ABSTRACT
Historians studying the reign of William have not paid sufficient attention to the rhetoric on favouritism which frequently surfaced in pamphlets and parliamentary debates. Often critical, it targeted the conduct of the King’s foreign favourites, in particular the Earl of Portland. The fear that a powerful individual could rise to a position which rendered the King a mere figurehead was a common theme in English history and deeply entrenched in the collective political mind. 1 Hence a famous pamphlet – published after Portland was granted land in Wales in 1695 – voiced the fear that Britain now had a ‘Dutch Prince of Wales’, a puissant foreigner who was second in command. 2 Kevin Sharpe and Steve Zwicker have pointed out the importance of studying polemic literature in Stuart England as embedded within a political context. 3 This chapter analyses speeches and pamphlets criticising the favourite, as well as Williamite propaganda, and seeks to re-examine the reputation of Portland. By placing anti-favourite rhetoric within a longer established literary tradition, and by comparing it with criticism of Portland in the United Provinces, its deeper structure can be exposed, providing tools for understanding the criticism of favouritism as a manifestation of political discontent. A dialogue took place on various levels within the political nation in which the core political issues of the post-revolutionary settlement figured.
