A concurrence of events now brought about a change of ministry. In April 1720 a reconcilement was effected between the king and the Prince of Wales, with whom he had been for some years at variance ; this re-introduced Walpole, who had attached himself to the prince, into the ministry in the subordinate capacity of paymaster of the forces; and soon after the terrible explosion of the South-Sea scheme at once overthrew the administration of Stanhope and Sunderland by the extent to which several members of the cabinet were personally involved, and produced a crisis in which Walpole, with his great financial skill and reputation, found everything thrown into his own hands. He became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer in April 1721, commencing from that data a premiership which lasted for twenty-one years, being the longest period that any English minister has continued in power since the time of Lord Burleigh. Of tho transactions in domestic politics under the late administration, the most remarkable were the repeal in 1718 of the Schism Act, passed in the last year of Queen Anne—a repeal which, to his discredit, Walpole, actuated by considcratious of party, opposed to the utmost, though happily without success; and the attempt of the ministers in 1718 and 1719 to carry their celebrated bill for the limitation of the peerage, in which they were defeated by the junction of Walpole with the Tories.
The pacific disposition of Walpole, and the continued friendship of France, both under the government of the Duke of Orleans and after wards under that of Cardinal Fleury, tended to preserve the repose of Eurupo during the latter years of the reign of George L; but it was, on the other hand, constantly endangered by the persevering intrigues of the adherents of the family that had been ejected from the British throne, and still more by the apprehensions of the king for the safety of his German dourioions, and the entanglemeut of the country in continental politics through that counection. The most memorable event of 1722 was the detection of the conspiracy for bringing iu the Pretender, in which the celebrated Atterhury, bishop of Rochester, was involved. War was at length rekindled by the alliance formed between the king of Spain and the emperor by the treaty of Vieuna, signed the 30th of April 1725, and the treaty of Hanover, concluded the 3rd of September following, between England, France, and Prussia, to which Sweden afterwards acceded. The siege of Gibraltar was begun by Spain in February 1726, and a British fleet was about the same time sent to the West Indies under command of Admiral Hosier, where in consequence of contradictory or indecisive orders it remained inactive till the admiral and nearly all his crew perished of disease— a calamity which at the time occasioned a vehement outcry against the administration. Preliminary articles for a general pacification however were signed at Paris, 31st of May, 1727. On the 3rd of Juue following, King George embarked at Greenwich for Hanover, but had only reached Osuaburg when he was .truck with apoplexy, and died there in the night between the 10th and 11th of June, in the sixty eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.
By his unfortunate queen, who died on the 2nd of November 1726 at the castle of Ahlen in Hanover, in which she had been immured since 1694 on a charge, never proved and generally disbelieved, of an intrigue with Count Koningsmark, George 1. had one sou, George, by whom he was succeeded, and a daughter, Sophia Dorothea, born 16th of March 1687, and married in 1706 to King Frederick II. of Prussia.
George I. has the credit of not having allowed himself to be influenced in affairs of state by the female favourites with whose society he solaced himself. Of these, the one who enjoyed his chief favour after he came to the English throne was Ermengard Melusine de Schulenberg, who iu 1716 was created Duchess of Munster in the Irish peerage, and in 1719 Duchene of Kendal in the English peerage, for life ; her niece, Meluaine de Schuleuberg (afterwards married to Philip, earl of Chesterfield) being also made Countess of Walsingham for life in 1722. This woman, who survived till 1743, the king is believed to have married with the left hand. His other chief mistress in his latter days was Charlotte Sophia, wife of Baron Kilmansegg, countess of Platen in Germany, and created Countess of Leinster in Ireland, 1721, and Countess of Darlington in England, 1722, who died in 1730.
A fair share of the courage and obstinacy of his race, steadiness to his engagements and his friendships, and considerable sagacity in the management of affairs, were the marked qualities in the character of this king. He was to the end of his life however, in all his views and notions, and in his conduct, much more elector of Hanover than king of England ; and his excessive anxiety about not merely the safety but the extension of his hereditary dominions, undoubtedly helped to involve this country in the net of continental politics to an extent not before known. Other circumstances of the time however also contributed to this result. George L was a coarse-minded man, with little taste for literature, science, or the fine arts; but the country is indebted to him for the foundation in 1724 of a professorship of modern history in each of the universities.
It is impossible within the limits to which we are confined to attempt even the most general account of the changes made in the law by the many hundred pages of legislation which were added to the Statute Book in the course of this reign. Among the most remarkable of the new laws may be mentioned the 1 Geo. I. et. 2, c. 5, commonly called the Riot Act; the 8 Geo. L c. 5, which declared that the "kingdom of Ireland path been, is, 'and of right ought to be subordinate unto and dependent upon the imperial crown of Great Britain ; and that the British parliament had, Lath, and of right ought to have, power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland," but which was repealed by the 22 Geo. III. c. 53; the 9 Geo. I. c. 22, commonly called the Black Act (from the name of the ' Blacks' taken by one of the descriptions of depredators against which it is directed); and the 11 Geo. I. c. 26, entitled ' An Act for the more effectual disarming the Highlands in Scotland, and for the better securing the peace and quiet of that part of the kingdom.' The commencement of this reign also forms an important era in the history of the national finances, from the establishment iu 1716, under the government of Walpole, of the first sinking fund on a great scale, by the 3 Geo. L c. 7. The national debt, which amounted to about 52,000,000/. at the commencement of this reign, underwent no reduction in the course of it; but the interest was reduced frunt about 3,350,0001. to 2,217,0001. The power of effecting this reduction was principally obtained through the effects of an act passed in the last year of the preceding reign (the 12 Anne, et. 2, c. 16), by which the legal interest of money was reduced from six to five per cent.