkes' political guardian,that Wilkes and the Court party agree to leave each other alone. He was a frivolous character, neither hard-working nor unselfish, the dissipated child of wealthy parents, who had passed his youth with rich, thoughtless and depraved companions in amusements of the kind usually considered most enervating and unworthy.[8]From the beginning of his political career, Wilkes displayed a flair,indeed a drive, to take a potential conflict and make it into a real one.His ability to write biting and often vicious satire fit this needperfectly. It is important to understand the psychology of the two principalcharacters in this political drama for, to a large extent, it is a dramamade by the interaction of George III and John Wilkes, both complex andunstable personalities. The incident that brought fame and controversy to Wilkes was thepublication of the North Briton Number 45, one in a long series ofpolitical propaganda tracts in the war between George III and his Whigenemies. Postgate, That Devil Wilkes (New York: Vanguard Press,1929), 184. Even his friends doubted hissincerity and his reply cost him the friendship of Lord Temple, hislongtime political mentor. A. [9]William Purdie Treloar, Wilkes and the City (London: John Murray,1917), 224. With the advantages that a free choice between two parties deniedthe King, he was forced to entrust the government to the Whigs, loyal to,but not the King's natural allies. Wilkeswould be allowed to take his seat if he would refrain from raising, as hehad stated he would publicly, the question of the legality of the whole ofhis past treatment. [3]D. [8]Ibid., 197. The governmentdecided to act with firmness and decisiveness. F. The change was obvious, being given forcefulexpression in the speech from the throne in which George III "glorified inthe name of Britain." The phrase was chosen carefully and had importantsymbolic meaning that was not lost on contemporaries. Any lie told ofhim has been unquestioningly believed. By a fiction that was nonetheless strong because it was false, the Glorious Revolution was supposed to have trans- ferred power from the King to the people. F. He appeared to thoroughly enjoy and in fact thrive onrecklessness; as a child, too, and later as a young man, Wilkes, thoughgood-natured, was wild and overly adventuresome. Inmany ways, Wilkes appears as an unlikely character to play such animportant role; as Shakespeare's MacBeth noted: "Some men are born great,some men achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."Wilkes accepted the challenge of history with gusto and, at times,recklessness, and many of his contemporaries as well as historians havepassed a harsh judgment. That Devil Wilkes. Although theRevolution of 1688 had placed certain limitations on the powers of theking, he still remained the strongest, most influential figure in the land. In consequence,the Whigs were able to maintain their dominance unbroken throughout thereign. No settled policy governedthe conduct of the opposition, and the motives of expediency that unitedthe great Whig magnates were extraordinarily divergent. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1965.Rae, W. The people had no influ- ence on the course of government, but they took their choice between the Old Pretender and the reigning King, and on that basis fiercely argued constitutional points they did not understand and were in no position to support.[4] In general, the Tories had their stronghold in the country while theWhigs looked for their support to the commercial classes of the towns.This natural division between trade and agriculture, emphasized by a clashof personal loyalties, was still further enforced by a split over religion: the Tories, or at least most of them, belonged to the established Church,while the Whigs were Nonconformist. The final step in the decline of royalpower came when the King, unable to understand cabinet discussions and notparticularly interested in them anyway, discontinued the royal practice andprerogative of attending cabinet meetings. "In the course of 17 years," notes George Nobbe,"numerous abusive epithets have been coupled with the name of John Wilkes.His honesty has been questioned, his sincerity scorned. . New York: D. Wilkes had published violent and invective pieces for the Whigsbefore Number 45, and had gained a reputation as a reckless and maliciousman who would say anything in print to further his own career and that ofhis supporters. [5]Peter Quennell, Four Portraits: Studies of the Eighteenth Century(Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1965), 2 4. W. Whigs and Tories were nominally fighting a constitutional battle: the former defending the right of the people to govern them- selves and the latter upholding the divine right of kings. O. The North Briton: A Study in Political Propa- ganda. [6]Ibid., 2 7. Winstanley, Personal and Party Government (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1931), 9. A. He was apt to be contemptuous and mistrustful ofthe people, misreading signals and trends. I and II. John Wilkes became one of the most important figures in 18th centuryBritish political history, for many a symbol of liberty in a longconstitutional struggle against executive tyranny, the center of a causecélèbre that was discussed in Europe and America as well as in England. The Attorney and SolicitorGeneral stated that the paper might be considered "an infamous andseditious libel, tending to inflame the minds and alienate the affectionsof the people from his Majesty, and excite them to traitorous insurrectionsagainst his government."