British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 11: The German Georges and Robert Walpole

In 1714, the death of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, brought the first of the Hanoverian line to the throne of the new Kingdom of Great Britain. 

The name "Hanoverian" name derives from the German principality of they ruled, Hanover. The first four Hanoverian kings were named George, and the period 1714 to 1830 is often called the Georgian Age. 

Hanover was one of some three hundred states that made up the Holy Roman Empire. As Voltaire correctly quipped, it was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. It had developed in the Middle Ages into a confederation of mainly German states presided over loosely by emperors from the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty. 

The prince of Hanover was an Elector, one of seven in the "empire." Their title came from their right to select the emperors. Since the 15th century they had always elected the emperors from the Habsburgs. 

In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became king of Great Britain, in accordance with the Act of Settlement of 1701. That act of Parliament barred Roman Catholics from inheriting the throne and provided that upon Queen Anne's death, the throne would pass to her closest Protestant heir. In 1701 that was George's mother Sophia, but she died just weeks before Anne. [Image: George I, by Sir Godfrey Kneller]

Most Britons grudgingly accepted their new foreign king. he might be German but at least he was not French or Catholic. The first two Georges were never exactly popular. 

A few months after George I's coronation, Scottish Jacobites rose on behalf of the exiled Catholic Stuart claimant, James "III," son of James II & VII. Their rebellion was quickly crushed, as were other risings and plots, but the threat of a successful Jacobite coup was not ended until the 1750s.  

George I was not the kind of person to inspire devotion or enthusiasm, even in his own family. He and his wife detested one another. Before inheriting the British crown, he had possibly murdered her lover. He also imprisoned her for life. 

George I arrived in England with two mistresses. He promptly conferred titles on them. One was tall and thin, the other large and heavy. The English dubbed them the Maypole and the Elephant. 

George I's heir, also called George, hated him, and the feeling was mutual. This family dynamic became a feature of the reigns of the first three Hanoverian kings. Father and heir never got on. 

The reigns of the first two Georges were marked by significant political developments. Parliament continued its march towards supremacy. The office of Prime Minister emerged for the first time. The job had -- and still has -- no existence in law. Like so much of the British political system, it is the product of traditional usage.

Historians generally accord the title of the first Prime Minister to Sir Robert Walpole. He rejected the title, which began as a term of scorn. An MP from Norfolk, he rose to power due to his administrative ability and skill in maintaining a working majority in Parliament. He also benefited from being a Whig. 

The Whigs were firm supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty. The Tories were much less enthusiastic. George I suspected that some Tories were closet Jacobites, and he was not entirely wrong. He favored Whig politicians and chose his ministers from their ranks. 

George I's reign ushered in what British historians have called the Whig Supremacy. It lasted until the 1760s. Walpole's tenure as prime minister lasted from 1721 to 1742, making him the longest serving as well as the first prime minister. His ascendancy was sometimes called the "Robinocracy" from Walpole's nickname, Robin.

An event we can relate to these days helped bring Walpole to power. It was The South Sea Bubble, a financial crash involving the South Sea Company. It was a monopoly company established in 1714 to trade with the Spanish empire in America, a trade in slaves and manufactured goods. 

The Company promised huge profits. It attracted many investors, including Walpole himself, who did well from it. A buying mania ensued and shares skyrocketed in price. But the great profits never materialized. The South Sea Company was essentially a Ponzi scheme. 

The company's crash exposed corruption on the part of its directors, who included leading government ministers. Their disgrace and Walpole's adroit management of the fallout left him in command of the cabinet. He also earned the admiration of the king for protecting his mistresses, who had been involved in the scheme, from prosecution. George I relied on Walpole to lead the government for the rest of his reign.  

George II, who inherited the throne in 1727, intended to replace Walpole, who he disliked for siding with his father. His politically astute queen, Caroline of Anspach, urged him to retain Sir Robert. 

Although George also took mistresses, he was devoted to Caroline and listened to her. He helped keep Walpole in power for another fifteen years. In 1735 he gifted the house at 10 Downing Street to Walpole. It has been the residence of British prime ministers ever since.

Unfortunately for Walpole, Queen Caroline died in 1737. George II was devastated. As she lay dying, he promised that he would never take another wife, only mistresses. He kept his promise.

