page_title: Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole / Political career
caption_attribution_description: North elevation of Wolterton Hall, Norfolk
context_page_description: Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole "of Wolterton", PC, English diplomatist, was a younger son of Col. Robert Walpole of Houghton Hall in Norfolk, and was a younger brother of Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford the first Prime Minister of Great Britain.
context_section_description: Born at Houghton and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, Horatio Walpole became a fellow of King's. He entered Parliament in 1702, remaining a member for fifty-four years. In 1715, when his brother, Sir Robert, became first lord of the treasury, he was made Secretary to the Treasury, and in 1716, having already had some experience of the kind, he went on a diplomatic mission to The Hague. He left office with his brother in 1717, but he was soon in harness again, becoming secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1720 and Secretary to the Treasury a second time in 1721.
  In 1722 he was again at The Hague, and in 1723 he went to Paris, where in the following year he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. He got on intimate terms with Fleury and seconded his brother in his efforts to maintain friendly relations with France; he represented Great Britain at the congress of Soissons and helped to conclude the treaty of Seville (November 1729). He left Paris in 1730 and in 1734 went to represent his country at The Hague, where he remained until 1740, using all his influence in the cause of European peace. He was nonetheless able to stay involved in the affairs of the capital. He served, for example, in 1739, as a founding governor for London's most fashionable charity of the time, the Foundling Hospital.
  After the fall of Sir Robert Walpole in 1742 Horatio defended his conduct in the House of Commons and also in a pamphlet, "The Interest of Great Britain steadily pursued". Later he wrote an "Apology", dealing with his own conduct from 1715 to 1739, and an "Answer to the latter part of Lord Bolingbroke's letters on the study of history" (printed 1763).
  In 1724 he engaged Thomas Ripley to design him a new house at Wolterton in Norfolk to replace one that had burnt down. The house called Wolterton Hall was completed in 1742.
  In 1756 he was created Baron Walpole, of Wolterton and he died 5 February 1757 at his house in Whitehall.
caption: Wolterton Hall
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