years from 1600 to
1660. But by 1763 England, under the Hanoverian kings, had become a
state where all political and social power had been gathered into the
hands of a landed aristocracy which dominated the government, the
Church, and the professions. In parliament, the House of Commons--once
the body which reflected the conscious strength of the gentry and
citizens,--had now fallen under the control of the peers, owing to the
decayed condition of scores of ancient parliamentary boroughs. Nearly
one-third of the seats were actually {11} or substantially owned by
noblemen, and of the remainder a majority were venal, the close
corporations of Mayor and Aldermen selling freely their right to return
two members at each parliamentary election. In addition, the influence
and prestige of the great landowners were so powerful that even in the
counties, and in those boroughs where the number of electors was
considerable, none but members of the ruling class sought election. So
far as the members of the middle class were concerned--the merchants,
master weavers, iron producers, and craftsmen,--they were strong in
wealth and their wishes counted heavily with the aristocracy in all
legislation of a financial or commercial nature; but of actual part in
the government they had none. As for the lower classes,--the
labourers, tenant farmers, and shopkeepers,--they were able as a rule
to influence government only by rioting and uproar. Without the
ballot, they had no other way.

Owing to the personal weakness of successive monarchs since the death
of William III, there had grown up the cabinet system of government
which, in 1763, meant the reduction of the King to the position of an
honorary figurehead and the actual control of officers, perquisites,
patronage, and preferment, as well as the direction of public policy,
by the leaders of parliamentary groups. The King was {12} obliged to
select his ministers from among the members of noble families in the
Lords or Commons, who agreed among themselves after elaborate bargains
and negotiations upon the formation of cabinets and the distribution of
honours. In this way sundry great Whig family "connections," as they
were called, had come to monopolize political power, excluding Tories,
or adherents of the Stuarts, and treating government as solely a matter
of aristocratic concern. Into this limited circle, a poor man could
rise only by making himself useful through his talents or