This marked a turning point, leading him to embrace increasingly conservative policies which caused dissatisfaction among the radical low-to-middle income landowners.

At the age of 65, Wilkes retired from politics and took no part in the social reforms following the French Revolution, such as Catholic Emancipation in the 1790s.

John Wilkes was educated initially at an academy in Hertford; this was followed by private tutoring and finally a stint at the University of Leiden in the Dutch Republic.

[1][2] Although Wilkes remained in the Church of England throughout his life, he had a deep sympathy for non-conformist Protestants and was an advocate of religious tolerance from an early age.

He was a member of the Knights of St Francis of Wycombe, also known as the Hellfire Club or the Medmenham Monks, and was the instigator of a prank that may have hastened its dissolution.

Wilkes reportedly brought a mandrill, dressed in a cape and horns and his natural features made even more striking with daubs of phosphorus, into the rituals performed at the club, producing considerable mayhem among the inebriated initiates.

"[8] In an exchange with John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, where the latter exclaimed, "Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox," Wilkes is reported to have replied, "That depends, my lord, on whether I embrace your lordship's principles or your mistress."

[11] Brougham notes the exchange had in France previously been ascribed to Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau and Cardinal Jean-Sifrein Maury.

[10] Wilkes began his parliamentary career as a follower of William Pitt the Elder and enthusiastically supported Britain's involvement in the Seven Years War of 1756–1763.

When the Scottish John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, came to head the government in 1762, Wilkes started a radical weekly publication, The North Briton, to attack him, using an anti-Scots tone.

Wilkes became particularly incensed by what he regarded as Bute's betrayal in agreeing to overly generous peace terms with France to end the war.

Talbot was the Lord Steward and a follower of Bute; he challenged Wilkes to a pistol duel after being ridiculed in issue 12 of The North Briton.

[13] Wilkes faced a charge of seditious libel over attacks on George III's speech endorsing the Paris Peace Treaty of 1763 at the opening of Parliament on 23 April 1763.

[16] Wilkes's political enemies, foremost among them John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was also a member of the Hellfire Club, obtained the parody.

He returned intending to stand as a Member of Parliament on an anti-government ticket; the government did not issue warrants for his immediate arrest as it did not want to inflame popular support.

[18] Wilkes stood in the City of London and came in bottom of the poll of seven candidates, possibly due to his late entry into the race for the position.

Troops opened fire on the unarmed men, killing several of them and wounding fifteen, an incident that came to be known as the Massacre of St George's Fields.

EP Thompson, in his celebrated 1963 text The Making of the English Working Class wrote: “‘Do you suppose’ it is said that he asked his opponent, Colonel Luttrell, while watching the cheering throngs on the hustings, ‘that there are more fools or rogues in that assembly?’”[21] In defiance, Wilkes became an Alderman of London in 1769, using his supporters' group, the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights,[22] for his campaign.

His key success was to protect the freedom of the press by gaining passage of a bill to remove the power of general warrants and to end Parliament's ability to punish political reports of debates.

The working classes who had previously seen Wilkes as a "man of the people", then criticised him as a hypocrite; his middle-class support was scared off by the violent action.

His position was different from that of many radicals of the time and was a view more associated with conservative figures, including expressed indifference as to Catholic Emancipation.

[30] The Dutch politician Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol (1741–1784), who advocated American independence and criticised the Stadtholder regime, was inspired by Wilkes.

His struggles convinced many colonists that the British constitution was being subverted by a corrupt ministry, an idea that contributed to the coming of the American Revolution.

He greatly influenced the revolutionaries who fought for American independence and played a role in establishing the right to freedom of the press in the United States.

[31] In reaction, after the Revolution, representatives included provisions in the new American constitution to prevent Congress from rejecting any legally elected member and to proscribe general warrants for arrest.