Parliamentary History, Vol. 22, p t . 3 (2003), pp . 308-314

NOTE

The Tories and the Cambridge University Election of 1720

W I L L I A M G I B S O N Baringstoke College of Technology

In contrast to their national standing, the tones at Cambridge in 1718 were in the ascendant, they doniinated the university and their control was sufficient that at the previous election in 1715 the university seat had been uncontested. Indeed rumour a t that time had suggested that a Whig candidate would not obtain more than ten votes. There had been four tory candidates for the two seats, and Dr Thomas Paske and the Hon. Dixie Windsor had been elected.’ However in 1718 the ill-health of Dr Thomas Paske and the anticipation of his death created a frenzy of speculation among the tories of the university for the next two years. After Paske’s decline was first apparent, a series of correspondents wrote to Dr John Audley, the chancellor of the diocese of York, with news of the canvassing.’ Audley had a number of reasons to be interested in the possibility of an election. He was a fellow of Peterhouse and an ultra-tory, while he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the regius chair in civil law in 1714,3 and was close to his patron Archbishop WiUlam Dawes, formerly master ofSt Catherine’s College and a powerful force in Church and state. Moreover, like Paske, Audley was a high church ecclesiastical lawyer who perhaps therefore represented continuity for the t o r i e ~ . ~ Gradually Audley came to be talked of as a candidate to succeed the ailing Paske, and it was his decision and those of other candidates, to put party before personal ambition that enabled the tones to unite around a single candidate in opposition to a ministerial tory who was prepared to co-operate with the w h i p and the Hanoverian regime. This was in stark contrast to their position nationally in which party discipline had broken down.

In November 1718 Conyers Middleton, whose tory credentials were rising as a consequence of his contest with Richard Bentley, the Whig master of Trinity, told Audley that, in spite of a rally in Paske’s health, there was a plethora of candidates to

’ J. H. Monk, ‘lke LA? ofRichard Bentley DD (2 vols, 1833), 11, 110-1 1. For the career ofJohn Audley see W . Gibson, “‘Good Mr Chancellor”, The Work ofDr John Audley,

Chancellor of York 1710-1744’, Yak Ihivrrsity Cazefte, LXXIII (1998). ’William Wickins’s influence with the court obtained the chair for him.

Thomas I’askr was an advocate of the Court of Arches, chancellor of Exeter diocese and ‘a favourite of the Church party’. R. Sedgwick, 77te House of Commons, 1715- 1754 (2 vols, 1970), [hereafter. H.P., 1715-541, 11, 327.

Cambridge University Election 1720 309

succeed him. Middleton felt that the speculation over his health alone placed Paske in danger at any future election. The principal Whig candidate was Henry Finch of Christ’s College, whose brother Lord Finch had become a reluctant Whig and whose father, the earl of Nottingham, was a Hanoverian tory and a leading high churchman. Finch appeared to be the candidate most likely to damage and defeat the tones. Moreover Finch had the support of Archbishop William Wake, who wavered between his Whig convictions and co-operation with the tory bishops in the Lords. During the election Finch’s cause was espoused by Richard Bentley, who was a notoriously fractious Whig, which placed him further beyond the pale as far as the orthodox tories were concerned. There were three other possible tory candidates: Mr Mundy of Pembroke; Sir Robert Raymond, the university counsel and the preferred candidate of the vice-chancellor, Dr Thomas Gooch; and Matthew Prior the diplomat of St John’s College.’ The speculation over the four candidates was intensified by Lord Harley, who held court at Cambridge and received the various candidates, but was claimed by Middleton to favour his old schoolfriend, Prior. The other member for the university, Dixie Windsor, son of the earl of Plymouth and a university M.P. since 1705,6 publicly distanced himself from the speculation. But Middleton reported to Audley that, at a private meeting at St John’s College, Windsor had ‘made them the compliment yt he should be glad to see a member of their recommending whenever there should be occasion’. Middleton himself was in a dilemma: whilst his own college, Trinity, was an historic enemy of St John’s, it had been subjected to a campaign by Dr Bentley to build a Whig party. Thus Middleton saw St John’s as ‘the main bulwark of the Tory interest’ and was more inclined to it than his own college. Middleton paid Audley the compliment that he was ‘under no engagement, my inclinations are much at your service’.’

