Walpole, SIR ROBERT, afterwards Lord Orford, statesman, was the third son of Robert Walpole, M.P., and was born 26th August 1676 at Houghton in Norfolk, the seat of his ancestors since Stephen's reign. He received his education at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge. Through the death of his brothers he succeeded to the family estates on the death of his father, and in 1701 was returned to parliament for Castle Rising. In 1702 he was elected member of parliament for King's Lynn, which he continued to represent; and in 1705 he was nominated one of the council to Prince George of Denmark. In this latter capacity he appears to have won the esteem of Godolphin, Marlborough, and other Whig leaders. In 1708 he was appointed Secretary at War, and in 1710 Treasurer of the Navy. Shortly after this, how- ever, his fortunes suffered a temporary eclipse; he was found guilty by the House of Commons of 'breach of trust and notorious corruption,' and on 17th January 1712 was expelled the House, and sent to the Tower; but it is certain the charge was due solely to party animosity. He had all along been a strong Hanoverian, and on the accession of George I. he was restored to fortune; he was made a privy-councillor, and had various other high offices conferred upon him. On the impeachment of Bolingbroke and others by his means, he became in 1715 Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury. A disunion in the cabinet having arisen in 1717, he resigned office, bringing in a Sinking-fund Bill on the day of his resignation. Out of office he has been charged with somewhat unscrupulous opposition. The Peerage Bill of the government (headed by Sunderland and Stanhope) having been defeated mainly by Walpole's resistance, Sunderland gave Walpole (1720) the post of Paymaster-general, and after the collapse of the South Sea Scheme the public looked to Walpole to restore order in public affairs; in 1721 he became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from this time to his final retirement in 1742 the life of Walpole may be said to be the history of England. His chief contribution to the development of the constitution was that, whereas heretofore ministers were regarded as equals amongst themselves, in his person and henceforward there was a prime-minister who gave to cabinet government the necessary unity. By systematic bribery (less in money amount than has been supposed) he secured a Whig House of Commons, and in the House of Commons secured majorities by the bribes both of money and of office. He it was who trained the Whig lords to rely not on their peers but on the Commons. His first successful trial of strength (1724) was with Carteret; later he held his own against the attacks of Bolingbroke and Pultney; forced on the breach with his brother-in-law Townshend, who retired (1730) into private life; and quarrelled with Chesterfield (q.v.). He crushed Atterbury's plot; withdrew the grant for 'Wood's Halfpence' on the storm raised by Swift's Drapier's Letters (1723); failed to pass a famous Excise Bill (1733); and lost credit by his peaceful foreign policy, which Pitt and Newcastle attacked, the Prince of Wales also joining the opposition for other reasons. In 1740 a motion was made in the House to petition the king to remove Sir Robert Walpole 'from his Majesty's presence and counsels for ever.' This motion was negatived by a large majority; but the power of the great minister was seriously shaken. He resigned on 2d February 1742, when he was created Earl of Orford, with a pension of £4000 a year. His son had been created Baron Walpole in 1723. Charges of bribery were now brought against him, and a committee of investigation was ultimately appointed by the House of Commons; it consisted of twenty-one members, of whom only two were of his own party. The Report was against him, but it was unsupported by evidence, and proceedings were ultimately dropped. The rest of Walpole's life was spent in tranquillity and retirement. He died 18th March 1745. In private life he was amiable and good-tempered, but was essentially coarse-minded, as well as jealous; love of power appears to have been his ruling motive of action. He had strong common sense, with clearness of political vision, and seems to have understood the true interests of his country beyond any of his contemporaries; it was he who secured the permanence of the Revolution Settlement, and in his time peace was much needed by the country.
See the articles GEORGE I., GEORGE II., ATTERBURY, CARTERET, TOWNSHEND, SOUTH SEA SCHEME, SINKING FUND; Coxe's Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole (3 vols. 1798); monographs on him by Ewald (1877) and John Morley (1889); the Histories of Ralph, Stanhope, M'Cartly, and Lecky; works cited at HORACE WALPOLE; Jessopp's One Generation of a Norfolk House (1878), which includes the Jesuit, Henry Walpole, hanged in 1595.