[Image: George II and Queen Caroline]

Walpole's position was secure as long as he maintained the support of a majority in Parliament and the support of the monarch. Getting and keeping the majority was a difficult and unedifying business. It required lots of promises, threats, and above all, bribes. 

The bribes included titles, lucrative government jobs, and pensions. It was a constant balancing act, because the number of  bribes available was always insufficient for the number of those seeking them. 

I don't mean to claim that Walpole's political system was uniquely corrupt. It is how even "democratic" governments function to some extent even now, although the bribes may be different. 

[Image: Speaker Onslow, center, calling upon Walpole, left, to speak in the House of Commons, by William Hogarth, 1730]

Walpole was able to keep things running fairly smoothly into the early 1730s. After that, he faced increasing opposition from disgruntled Whigs who called themselves the "Patriots." As an opposition, they were more effective and dangerous than the Tories. They also had the support of Frederick Prince of Wales, who true to Hanoverian form, despised his father.

The Patriots claimed that under Walpole the executive had become too powerful, the government too centralized for the good of the country. Their trump card was their attacks on Walpole's foreign policy. 

Walpole favored a peaceful foreign policy, emphasizing negotiation and the promotion of trade. He was able to keep Britain out of war for most of his premiership. The Patriots denounced what they claimed was his failure to take a firm stand against the machinations of England's traditional enemies, France and Spain.

Their constant criticism gradually ate away like acid at Walpole's support in the country and Parliament. In the late 1730s the Patriots helped to whip up public demands for war against Spain. The pretext was Spanish mistreatment of British merchants trading to the Caribbean. The goal was to seize wealth and land from Spain's American colonies. 

In 1739, Walpole gave way to the public clamor, and declared war.  The "War of Jenkin's Ear" followed, named for an English ship captain who alleged that a Spanish coast guard officer inspecting his vessel had cut off his ear. Jenkins brought to Parliament, sparking widespread outrage. 

The war did not go well. The opposition blamed Walpole's policies and forced him from office in 1742. George II was nearly as devastated as when Caroline died. He wept on hearing that Walpole resigned, and awarded the former prime minister a seat in the House of Lords, as Earl of Orford. 

[Image: Walpole painted as a ranger at Richmond Park by John Wooten]

The War of Jenkins Ear merged with a broader European war in the early 1740s, the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain was now at war with France as well as Spain. The war ended in stalemate in 1748. 

The War of the Austrian Succession is notable in the history of the monarchy for one fun fact: it was the last time a British king led troops in battle, in 1743. The clash at Dettingen in Germany was technically a British/Hanoverian victory but had little effect on the outcome of the war.  [Image: George II at Dettingen by John Wooten]

The same war also saw the last battle fought on British soil, at Culloden near Inverness in Scotland. In April 1746, a Hanoverian army cornered and crushed Jacobite forces under Charles Edward Stuart, AKA Bonnie Prince Charlie. 

Culloden was more a massacre than a battle. Responsibility for the atrocities that followed belonged to William, Duke of Cumberland, a son of George II. Scots named a smelly weed toxic to horses after him: Stinking Billy. 

In retrospect, Culloden marked the end of the Jacobite threat to the Hanoverian dynasty. It also led to the destruction of the clan system in the Scottish Highlands, and eventually, the forced emigration of most Highland people to the Lowlands and other realms: Canada, the USA, Australia, and beyond. 

Today there are fewer people in the Highlands than in the 18th century. Sheep, hunters, and fishermen replaced the people, then tourists seeking the "romance" of the wild mountains, lochs, and glens. 

The peace of 1748 was merely a truce. By the mid 1750s Britain was once again at war with France, and eventually, Spain. It began in America, where it is still called the French and Indian War. It merged again into a broader European War, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). 

The Seven Years' War started badly for Britain. It ended in triumph. The turnaround derived in large part from the leadership and strategies of William Pitt, who directed the war effort from 1757. Pitt was a leading member of the Patriot group of Whigs. 

[Image: William Pitt the Elder, later first Earl of Chatham by William Hoare]

George II hated Pitt. In addition to his constant attacks on the government and management of the war, Pitt had alleged that British interests were being sacrificed to the interests of Hanover, which he called "that despicable electorate."    

