No English Minister has ever been hated more than Walpole and none has had abler foes. The combination of two such master-minds as Bolingbroke and Pulteney would, under ordinary circumstances, have broken down any Minister. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and no statesman was more successful than Walpole in overcoming his enemies. His success was largely due to the steady support he received from the Queen. To her wise counsels was also something due. Walpole now refrained from violent measures against his political opponents, even under intense provocation. Hitherto in English politics the party in power had consistently persecuted the party in the minority. But now a new era set in; it was possible to oppose a powerful Minister and yet not be sent to the Tower or impeached as a traitor. This more generous policy may be directly traced to Queen Caroline, for Walpole in George the First’s reign had been anything but conciliatory, and no Minister had urged more fiercely than he the impeachment, the exile, and even the death of his political opponents. It was he who had clamoured for the execution of the Jacobite peers. But Caroline now exercised a restraining hand. During her ten years of queenship great freedom of speech was allowed in Parliament and outside it, and the widest liberty was given to the press. Impeachment, fining and imprisonment of politicians in opposition to the Government were things unheard of, and Caroline was careful to conciliate, or to endeavour to conciliate, such members of the Opposition as were loyal, or professed themselves to be loyal, to the Hanoverian dynasty. She remained on good terms with John, Duke of Argyll, who had been the King’s favourite when he was Prince of Wales, but who had now gone into the cold shade of Opposition, and resigned all his offices about the court. She even received Pulteney much against Walpole’s wish, and she had a smile and a gracious word for many of the Patriots when they came her way, always excepting Bolingbroke, whom she never would admit to the least atom of her favour. In Caroline’s wise policy may be seen the germs of that strict impartiality which the Sovereign ought to show towards prominent statesmen, whether they are in office or in opposition. This has now become almost an unwritten law of the English Constitution.