[3] He adopted a traditional Tory line in Parliament, which included voting against the repeal of the Test Act in 1736; this demonstrates the complexity of the English Jacobite movement, which was staunchly anti-Catholic, yet in theory supported a Catholic monarchy.

In February 1742, Walpole was finally ousted by a coalition of Tories, Patriot Whigs who opposed his foreign policy and members of the 'Prince's Party,' a group of younger politicians, most notably William Pitt who associated themselves with Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Beaufort himself also joined the project, sending assurances of support to the French in August 1745, and pressing a month later ‘for a body of troops to be landed near London.'

One of the complexities of 18th-century politics was the hostility between Hanoverian monarchs and their heirs; as George II supported the Whigs, his son Frederick, Prince of Wales described himself as a Tory even though many of them were in theory Jacobites.

Beaufort died on 28 October 1756 and was buried in the family vault at Badminton, Gloucestershire; a contemporary described him as 'a man of sense, spirit and activity, unblameable in his morals, but questionable in his political capacity'.