In
1762, George III, arranged for his close
friend, the Earl of Bute, to become Prime
Minister. This decision upset a large number of MPs who considered
Bute to be incompetent. John Wilkes, the
MP for Aylesbury became Bute's leading critic in the House
of Commons. In June 1762 Wilkes established The
New Briton, a newspaper that severely attacked the king and
his Prime Minister.
After one article that appeared on 23rd April 1763, George
III and his ministers decided to prosecute John
Wilkes for seditious libel. He was arrested but at a court hearing
the Lord Chief Justice ruled that as an MP, Wilkes was protected by
privilege from arrest on a charge of libel. However, on 23rd November,
1763, Parliament voted that a member's privilege from arrest did not
extend to the writing and publishing of seditious libels. Wilkes escaped
to France but in 1768 he returned to England and stood as Radical
candidate for Middlesex.
On
8th June John Wilkes was found guilty of
libel and sentenced to 22 months imprisonment and fined £1,000.
Wilkes was also expelled from the House of Commons but in February,
March and April, 1769, he was three times re-elected for Middlesex.
On all three occasions the decision of the Middlesex electorate was
overturned by Parliament. In May the House of Commons voted that Colonel
Henry Luttrell, the defeated candidate at Middlesex, should be accepted
as the MP.
On 20th February 1769, a lawyer, John Glynn, organised a meeting at
the London Tavern to discuss the refusal of the House of Commons to
accept the election of John Wilkes. Glynn subscribed £3,340 to
form an organisation, the Bill of Rights Society, that would help
support the campaign to reinstate Wilkes. Robert Morris, a Welsh barrister,
was elected secretary, John Horne Tooke
became treasurer. Other members of the group included John Sawbridge,
the MP for Hythe, Sir Cecil Wray, MP for East Retford and Sir
John Molesworth, MP for Cornwall.
Meetings of the Bill of Rights Society took place fortnightly at the
London Tavern. At first the main objective of the society was to "maintain
and defend the liberty of the subject, and to support the laws and
constitution of the country." John Horne
Tooke, who eventually became the most important figure in the
Society, believed that the organisation should campaign for a radical
programme of parliamentary reform. Tooke managed to do this but some
members disagreed and it was this conflict that eventually brought
the Bill of Rights Society to an end in 1771.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
