The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660-2000: How Strategic Concerns Shaped Modern Britain

The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000 Also by William Mulligan THE CREATION OF THE MODERN GERMA...

Author: William Mulligan | Brendan Simms

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The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000

Also by William Mulligan THE CREATION OF THE MODERN GERMAN ARMY. GENERAL WALTHER REINHARDT AND THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC, 1914–1930 THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Also by Brendan Simms THE IMPACT OF NAPOLEON THE STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY IN GERMANY UNFINEST HOUR. BRITAIN AND THE DESTRUCTION OF BOSNIA THREE VICTORIES AND A DEFEAT. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE FIRST BRITISH EMPIRE

The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000 How Strategic Concerns Shaped Modern Britain Edited by

William Mulligan Lecturer in Modern History, University College Dublin

and

Brendan Simms Professor of the History of International Relations, University of Cambridge

Editorial matter and selection © William Mulligan and Brendan Simms 2010 All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–57472–4 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The primacy of foreign policy in British history, 1660–2000 : how strategic concerns shaped modern Britain / edited by William Mulligan, Brendan Simms. p. cm. ISBN 978–0–230–57472–4 (hardback) 1. Great Britain—Foreign relations. 2. Geopolitics—Great Britain—History. I. Mulligan, William, 1975– II. Simms, Brendan. DA45.P75 2010 327.41—dc22 2010023944 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Hamish Scott

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Contents List of Figures and Tables

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Acknowledgements

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Notes on Contributors

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1 Introduction Brendan Simms and William Mulligan

1

2 Conflicting Visions: Foreign Affairs in Domestic Debate 1660–1689 Gabriel Glickman

15

3 Primacy Contested: Foreign and Domestic Policy in the Reign of William III David Onnekink

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4 Anglo-Scottish Union and the War of the Spanish Succession Allan I. Macinnes

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5 The Development of the Executive and Foreign Policy, 1714–1760 Andrew C. Thompson

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6 European Great Power Politics in British Public Discourse, 1714–1763 Doohwan Ahn and Brendan Simms

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7 Waging War: The Irish Military Establishment and the British Empire, 1688–1763 Charles Ivar McGrath

102

8 Europe, the American Crisis, and Scottish Evangelism: The Primacy of Foreign Policy in the Kirk? Gideon Mailer

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9 Debating the Union on Foreign Fields: Ulster Unionism and the Importance of Britain’s ‘Place in the World’, c. 1830–c. 1870 John Bew 10 The Enduring Importance of Foreign Policy Dominance in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Politics Adrian Brettle vii

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154

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11 Radicalism, Free Trade, and Foreign Policy in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain Anthony Howe 12 Gladstone and the Primacy of Foreign Policy William Mulligan 13 Imagined Spaces: Nation, State, and Territory in the British Colonial Empire, 1860–1914 Duncan Bell 14 British Liberal Historians and the Primacy of Internationalism Casper Sylvest 15 ‘Chief of All Offices’: High Politics, Finance, and Foreign Policy, 1865–1914 T.G. Otte

167 181

197 214

232

16 The 1910 Elections and the Primacy of Foreign Policy Phillips Payson O’Brien

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17 Patriotism and the Politics of Foreign Policy, c. 1870–c. 1914 Paul Readman

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18 The Historiography of Inter-War Politics: Competing Conservative World Views in High Politics, 1924–1929 Richard S. Grayson

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19 The Primacy of Foreign Policy? Britain in the Second World War David Edgerton

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20 Britain in Europe? Conservative and Labour Attitudes to European Integration since the Second World War Nicholas Crowson and James McKay

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21 Foreign Policy in the Labour Party Manifestos, 1945–1997: What Primacy? Antoine Capet

319

Conclusion Brendan Simms and William Mulligan

336

Index

340

List of Figures and Tables Figures 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9

Titles per decade, 1475–1800 Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1714–1725 Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1726–1731 Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1732–1740 Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1741–1748 Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1749–1763 Europe or America, 1714–1763 Empires, 1714–1800 Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 1714–1763

81 85 87 88 90 91 92 94 95

Tables 7.1 An account of the regiments on the Irish Establishment that have been employed in England and abroad 7.2 Comparative view of the army on the Irish Establishment, 1750–1770, with regiments at home and abroad 12.1 Expenditure in millions, 1865–1890 12.2 Army, naval, and civil expenditure as % of total government expenditure

