ABSTRACT
The previous chapter showed that politics in the period between 1714 and the appointment of William Pitt as Prime Minister in late 1783 was grounded in the relationship between monarchs, whose powers and scope of political manoeuvre had not been reduced as much as historians previously thought by the 1688 Revolution, and ministers, whose authority rested on monarchical support and the effectiveness of their management of the House of Commons. The closeness of the relationship between king and minister played a major role in determining the stability of the political system. This chapter is concerned with four major areas of political action: first, the issue of Jacobitism which, arguably, dominated political discourse and decision-making until the late 1740s; secondly, the question of popular politics; thirdly, the major political developments in Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and finally, foreign and colonial policies focusing on relations with France and Europe generally, India and the problem of the American colonies. 1
