354 Chapter 19
vigorous leadership helped to secure global victories
over France and demonstrated the strength of cabinet
government in times of crisis.
The evolution of parliamentary government in En-
gland was an important stage in the growth of Euro-
pean civilization, but it remained open to criticism. The
most radical voice came from the son of a distiller, John
Wilkes. Wilkes had an Oxford education and a helpful
marriage to a wealthy older woman, whose dowry fi-
nanced his campaign to abolish rotten boroughs and re-
distribute seats in a fairer representation of the
population. Such reform won an important ally in 1783
when William Pitt the Younger (the son of Pitt the El-
der) introduced a bill to disenfranchise thirty-six rotten
boroughs and to give seventy-two more seats to Lon-
don and other populous areas. Pitt’s bill failed in 1785,
however, and fairer electoral laws had to wait for half a
century.
George III was the most complex and important of
the Hanoverian kings. He was the first Hanoverian to
be born and educated in England. Although some
British historians have described him as “an unbalanced
man of low intelligence,” George began his long reign
(1760–1820) as a popular, hard-working king, consid-
ered a decent man of domestic virtues (in contrast to
his predecessors and many of his ministers) and high
patriotism. George III was also the first Hanoverian to
intervene deeply in politics, the first to try to rule. He
was stubborn and arbitrary, and he fought with his min-
isters, dismissing them from office; he tried to abolish
the emerging system of political parties; and for ap-
proximately a dozen years, he effectively ran the gov-
ernment through the choice of weak ministers and
lavish application of Walpole’s patronage system.
George III is often best remembered for the mental im-
balance that began to afflict him in 1765—now
thought to have been caused by the metabolic disease
porphyria—and led to his being stripped of royal pow-
ers in 1811. But for many years he was a formidable po-
litical figure, strong enough to order the arrest of
Wilkes, who was expelled from parliament.
The political process did not stop with kings, parlia-
ments, and radical reformers: The eighteenth century
was an age of turbulent protest. One study has identified
275 urban disturbances in Britain between 1735 and
- The most common problem that drew crowds
into the streets was hunger. Scarce or expensive bread
caused food riots because many people lived on the mar-
gins of survival. Labor riots were also common during
periods of high unemployment. Such protests in Eng-
land frequently became anti-Irish demonstrations, such
as the 1736 riots of London construction workers fearful
that Irish immigrants were taking their jobs and driving
down the price of labor.
Religious hatred was a common cause of riots in the
eighteenth century, and English crowds regularly ex-
pressed their anti-Catholicism with “pope-burnings.”
When the House of Commons in 1778 voted to abolish
legal restrictions upon the seventy-eight thousand
Catholics living in England, the public uproar grew into
one of the largest riots of the century. A vehement de-
fender of Protestant dominance, an M.P. named Lord
George Gordon, in June 1780 led sixty thousand militant
Protestants in a march on Parliament that precipitated
three days of anti-Catholic riots, known as the Gordon
Riots or the “No Popery Riots” (see illustration 19.2).
Mobs assaulted Catholic chapels, major prisons, and the
Bank of England. George III used the army to quell theIllustration 19.2
The Gordon Riots.Urban riots were a recurring feature of
eighteenth-century Europe, even in the prosperous states of the
west. London suffered severe riots, of which the worst were the
Gordon Riots of 1780. Crowds attacked Catholic churches and
church property under the banner of “No Popery.” The illustra-
tion here shows the rioters setting fire to Newgate Prison in
London.