Editing Robert Walpole (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Walpole's reign2.jpg|thumb|''Walpole's reign'', a contemporary political satire]]

Walpole exercised a tremendous influence on the politics of his day. The Tories became a minor insignificant faction, and the Whigs became a dominant and largely unopposed party. His influence on the development of the uncodified [[constitution of the United Kingdom|constitution of Great Britain]] was less momentous, even though he is regarded as Great Britain's first prime minister.<ref name=Brtna-primes/> He relied primarily on the favour of the King, rather than the support of the House of Commons. His power stemmed from his personal influence instead of the influence of his office. Most of his immediate successors were, comparatively speaking, extremely weak. It would take several decades more for the premiership to develop into the most powerful and most important office in the country.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}

Walpole's strategy of keeping Great Britain at peace contributed greatly to the country's prosperity. Walpole also managed to secure the position of the [[House of Hanover|Hanoverian dynasty]], and effectively countervailed Jacobitism. The Jacobite threat ended, soon after Walpole's term ended, with the defeat of the [[Jacobite rising of 1745|rebellion of 1745]]. Later in the century, the Whig MP [[Edmund Burke]] "admitted him into the whig pantheon".<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Taylor |first=Stephen |orig-year=2004 |date=January 2008 |title=Walpole, Robert, first earl of Orford (1676–1745) |id=28601 |mode=cs2}}</ref> Burke wrote:

{{blockquote|He was an honorable man and a sound Whig. He was not, as the Jacobites and discontented Whigs of his time have represented him, and as ill-informed people still represent him, a prodigal and corrupt minister. They charged him in their libels and seditious conversations as having first reduced corruption to a system. Such was their cant. But he was far from governing by corruption. He governed by party attachments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to him, perhaps, than to any minister who ever served the crown for so great a length of time. He gained over very few from the Opposition. Without being a genius of the first class, he was an intelligent, prudent, and safe minister. He loved peace; and he helped to communicate the same disposition to nations at least as warlike and restless as that in which he had the chief direction of affairs. ... With many virtues, public and private, he had his faults; but his faults were superficial. A careless, coarse, and over familiar style of discourse, without sufficient regard to persons or occasions, and an almost total want of political decorum, were the errours {{sic}} by which he was most hurt in the public opinion: and those through which his enemies obtained the greatest advantage over him. But justice must be done. The prudence, steadiness, and vigilance of that man, joined to the greatest possible lenity in his character and his politics, preserved the crown to this royal family; and with it, their laws and liberties to this country.<ref>{{cite book |last=Burke |first=Edmund |year=1962 |title=An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs |publisher=The Library of Liberal Arts |pages=62–63}}</ref>}}

[[Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield|Lord Chesterfield]] expressed scepticism as to whether "an impartial Character of Sr Robert Walpole, will or can be transmitted to Posterity, for he governed this Kingdom so long that the various passions of Mankind mingled, and in a manner incorporated themselves, with every thing that was said or writt concerning him. Never was Man more flattered nor more abused, and his long power, was probably the chief cause of both".{{sfnp|Franklin|1993|p=114}} Chesterfield claimed he was "much acquainted with him both in his publick and his private life":

{{blockquote|In private life he was good natured, chearfull, social. Inelegant in his manners, loose in his morals. He had a coarse wit, which he was too free of for a man in his station, as it is always inconsistent with dignity. He was very able as a Minister, but without a certain elevation of mind ... He was both the ablest Parliament man, and the ablest manager of a Parliament, that I believe ever lived ... Money, not prerogative, was the chief engine of his administration, and he employed it with a success that in a manner disgraced humanity ... When he found any body proof, against pecuniary temptations, which alass! was but seldom, he had recourse to still a worse art. For he laughed at and ridiculed all notions of publick virtue, and the love of one's country, calling them the ''chimerical school boy flights of classical learning''; declaring himself at the same time, ''no Saint, no Spartan, no reformer''. He would frequently ask young fellows at their first appearance in the world, while their honest hearts were yet untainted, ''well are you to be an old Roman? a patriot? you will soon come off of that, and grow wiser''. And thus he was more dangerous to the morals, than to the libertys of his country, to which I am persuaded that he meaned no ill in his heart. ... His name will not be recorded in history among the best men, or the best Ministers, but much much less ought it to be ranked among the worst.{{sfnp|Franklin|1993|pp=114–115}} }}

