Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. [Bailyn traces the theoretical basis for the revolution in seventeenth and eighteenth-century political thought.]

Brewer, John. Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. [A complex and detailed exploration of the relationship between political ideas and practical power.]

Dickinson, H.T. Liberty and Property. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1977. [Strongly interested in the relationship between ideas and real political interests, as embodied in constitutional developments; Dickinson treats the development of parties at the end of the seventeenth century, the split between court and country in the middle of the eighteenth, and the emergence of a radical ideology at the end.]

Earle, Peter. The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London 1660-1730. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. [Substantial sections on the London economy, on business practices (including apprentices and the roles of women, and on the family, using such documentary sources as business papers, diaries, wills, inventories, and government and legal records, as well as contemporary commentary.]

Jarrett, Derek. England in the Age of Hogarth. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1974. [Describes English society in mid century by considering topics illustrated by Hogarth's paintings: English liberty, violence and repression, children, labor, women and marriage, housing, entertainment and fashion, melancholy and superstition. The account emphasizes the violence and cruelty of the period.]

Langford, Paul. A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783. Oxford:Clarendon, 1989. [Includes narrative political history, interspersed with chapters on social and economic history, law and culture, agricultural and civil improvements, aristocratic manners, the military and the growth of industry, and the British constitution. Argues that the period was one of substantial changes.]

Laslett, Peter. The World We Have Lost. Second edition. London, 1971. [A survey of pre-industrial British life, based particularly on quantitative and demographic approaches.]

Marshall, Dorothy. English People in the Eighteenth Century. London, 1956. [A particularly important study of social conditions and their historical importance; perhaps still the best one-volume introduction.]

Namier, Sir Louis. The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III. Revised edition. London: Macmillan, 1957. [A germinal interpretation of eighteenth-century politics; Namier presents substantial evidence for his view that politics were driven by familial, oligarchic alliances rather than ideologies--a much debated contention.]

Owen, John B. The Eighteenth Century, 1714-1815. New York: Norton, 1974. [Owen's general study of political history makes more sense out of the period than a one-volume general history might be expected to do. It demands but repays careful reading.]

Plumb, J.H. England in the Eighteenth Century. Penguin, 1950. [Plumb's book is not quite as thoughtful and up-to-date as Owen's, but it is clear, concise, and more accessible.]

Porter, Roy. English Society in the Eighteenth Century. Penguin, 1982. [A lively introduction to social life, social groupings, and the changes brought about by economic and industrial developments--accessible but somewhat abstract (that is, neither anecdotal on one hand nor strongly quantitative on the other).]

Rudé, George. Hanoverian London. London, 1971. [An informative and general account of the life of the city during the eighteenth century.]

Speck, W.A. Stability and Strife: England, 1714-1760. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. [The topical first half provides an interesting general account, but the chronological second half, though useful, is rather thin.]

Summerson, Sir John. Georgian London. London: Pleiades Books, 1945. [Although focused on architectural history, the book is more than a survey of famous buildings; it ties together architectural, economic, demographic, and political factors.]

Turberville, A.C. English Men and Manners in the Eighteenth Century. London: Oxford University Press, 1926. [An full and informative survey of eighteenth-century society: old-fashioned, but accessible (with lots of pictures).]

George I (reigned 1714-1727). Son of Electress Sophia. He did not speak English and in his reign various Ministers of State (especially Robert Walpole) assumed substantial power. But the resulting impression that he was neither capable of nor interested in British government is wrong.

George II (reigned 1727-1760). Son of George I and married to Queen Caroline, an intelligent, and influential queen. Though his reign lacked style and moved from a period of peaceful stability to war and political uncertainty, George II was an active and generally capable monarch. Like his father, he preferred Whigs but was not always successful in keeping his favorite Ministers in power.

Frederick, Prince of Wales. Though not very bright, Frederick was persistent. His persistence, however, did not pay off, as he died (1751) nine years before his father. The political opposition rallied around him and his household, and his relations with Queen Caroline were painful.

William, Duke of Cumberland. Younger brother of Frederick. Though an indifferent general, he was commander-in-chief of the army and, in 1745, achieved a popular victory over the Jacobite rebellion. He remained an important political influence, and his death in 1765 was one of the factors that resulted in the leadership problems faced by George III.

George III (reigned 1760-1811; died 1820). Son of Frederick. A rather popular monarch, despite his political ineptitude. His reign was marked by a period of ministerial instability until the rise of Pitt in 1783, by the loss of the American colonies, by the addition of Ireland to the United Kingdom, and by battles about parliamentary authority. He was judged insane in 1810, and his son became Regent in 1811.

Historians now agree that "Whig" and "Tory" meant relatively little in terms of the management of Parliament, especially in the middle third of the century. A more realistic view (by J.B. Owen) sees on one hand a general split between the "court" and the "country," and, on the other hand, three distinct parliamentary groups: (1) Politicians-political leaders and influential followers interested in continued preference (court) or in assuming power (country); (2) the "Court and Treasury Party"-members of Parliament holding paid positions at the pleasure of the King and hence always supporting the government; (3) Independents-members not dependent on political influence or royal favor, tending to support the government as long as it governed in accordance with tradition (court), or to be skeptical of government and politicians of any ilk (country). Independents constituted by far the largest and most fluid political force: there were 300-350 of them, as opposed to approximately 100 in each of the other two groups.