The king tried to keep Pitt out of government. He succeeded for several years. But as defeat followed defeat, he was forced to relent in 1757, and Pitt entered the cabinet to manage the war. 

Whether it was due to Pitt's leadership or not, cictory followed victory from 1758 on. New France (Canada and the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi) became part of the British Empire, as did Spanish Florida and chunks of India and Africa.

George II did not live to see the outcome. By1760, he was blind in one eye and nearly deaf. On October 25, he died of heart failure (aortic dissection) while in his close stool (toilet) -- a rather undignified death for a king. 

On the plus side, George II lived to be 77, longer than any previous British monarch. He had outlived his eldest son and heir, Frederick, who died in 1754. He was succeeded by his grandson, who became George III, the first Hanoverian monarch born in Britain.  

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God Save the King! (Or Queen)

Since the accession of Charles III, we have often heard the phrase "God Save the King!" It seems strange after 70 years of hearing "God Save the Queen!" uttered for Elizabeth II. 

"God Save the King" is the original, of course. It is not known how old the phrase "God Save the King" is. It appears in 16th century translations of the Bible. "God Save the King" is used in reference to King Saul, the first king of Israel. 

As early as 1444, navy seamen were instructed to say "God Save King Henry" as a watchword aboard ship. That was Henry VI, a pious monarch who needed all the saving he could get. He was king when the Wars of the Roses started. The sailors used the phrase as a watchword on board ship. 

"God Save the King" had become a popular rallying cry by the mid-18th century. How much it was used before then is obscure. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, which threatened to topple the Hanoverian King George II, gave the cry a boost, and a song of the same name as well.  

The Gentleman's Magazine published a version of the song in 1745. It specifically names King George as the object God should be saving. [Image: George II by Thomas Hudson, 1740s]

It opens: "God save great George our king, long live our noble king." God apparently responded: the Jacobites led by "Bonnie Prince Charlie" met their final defeat at Culloden in 1746. The Catholic Stuarts ceased to be a royal threat. [Image: Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, by Alan Ramsay, 1745]

Somewhere around that time, the song "God Save the King" had appeared. Historians disagree about who composed it and when. They have suggested dates between the 1680s and 1740s and Henry Purcell, Thomas Arne, Charles Burney as the composer. They all had a hand in it, it seems.

The phrase "God save the King" is used purely by custom and tradition. It has no basis in law. Similarly, the song of that name is not the official national anthem, although it is often treated as if it were.  

It is unlikely that the UK will ever have an official national anthem, even if it doesn't break up. Few of the English like "God Save the King/Queen," and even fewer Scots or Welsh. Most people sing it with all the enthusiasm of the dead. In Northern Ireland, Loyalists or Unionists like the song. Republicans detest it. 

Many in England have suggested for an anthem "Jerusalem," William Blake's evocative poem, rendered to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. "Jerusalem" is often played as an anthem at English rugby and cricket matches. But it is about England, not the UK, so has little following in the so-called "Celtic Fringe." It is often sung as a hymn in churches. 

The same is true of another tune some people have proposed as a national anthem: "Land of Hope and Glory" from the tune by Edward Elgar, with lyrics by A.C. Benson (1901-02). It has imperialistic overtones that offend many people nowadays.

The Scots usually play "Flower of Scotland" as their anthem at sporting events. That isn't going to catch on in England or Wales. 

One rousing song that was highly popular during the imperialist age is "Rule Britannia," music by Thomas Arne, lyrics by James Thomson (1740). It celebrates Britain, not just England. Alas, it is too warlike and racially insensitive to be considered as a national anthem. 

The lines "Rule Britannia! Rule the Waves, Britons never will be slaves" make the song's unfitness for the current world obvious. When it was written Britain was the greatest slave trading nation in the world. And Britannia certainly doesn't rule the waves anymore. Waives the rules, maybe. 

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Sweet William, Stinking Billy, and the Battle of Culloden

William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765), is unique in British history. He had two flowers named after him. One is called "Sweet William," the other, "Stinking Billy." The names reflect a sharp division of opinion about his suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1746. [Image: Cumberland, by Joshua Reynolds, 1750s]

The Rebellion began the previous year when his cousin Charles Edward Stuart landed on the West Coast of Scotland with a small band of supporters. He had come from France to claim the British throne for his father James, known in history as the Old Pretender, or James "III". 

