United Kingdom: history 1714–1815

For earlier periods of the history of the British Isles see Britain, ancient, Roman Britain, England: history to 1485, England: history 1485–1714, Ireland: history to 1154, Ireland: history 1154 to 1485, Ireland: history 1485 to 1603, Ireland: history 1603 to 1782, Scotland: history to 1058, Scotland: history 1058 to 1513, Scotland: history 1513 to 1603, Scotland: history 1603 to 1746, Wales: history to 1066, and Wales: history 1066 to 1485.

The making of the United Kingdom
The term ‘United Kingdom’ became official in 1801, but was in use from 1707, when the Act of Union combined Scotland and England into the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Scotland and England had been ruled by the same monarch since 1603, but the Act of Union more fully unified the two countries, abolishing the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh and giving Scotland representation at the Westminster Parliament in London.

The English conquest of Ireland had begun in the 12th century. English rule had been established over the whole of Ireland by the end of the 16th century, and remaining resistance crushed during the 17th century. Wales had been conquered by the English in the 13th century, although it was not until the Act of Union of 1535 that Wales was formally assimilated into the English political system, and was given parliamentary representation at Westminster (see also Wales: the Act of Union).

The Hanoverian succession
The last Stuart monarch of Great Britain was Queen Anne. The last of Anne's children had died in 1700, and the Act of Settlement of 1701 had arranged that the succession after Anne's death should pass to the nearest Protestant heirs of Sophia, Electress of Hanover (granddaughter of James I of England). On Anne's death in 1714, Sophia's son was duly proclaimed as King George I of Great Britain.

The Act of Settlement marked the completion of the so‐called Glorious Revolution of 1688, by which the English Parliament deposed Anne's father, the Catholic James II, from the throne, and invited the Protestant William of Orange to rule jointly with his wife Mary, James's Protestant daughter. William and Mary were obliged by Parliament to accept the Bill of Rights, by which the powers of the monarch were significantly curtailed, marking the beginning of constitutional monarchy in Britain. The Act of Settlement was a further measure by Parliament to exclude from the throne James's Catholic heirs, in particular James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, and established, in fact if not in theory, the right of Parliament to select the monarch.

The Jacobite rebellions
The Protestant succession was almost immediately challenged by the 1715 Jacobite rebellion, when the Old Pretender landed in Scotland to head a revolt against the Hanoverians. However, he received little support, and was obliged to return to France.

Another equally doomed attempt to restore the Stuarts occurred in 1745–46, when the Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, raised the Scottish clans and led them south into England. They reached as far as Derby until being forced to retreat, and were eventually annihilated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, after which the Scottish Highlanders were brutally suppressed.

If anything, these rebellions served to strengthen the Hanoverian dynasty, which became symbolic of the values of Protestantism, toleration, stability, and commercial prosperity held dear by the Whigs, who had been responsible for the revolution of 1688 and for the peaceful succession of George I (see Whig Party UK).

Reduction in the power of the crown
George I was a foreigner and a figurehead, and the real power passed from the hands of the crown into the hands of Parliament. During the 18th century that meant that power remained in the hands of the great Whig families. But the Whig grandees were inspired by no feelings of loyalty to the new dynasty; rather they regarded the matter as a financial speculation and supported the Hanoverians because, whilst a Protestant sat on the throne, their funds were safe.

An indicator of the constitutional changes taking place was the fact that from the reign of George I the monarch no longer attended cabinet meetings; his place was taken by a first or prime minister. The system of party government had already been developing in the preceding century, but now the personal influence of the crown began to lessen. However, this tendency, though apparent under the early Hanoverians, should not be exaggerated. The king's patronage was still a vital factor in government, and was to remain so, except in times of acute stress, for several decades yet.

The Walpole era
Following the accession of George I there were a number of short‐lived Whig ministries, including that of Robert Walpole in 1715–17. The mania for speculation that started during George's reign culminated in the financial collapse of the South Sea Bubble (1720), which reduced many people in Britain to penury. The government itself was implicated in the scandal, but confidence was restored by Walpole, who returned to head up a new ministry in 1721, and was to remain as prime minister in all but name until 1742. Walpole gained the confidence both of George I and of his successor from 1727, George II.