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110 110 188 189

Acknowledgements This volume is the result of a conference hosted by the Scottish Centre for War Studies in the University of Glasgow in March 2008. The editors wish to thank the Department of History for its support for the project and especially Margo Hunter and Elaine Monteith for their work in ensuring that the conference ran smoothly. We are particularly grateful to Dr Roddy Neilson for his generous support for the Scottish Centre for War Studies, which enabled this venture to proceed. The editors are both extremely fortunate to have benefitted from the intellectual generosity of Professor Hamish Scott over the past 15 years. The conference had originally been intended as a (surprise) event in his honour to celebrate his remarkable contribution to the study of British history in its European context. Unfortunately, he had to cancel his attendance at the event as a panel chair because of a family bereavement. We are therefore particularly pleased to be able to dedicate this volume to him as a token of our gratitude. William Mulligan, Brendan Simms

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Doohwan Ahn is completing his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, where he is researching British strategic and economic thought in the early eighteenth century. He has published a number of articles on this theme, including an article in the History of European Ideas in 2010. Duncan Bell is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Christ’s College. He is the author of The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900 (2007) and the editor of a number of books, including Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (2008) and ‘Ethics and world politics’ (2010). John Bew is Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London and Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. He was previously Lecturer in Modern British History at Peterhouse, Cambridge and is the author of The Glory of being Britons: Civic Unionism in Nineteenth-Century Belfast. Adrian Brettle is a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia, where he held an Archibald Craig fellowship in order to study the American Civil War and the nineteenth-century US South. His proposed dissertation is titled ‘Confederate expansionist ambitions during the American Civil War, 1861–5.’ He has published articles on nineteenth-century British political history and is currently teaching courses on British and European history. David Edgerton is Hans Rausing Professor at Imperial College London. Among his books are England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation (1991), Warfare State: Britain 1920–1970 (2005), and The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 (2007). Antoine Capet, FRHistS, is Head of British Studies at the University of Rouen (France). After submitting his Doctorat d’État on the British governing classes and social reform, 1931–1951 (published 1991), he continued to concentrate his research on social questions in 1940s Britain. His most recent publication is an edited book, The Representation of Working People in Britain and France: New Perspectives (2009). He has been Editor of the ‘Britain since 1914’ section of the Royal Historical Society Bibliography since 2001 and he sits on the International Board of Twentieth Century British History. Nicholas Crowson is Reader in Contemporary British at the University of Birmingham where he has been teaching since 1997. He has published xi

xii Notes on Contributors

widely on aspects of the Conservative party including The Conservative Party and European Integration since 1945 (2006), The Longman Companion to the Conservative Party (2001), and Facing Fascism: The Conservative Party and the European Dictators 1934–40 (1997). He is currently an editor of the journal Contemporary British History and was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1999. Gabriel Glickman is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford. His first book, The English Catholic Community, 1688–1745. Politics, Culture and Ideology was published in 2009. Richard S. Grayson is Head of Politics and Senior Lecturer in British and Irish Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has published two books and several articles on inter-war British foreign policy, with his third monograph, Belfast Boys (2009), examining West Belfast’s role in the First World War. Anthony Howe is Professor of Modern History at the University of East Anglia. His books include Free Trade and Liberal England (1997) and with Simon Morgan, he has edited Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays (2006). He is the editor of The Letters of Richard Cobden, vol. 1: 1815–1847 (2007) and vol. 2. 1848–1853 (2010). Charles Ivar McGrath is a lecturer in the School of History and Archives at UCD. He is the author of The Making of the Eighteenth-Century Irish Constitution: Government, Parliament and the Revenue, 1692–1714 (2000), and editor (with Michael Brown and Thomas Power) of Converts and Conversion in Ireland, 1650–1850 (2005) (with Chris Fauske) of Money, Power, and Print: Interdisciplinary Studies on the Financial Revolution in the British Isles (2008), and (with James Kelly and John McCafferty) of People, Politics and Power: Essays on Irish History 1660–1850 in Honour of James I. McGuire (2009). He has published articles in English Historical Review, Irish Historical Studies, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, and Parliamentary History, as well as essays and contributions in various edited collections and reference works. Allan I. Macinnes is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Strathclyde. He has written extensively on British state formation in the seventeenth century and on Jacobitism in the eighteenth century. His current research is focused on Identity and Mobility from Jacobitism to Empire. Gideon Mailer is a Title A fellow at St. John’s College, and an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge. James McKay is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Birmingham, and research officer on the Leverhulme-funded NGOs in Britain project (www.ngo.bham.ac.uk). Prior to this, he was Project Officer on the Database of Archives of