Four months later Middleton reported ‘a new turn’ when Prior declared himself as a candidate. Prior was close to Lord Harley, son of the earl of Oxford, and had the weight of the Harley family support behind him. Somewhat reluctantly the master and fellows of St John’s College espoused Prior as a candidate, though with high expectations of the promises they could extract from the Harleys in exchange for their support for Prior.’ But St John’s soon found that a more appealing candidate, Thomas Willoughby of Jesus College, the 25 year old son of Lord Middleton’ and brother of the tory M.P. for Nottingham, who also advanced his claim. Elsewhere in the university the earl of Anglesey’s cousin, Francis Annesley, was also considered

Francis Mundy was high sheriff of Leicestershire, a barrister of Middle Temple and a fellow of Penibroke; Robert Raymond had been solicitor-general 1710-14, counsel for the university since 1718 and attorney-general from 1720 to 1724; Matthew Prior was best known for his rise from ‘pot-boy’ to diplomat, he had been ambassador to The Hague 1690-7. AIlrmni Cantabridgienses, comp. J. Venn and J. A. Venn (10 vols, Cambridge, 1922-54), passim. ‘ Dixie Windsor was a moderate tory who remained an officer at the Ordnance under George I in 1714

and was sufficiently trusted by the government to be allowed to serve as a member of the secret comnlittee into the South Sea Bubble. H.P. , 1715-54, 11, 549-550. ’ Beinecke Library, Yale University, Osborn Shelves c. 195, Audley MSS, [hereafter Audley MSS]:

Conyers Middleton to John Audley, 15 Nov. 1718. * H.M.C., Portland, VII, 275. ‘ Lord Middleton was something of a tory hero, having been one of the 12 tory peers that Queen Anne

created, 31 Dec. 1711-1 Jan. 1712.

310 William Gibson

as a serious candidate. Lord Anglesey had been M.P. for the university before Paske, and his elevation to the peerage had occasioned Paske’s election in 1710; Annesley could therefore call upon some hereditary claim to candidature. Moreover Annesley had been M.P. for Westbury but had lost his seat 1715 and was in search of another. Middleton also reported that Audley himself had been mentioned as ‘one very proper for us to think [of] on such an occasion, which I’ll assure you I have always encouraged and forwarded in conversation’. But above all, Middleton expected ‘that the Tories wdl be obliged to unite themselves in one man’, any divisions, he feared, would allow in Henry Finch who ‘having formed a much more considerable interest than could have been imagined being supported by all the assistance of friends his family can any way procure him’.’’ Certainly Finch’s family brought extraordinary pressure to bear in his support. In September 1720 Lord Finch wrote to Dr John Colbatch, professor of moral philosophy and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, reminding him that ‘you have it in your power by assisting my brother to lay the greatest obligation in the world upon me and my family’. The letter begged Colbatch’s assistance since ‘many whom you yourself don’t know will be guided by your example’. But the letter went on to argue that it would be strange if a son of Lord Nottingham was not elected, and the willingness of some to have anybody other than Finch, even if that meant a ‘hue and cry for a Member of Parliament’, was ‘a very shocking circumstance to all his family’. Lord Finch reminded Colbatch that Lord Nottingham had served him with ‘zeal and sincerity’ and if Finch’s opponents were elected they would not serve Colbatch in the same way. ”

Audley’s involvement in Cambridge politics was intensified in 1719 when Middleton and other Trinity fellows referred a legal issue to him regarding some college houses in York that Dr Bentley had leased to his brother. The identification of Audley and Middleton with the ultra-tory faction was not affected by news that their mutual friend, the recently ejected jacobite non-juror librarian of the university, Phillip Brooke, had gone to the Stuart court in France as tutor to the young earl of Huntingdon. But Paske’s temporary recovery in 1719 silenced the speculation for the time being.’*

Paske’s health did not hold out for very long, however, and in 1720 he was in terminal decline. The vice-chancellor, Thomas Gooch, master of Gonville and Caius College, wrote to Audley with information for Archbishop Dawes regarding the tory interest in the University: ‘I . . . hope we shall be enough at last to follow ye advice of his Grace of York & unite in some single person in opposition to a very industrious and growing party’. Gooch feared, however, that other groups in the university might not share his view. He also wished that there were ‘some gentleman of credit, to whom they [Cambridge tones] should send the compliment [of a nomination] than oblige him to come in person to solicit it’. Gooch‘s fear was that ‘twill be no small difficulty to settle the point among so many candidates (some people being unwilling at any rate to give up their friends)’. Without any apparent sense of conscious irony

lo Audley MSS: Middleton to Audley 28 Apr. 1719. B.L. Add. MS 22908, f. 105: Finch to Colbatch, 22 Sept. 1720. Audley MSS: Middleton to Audley, 15 Oct. 1719. For Brooke see C. Wordsworth, Social Life at the

Eiglish Universities in the E[qhteenth Crntury (Cambridge, 1874), p. 614.

