Soon after the coronation the country was plunged into a general election. The Jacobites came off very badly at the polls, and the Tories little better. Even with the aid of the malcontent Whigs, the Opposition made a poor muster in point of numbers, and when the new Parliament met in January, 1728, the Ministerial majority was even greater than in the last reign. Walpole had won all along the line. The result no doubt was largely due to the way in which the Government had bought owners of pocket boroughs, and to the wholesale bribery wherewith its agents seduced the voters; under such a system of corruption it was impossible for the voice of the nation to make itself effectually heard. Even many of those members of Parliament who were returned to the House of Commons in opposition to Walpole were eventually bought by him. “Every man has his price” was his cynical maxim, and he acted upon it so thoroughly that his name became a byword for corruption. True, the standard of political morality was not high in those days, the party in power, whether Whig or Tory, frequently abused the public trust and misused the public money. But it remained for Walpole to bring organised corruption to such a pitch that it paralysed popular government, and placed the balance of power, neither in the Sovereign, nor in the people, but in the hands of a Whig oligarchy. Such an oligarchy was at this period synonymous with Walpole himself, for the great Minister brooked no rivals in the King’s (or rather in the Queen’s) councils. “Sir Robert,” said the shrewd old Sarah of Marlborough, “likes none but fools and such as have lost all credit.” His earlier Administrations had included a few strong men, but one by one they had to go, unable to work with so jealous and domineering a chief. By bribery Walpole also reduced Parliament to such a condition of impotence that it was hardly more to be reckoned with than the King. The Prime Minister had really no one to consider but the Queen, with whom he had a perfect understanding. [Illustration: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. _From the Painting by J. B. Van Loo in the National Portrait Gallery._]