XVIII Century

Mary II and William III joint sovereigns

Mary II, 1689-1694

William III, 1689-1702

Anne, 1702-1714

George I, 1714-1727

George II, 1727-1760

George III, 1760-1820

As we know, the XVIII century reflected the right of the Parliament to exercise a strict control over king’s affairs. The king still held the executive power but the Parliament got the legislative. It has been said that through the XVI and XVII centuries the Crown and the nobles incessantly saw the wane of their power, embodied in their prerogatives. The revolution had represented the strong assertion of the Bourgeisie to influence the course of national life.

In the XVIII century, nevertheless, we learn that the real power was kept by the Whigs, both in the House of Lords and in the Commons.

The Whig oligarchy was composed mainly of great landowners. Some of them were descendants of the old Lords, the others were mainly the squires.

The squire was a country gentleman, they were the old Justices of the peace who had improved themselves and, after the ups and downs during the revolution, had got some land.

The Whigs kept the majority in the two Houses almost all through the XVIII century. That means that it was the landowner, great or little, noble or not, who administrated England. It must be said, anyway, that these landowners were modern. They were not the old feudatories, they produced for the market or gave their lands to pasture (to obtain the precious wool).

The merchants and the industrial bourgeisie had not yet a great power in the Commons. It can be partly explained with the peculiarity of the elective system which still allowed the rotten boroughs (electoral districts with very few electors, so that the squire or the nobleman could easily compel them to vote for himself). The reform of the electoral system will be one of the leading topic of the following century. Bankers, industrials, merchants – though – will establish their economic domination by the end of the XVIII century because of the effects of the development of the production and trade. As late as the end of the XVIII century, the middle-classes would control the life of the State because they moved money, capitals. The old aristocracy, tied to the possession of land, was going to be substituted.

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