Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/174

 ment when after the death of the regent Orléans (December 1723) power had temporarily passed into the hands of the Duke of Bourbon and Madame de Prie, by keeping more or less at a distance Bolingbroke, who, foreseeing the eclipse of Carteret, was anxious to conciliate the Townshend-Walpole interest. And, forecasting in his turn the course of ministerial changes in France, Horace Walpole gradually placed himself on a footing of thorough confidence with Fleury, bishop of Fréjus (afterwards Cardinal Fleury), who in June 1726 was definitively established in power. Fleury never forgot a visit which Walpole had paid him at Issy, when in December 1725 persons not so well informed supposed him to have been banished from court (see ST. SIMON, Mémoires, ed. 1863, x. 278 seq., where Sir Robert and Horace Walpole are said to have persuaded Fleury that their policy was directed by his counsels, and where that policy is very caustically characterised). The preliminaries of Paris, signed 31 May 1727, which averted what seemed the inevitable expansion of the existing state of war into a general European conflict, exhibit at its height the co-operation of the French and English prime ministers, between whom Horace was the chief intermediary agent. On the accession of George II (June) Walpole proceeded at once to England, armed with a letter from Fleury, promising adherence to the ‘system’ of the Anglo-French entente, if the new king would uphold it, and, though at first coldly received, was sent back by him to Paris with a gracious answer. Soon afterwards the reconciliation between France and Spain, which Walpole had laboured so persistently to obstruct, was brought about, and Germain Louis Chauvelin, a friend of the Bourbon entente, became secretary of state; but the continuance of an excellent understanding between Fleury and Walpole found expression in the settlement of the claims of Spain, satisfactory to Great Britain, arranged at the congress of Soissons (June 1728), where Walpole was one of the plenipotentiaries, and in the treaty of Seville (November 1729), which established a defensive alliance between Great Britain, France, and Spain (the Townshend manuscripts comprise four volumes of Walpole's Paris correspondence, of which extracts are given by, vol. i.; cf. as to the latter part of his French embassy, passages from his Apology).

On the resignation of Townshend (May 1730) Sir Robert Walpole offered the vacant secretaryship of state to his brother, who, however, declined it, chiefly from an honourable unwillingness to justify the suspicion that he had fomented the quarrel with Townshend with a view to succeeding him. While still in France he was appointed to the office of cofferer of the household, which gave him a ready access to the king, and, having thereupon resigned his embassy, he was in November 1730 sworn of the privy council. He remained in England till October 1733, when he was sent to The Hague on a confidential mission, which led to his appointment as envoy and minister-plenipotentiary there in the following year. He held this post till 1740, though paying occasional visits to England, where he attended in parliament. In the course of these years he was, together with his friend the grand pensionary Slingelandt, and his successor at Paris, James, lord Waldegrave [q. v.], largely instrumental in promoting the policy which, against the wish of George II, kept Great Britain out of the iniquitous war of the Polish succession, and in 1735 led to the peace of Vienna (to this period belongs the earlier part of his interesting correspondence with Robert Trevor [q. v.], afterwards viscount Hampden, who, after acting as his secretary of legation at The Hague, in 1741 succeeded him there as minister. See Manuscripts of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, Hist. MSS. Comm. Many of these letters had already been printed by, but very inaccurately. See also, for letters exchanged between the brothers in these years, Appendix to vol. iii. of the Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole).

Horace Walpole's free and frequent communications of his political views to the king and queen were not always palatable, and she is said to have told him: ‘Sir Robert would have gone into the war’ of the Polish succession, ‘but you would not let him.’ Before her death, however, he received many friendly communications from her, and in 1736, by her wish, resided at Hanover as minister of state during a long visit of the king to his electoral dominions (cf., Memoirs, ii. 297). Yet already in 1738 he was strongly in favour of a Prussian alliance, of all things the most detestable to George II. In this year he warmly advocated the maintenance of peace with Spain, and in March 1739, in a speech of two hours, moved the address in the House of Commons thanking the king for the convention by which it was vainly hoped that war might be averted (, ii. 275). In 1740 he strenuously exerted himself in support of his brother's policy of bringing about an understanding between Austria and Prussia, and his foresight in protesting against the obstinacy of Maria Theresa and her advisers and urging