Read Social satire in Swift's Gulliver's Travels Page 3
2.3. Political context
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Charles II died in 1685 and his brother James II (a Roman Catholic) mounted the throne. Although he had promised to maintain the political and religious status quo and to protect the Church of England, he started reintroducing Roman Catholicism which resulted in the threat of “popery”. It became clear that the crown would pass to his male hair, a Roman Catholic, rather than to the king’s Anglican siblings, thereby raising the possibility of an English Catholic Dynasty. Two factions appeared in Parliament: the Tories (royalists) and the Whigs (liberals).
In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Whigs deposed James II, helped by some of the Tories, who had initially supported the king. They invited his daughter Mary with her husband William, the Protestant Prince of Orange, to become monarch. William of Orange, proclaimed himself the defender of English freedoms and landed in England with troops while James II fled to France.
However, for the next 100 years England would feel constant threat from France, threat of an invasion that would restore the Stuarts, and thus Roman Catholic rule. In 1715, during the reign of George I and in 1745 under the rule of George II, there were two Jacobites’ rebellions supported by France. However, in 1745 the Jacobites were defeated, effectively ending the conflict forever.
After Mary's death in 1694, William continued as sole monarch until he died in 1702. He was succeeded by Anne who ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1702. In 1707, under the Act of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain. Some institutions, however, such as law or church of each of them remained separate.
While Swift was writing Gulliver's Travels in the 1720s, England was undergoing deep political change.
Despite seventeen pregnancies, Anne died in 1714 without surviving children, thus being the last monarch of the House of Stuart. She was succeeded by her cousin George I of the House of Hanover, who was Anne's closest living Protestant relative. He was not interested in the affairs of his kingdom and he was not popular. He did not even learn English. George I brought the Whigs back to power. Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury, who became the first English Prime Minister, was his favourite. Walpole was corrupt, but he was a great politician in the meantime.
George I had gained his throne with the assistance of the Whig party. As a result of their dominant position, the Whig ministers started to oppress members of the opposition Tory party. Swift had been a Tory since 1710.
During George's reign, the powers of the monarchy diminished and Britain began a transition to the modern system of cabinet government led by a prime minister. Towards the end of his reign, actual power was held by Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first de facto prime minister. George died on a trip to his native Hanover, where he was buried.
To sum up, the 18th century England was characterized by many political and religious conflicts, such as the Tories vs. the Whigs, Catholics vs. Protestants, the war between England and Ireland and a simultaneous war between England and France, controversy over the ruling of Ireland.
The Whigs origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule. The Whigs were the standing enemies of the Stuart kings and pretenders, who were Roman Catholics and played a central role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
The most striking political feature of the eighteenth century England was the rise of constitutional and party government. The liberal Whigs were determined to safeguard popular liberty. The conservative Tories would leave as much authority as possible in the royal hands. There was a third party of zealots on the extreme of Torysm, called the Jacobites, who struggled to bring the Stuarts back to the throne and to this aim they frequently organized plots and rebellions.
Power shifted easily from one party to the other because only a few votes were necessary to overturn a Tory or a Whig cabinet and London was flooded with pamphlets to influence such votes.
Writers with a talent for argument or satire were hired by party leaders, who knew that the press had become a mighty power, to serve either the Whigs or the Tories. So the new politician replaced the old nobleman as a patron of letters.