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Chapter 11 - Burke’s Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2021

Max Skjönsberg
Max Skjönsberg
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Summary

This chapter considers Burke’s most famous text in defence of party: Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontent (1770). With political life having been essentially purged of Jacobitism, an unapologetic case for party was now possible. This party, posing as the Whig party, viewed itself as the protector of Britain’s Revolution Settlement and its mixed and balanced constitution in opposition to what was perceived as a revived Toryism supporting George III and his favourite Bute’s ‘court system’. Burke viewed men and measures as interlinked and believed that a party had to seek office and negotiate with the monarch as a corps. This was diametrically opposed to the earlier ‘not men, but measures’ slogan at the heart of John Brown’s writings and the Pittite patriot platform.

Keywords

Edmund BurkeGeorge IIILord ButeJohn WilkesMontesquieuRockingham WhigsKing’s men‘double cabinet’court systemCatharine Macaulay
Type
Chapter
Information
The Persistence of Party
Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain
 , pp. 253 - 276
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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