In 1776, Mary Bogle was a young woman worried about what was happening to her world. For several generations her close-knit Glaswegian family had been working hard at establishing themselves as transatlantic merchants, posting brothers, cousins, and friends to Virginia, India, and London to take advantage of the explosion in eighteenth-century trade that followed the Peace of Utrecht and which lowland Scots appear to have been uniquely adept at managing.
But on February 21, 1776, all that seemed to be coming apart in ways that did not seem to make sense to Mary. Writing from Daldowie, the Bogle family home built with tobacco money just outside of Glasgow, she expressed her angst to her brother George, then on the other side of the world in Calcutta, in terms that reveal not only the distress of a young Scottish woman, but the grip the troubles across the Atlantic had on the British people. She wrote, "How thankfull am I to think that you are not in America at Present, the Disturbances in that Country Engross the attention of every body; God alone knows when or where it will end, it certainly is a Most unatral rebelion: the People who have friends there are much to be pittied: but I wont write any More on this Subject as it never fails to throw a Damp over My Spirits whenever I think of it." She wasn't alone in her worries, though, as close friends had family members in the thick of the disturbances. Mary pointed out that the Hamiltons, for example, "are in great Anxiety about their Brother Douglas who is in Virginia; he is a vastly good lad, & I hope shall be preserv’d from Danger.”
Monday, February 21, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A Grand Revolution: Peyton Randolph and the End of the Robinocracy
This date in 1742 (1741 if you're sticking to the old style calendar) marked a remarkable event in British history, a true end of an era: The 21 years of the Robinocracy came to a close when Sir Robert Walpole, having finally lost his majority in the House of Commons and facing a increasingly vehement opposition, resigned as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. For Williamsburg, Walpole was a major figure, both in terms of imperial politics and personal relationships. He and his brothers clearly understood the importance of the tobacco economy to the empire's interests and did all they could to protect and promote it. On a more intimate level, evidence suggests that there was a close relationship between Walpole and Sir John Randolph, one that extended to their families and which lasted through the American Revolution.
We're rather fortunate to have a glimpse into that relationship and this event in the form of one of the few extant letters written by Peyton Randolph. The Randolph who wrote of Walpole's fall was a much different figure than the stout statesman encountered in Revolutionary Williamsburg. Only about 20 years old in 1742, he had already been in London for almost three years, having begun his legal studies at the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court in 1739. The nature of eighteenth-century legal studies being what it was, young Randolph had a great deal of time on his hands to study or to attend sessions of Parliament or the law courts. Mostly he had the opportunity to soak up the rich political culture of Augustan England, which Walpole had done much to shape. It this Randolph, full of humor and vitality, who writes to John Custis IV in Virginia of the "grand Revolutions" of 1741/2, chief among which is the resignation of "Sr Robert":
“The year 41 has been as memorable as that just a Century ago. We see all the Courts of Europe in an Uproar, & grand Revolutions in many of them. Here has been a very great one, as little expected before the Sitting of the Parliament, as that I shall come to be Grand Signor. Sr Robert being no longer able to keep a Majority in the House, was obliged voluntarily to give up all his Places; which was the most honorable Way of parting with them. He has taken the title of Lord Oxford, by which he will be entitled to a Trial by his Peers in case of Impeachment; where it is said he has a great Majority.”
We're rather fortunate to have a glimpse into that relationship and this event in the form of one of the few extant letters written by Peyton Randolph. The Randolph who wrote of Walpole's fall was a much different figure than the stout statesman encountered in Revolutionary Williamsburg. Only about 20 years old in 1742, he had already been in London for almost three years, having begun his legal studies at the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court in 1739. The nature of eighteenth-century legal studies being what it was, young Randolph had a great deal of time on his hands to study or to attend sessions of Parliament or the law courts. Mostly he had the opportunity to soak up the rich political culture of Augustan England, which Walpole had done much to shape. It this Randolph, full of humor and vitality, who writes to John Custis IV in Virginia of the "grand Revolutions" of 1741/2, chief among which is the resignation of "Sr Robert":
“The year 41 has been as memorable as that just a Century ago. We see all the Courts of Europe in an Uproar, & grand Revolutions in many of them. Here has been a very great one, as little expected before the Sitting of the Parliament, as that I shall come to be Grand Signor. Sr Robert being no longer able to keep a Majority in the House, was obliged voluntarily to give up all his Places; which was the most honorable Way of parting with them. He has taken the title of Lord Oxford, by which he will be entitled to a Trial by his Peers in case of Impeachment; where it is said he has a great Majority.”
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