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When Sir Robert Walpole fell from power one satirist had a field day depicting him evacuating all the offices he controlled. Among those lurking in the background under the legend "we come in now" was Bishop Smalbroke who clearly hoped to cash in

2 8
2021-06-24

On the duke of Marlborough's death 1722, as his son & heir, Blandford, had predeceased him, the new duke was a duchess: Henrietta, countess of Godolphin, became 2nd duchess of Marlborough.

1 5
2021-06-16

How secure was the Robinocracy? In 1737 Walpole was said to have been looking for a way out & to have offered Sir John Barnard the chancellorship. Barnard demurred saying it was too much trouble & he couldn't (honestly) make as much as he did by trade

4 14
2021-06-16

1780 Lord George Gordon was arrested at 6 in the evening. He was sent to on a charge of high treason for inciting the that had transfixed since the 2nd

3 6
2021-06-09

1794 there was a session in the House of Lords as they debated the Habeas Corpus bill, sitting till 2 the next morning... It passed with a thumping majority of almost 100.

15 61
2021-05-22

Entertaining blog from our colleagues upstairs in on the role of pubs, drink & drunkenness in including the case of one character who pitched forward head-first into a privy & was stuck by the shoulders for several hours...
https://t.co/tnrT6aLnVE

5 7
2021-04-26

1794 there was no drawing room at court, so Queen Charlotte dressed at 1pm & then spent the time till dinner sitting for her portrait - possibly this one by Gainsborough of that year...

6 16
2021-04-17

One of the odder depictions of John Wilkes, here presented as Hercules cleaning the Augean Stables, produced in anticipation of his expected return to in 1768 & his claim to wish to clear out

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2021-04-15

Born 1721 in Leicester House William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, younger son of George II. He spent his 25th birthday in the field preparing for a final battle with Charles Edward's forces, which took place the next day at Culloden.

6 19
2021-04-15

"You will be entertained with a prophecy which my Lord Chesterfield has found in the 35th chapter of Ezekiel, which clearly promises us victory over the French"
Horace Walpole to Richard Bentley, 1755

4 4
2021-04-13

"she moved with a simplicity that proved her to be unconscious of the charm which bound the world to her attraction" [Morning Chronicle]: died at 3.30am 1806, Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire

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2021-03-30

John Wilkes' behaviour divided even his most loyal friends. In spring 1769 William Fitzherbert complained:
"I would have gone upon my knees for his pardon... I love him, but in the light he stands I will do as much as any man in England to oppose him"

2 0
2021-03-18

He wasn't the only parliamentarian notable for developing a new dog breed. According to one tradition, the 2nd duke of Newcastle bred his Clumber Spaniels from animals rescued from the French Revolution

2 3
2021-03-04

Wading through an index & struck by successive entries for Robert Walpole:
entertains a large company
description of house & estate
illness of
unpopular (due to the Excise)
mobbed
burnt in effigy
The life of an in 6 movements

3 8
2021-02-23

1689 William III & Mary II were proclaimed King & Queen at the Banqueting House and presented with the Declaration of Rights by the marquess of Halifax as speaker of the House of Lords

16 41
2021-02-13

"that some of our ministers can neither dance nor sing, would not be a reproach to them, if they had but somebody with them that could": guidance on suggesting all political negotiations should conclude with a dance-off?

8 16
2021-02-09

diplomats were human: in 1727 Lord Waldegrave wrote from Paris to his contact back in hoping that his last dispatch "did not show the influence of

3 9
2021-02-05

The death of the 7th earl of Leicester in 1743 resulted in a battle royal between his illegitimate daughter, Anne, & his niece, Elizabeth Perry, the one referred to as 'the Fairy' & the other as 'the Empress of Penshurst'. The Empress won.

0 2
2021-01-15

Yesterday's events in Washington a reminder of how easy it was to infiltrate the porous old palace of
https://t.co/GapxjsPx8L

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2021-01-08