The Fall of Wellington's Government

Abstract

T IHE fall of the Duke of Wellington's government in November 1830 has been regarded as one of the turning points in modern British history. So decisive, and seemingly unexpected, was the downward turn in the duke's political fortunes that historians for many years attributed the event largely to outside or new influences: the French revolution of 1830 and the angry cries of lowerand middle-class radicals at home.' Regular party politics, responding to long-established interests, supposedly had little to do with it. In recent years, however, at least part of this traditional interpretation has been called into question. Indeed, the thesis that the French revolution had much connection with the events in Britain has been challenged so severely that it must for the most part be discarded.2 This leaves only the radicals as an explanation, and even here there have been some indications that a revision of that in-