Charles' grandfather, James II, had been deposed by the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Afterwards, the Catholic Stuarts had been banned from the royal succession and supplanted by their closest Protestant relatives, the German Hanoverians. In 1745, the second of this line, George II, occupied the throne. [Image: Charles Edward Stuart, by Ramsay, 1745)

Charles' undertaking was extremely risky. Britain and France were at war, but the French government had given him little support beyond good luck. Charles landed with a small group of supporters and raised the Stuart standard at Glenfinnan, at the head of Loch Shiel. A  monument there commemorates the landing.

The iconic Glenfinnan viaduct nearby carries the trains of the West Highland Railway, including a steam excursion train called the Jacobite Express. Fans of Harry Potter will be familiar with the scene.

Charles sent out a call to the Highland Clans to join him in restoring his family to power. Thousands of Highlanders, many of them Catholic, but not all, rallied to his cause. After all, the Stuarts were a Scots dynasty. Charles's makeshift army quickly seized Edinburgh and defeated a Hanoverian army sent by King George II. 

The Jacobites marched on into England, meeting little resistance. They reached Derby, less than 150 miles from London. Panic gripped the capital. 

Derby turned out to be the high tide of the Jacobite advance. Although the Hanoverians were unpopular, few Englishmen (or Lowland Scots) had joined Charles' army. He wavered, then ordered a retreat to Scotland. 

George II sent an army in pursuit. He selected his son William, Duke of Cumberland to command it. On April 16, 1746 Cumberland's soldiers caught up with the Jacobite army at Culloden Moor, near Inverness. The ranks of William's army contained many Scots, mostly Lowlanders, but some Highlanders as well. In fact, there were more Scots in Cumberland's army than in that of Prince Charles. For Scots, this was a civil war. 

The mostly Highland army Charles led had been thinned by desertion and losses. His men were hungry, exhausted, and greatly outnumbered. Their artillery lacked proper ordinance. Nevertheless, he ordered an attack. What followed was more of a massacre than a battle, with waves of Highlanders cut to pieces by Hanoverian artillery, musket fire, and bayonets.  

Basking in victory, William made the move that brought him infamy, and not only in Scotland. Asked by his officers what they should do with the remnants of the enemy army, he wrote on the back of a playing card, "No Quarter." 

The victorious English and Lowland soldiers butchered hundreds of surrendering and fleeing clansmen. Others were hunted down over the following weeks and months and killed, often along with family members. More were captured and taken to Edinburgh or London, many to be executed for treason. 

When news of the victory reached London, a flower was named for him. It is called "Sweet William" (Dianthus). 

Political opponents of the government in England had a different reaction. Learning of the widespread massacres, they began to call William "Butcher Cumberland."

Scottish Jacobites also named a flower after Duke William. They relabeled the common ragwort "Stinking Billy." Generally regarded as a weed, it has a strong smell and is poisonous to horses. 

Culloden was the only success of William's otherwise undistinguished military career. From the late 1750s, he devoted himself to horse racing and politics. In 1765 he became Prime Minister, but died a few months later, aged 44. 

Charles Edward Stuart fled after the battle and spent months in hiding before returning to France. After his father died in 1766, he became known as the "Young Pretender." He died in Rome in 1788 having engaged in numerous affairs, an alcoholic. He had no legitimate children, and his wife had left him, claiming that he had abused her. Thus ended the Stuart line.

Nineteenth-century Romantics dubbed Charles "Bonnie Prince Charlie."  He became the subject of several songs, including the "Skye Boat Song" and "The Bonnie Moorhen." Inexplicably, some Scots continue to revere him, although he led the country into disaster and then abandoned it to a life of wining and dining on the Continent. 

Culloden was the last battle fought on British soil. 

 

The British Monarchy and the Media in Historical Perspective

Writing in The Independent 16/12/22 Sean O'Grady refers to the revelations of the new Harry/Meghan Netflix series as "a tsunami of princely grievances publicly thrown at the Palace with the sort of acrid bitterness rarely glimpsed from the House of Windsor." 

We can all agree that things have got a bit nasty. But unseemly family feuding in the royal family is hardly unusual, as a brief look at their history reveals. The salacious interest of the mass media in Royal Soap Oprahs is also nothing new. 