Walpole's period in office was one of political tranquillity, during which he perfected the art of managing Parliament by the use of patronage – effectively a system of bribery. His laissez‐faire attitude towards foreign and economic policy kept Britain out of European wars, and allowed the country to prosper. However, in 1732–33 his attempts at fiscal reform were defeated, and in 1739, much against his will, Walpole was obliged by public opinion to declare war on Spain – the War of Jenkins's Ear. In 1742, finding his parliamentary majorities continually dwindling, Walpole resigned.

Britain's colonial wars
The War of Jenkins's Ear ran on into the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), in which Britain, Austria, and the Netherlands were allied against France, Prussia, and Spain. During this war, the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 was the last battle in which a British sovereign led his troops in person.

In every war that Britain fought during the 18th century the country was either in direct opposition to France or ranged amongst the allies opposed to it. The wars were no longer solely European wars, but had become struggles for colonial and maritime supremacy. So not only was British policy directed at maintaining the balance of power in Europe, in which France was by now the most powerful nation, but also at securing for Britain as much colonial territory as possible, along with the lucrative trade associated with such acquisitions. Thus the European wars were repeated in India and North America and often, even when the two countries were at peace at home, war was going on in the colonies.

In India Britain lost Madras to the French during the War of the Austrian Succession, but gained Louisburg in North America. However, by the Treaty of Aix‐la‐Chapelle (1748) that ended the war, all colonial conquests were returned. By the time the Seven Years' War broke out in 1756 the French and British had already resumed hostilities in North America. Gen James Wolfe's victory in 1759 over the French at the Plains of Abraham (see Abraham, Plains of) resulted not only in the British capture of Québec, but also in the whole of Canada passing into British hands (see also Canada). In India the victories of Robert Clive and Sir Eyre Coote during the war finally broke French power in the subcontinent, leaving the way clear for the British to establish an empire there (see also India: history 1526–1858).

By the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War in 1763 Britain was obliged to return its conquests in the Caribbean to France, but gained Florida from Spain, which had been allied to France, in recompense for returning Cuba and the Philippines. In addition to Canada, the French also ceded the Ohio valley to Britain, and British domination in North America and in India was now unquestioned. Britain's naval supremacy was also established during the war, notably by the victories at Lagos and Quiberon Bay, and was to remain unchallenged for another century and a half. Britain's success in the Seven Years' War owed much to William Pitt the Elder, who as war minister in the Duke of Newcastle's ministry directed Britain's global strategy.

The background to the American Revolution
As part of the economic theory of mercantilism European governments during this period regarded their colonies as existing solely for the benefit of the colonial power, rather than for benefit of the colonists, far less that of the indigenous peoples. The colonies were valuable sources of raw materials – for example, in the case of North America, of timber, furs, tobacco, and, later, cotton. Such raw materials, once imported to the home country, could be processed by domestic manufacturers, and these manufactured goods exported to the colonies and elsewhere. Mercantilist thinking held that it was vital for a country to gain as great a share of this trade as possible if it was to thrive, and to this end in the 17th century Britain had introduced a series of Navigation Acts, which effectively meant that its colonies could only trade with the home country, and only use British ships for that trade.

Such restrictions were resented especially in Britain's 13 North American colonies. Far greater numbers of British colonists had settled there than elsewhere, and had evolved a greater degree of political awareness than successive British governments recognized. They had also gained considerably in confidence and unity following their military successes against the French and the American Indians during the Seven Years' War.

It was perhaps particularly unfortunate that the new king, George III, who had succeeded his grandfather George II in 1760, adopted a more assertive position regarding the duties and powers of the monarch than his predecessors. George III was the first Hanoverian ruler who proudly proclaimed that he ‘gloried in the name of Briton’; he was also the first to determine to establish his personal rule. To this end the new king sought to break the power of the Whigs, and picked a quarrel over policy with Pitt the Elder in 1761, forcing the latter to resign. Pitt was replaced shortly afterwards by the first member of the Tory Party to hold power for almost half a century, the Earl of Bute– George's former tutor. George's view of his own unquestionable authority over his subjects made him particularly intransigent in regard to the feelings and aspirations of the American colonists.

