‘The King’s turnspit was a member of Parliament’: And other Tales from the Expanded Database of Court Officers 1660–1837

Abstract

In February 1780, Edmund Burke rose in the House of Commons to explain the impending loss of America and rail against political corruption in the speech on Economical Reform. Among the speech’s most effective rhetorical refrains was to remind the honourable members, repeatedly, that true reform of a corrupt, expensive and antiquated royal administration was impossible because ‘The King’s turnspit was a member of parliament’. But was he? The answer lies in the Database of Court Officers. Since 2005, the Database of Court Officers 1660–1837, hosted by Loyola University Chicago, has sought to provide an authoritative source for the career histories of every salaried member of the British royal household for this period. Prior to 2019 it included only the servants of the sovereign’s household, but in that year, it was expanded to include the forty-nine satellite courts of the various queens (consort, mother and dowager), as well as princes and princesses of the blood — a total of 21,000 officers and servants overall. The household, among its many ceremonial, social, and domestic functions, provided places for peers and members of Parliament — the vehicle of political influence and corruption that Burke decried and sought to reform. This article introduces the expanded database and establishes the size, expense, and opportunities for patronage of the combined royal households (sovereign’s and satellite courts) across the period. It concludes with an analysis of the number of peers and members of Parliament who held household office over time with a view towards establishing 1) the identity of the offending turnspit; and 2) whether the ‘corruption’ Burke called out (i.e., the contingent of peers and MPs with positions at court) was really so large or decisive as he and other reformers alleged, determining that it was neither of those things.