[[10 Downing Street]] represents another part of Walpole's legacy. George&nbsp;II offered this home to Walpole as a personal gift in 1732, but Walpole accepted it only as the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, taking up his residence there on 22&nbsp;September 1735. His immediate successors did not always reside in Number&nbsp;10 (preferring their larger private residences), but the home has nevertheless become established as the official residence of the prime minister (in his or her capacity as First Lord of the Treasury).<ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica"/>

Walpole has attracted attention from heterodox economists as a pioneer of protectionist policies, in the form of tariffs and subsidies to woollen manufacturers. As a result, the industry became Britain's primary export, enabling the country to import the raw materials and food that fueled the industrial revolution.<ref>{{cite book |author=Chang, Ha-Joon |year=2010 |title=23&nbsp;Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London, UK |url=https://archive.org/details/thingstheydontte00chan_740 |url-access=limited |page=[https://archive.org/details/thingstheydontte00chan_740/page/n285 70]}}</ref>

Walpole is immortalised in [[St Stephen's Hall]], where he and other notable Parliamentarians look on at visitors to Parliament.<ref name=ssstat>{{cite web |title=St.&nbsp;Stephen's Hall |website=UK Parliament |url=http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/architecture/palace-s-interiors/st-stephen-s-hall/}}</ref>

Walpole built [[Houghton Hall]] in Norfolk as his country seat.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} He also left behind a [[Walpole collection|collection of art]] which he had assembled during his career. His grandson, [[George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford|the 3rd&nbsp;Earl of Orford]], sold many of the works in this collection to the Russian Empress [[Catherine II of Russia|Catherine&nbsp;II]] in 1779. This collection – then regarded as one of the finest in Europe<ref>{{cite book |author=Redford, George |year=1888 |title=Art Sales: A history of sales of pictures and other works of art |place=London, UK |pages=356–357 |section=Sale of the Houghton Gallery}}</ref> – now lies in the [[Hermitage Museum|State Hermitage Museum]] in [[Saint Petersburg]], Russia. In 2013 the Hermitage loaned the collection to Houghton for display, following the original William Kent hanging plan, which had been recently discovered at Houghton.<ref>{{cite web |title=Houghton revisited |series=Special exhibition |website=www.christies.com |url=https://www.christies.com/events/houghton-revisited/ |access-date=10 September 2018}}</ref>

The nursery rhyme "[[Cock Robin|Who Killed Cock Robin]]?" may allude to the fall of Walpole, who carried the popular nickname "Cock Robin".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Opie |first1=Iona Archibald |last2=Opie |first2=Peter |year=1997 |title=Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-860088-6}}</ref>{{page needed|date=March 2014}}
(Contemporaries satirised the Walpole regime as the "Robinocracy" or as the "Robinarchy".)<ref>
{{cite book |first=Isaac |last=Kramnick |author-link=Isaac Kramnick |year=1992 |title=Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9780801480010 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bolingbrokehisci00kram_0/page/20 20] |url=https://archive.org/details/bolingbrokehisci00kram_0 |url-access=registration |access-date=15 August 2014 |quote=Walpole's system was depicted as a unique form of government, the ''Robinocracy'' or Robinarchy.}}
</ref>

Various locations are named after Walpole, including Walpole Street in [[Wolverhampton]], England;<ref name="historytoday.com"/> and the towns of [[Walpole, Massachusetts]] (founded in 1724), and [[Orford, New Hampshire]] (incorporated in 1761) in the United States.<ref name="Encyclopedia Britannica"/><ref name="historytoday.com">{{Cite web |title=British Prime Ministers: Sir Robert Walpole |website=historytoday.com |url=https://www.historytoday.com/jh-plumb/british-prime-ministers-sir-robert-walpole |access-date=10 September 2018}}</ref>