Cambridge University Election 1720 31 1 Gooch explained to Audley that ‘my own attachments to a particular family, you are very sensible of; & I cant but hope that next to yourself you would join with me in promoting the interests of one so nearly related to it’. Gooch was brother in law to Thomas Sherlock, master of St Catherine’s, and it was this connexion that bound him to support Raymond’s candidat~re.’~ Gooch’s view was echoed by Dr Andrew Snape, the provost of King’s College, who wrote bluntly to Audley,

of late my notions have been very uncertain, that I could not well give any direction to my friends how to write to me. As to ye affair depending, it seems very plain, yt if some other of ye candidates of ye Tory side do not desist, as well as Mr Prior, ye election will not only be hazarded but lost, & I doubt from what I hear of Mr Finch’s numbers yt ye case will be pretty desperate if any two of our friends sh‘d stand. I hope at least that point w d be secured of uniting in one person, & will do my utmost to promote that resolution when I get to Cambridge, which I hope will be in a few days. And I hope for ye sake of ye common cause when it appears which of ye 3 has ye best interest ye others will be so reasonable as to quit their pretensions. I can truly say there is no one of you whom 1 have not particular reasons to wish well but as I can be serviceable but to one, & have been long engag’d to that one, I cannot yet enter into any farther engagements till I am better informed of ye situation of affairs . . . I 4

Audley remained a widely canvassed name among ultra-tones. Nicholas Fenwick wrote to Audley in October 1720 to tell him that at Trinity Bentley was using the services of two of the junior fellows, Henry Holmes and John Chilton, to sow dissent among the tories.15 Fenwick also informed Audley that Dixie Windsor’s brother in law, William Shippen, an inflexible high church tory jacobite, who had spent some time in the Tower for abusing George I in 1717, was among Audley’s supporters.’6 Audley’s candidature was also strongly supported by Dr John Eden, a prebendary of Durham, who told Audley that he was sure of the ability of the Cambridge electorate to discern merit, but that - presumably to make quite sure - he was also writing to all his Cambridge acquaintances.” The tension was increased by the appearance of a number of notables at the canvass. On 26 October the duke of Beaufort went to Cambridge for this purpose.”

Audley, however, appears to have taken the advice of both Gooch and Snape to heart and started actively to pursue an agreement with Matthew Prior. Audley’s meeting with Prior was effected through the good offices of Lord Oxford. As a result, Prior invited Audley to Lord Harley’s country seat at Wimpole in October 1720 to discuss ‘this untoward competition’ and because Prior had ‘a good deal to say to you

l 3 Audley MSS: Thomas Gooch to John Audley, 27 Sept. 1719. l 4 lbid.: Snape to Audley, n.d. but from internal evidence sometime in 1720.

Holmes and Chilton were friend from the north, Holmes having been educated at Newcastle-on- Tyne and Chilton having been appointed to the vicarage of St Andrews, Newcastle, in 1717, which he held with his fellowship.

l 6 Audley MSS: Fenwick to Audley, 4 Oct. 1720.

I ’ H.M.C., Portland, VII, 280. Ibid.: Eden to Audley, 9 Oct. 1720.

