Prime Minister Walpole Leaves Office, 1742, Aidan Baker (March 2026)

Prime Minister Walpole Leaves Office, 1742

The republican expected that the power of the Crown would be reduced to a mere shadow, the high Tory that the Stuarts would be restored, the moderate Tory that the golden days which the Church and the landed interest had enjoyed during the last years of Queen Anne, would immediately return.

                                                                                          Thomas Macaulay, “Horace Walpole,” (1833)

shadow; golden; church; landed; last
shadow; golden; church; landed; last
 
So he returned to Houghton, tried to read,
found he'd no taste for it, strung those who followed.
The kingdom had had twenty years of him.
 
shadow; golden; church; landed; last
 
The kingdom had had twenty years of him,
and later prose floods sunset on their hopes
who'd watched his fall for good times back.  Queen Anne
stayed dead.  The Stuart comeback failed.
Not Walpole laughed his head off on Tower Hill.
Who mock-permits the mended corpse to rise?
 
shadow; golden; church; landed; last
shadow; golden; church; landed; last
 
The Anabaptist and the round-faced peers.
I've re-read what I quoted forty years.
 
shadow; golden; church; landed; last