The loss of the American colonies
The restrictions imposed by the Navigation Acts had begun to be ignored by the American colonists, so when Bute's successor as prime minister, George Grenville, decided that the Navigation Acts should be strictly enforced, trouble was inevitable. In addition, Grenville proposed that a standing army should be garrisoned in the colonies, and that the colonies should be taxed to support this army. The army was ostensibly to protect the colonists from the American Indians, but the colonists believed it was intended to intimidate them. So when the Stamp Act, which imposed taxes on the American colonies, was introduced in 1765, it met with strenuous opposition.

As the colonists were not represented in the British Parliament, the colonists' slogan became ‘No taxation without representation’. The British government failed to appreciate this fundamental cause of discontent, and although it attempted to conciliate the colonists by abolishing the Stamp Act in 1766, it reserved the right to tax them, imposing import taxes on tea and other goods. Thus, although conciliation was tried by the British government, it proved useless to conciliate with one hand and irritate with the other.

Pitt the Elder, who had formed a new ministry in 1766, attempted to champion the Americans against George III, but the king had regarded the colonists as rebels from the first. The rights of the Americans were also spoken for in Parliament by Edmund Burke. After an indecisive interlude under the Duke of Grafton (Whig; 1768–70) government came once more into the hands of the Tories, with Lord Frederick North as prime minister (1770–82).

North backed the king's hard line towards the Americans. This led inevitably to war, which broke out in 1775, and the following year the Americans declared their independence and became a republic. By 1778 the war had escalated and Britain soon found itself fighting not only the Americans, but also France, Spain, and the Netherlands, while Russia formed a league of armed neutrality, which assisted the American colonies by obstructing the use of British sea power.

In North America the British forces were finally defeated at Yorktown, where the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, surrendered in 1781. Against France and Spain Britain was more successful, and the victories of Admiral Rodney in the West Indies and the failure of the Spaniards to recover Gibraltar enabled Britain to salvage something from the war, but, nevertheless, it was at a lower pitch of power than it had reached before in the century.

America's independence was eventually recognized by Britain at the Treaty of Paris (1783). By this treaty Britain also returned Florida to Spain, which also gained North America to the west of the River Mississippi.

For further details of the causes and course of the war see American Revolution and America: colonial history to 1783.

The beginnings of the Industrial and agrarian revolutions
Britain's political stability in the 18th century, together with its colonial acquisitions, its geographical position, and natural resources, all help to explain why it was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Political stability allowed commerce to flourish along with sound banking and insurance institutions. Colonial acquisitions led to an expansion of trade, which made many merchants extremely wealthy, generating large amounts of capital that could be invested in new enterprises, especially expensive new technologies. Colonial acquisitions also provided new sources of raw materials, and new markets for manufactured goods.

Britain's geographical position was favourable for trade with the Americas and elsewhere, and inland trade was facilitated by navigable rivers, many of them linked from the mid‐18th century by canals. In addition, Britain's own natural resources included extensive supplies of coal and iron in close proximity, together with many rivers that could be harnessed for water‐powered machinery. With the introduction of James Watt's improved steam engine in the 1780s coal became the vital fuel of the Industrial Revolution, and more and more manufacturing processes became mechanized, leading to mass production of lower‐cost goods, especially textiles.

The second half of the 18th century also witnessed a rapid growth in the population (by some 66%), and the increased demand for agricultural production was one of the reasons for the agrarian revolution. This involved the employment of more efficient farming methods, leading to greater productivity, but also involved the big landowners enclosing much common land, and the eviction of small‐scale farmers (see enclosure). These developments, together with the increased demand for labour in the new mines and factories, began the gradual transformation of Britain from a largely rural into a predominantly urban society – although it was not until the mid‐19th century that more than half of the population were living in towns and cities. The increased profits made by the large landowners also created more capital for investment in industrial enterprises.

The rise of the middle classes
Trade, the growth of the professions, and industrialization all contributed to the expansion of the middle classes in the 18th century, and at the same time economic power began to shift from the aristocratic land‐owning classes to the new bourgeoisie. It has been estimated that the middle classes in 1688 comprised some 9% of the English population, and that by 1800 this proportion had grown to 15%. The shift in wealth was even more remarkable: in 1688 the middle classes accounted for over 20% of national income, a proportion that had more than doubled by 1800.