312 William Gibson

on that subject which will best be done viva UOC~’.’~ It seems unlikely that Audley was serious in pursuing an alliance with Prior since he continued to canvass strongly. However, after their meeting Prior withdrew from the election in favour of Audley and froin that point on Audley’s voters lists were copied to Prior for his friends to work om2‘’ But Prior’s supporters were bitter. William Stratford told Lord Harley that Prior had been ‘ill-used’ and subjected to ‘unjust and barbarous treatment’. Stratford told Harley ‘I conclude Mr Finch will be the member, for I fear Willoughby will not desist.’ Prior’s supporters had some justification for their feeling, since it later became clear that one of Annesley’s supporters, Mr Newcombe, had in fact been supporting Annesley when he pretended to support Prior.21 Audley still encountered much evidence of the unwillingness of tones to unite around a single candidate. Dr John Andrew, a fellow of Trinity Hall and another ecclesiastical lawyer, explained to him that he would be absent from the elections, due late in December 1720 following Paske’s death on 18 September 1720. Andrew reflected the growing apathy of some tories in telling Audley that ‘I presume neither you nor any other friend will blame me if I look after my own private affairs & leave the public [affairs] to those who are more nearly concerned in them.’22

O n the same day that Dr Andrew wrote to Audley, Lord Anglesey also wrote a reply to Audley’s suggestion that he should broker an agreement between Francis Annesley and Audley. Anglesey refused to slacken his support for his cousin, and replied that he felt that, with Matthew Prior out of the race, many of Prior’s supporters would come to his cousin and that Annesley would attract more voters than Audley. Lord Anglesey dismissed the objection that Annesley was not a Cambridge graduate.23 Anglesey also countered Audley’s suggestion that he had won the support of Anglesey’s ‘old friends’ -those who had voted for Lord Anglesey when he had been one of the university’s M.P.s - ‘I flatter myself that . . . my old friends will unite in my ~[ousin] Annesley’ he wrote. Anglesey concluded his letter by appealing to Audley to step down in favour of his cousin.24 However there was a serious blow to Annesley’s candidature in October when Bishop Gastrell of Chester refused to support him, and would not use his influence to bring over two votes for him.25

The tory interest appeared to remain fractured as the election approached. Mr Laye, Audley’s chief agent in Cambridge, reported that he had tracked down two other Trinity fellows, the brothers Nicholas and Samuel Wickins, but he had no expectations of them?6 Laye’s dismal conclusion was ‘success appears to me in ye same light it did

” Audley MSS: Prior to Audley, 13 Oct. 1720 2n [bid.: Clement Cotton to Audley, n.d. but 1720. 21 H.M.C., Portland, VII. 281, 447. ” Audley MSS Andrew to Audley, 19 Oct. 1720. ‘’ However for Lord Finch the idea that the search for an M.P. might lead to the election ofa candidate

24 Audley MSS: Anglesey to Audley, 19 Oct. 1720. “H.M.C., Portland, VII, 281. 26 Nicholas Wickins came from a family four members of which had been fellows of Trinity in the

preceding 40 years. Nicholas had been elected to a fellowship in 1714 and succeeded to the family living of Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, in 1720. His brother Samuel was a scholar in 171 5 and proceeding MA in 1719. Alumni Cantab., comp. Venn and Venn.

’

from ‘a foreign university’ was horrifying. B.L., Add. MS 22908, f. 105.

Cambridge University Election 1720 313

before, viz that if your joint friends don’t by agreement unite in M r W[illoughby] or yourself, for I must put Mr An[nesley] out of the question, such an advantage will be given to a third person’.’’ Annesley’s plausible candidature was ruined by both the statutes of the university and the united opposition of the gremials - members of the senate - to the idea of a candidate who had not himself graduated from the university. This created an impetus for some unity. O n 4 November, Wdliam Stratford told Lord Harley that ‘what Lord Anglesey wrote to Dr Audley was surely satis pro imperio, but it is very agreeable to the present disposition’. But Anglesey remained ‘under utmost concern for his worthy kinsman’.28 The end of the tory divisions came quickly and at the last minute. A week before the election, Audley stepped down in favour of Willoughby, and Dixie Windsor embraced him as his chosen colleague.2y Annesley ‘gave up in a great rage and reviling of St John’s College’. And Dr Mangey, fellow of St John’s, came to Cambridge ‘to make interest for Mr Willoughby by order of Old London’. The withdrawal of Audley and Annesley allowed the tory party to unite around Willoughby. Though not everyone expected this, Lord Harley on hearing of Annesley’s and Audley’s withdrawals, concluded ‘Mr Finch will be ~hosen’ .~” However on 9 November William Stratford claimed the ending of the divisions to be ‘an unexpected turn’ and that it went to show ‘what the Tory interest is if it had not been broken’. It also meant that the election could now be ‘purely Whig and Tory’. Nevertheless canvassing remained furious and Stratford asked Lord Oxford about the reliability of one of the voter^.^' Lord Harley told his father than since Matthew Prior had withdrawn from the poll, ‘I think the affairs a t Cambridge have taken the best turn we could wish for the public, as well as for the disappointment of those who were so meanly industrious to disappoint my schoolfellow.’3’

