"He was not a reformer, or a successful war minister, or a profound and original thinker, or even a tactician of great enterprise, and yet he possessed qualities which have justly placed him in the foremost rank of politicians. Finding England with a disputed succession and an unpopular sovereign, with a corrupt and factious Parliament, and an intolerant, ignorant, and warlike people, he succeeded in giving it twenty years of unbroken peace and uniform prosperity, in establishing on an impregnable basis a dynasty which seemed tottering to its fall, in rendering, chiefly by the force of his personal ascendency, the House of Commons the most powerful body in the State, in moderating permanently the ferocity of political factions and the intolerance of ecclesiastical legislation."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
PrisonersPrime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandChancellors of the ExchequerWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
William Edward Hartpole Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Volume I (1878), p. 328
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Walpole
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman and Whig politician who is generally regarded as the de facto first prime minister of Great Britain.
33 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Robert Walpole →
Related Quotes
"The doctrine of unlimited passive obedience was first invented to support arbitrary power, but [was] of no use in her…"
"I am at a loss to discover where they will find this divine right in our government, or at least where they do find i…"
"It is obvious, that the people of England are at this moment animated against each other, with a spirit of hatred and…"
"The most unrighteous judgment was passed upon me in the House that was ever heard of...against the most positive evid…"
"I dare be bold to affirm that, had the King of France beaten us, as we have done him, he would have been so modest as…"
"All those men have their price."
"The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours."
"He was an honorable man and a sound Whig. He was not, as the Jacobites and discontented Whigs of his time have repres…"
"In private life he was good natured, Chearfull, social. Inelegant in his manners, loose in his morals. He had a coars…"
"Anything but history, for history must be false."