Ironically, it continued to be the aspiration of the middle classes to spend their wealth, once acquired, in land, and so to join the land‐owning upper classes. The financial support that wealthy bankers and merchants – and later industrialists – were able to offer governments often resulted in them being awarded noble titles to go with the land they had purchased. This social mobility from ‘haute bourgeoisie’ to nobility was in marked contrast to certain other European countries, particularly in central and eastern Europe, where static, virtually feudal societies continued to be entrenched for another century or more.

The roots of radicalism
However, despite their growing economic power, many of the urban middle classes in Britain – not to mention the great masses of industrial and agricultural workers – continued to be without political power, and indeed without the vote. A significant proportion of the middle classes were Nonconformists (members of other Protestant sects than the established Church of England), and their political rights were restricted by law (as were the political rights of Catholics).

The attempted autocracy of George III aroused considerable opposition, which found a mouthpiece in the radical MP and publisher, John Wilkes. In the 1760s Wilkes spoke for the American colonists and defended civil liberties, but his attacks on George III led to his imprisonment. Of greater significance were the writings of the republican political philosopher Thomas Paine, which helped to inspire the American Revolution. Paine was also later to defend the French Revolution in The Rights of Man (1791–92) against the attacks of Edmund Burke and others. Political reform, in particular parliamentary reform, began to be strenuously advocated by many of the middle classes.

Other thinkers of the Enlightenment also made their impact, in particular Adam Smith's treatise on economics, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith's advocacy of free trade– anathema to mercantilist thinking – became a topic of debate, and was to become a cornerstone of 19th‐century Liberal principles.

Reform and reaction
The disasters – for Britain – of the American Revolution gave impetus to some reforms. An end was put to the personal power of the king by an act of 1782 that restricted his powers of patronage and that of his ministers – although he was still able to influence events by the use of the body of politicians known as the ‘king's friends’. Also in 1782 the Irish achieved the lifting of trade restrictions and of the crown's control of the Irish Parliament.

Following the fall of Lord North in 1782 there were a number of short‐lived ministries until December 1783, when William Pitt the Younger became Britain's youngest ever prime minister at the age of 24. Although a Tory, Pitt introduced a number of reforming measures, such as awarding full political rights to Nonconformists and the abolition the slave trade, but these were rejected by Parliament. However, he successfully carried out fiscal and financial reforms, and reduced corruption, while the movement towards free trade found expression in his commercial treaty with France in 1786, by which tariffs were reduced on a reciprocal basis. In colonial matters he was responsible for the India Act of 1784 that transferred the real power in India from the East India Company to the British government; for the first convict settlement in Australia (1788); and for the Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided Canada into English‐speaking Upper Canada and French‐speaking Lower Canada, each of which was given a representative assembly.

The demand for parliamentary reform continued sporadically, but the French Revolution and its aftermath was to make all in power fear reform as the probable prelude of revolution. For over four years the Revolution, which started in 1789, had little practical impact in Britain, except in so far as it found some supporters but more enemies. The peace of Europe was held to be unaffected by it, and Pitt himself declared the year before the outbreak of war that peace with France had never been so secure. But from 1792 the Revolution began to take a more radical turn; the monarchy was overthrown, and, in 1793, Louis XVI was executed. The French invasion of the Austrian Netherlands brought fears of the Revolution being exported across Europe, and Britain formed the First Coalition, consisting of most of the European powers, and declared war on France.

Fears of revolution and of French invasion brought about a change in the political climate at home. Would‐be reformers were persecuted, many being tried for sedition, and the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 made trade unions illegal. Charles James Fox, the radical leader of the Whig opposition, opposed Pitt's war of intervention against France and his persecution of the reformers, but the ‘Old Whigs’ deserted him and gave their support to the government. Among the ‘Old Whigs’ was the Duke of Portland, who became Pitt's home secretary, and in this role administered the ‘gagging acts’ against treason and sedition.

