Part V: Walpole’s Rise to Power as the First Prime Minister Prior to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, stability plagued English politics; Members of Parliament did not convene regularly because the king held the majority of power. With the revolution, this power shifted dramatically from the king to Parliament. From 1689, Parliament announced it would meet every year, and by 1694, the Triennial Bill created regular elections for Members of Parliament every three years. By putting greater power in the hands of Parliament, political parties became vastly more important. Two major parties existed during the time period in question: the Whig Party and the Tory Party. These two parties prove important when analyzing Walpole’s political progression in the Whig Party in the decade from 1712 to 1721. From 1701 to 1712, Walpole slowly rose in power in the Whig party. Appointed to Secretary at War in 1708, Walpole felt he finally held a position of power within the Whig Party. Unfortunately, his power proved to be short-lived, as Parliament found him guilty of corruption in 1712. In turn, Parliament charged him with “venality and corruption […] for forage-contracts in Scotland while he was secretary at war.” The House of Commons, after a swift …show more content…
By the end of 1720, Walpole knew that the legitimacy of the king post-bubble depended on the recovery of the financial markets. In turn, Walpole worked vigorously to restore order in both Parliament and the economy. When the economy recovered in 1721, the Parliament, pressured by the public, needed to implicate specific Members of Parliament for the stock crash. Parliament planned to charge two Whig Members of Parliament for their roles in the corruption of the South Sea Scheme: Chancellor of the Exchequer John Aislabie and First Lord of the Treasury Lord Sunderland. In a short series of events, both Aislabie and Sunderland stepped down from their