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Houghton Hospitality: Representing Sociability and Corruption in Sir Robert Walpole's Britain
- Eighteenth-Century Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 51, Number 2, Winter 2018
- pp. 235-254
- 10.1353/ecs.2017.0062
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This article examines the political discourse surrounding Sir Robert Walpole's Norfolk Congresses—extended social gatherings held at his Norfolk residence of Houghton throughout his political ascendancy (1721–1742). By analyzing both pro-government and oppositional accounts, the article seeks to complicate traditional stereotypes of Court Whig corruption, revealing Walpole as a problematically hospitable figure and demonstrating how conflicting traditions of Whig sociability struggled for dominance in textual representations of the events.