The British monarchy and the mass media have long existed in symbiotic relationship. The royals benefit in popular opinion from the sentimental rubbish the tabloids spew forth on an almost daily basis. 

On the downside for them, the media can turn rogue when it promises to boost their profit margins. For the tabloids there is no downside. Stories about the royals sell, toadying or tacky. 

Prince Harry blames the media for Meghan's miscarriage. Accurate or not, it wouldn't be the first time media coverage made royal lives miserable. Rail against it all you like. Nothing is likely to change. 

The Sun and Jeremy Clarkson know that. They can write and print the most obnoxious drivel, knowing it will cause outrage. Once they have aroused the storm, they can say they are sorry and even retract the story. But the damage is done and millions of papers have been sold. It's a good business model. 

   

You may recall that the infamous Oprah interview with Meghan and Harry and its sequels blew almost everything else off the news cycle. Trump was gone (we hoped). We were bored of Covid and Brexit. We never did pay that much attention to the sufferings of the planet and its lesser mortals. 

Before we get our knickers in a twist over Oprahgate and the Netflix series, however, we should put this domestic squabble into perspective. 

Historically, the media has fawned upon or denounced the royals, sometimes at the same time. By historically, I mean primarily since the 18th century, when newspapers and magazines first began to emerge as significant sources of information for the general public. 

Let's begin with the first two Hanoverian kings, George I and II. That's when the media and the royals first developed a serious symbiotic relationship. The first two Georges were unpopular in Britain, to put it mildly. For one thing, they were foreigners, always a problem in insular England. Ask the EU. (Images: George I and George II)

The press skewered them for spending too much time in Hanover, although they spent more time in England. They never went to Scotland, Wales, or Ireland. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch to spend any quality time in Scotland or travel to Ireland and Wales. 

Critics accused the first two Georges of not speaking English. In fact, they could speak it, but not well, and they generally communicated in German or French.

Opposition politicians, and the press they controlled or influenced, made the most of the monarchs' failings, real or perceived. Some of the criticism was true, some not. 

George I was not a nice man. He was probably responsible for the murder of his wife's Swedish lover. He was definitely responsible for imprisoning his wife for life. Possibly his worst failing was that he was dull and awkward in public. I share a birthday with him but there the resemblance ends, I hope.

The opposition media often heaped ridicule upon him. They made fun of his mistresses, real and alleged. They characterized him as a borderline political idiot, which was far from the truth. Some Tories schemed to replace him and his heir George II with the exiled Catholic Stuart "Pretender" James "III" because they favored the opposition Whigs in Parliament. 

George I survived a couple of attempted and botched "Jacobite"* rebellions and handed the throne to his son, George II. Here it is important to note that father and son hated each other. That would become a royal family tradition.

George II and his eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, also despised one another. They engaged in many nasty domestic battles. Frederick took revenge by supporting the political opposition to his father's ministers. 

A mock epitaph someone wrote for Prince Frederick when he died in 1751 is indicative of the public disdain for the first two Hanoverians:

"Here lies Fred, 

Who was alive and is dead.

Had it been his father,

I had much rather.

Had it been his brother,

Still better than another.

Had it been his sister,

No one would have missed her.

Had it been the whole generation,

Still better for the nation.

But since t'is only Fred,

Who was alive, and is dead,

There is no more to be said." 

Quoted in W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges.

(Image: Frederick, Prince of Wales)

George II survived the media attacks, and the last and most serious of the Jacobite Rebellions in 1745. He died in 1760 aged 76 and handed the throne to his 23 year old grandson, son of Frederick. 

George III was born in England. He avoided Hanover, and these things immediately made him more popular than the first two Georges. His reign of 60 years, the longest ever until then, saw many ups and downs in his popularity, however. The media treated him and his family with both contempt and veneration. Here is an example of the former, in which John Bull, symbol of England, is farting at the king's portrait:

The family dysfunction continued. George III's relationship with his eldest son resembled that of his predecessors. George, Prince of Wales, like Frederick, supported the political opposition once he obtained adulthood. He tried to get his father declared mentally unfit to rule.  His critics mocked him as the Prince of Whales for his gluttony and rotundity. 