In Ireland the repression of the United Irishmen in 1793 resulted in the nationalists looking to France for military aid, and the outbreak of rebellion in 1798. This was crushed, and Pitt sought to solve the Irish question by unifying the Irish and British parliaments. By bribery and by implicit promises of Catholic Emancipation Pitt persuaded the Irish Parliament to vote itself out of existence in 1800, and the Act of Union became law in 1801 (see also Union, Acts of). However, George III refused to consider granting Catholic Emancipation, and rather than break his promise, Pitt resigned.

Britain in the Revolutionary Wars
Pitt's declaration of war against France in 1793 was to involve Britain in almost two decades of warfare, in which Britain formed and subsidized a number of coalitions against the French. French military victories led the members of the First Coalition to settle with France one by one, eventually leaving only Britain at war.

In 1798 Pitt formed the Second Coalition with Russia, Austria, Turkey, Portugal, and Naples, and the French attempt to conquer Egypt was ended by Horatio Nelson's victory at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. But again the other members of the coalition were soon forced to settle with France, where Napoleon, its most brilliant general, had seized power in 1799. Britain was now also faced with the ‘armed neutrality of the north’, formed by those countries – Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Prussia – that resented Britain's attempt to end their trade with France. Nelson's victory at Copenhagen in 1801 put an end to this alliance, but the cost of the war was proving excessive for the British government, which came to terms with France by the Peace of Amiens (see Amiens, peace of).

Britain in the Napoleonic Wars
The brief interlude of peace did not end the mutual hostility of Britain and France, and war broke out again in 1803. The following year Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, and began to prepare for the invasion of Britain. This plan was thwarted by Nelson's defeat of the combined fleets of France and Spain at Trafalgar in 1805. In the same year Pitt, who had returned as prime minister in 1804, formed the Third Coalition with Austria, Russia, and Naples, but again Britain's allies fell victim to Napoleon's military genius at Ulm (October 1805) and Austerlitz (December 1805). On hearing the news of the latter defeat, Pitt, whose health had been declining, died.

Pitt was succeeded by the ‘Ministry of All the Talents’ under his cousin, the Whig politician William Grenville, who had been Pitt's foreign secretary 1791–1801. This coalition, in which Fox was foreign secretary, brought about the abolition of the slave trade (the bill being proposed by the anti‐slavery campaigner William Wilberforce), and Fox opened peace negotiations with France, but died before their completion.

In 1807 a Tory ministry was formed under the nominal leadership of the Duke of Portland, and was marked by the quarrels between the foreign secretary George Canning and the war minister Lord Castlereagh, which led to a duel in 1809. In the same year a new Tory ministry was formed under Spencer Perceval, who was assassinated in 1812 and succeeded by another Tory, Lord Liverpool. Liverpool brought the Napoleonic Wars to a successful conclusion for Britain, and remained as prime minister until 1827, but his reactionary rule after the end of the war was to bring Britain near to revolution (see United Kingdom: history 1815–1914).

Britain's eventual victory in the Napoleonic Wars was to a very great extent due to its great economic resources, for without its manufactured goods not even Britain's enemies could survive. Napoleon's attempt from 1806 to strangle British trade by the Continental System not only alienated France's allies, but proved impossible to enforce, owing to British naval superiority. British forces were active in Spain and Portugal from 1808 in the Peninsular War, in which they achieved a number of notable victories under Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington).

Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 encouraged the formation by Castlereagh, now foreign secretary, of the Fourth Coalition, which included Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Following Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813, and the capture of Paris by the allies in 1814, Napoleon was forced to abdicate. His brief return to power in 1815 was brought to a conclusive end by his defeat at Waterloo by British and Prussian forces under Wellington and Marshal Blücher.

Castlereagh and Wellington were the chief British representatives at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, at which the peace settlement was worked out (see Vienna, Congress of). The Congress largely sought to restore stability to Europe by reimposing deposed monarchies and by strengthening the hold of the old empires, at the expense of national and liberal aspirations. A similar policy of reaction was to be applied in Britain itself in the years that followed.

For further details of the course of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars see France: history 1515–1815.

For the later history of Britain see United Kingdom: history 1815–1914 and United Kingdom: history 1914–45. For British history since 1945 see United Kingdom.