In the last few days of the canvassing, from 14 to 19 December, cambridge was electrified by the contest. The franchise was held by all Cambridge doctors and M.A.s, though only between three and four hundred tended to vote. Willoughby was the eventual victor with 176 votes to Finch’s 143.33 Matthew Prior remained so disillu- sioned that he did not The surrender of Audley’s candidature in November 1720 did not end his influence in the university: he was canvassed by Lord Finch for his brother’s candidature in 1727 and in 1734 by Mr G ~ o d r i c k e . ~ ~ H e also indulged his disappointment at his failed candidature in the prosecution of Richard Bentley.36 Lord

*’ Audley Mss, Laye to Audley, 29 Nov 1720. ** H.M.C., Portland, VII, 282. 29 Audley MSS: Windsor and Willoughby to Audley, n.d. but December 1720. ‘I’ B.L., Add. MS 70237: Harley to Oxford, 24 Nov. 1720. ‘Old London’ being bishop John Robinson,

31 H.M.C., Portland, VII, 282. 32 Ibid., p. 284. 33 Monk, Richard Bentley, 11, 111. Finch was crushed by the defeat. His brother Lord Finch wrote to

their father, Lord Nottingham, in 1724 that it was ‘more than sufficient hardship that he has remained so long in the bosom of his alma mater after she proved so unnatural to him in disappointing him of his just pretentions to her favour’. Finch was elected for Malton in 1724. H.P., 1715-54, 11, 33-4.

34 H.M.C., Portlatid, VII, 282. 3s Audley MSS: Finch to Audley, 18 July 1727, and Goodricke to Audley, 19 Apr. 1734. ”B.L. Add. MS 22908, K 108-9.

bishop of London; Mangey was rector of St Mildred Poultry, London.

314 William Gibson

Anglesey was able to apply the balm of his election as high steward of the university in February 1721 to his di~appointment.~~

The significance of the Cambridge election of 1720 is that the tones were able to put party above faction. For some weeks the tones stood on the edge of the precipice of a divided candidature, which would allow the Whig to be elected, before stepping back to a united position. Linda Colley has emphasised that after 1716 the tones nationally were seriously divided and riven with factional disputes?8 The repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, the breach between George I and his son, and the debates on the Peerage Bill caused political turbulence that had disoriented the tories, and for the most part they missed opportunities to attack the government and to put party above personal ambition. Moreover the events leading to the meeting of parliament in December 1720 was especially fraught given the anticipated fury of the debates on, and secret inquiry into, the South Sea scheme. In such circumstances, the ability of the tones to lay aside what appeared to be damaging personal divisions and unite around Willoughby was a remarkable piece of political self-discipline. Some held their unwavering support highly: Dr Edmondson wrote to William Stratford to say that he was known to be so strong in his convictions that Finch's canvassers did not even approach him.39 The 1720 election also represents the last occasion on which Cambridge University was contested and won for the t~ries.~' In 1727 the seat fell to the Whigs when Thomas Gooch led the moderate and ministerial tones into the Whig fold; the university was to remain a Whig seat for the next 40 yearsS4' The choice of the moderate Willoughby over the ultra Audley may represent a point of transition for many of the university's tones, who were accommodating the Hanoverian regime and beginning to adopt a position closer to that of the Hanoverian tories like Lord Nottinghani. It would have been natural, given the political and professional similarity between Paske and Audley, to view Audley as the obvious successor. The switch to Willoughby was a break with the past and a signal point in the tories' transition to accommodation with the Hanoverian regime.

37 Ibid., f. 11 1. " L. Colley, In Defiance qf Oligarchy. T h e Tory Party 1714-60 (Cambridge, 1985), p. 190 e l seq. 39 H.M.C., Portland, VII, 285. 4o In 1722 the university returned Windsor and Willoughby without a contest. " Thomas Gooch was rewarded with a prebend of Canterbury. H . P . , 1715-54, 11, 550.