George IV had no problem with his heirs. His only child, Charlotte died in 1817, before he became king. If she had lived, Victoria might never have become Queen. George's family problem was his wife, Caroline. Their relationship became a public scandal. They had been estranged for years when he ascended the throne in 1820. 

George tried to have her excluded from the Queenship, but she was still his wife and most of the British public was on her side. Caroline became Queen. Only her death the following year saved George from that indignity continuing. 

His death in 1830 brought his elderly brother to the throne, William IV. At 65, he was the oldest person to inherit the throne, until today and Charles III. He had no children, and his reign was short. In 1837, 19-year-old Victoria became Queen. She would reign until 1901 and give her name to an era.

Enough! I could go on to Queen Victoria and her mess of trouble-making children and grandchildren (including Kaiser Wilhelm), but I think I have made my points: 

1. To expect good behavior from royals is just as hopeless as to expect it from other mortals. 

2. To expect the media to forego opportunities to sell their "product" to a salivating public is a pipe dream. Unless you enforce strict censorship.... 

*From the Latin for "James" (Jacobus)

 

The Prime Minister is Assassinated! London, May 1812

On the afternoon of May 11, 1812, the British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was walking through the lobby of the House of Commons when a man approached him and shot him point blank in the chest. Perceval supposedly cried "Murder" and "Oh, my God" before collapsing to the floor. He was pronounced dead a short time later. He remains the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

   


Authorities initially feared that the shooting was the beginning of an uprising of radical elements. Unrest was widespread. Food prices were high. Britain had been at war with France since 1793 and simultaneously undergoing the traumas of early industrialization. Perceval was highly unpopular. People in some places cheered when they heard of his death. 

It soon became clear that the assassin had acted alone, out of a sense of grievance against Perceval and his government. John Bellingham (not Ballingham as in the image above) was a Liverpool merchant who believed that he had been unjustly imprisoned in Russia after his business had gone bankrupt. He had repeatedly petitioned the government for compensation, but his petitions had been ignored.  (Below: Contemporary image of Bellingham)

Bellingham was charged with wilful murder, tried, convicted, and hanged within a week. To some people he was a hero: a public subscription was raised to benefit his widow, testimony to the unpopularity of Perceval and the Tory government. Others thought he was insane. 

Among them was Bellingham's defense team. But they had only one day to prepare his defense. The lead defense counsel, Peter Alley, entered a plea of insanity and requested a delay to call witnesses, medical experts and people who knew Bellingham personally. The court denied his requests and the trial proceeded. It seems that the government was eager for revenge and to set an example.  

Bellingham himself rejected his counsel's insanity plea. He defended his action as the inevitable result of the government's refusal to compensate him for his losses in Russia. It did not take long for the jury to convict him. (below: Bellingham pleading his case)

Was Bellingham insane? We will probably never be able to answer that question. But one thing I think we can be sure of: his chances of being declared insane would have been much greater if he had failed to kill Perceval or killed someone of lesser importance.
People who had tried and failed to assassinate George III and later, Queen Victoria were declared insane and sent to asylums. Another example comes from a case similar to that of Bellingham's.

In the early 1840s, Daniel McNaughten*, a Glasgow woodturner, became convinced that the Tory government was persecuting him and sending spies to harass him. Like Bellingham, he blamed the Prime Minister, in this case, Sir Robert Peel. 

In January McNaughten went to London, apparently intending to shoot Peel. Instead he shot Peel's secretary Edward Drummond in the back while Drummond was walking down Whitehall. It was widely believed that McNaughten mistook Drummond for Peel, but that is not entirely clear. 

At first, Drummond was expected to recover from his wound. But he died of "complications" a few days later, possibly due to medical incompetence. Like Bellingham, McNaughten was charged with wilful murder. But there the similarities end. 

McNaughten's father contributed a large sum of money to his son's defense and secured excellent counsel. (Where got the money is a mystery. A woodturner like his son, he is unlikely to have possessed such fuds himself.) Defense counsel requested a delay to prepare their case and the court granted it this time. The trial did not begin until March 3. 

