for domestic tranquillity, then jeopardised by a widespread spirit of disaffection and lawlessness. He therefore resisted the reduction of the army proposed in the following year, helped Newcastle to enervate a measure prohibiting the presence of the military in boroughs at election time (13 April), and gave the sanction of his authority to their employment to suppress the sporadic riots of the summer. He met the emergency of the Porteous riots with equal firmness; and the retribution meted out by parliament to the city of Edinburgh fell far short of the measure as originally drafted by him (1737).
Sharing to the full the horror of ‘perpetuities’ characteristic of the lawyers of his day, Hardwicke suffered the excessively stringent Mortmain Act of 1736 to pass without other amendment than the exemption of purchases for valuable consideration. The narrowness of his churchmanship was evinced by the strenuous resistance which, in concert with Talbot, he offered to a measure of the same session for the amendment of the antiquated and vexatious procedure for the recovery of tithes. When Talbot was unable to attend the House of Lords, Hardwicke supplied his place as speaker. He was so sitting on Talbot's death, and was continued as speaker by an irregularly sealed commission (16 Feb. 1736–7) pending negotiations which terminated in his acceptance of the great seal, with a promise of the reversion of a tellership in the exchequer for his eldest son (21 Feb.). He retained the chief-justiceship until 8 June, when he was succeeded by Sir William Lee [q. v.] He had no sooner received the great seal than the king thrust upon him the irksome duty of bearing to the Prince of Wales a message concerning his allowance, couched in terms the harshness of which the chancellor in vain attempted to mitigate. He was equally unsuccessful in his subsequent endeavours to pour oil on the troubled waters [see Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales]. As Newcastle's confidant and mentor, Hardwicke now began to exert an influence on the course of political affairs which was far more real than apparent. He revised the Spanish convention of 1738, and after Walpole's fall he became the ordinary draftsman of the king's speech, then a much more important document than it is now. During the king's absences from the realm in 1740 and subsequent years he was a member, and by no means the least influential member, of the council of regency [see George II]. His foreign policy was on the whole pacific, but he discerned the inevitableness of the war with Spain somewhat earlier than Walpole, and went into it with more gusto. Walpole's administration, however, he defended at large and in detail against Carteret's attack (13 Feb. 1740–1), and to his nervous and impassioned eloquence was probably due the defeat of the iniquitous measure for indemnifying witnesses against the fallen minister (25 May 1742). He retained the great seal during Lord Wilmington's administration, and also on the accession of Henry Pelham [q. v.] to power. Thenceforth his policy was to maintain the predominance of the Pelham interest. In this he was perhaps justified, for the choice lay between the Pelhams and Carteret; and Carteret, though incomparably superior to Newcastle in ability, was by no means a safe man or easy to work with [see Carteret, John, Earl Granville; and Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne], Newcastle was fussy and foolish, but Hardwicke well knew how to manage him, and in great emergencies was able to make his will prevail both in the cabinet and in parliament. To him was due the insertion of the attainder clauses in the act of 1744 making correspondence with the young Pretender or his brothers punishable as high treason, a strong, not to say harsh, measure which the event proved to be inefficacious, but which, considering the gravity of the crisis, is not to be condemned on that account. The rebellion itself, which Granville minimised and Newcastle magnified, while others of the regents showed signs of disaffection, Hardwicke estimated at once in its true proportions, and with quiet alertness took the necessary measures for its suppression. He also composed the dignified and patriotic speech with which the king on his return opened parliament (27 Oct.) In presiding as lord high steward at the trials of the rebel lords, Hardwicke displayed judicial impartiality. His tone, however, was neither as dignified nor as magnanimous as the occasion demanded; nor can he escape responsibility for the perversion of justice in the case of Charles Radcliffe [see Boyd, William, fourth Earl of Kilmarnock; Elphinstons, Arthur, sixth Lord Balmerino; Fraser, Simon, twelfth Lord Lovat; Mackenzie, George, third Earl of Cromarty; and Radcliffe or Radclyffe, third Earl of Derwentwater].
Hardwicke was primarily responsible for the subsequent legislative measures by which the highland costume was made illegal, the nonjuring episcopalian clergy prohibited from exercising their functions, the forfeited estates at once annexed in perpetuity to the crown, and the arbitrary and ill-defined