Events of Note

1714. Accession of George I. Whig Privy Council, with Stanhope and Sunderland as principal Ministers.

1715. Abortive Jacobite rebellion.

1715-20. Publication of Pope's Iliad establishes Pope as Britain's principle poet and makes him financially independent.

1716. Septennial Act provides for parliamentary elections every seven years (instead of three).

1719. Death of Joseph Addison; publication of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.

1720. Collapse of the South Sea Company (the South Sea Bubble) causes financial chaos and discredits some Whig leaders.

1721. Robert Walpole becomes First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer--in effect Prime Minister.

1724. Publication of Swift's Drapier's Letters, attacking English monetary policy towards Ireland.

1726. Swift's Travels to Several Remote Nations (Gulliver's Travels).

1727. Death of George I. Walpole survives the accession of George II, who had quarreled with his father.

1727-29. England is forced into an unwanted war with Spain.

1728. Pope's Dunciad in three books. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.

1729. Investigation of prison conditions by a parliamentary commission headed by James Oglethorpe. Pope's Dunciad Variorum adds notes and other material. Swift's A Modest Proposal.

1731-35. Publication of Pope's Moral Essays.

1733-34. Publication of Pope's Essay on Man.

1732. Death of John Gay.

1733. Walpole proposes an Excise Tax but is forced by political pressure to withdraw it. Walpole, supported by the King and Queen and a somewhat weak majority in Parliament, is opposed by alienated Whigs as well as Tories, and by Frederick, Prince of Wales.

1735. Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Death of Arbuthnot.

1737. Death of Queen Caroline, one of Walpole's prime allies. Rupture between George II and Frederick, Prince of Wales. Porteous riots in Scotland. The Playhouse (or Licensing) Act requires censorship of plays by the Lord Chamberlain.

1738. Agitation for a war with Spain. Samuel Johnson's London imitates Juvenal's Satire 3.

1739. Walpole reluctantly declares war against Spain (the "War of Jenkins' Ear").

1741. Publication of The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, written by Pope, Arbuthnot, and others.

1741-42. Walpole loses electoral support because of his handling of the war and is forced to resign. A coalition of Whigs assumes power, with Henry Pelham and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, emerging as political leaders. The War of Jenkins' Ear becomes the War of Austrian Succession.

1742. Pope's The New Dunciad (Book IV). Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews.

1743. The French are defeated at the Battle of Dettingen by an English and Hanoverian Army led by George II. Publication of The Dunciad in Four Books, with Colley Cibber replacing Lewis Theobald as chief dunce. Publication of Henry Fielding's Jonathan Wild in Volume III of his Miscellanies.

1744. Death of Pope.

1745. An army of Scottish Highlanders, led by Charles Edward Stuart, invades England but retreats because of insufficient support. Pursued to Scotland by William, Duke of Cumberland, they are defeated at the Battle of Culloden. Charles escapes to France, and the feudal power of the Highland clans is suppressed. Death of Swift.

1747. Henry Fielding appointed chief magistrate for Westminster.

1748. War with France ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

1748-49. Publication of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones.

1749. Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes: the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated. 1751. Fielding's Amelia published. Death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. His son George becomes heir and is brought up in the opposition tradition of his father by the Earl of Bute.

1754. Publication of the revised edition of Jonathan Wild. Death of Fielding. Death of Henry Pelham. Period of political instability begins.

1755. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language.

1756. Beginning of war with France (Seven Years War). Emergence of William Pitt (the Elder) as political leader.

1759-60. British military successes in Canada and India turn the war in Britain's favor.

1760. Death of George II. Accession of George III. The Earl of Bute becomes Prime Minister and seeks to end the Seven Years War. In continuing political instability, George has difficulty finding successful political leaders.

1763. The Peace of Paris ends the war with France and gives Canada and India to England. John Wilkes publishes North Briton, No. 45.

1764. Wilkes is expelled from Parliament, wounded in a duel, and flees to France.

1765-66. Stamp Act passed and then repealed following American resistance.

1769. Parliament refuses to seat John Wilkes, who had been elected M.P. for Middlesex, and seats his opponent instead.

1770. Lord North becomes Prime Minister, ending a period of instability. The policy of taxing the colonies for war expenses continues, despite continued American resistance.

1773. Boston Tea Party.

1774. Parliament closes the Port of Boston, along with other reprisals against American resistance.

1775. Battles of Lexington and Concord and of Bunker Hill.

1776. George III declares the American colonies in rebellion; the American colonies declare independence.

1777. American victory at the Battle of Saratoga gains French support for the War of Independence.

1780. The Gordon riots over a proposed Catholic civil rights paralyze London for a week.

1781. British forces surrender at Yorktown.

1782. Lord North resigns as Prime Minister.

1783. American War ended by the Treaty of Versailles. William Pitt (the Younger) becomes prime Minister until 1801.

1784. Death of Samuel Johnson

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