DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 3 ) people readily conformed to the rule of George L., not from any personal affection for a prince they had never seen, and who never attempted to in- gratiate himself with his subjects, but because he upheld that social order and Protestant ascendancy which the Stuarts had systematically violated. In the early days of June 1727 George II. was apprised by Sir Robert Walpole of his father’s death. The King received the minister’s announce- ment with the gracious words, ‘Dat is one big lie!’ It was to be expected that at the prosaic court of this king, who throughout a period of thirty-three years remained German to the back- bone, lavished attentions and dignities on German favourites, and maintained a Whig Government permanently in power, there should have been not only discontented courtiers, but also ambitious poli- ticians, who longed for a return of the Stuart Pre- tender as a means of advancement, or used his name as a pretext for their intrigues. The two great political parties, Whigs and Tories, were steadily growing into shape, and while the principles of the former were bound up with the Protestant succession of the Georges, the Tories, at least for party purposes, lent their moral, if not much material aid, to the Stuarts. It must be remembered that the population of the country was still limited. In England it only