[6] The administration issued a general warrantauthorizing the apprehension of the writers, printers and publishers of theNorth Briton Number 45. As soon as the first general warrantwas issued, Wilkes was quick to see how this incident could be transformedinto a cause célèbre which would raise fundamental issues. As D. Actually it had achieved much less, merely substituting a close oligarchy of magnates for a single despot. Although not part of a political family, Wilkes decided toenter Parliament and pursue a political career. When conscience spoke loudly, it was usually in his mother's voice. To laugh and riot and scatter firebrands with him was liberty. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 193 .Treloar, William Purdie. He demonstrated awillingness to say or be what he had to say or be to achieve his ends.Wilkes' contemporaries did not spare him; Horace Walpole said: "He had married a woman of fortune, used her ill, and at last extorted from her the provision made for her separate maintenance and was guilty of other frauds and breaches of trust; yet the man, bitter as he was, in his political writings was commonly not ill-natured or acrimonious. [1 ]R. Four Portraits: Studies of the Eighteenth Century. That Wilkes was a victim of arbitrary government actionis generally accepted; that he acted in such a way to deserve someretaliation, and then, recklessly at times, exploited the developingpolitical situation to the benefit of himself and his cause is accepted bymost, if not all of the people who evaluate Wilkes' life. A Life of John Wilkes. . George III came to the throne with certain fixedideas concerning the rights and duties of a king of England, and he wasdetermined to restore what he conceived to be vital and inalienable royalfunctions in the organization of the State. The decision topublish the infamous Essay on Woman was an example of pure provocation forthe sake of a sensational confrontation. George's ideas may have beenunpopular but they were neither novel nor inconsistent. [11]Ibid., 167.----------------------- 12 The borough of Southwark, the city of Westminster, and thecounty of Middlesex, all in the greater London voting area, had strong pro-Wilkes sympathies and all had franchise systems as democratic, if not moredemocratic than the City itself. Wilkes and the City. Later, when Wilkes decided toreturn home and run for Parliament he did so in the most spectacular mannerpossible, encouraging all kinds of public demonstrations which constantlythreatened to get out of hand. A. This was the political context into which Wilkes decided tolaunch his great challenge to the government of George III. Sherrard notes: Political feelings ran high at the time because they were based upon personal loyalties. However, hiscapacity was not equal to the conceptions he had of himself or his role inthe fate of his country. Thepolitical situation that had developed in England under the first twoHanoverian kings ended abruptly with the accession of George III to theBritish throne in 176 . Her notorious admonition: "George, be a King!" was the counsel of a woman, herself exceedingly ambitious, whose husband during his lifetime had been deprived of any real power by the hatred of his parents and then cheated of the succession by his early death."[7]George III was a man who was determined to prove himself, and in thiscontext, that meant asserting his power, his masculinity, against Whigdomination, and especially against a character like John Wilkes, a man ofhumble origins who came out of nowhere to challenge the King of England.However mixed his motives, George III was standing on certain historictraditions in attempting to reestablish royal power, and in his strugglewith Wilkes, he was dealing with someone who felt psychologicallycomfortable with recklessness. Thus the stage was set for one of the greatpolitical issues of the late 18th century. Already High Sheriff forthe County of Bucks in 1754, he was defeated in his first attempt at aseat; finally in 1757, at a cost of 7, pounds he entered Parliament as amember for Aylesbury, and attempted to align himself with the great Whigleader, William Pitt. Appleton and Company, 1874.Sherrard, O. The Life and Times of John Wilkes. Wilkes found himself in the midst of a curiouspolitical situation that was becoming more and more volatile. It was the smallermerchants and the working class of London and the London area who ralliedto Wilkes' support, even to the point of going out in the street at thedrop of a hat. Wilkes did have an important effect in securing certain traditions,which had been part of reform movements for some time--he had virtuallydestroyed the use of general warrants, he helped to establish theindependence of the press from governmental interference, and he vindicatedthe rights of the electors to return the person they wish over the views ofParliament itself. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.Postgate, R. He appeared to bear openresentment and always maintained a stubborn insistence on his own opinionsand prejudices, often sincerely confounding them with principles."Potentially, at least," observes Peter Quennell, George III was the most dangerous type of autocrat, one who combined an exalted sense of his royal duty with an intense natural obstinacy, and who had all the determination of an extremely well- intentioned, with none of the flexibility of a cultivated and intelligent, man. Sherrard, A Life of John Wilkes (London: George Allen &Unwin, Ltd., 193 ), 15. Rea, Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox: The Opposition under George theThird (New York: D. W. W. W. . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.