The defense, led by one of the top barristers in England, Alexander Cockburn, called a number of expert medical winesses. including several leading alienists (psychiatrists). They testified that McNaughten was insane, that his delusions regarding the government had deprived him of "all restraint over his actions." In other words, he was not responsible for what he did. (Below: Drawing of McNaughten at the time of his trail)

The prosecution agreed that McNaughten was delusional, but argued that he was nevertheless responsible for his actions. The jury accepted the defense argument and found McNaughten not guilty on grounds of insanity. He was sent to Bethlem Hospital, part of which functioned as the state asylum for criminal lunatics. In 1864 he was transferred to the newly opened Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane, where he died a year later. (Photo of McNaughten taken at Bethlem, 1856)

The verdict at McNaughten's trial sparked widespread outrage. Most of the public, including the Queen, believed that McNaughten had escaped a well-deserved hangman's noose. McNaughten himself never denied killing Drummond, which he justified as the result of Tory persecution, not delusions. He had been involved in radical politics and there may have been some truth to his claims of persecution.

The furor over the verdict led to a demand that the rules for an insanity plea be clearly defined. The result was the McNaughten Rules, which state that 

"To establish a defence on the grounds of insanity it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act. the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or if he did know it, that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong."   

The McNaughten Rules were subsequently adopted in England and Wales, much of the British Empire, and the United States. In England and Wales the rules were largely superseded by the adoption in 1957 of the Scottish concept of diminshed responsibility.

Ironically, if the McNaughten Rules had been in force at McNaughten's trial, he would have been found guilty and hanged.

*McNaughten's name in historical records is variously spelled as McNaughtan, M'Naughten, M'Naghten, and more.

Further reading: 

Andro Linklater, Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die: The Assassination of A British Prime Minister (London, 2013)

David C. Hanraham, The Assassination of the Prime Minister: John Bellingham and the Murder of Spencer Perceval (London, 2011)

Richard Moran, Knowing Right from Wrong: The Insanity Defense of Daniel McNaughtan (New York, 1981)

A British Admiral is Executed for Cowardice, 1757

Voltaire's satrical novella, Candide (1759) contains an episode in which the hero, Candide, arrives in Portsmouth, England on a Dutch ship. As they enter the harbor, he witnesses a naval officer being executed by firing squad on board a nearby ship.  

Candide asks others present what the officer had done to deserve such a fate. They tell him that he is an admiral, and is being killed for not killing enough of the enemy. He had given battle to a French admiral, but had not come close enough to his enemy to engage him properly. 

Candide points out that the same was true of the French admiral. The others agree but declare that "in this country it is found good, from time to time, to shoot an admiral now and then to encourage the others." Candide tells the Dutch captain to take him away from such a horrible country.            

The episode, like many in Candide, is based on a real event. It took place in 1757. Britain was at war with France, the Seven Years' War.  The admiral was John Byng. 

In 1756, the Admiralty had sent Byng with a fleet to the Balearic island of Minorca, then under British control. His task was to relieve the British garrison on the island, which was under threat from a French attack. 

After fighting an inconclusive engagement with a French fleet near the island, he decided to return to Gibraltar to repair his ships, some of which were in poor condition. The French captured Minorca. The public was outraged. 

Byng was recalled to Britain, where he was court-martialled for failing to do "his utmost" to prevent the loss of the island. The court found him guilty. Under the Articles of War, the conviction carried an automatic sentence of death.  

Public opinion shifted after the verdict. People in and out of government and the Navy who had previously demanded his punishment now campaigned to get his sentence commuted on the grounds that it was unduly harsh. Some suspected that the Admiralty had used Byng as a scapegoat for its own failures to maintain the Navy's ships and crews properly in recent years. 

But under existing law only King George II could pardon Byng. George refused, even when urged to do so by Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder. It didn't help Byng that the King intensely disliked Pitt, who had been highly critical of George and his ministers.

On 14 March, 1757 the sentence of death by firing squad was carried out on board HMS Monarque in Portsmouth harbor. A contemporary print portrayed the event. 

Byng was the last British admiral to be punished by execution. In 1779 the Articles of War were revised to allow lesser punishments for failures like Byng's.

In 2007 Byng's family petitioned for a pardon for their ancestor. The Ministry of Defence refused. The family and a group in his home village of Southill, Bedfordshire continue to seek a pardon.

Did Byng's execution "encourage the others" to do "their utmost" to engage the enemy? The British Navy performed at a much higher level in the later stages of the Seven Years War, but that may have been due as much to improvements in the design and maintaining of ships and in training crews as to fear of being "Bynged."