Political Contexts of Steele's Gazette

Steele was appointed as Gazetteer in the spring of 1707, almost certainly at the nomination of Joseph Addison. Queen Anne preferred moderate Tories in general, and Robert Harley in particular, but the need to maintain broad support for the war and to counter the dangerous influence of extreme Tories made it desirable to include Whigs among her ministers. Moreover, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, England's great military leader, and his Duchess Sarah, along with Sidney Godolphin, the Lord Treasurer, urged the appointment of Marlborough's son-in-law Lord Sunderland as Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Addison became his Assistant Secretary, and Steele, as Gazetteer, reported to him.

The shift that led to Steele's appointment was a byproduct of perhaps the most volatile decade of early eighteenth-century political history. A key element of the settlement that accompanied the accession of William and Mary was the provision of triennial elections for the House of Commons. During the reign of Anne, elections were held in 1702, 1705, 1708, 1710, 1713 and, after her death, in 1715. The frequency of these elections meant that parties came to wage an intense and growing propaganda debate over major issues. By the election of 1710 both parties had assembled a fairly reliable stable of writers – the Tories, quite successfully under Harley, the Whigs more loosely under the leadership of Arthur Maynwaring. After the death of Maynwaring in November 1712, both Addison and Steele, in different ways, became more sharply partisan writers.

Although substantial groups of voters were permanently committed to one party or the other, there were enough floating voters to make issues and propaganda about issues significant factors in the outcome of elections. James O. Richards found this particularly the case in the election of 1705, which he described as ‘one of the most ideologically rancorous and warmly contested elections of the reign’.