In 1727 George I. died, but the confidence which the old king had reposed in him was renewed by his successor, after a brief period of coldness, and in Queen Caroline the Whig minister found a faithful and lifelong friend. For three years he shared power with Townshend, but quarrelled with him in 173o, and Townshend retired into private life. Walpole's administration was based on two principles, sound finance at home and freedom from the intrigues and wars which raged abroad. On the con tinent congresses and treaties were matters of annual arrangement, and England enjoyed many years of peace. Walpole's influence received a serious blow in 1733. The enormous frauds on the excise duties forced themselves on his attention, and he proposed to check smuggling and avoid fraud by levying the full tax on tobacco and wine when they were removed from the warehouses for sale. His proposals met with violent opposition, and had to be dropped. Several of his most active antagonists were dismissed from office or deprived of their regiments, but their spirits re mained unquenched, as the incessant attacks in the Craftsman showed, and when Walpole met a new House of Commons in 1734 his supporters were far less numerous. The Gin Act of 1736 led to disorders in the suburbs of London ; and the imprisonment of two notorious smugglers in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh resulted in the Porteous riots described in the Heart of Midlothian. These events weakened Walpole's influence in the country, but his par liamentary supremacy remained unimpaired, and was illustrated in 1737 by his defeat of Sir John Barnard's plan for the reduction of the interest on the national debt, and by his passing of the Playhouse Act, for the regulation of the London theatres.
That year, however, heralded his fall from power. His con stant friend Queen Caroline died on Nov. 20, 1737, and Frederick, prince of Wales, whose request for an increase in his official allowance had been refused, became his active opponent. The prince controlled many boroughs within the duchy of Cornwall, and he attracted Pitt, the Grenvilles and others to his cause. The leading orators of England thundered against Walpole in the House of Commons, and the press resounded with the taunts of the poet and pamphleteer, illustrious and obscure, who found abundant food for their invectives in the troubles with Spain over its exclusive pretensions to the continent of America and its claim to the right of searching English vessels. Walpole long
resisted the pressure of the opposition for war, but at the close of 1739, as the king would not allow him to resign, he was forced into hostility with Spain. The Tory minority known as "the patriots" had seceded from parliament in March 1739, but at the commencement of the new session, in Nov. 1739, they re turned to their places with redoubled energies. The successes of the troops brought little strength to Walpole's declining popularity, and in the new House of Commons of 1741 political parties were almost evenly balanced. Their strength was tried immediately on the opening of parliament. Walpole was defeated. On Feb. 9, 1742 he was created earl of Orford, and two days later he ceased to be prime minister. A committee of inquiry into the conduct of his ministry for the previous ten years was ultimately granted, but its deliberations came to nothing. Walpole died at Arlington Street, London, on March 18, 1745, and was buried at Houghton on March 25. With the permanent places, valued at f 15,000 per annum, which he had secured for his family, and with his accumulations in office, he had rebuilt the mansion at great expense, and formed a gallery of pictures within its walls at a cost of £40,000, but the collection was sold by his grandson for a much larger sum in 1779 to the empress of Russia.
Walpole was twice married—in 1700 to Catherine Shorter (d. 1737) and in March 1738 to Maria Skerret.
Sir R. Walpole's life has been written by Archdeacon William Coxe (1798 and 1800, 3 vols.), A. C. Ewald (1878) and John Viscount Morley (1889). See also Walpole, a Study in Politics, by Edward Jenks (1894) ; English Hist. Rev. xv., 251, 479, 665, xvi., 67, 3o8, 439 (his foreign policy, by Basil Williams) ; Bolingbroke, by Walter Sichel (19o1–o2, 2 vols.) ; the histories, letters and reminiscences by his son, Horace Walpole ; and the other lives of the chief political personages of the period.