The British Parliament 111
others maintained.^7 Parliament after 1689 was no longer subordinate to the King;
but neither, until after 1832, was it subordinate to an electorate; nor was the King,
or were his ministers, subordinate to the Parliament. Given a real separation of
equally indispensable elements, the problem of government was to make them act
together. It was the King’s responsibility to keep the government going; he could
lawfully appoint any combination of men that he chose to carry his government
on; the only restriction on him was a practical one, that the persons so appointed
must not be sufficiently distasteful to a sufficient number of persons in the Lords
and Commons to make those bodies refuse money or legislation. The House of
Lords was usually more amenable to the wishes of government, for various rea-
sons: the bishops were government appointees; a few peers might still feel grati-
tude for a recent elevation; others hoped for promotion in the peerage, and still
others for appointment as gentlemen of the Bedchamber, which gave personal ac-
cess to the court and to the King. The House of Commons was socially continuous
so to speak, with the Lords. In the Parliament of 1761, that is, the first Parliament
to have serious trouble with America, over half the members of the House of
Commons were related to baronets or peers, and three- quarters had had ancestors
in the House. Lord North was the son of a peer; George Grenville and Charles
Townshend were brothers of peers; others were the close associates of peers, not
to say dependents, like Edmund Burke, who over a period of fifteen years received
some £30,000 from the Marquis of Rockingham. As a house, however, the Com-
mons was perhaps a bit stronger than the Lords, not because it was more repre-
sentative of the country, but because it had more control over the grant of funds,
and because, since its members did not often aspire to earldoms or to the Bed-
chamber, it had less to lose by obstinacy or opposition.
There were no parties in any definite or inclusive sense. The terms Whig and
Tory had ceased to have much meaning. Groups of individuals might profess to
act together in politics as “friends,” but they were easily dissolved. Most members
of Parliament thought of themselves as belonging to no particular following, and
disapproved of the efforts of “friends” to stand or fall together in bargaining with
the King for office. Cabinets did not assume or leave office as a body; ministers
came and went as individuals. There was no antithesis, real or formal, between
Government and Opposition. Habitual opposition was frowned upon, as in most
human organizations outside the stylized limits of the modern democratic state.
Most members of Parliament thought it their normal duty to lend support to the
administration.
On the other hand, they expected something in return. Government was a busi-
ness of the political class; and, as Professor Pares has said, there were really two
political classes, a small active class within a larger passive one. The larger and more
passive class included those who wanted offices, pensions, honors, status, and in-
7 For the workings of British government at this time I follow W. S. Holdsworth, History of En-
glish Law (13 vols., London, 1922–1952), X; R. Pares, King George III and the Politicians (Oxford,
1953); G. H. Guttridge, English Whiggism and the American Revolution: University of California Publi-
cations in History, X XVIII (Berkeley, 1942); C. R. Ritcheson, British Politics and the American Revolu-
tion (Norman, 1954).