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Communication: The Political Patronage of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. N. Newman
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Extract

An association between the prince of Wales and various opposition leaders is a recurrent feature of eighteenth-century politics. A politically active prince found little difficulty in securing a following among the politicians of the day; the glittering prospects of the ‘reversionary’ interest1 were an obvious lure, and an obvious basis for such a connexion. But this is not a complete explanation. The prince had also a considerable degree of patronage at his disposal, and could add a more immediate and concrete reality to promises for the future. A study of this patronage, its extent and its disposal, and more particularly the way in which it was exercised by Frederick, ‘Poor Fred’, throws much light on the connexion between the prince and his political friends, and contributes to an understanding of the place of Leicester House in the politics of the early eighteenth century.

Type
Communication
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 1958 , pp. 68 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1958

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References

1 The outstanding analysis of the reversionary interest is that by Mr R.R. Sedgwick in his introduction to The Letters of George III to Bute (1939).Google Scholar

2 The arrangements of the king's household, although necessarily on a much larger and more elaborate scale, corresponded closely to these obvious divisions. In the king's household there were about 150 ‘major places‘, i.e. posts carrying salaries of at least £100 a year; the prince's was half that size at its maximum.

3 The significance of this salary is discussed below, p. 72.

4 Diary, 18 July 1749 (1784 edn.), 5.

5 Avery, D. to Prince Frederick, 20 Feb: 1749, Nottingham University Library, Newcastle MSS.Google Scholar

6 P.P., Powney to William Pitt, Aug. 1784, Public Record Office, Chatham MSS.Google Scholar

7 Diary, 22 Apr. 1750, 71.

8 Lady Anne, Irwin to Lord Carlisle, 3 March 1737. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Carlisle MSS. 180–1.Google Scholar

9 These papers are still preserved in the duchy of Cornwall office, to the officials of which I am deeply indebted for facilities to study them.

10 Hervey, , Memoirs (1931, ed. Sedgwick, R. R.), 772, 850–1.Google Scholar

11 Another was elected to Parliament in 1739 in succession as member to another of the household who had died.

12 When George II, as prince, had gone into opposition in 1717, of forty-four places, eighteen were held by Members of Parliament and four by peers.

13 M., Wyndham, Chronicles of the Eighteenth Century (1924), 1, 193.Google Scholar

14 Henry Pelham, to Newcastle, 8 May 1752. B[ritish] M[useum] Add. MS. 32727 fo. 130.Google Scholar

15 Horace Walpole's Correspondence (Yale edn. ed. Lewis, W. S.), xix(1955), 360.Google Scholar

16 Owen, J. B., The Rise of the Pelhams (1957).Google Scholar

17 Egmont, to Charles Grey, M.P., 24 July 1749. B.M. Add. MS. 47092 fo. 129.Google Scholar

18 18 May 1750. Newcastle MSS.