ABSTRACT
T h e accession of George I was bound to alter the conditions of political life profoundly. This was more immediately apparent with regard to persons than institutions. When, at the Privy Council on 30 May, Bolingbroke, fresh from his victory over Oxford on the 27th, made no protest at the offer of the coveted Lord Treasurer’s staff to Shrewsbury, it w^ as clear that the day of those politicians who had held power during the last years of Anne’s reign was over. Immediately on her death the Council of Regency, which had been provided for by the Act of 1706, took over responsibility for the affairs of the country until George I could arrive from Hanover. By its provisions the seven great officers of State were included, but it was significant for the future shift of political power that the eighteen members named by the Elector were all men who had either long paid ostentatious court to Hanover, or had been opposed to the making of the Peace of Utrecht. It was on this ground that Lord Nottingham, who must be regarded as a tory if he is to be classified by his almost fanatical devotion to the High Church party, was included. Rather surprisingly Marlborough, who had been bitterly opposed to the peace, and who had found it pleasanter to live in exile than to stay in an England dominated by Oxford and Bolingbroke, was not included. Perhaps his reputation for intrigue with the Old Pretender, and his great influence with the army, made him seem a dangerous choice at a time when anything might have happened. Sunderland was similarly omitted: so was Lord Somers. On the other hand the Earl of Anglesea, who represented the Hanoverian tories, was given a place. Loyalty to the idea of the
Hanoverian succession, and soundness on the question of the peace of Utrecht had obviously been the deciding factors: for these more whigs than tories qualified, but there was as yet no rigid determina tion to exclude everybody who could be considered a tory. So far, then, the Hanoverian tories had a modest hope that their unpopular foreign policy might be overlooked in view of their undoubted loyalty to the Protestant Succession as fixed by the Act of Settle ment.
