Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

Holmes has had many perceptive things to say26) is to be seen from a breakdown of the list of 'principal industrialists', a quarter of whom were Tories or are described as Tories in the biographies. The distinction is an important one, because it is not always clear what the grounds are for designating a Tory or a Whig, and where the grounds can be discovered, they are not always very convincing. The list of 'Tories' who became 'Whigs' during the period 1715-54 is a clear case in point. Working back from the list to the biographies it soon becomes apparent that some of the uncertainties of political identity present in the biographies have got lost in the process of collation. Take the case of John Hardres (H.P., II, 108). His voting record was anti-government, except on the peerage bill which he supported, receiving through Sunderland money from the King's bounty in 1720-21. At the same time, he appeared to others a Jacobite, his name being amongst those sent to the Pretender in 1721 as probable supporters in the event of a rising. He retired in 1722 before he had an opportunity of expressing his allegedly new political loyalties. It scarcely seems conclusive evidence of a con- version to Whiggery. Nor, apparently, did it seem so to his biographer, who forbears to comment on Hardres's ultimate political resting place. He is one problem among many. In fifteen out of forty-five cases of Tories who became Whigs, the evidence seems too ambiguous or too incomplete to warrant such a definite construction being placed upon it.27 How much more uncertain, therefore, is the evidence for regarding the Tory party as committed to the Jacobite cause, an uncertainty which has unfortunately been raised to the level of almost dogmatic certainty in Sedgwick's preface and in his idiosyncratic introductory survey (H.P., I, ix, 20, 62-78). There can be no such certainty where there are so few facts. The most solid facts about Jacobitism appear in what happened in 1715 and 1745: the really crucial test of Jacobite loyalty is what Jacobites did on the day. Very few English or Welsh Jacobites-and even fewer 'Jacobite' M.P.s-­did anything. Another test, it may be suggested, is the extent to which Jacobites were prepared to dip into their pockets for the sake of the Jacobite cause. Some passed this test. English Jacobites informed the Young Pretender upon his arrival in Scotland that £ 10,000 had been collected for him in London, though in that case, as Sir Thomas Sheridan complained, 'why the Devil did they not send it?'28 Some were capable not only of giving, but of giving generously, for whatever truth there may be in the argument that in so far as Jacobitism received popular support it was the support of the broken-down gentry and depressed peasantry of backward, remote regions of the country,29 the parliamentary leadership contained some rich men. One of the richest was Watkin 16 Holmes, British Politics, pp. 148-82. 17 The evidence seems to me insufficient or ambiguous in the following cases: Hon. H. Bathurst, Jacob des Bouverie, John Comyns, Sir Alexander Cumming, Sir Robert Gordon, John Hardres, Clement Kent, Sir William Milner, James Oglethorpe, George Pitt, Robert Pitt, John Proby, Sir Hugh Smithson, George Venables Vernon, Sir Robert Worsley. H.P., I, 618; A Short Account of the Affairs of Scotland in the years 1744, 1745, 1746, by David Lord Elcho, with a memoir and annotations by the Hon. Evan Charteris (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 363 f. 1. "J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675-1725 (1967), p. 169.