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UK Non-Governmental Organisations since 1945 (www.dango.bham.ac.uk ). Awarded his PhD in 2006, he has co-edited two books on the history of NGOs and the role of the voluntary sector in the twentieth century. He has also published book chapters and articles on British political history and NGOs in contemporary Britain. William Mulligan is a lecturer in modern history at University College Dublin. He is the author of The Making of the Modern German Army: General Walther Reinhardt and the Weimar Republic (2005) and The Origins of the First World War (2010). Phillips Payson O’Brien is the director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies and a senior lecturer in history at the University of Glasgow. He has written and edited a number of works on Anglo-American politics and foreign affairs between the origins of the First World War and the end of the Second World War. Among them are: British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policy 1900–1936 (1998); ‘The Titan Refreshed, Imperial Overstretch and the British Navy before the First World War’ (Past and Present, 2001); and The Anglo-Japanese Alliance (2004). He is presently working on a book on Anglo-American power and the outcome of the Second World War. David Onnekink is Assistant Professor at the Universities of Leiden and Utrecht. He is mainly interested in Early Modern International Relations. He has recently edited a volume of essays on War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713 (2009), and is currently finishing a monograph on the ideological dimension of early modern Dutch foreign policy. T.G. Otte, MA, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in diplomatic history at the University of East Anglia. His most recent two books are The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894–1905 (2007) and The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854–1946 (2009). Paul Readman is Senior Lecturer in Modern British History, King’s College London. He is the author of Land and Nation in England: Patriotism, National Identity and the Politics of Land, 1880–1914 (2008) and (as editor, with Matthew Cragoe), The Land Question in Britain, 1750–1950 (2010), as well as articles in journals including Past & Present, English Historical Review, and Historical Journal. Brendan Simms is Professor of the history of international relations at the University of Cambridge. He has written widely on international history and his books include The impact of Napoleon (1997), The struggle for mastery in Germany (1998), Unfinest Hour (2001), and Three Victories and a Defeat (2007). Casper Sylvest is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark. He is the author of British Liberal Internationalism, 1880–1930: Making Progress? (2009)

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as well as a series of articles on the history international thought. His work has appeared in Review of International Studies, Modern Intellectual History, The British Yearbook of International Law, International Relations, and International Studies Quarterly. Andrew C. Thompson is a college lecturer in History at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He is the author of a number of works on eighteenth-century diplomacy and politics, including Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest (2006). His biography of George II will be published in 2011.

1 Introduction Brendan Simms and William Mulligan

Like so much in British history and historiography, the concept of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ is a German import.1 In its original prescriptive form, it was a demand for the strict subordination of all domestic matters to the external demands of the European state system.2 The descriptive use of the term, on the other hand, notes rather than celebrates the salience of foreign policy concerns in the politics and internal development of the state.3 ‘The degree of independence’, the doyen of modern historiography Leopold von Ranke wrote, ‘determines a state’s position in the world, and requires that the state mobilize all its inner resources for the goal of self-preservation. This is its supreme law.’4 This approach was subsequently elaborated at some length by the constitutional and administrative historian Otto Hintze. ‘As a result of constant rivalry and competition between themselves’, he wrote, ‘individual states find themselves forced into a continuous intensivisation and rationalisation of their administrative apparatus’.5 The entire narrative of modern Prusso-German history from the state-building of the Great Elector and Frederick William I, the preventive wars of Frederick the Great, through the Prussian reform period and the era of unification to the origins of the First World War, was thus explained with reference to the extreme foreign-political exposure of a state sandwiched between more powerful predators in the centre of Europe. In the early 1960s, however, Fritz Fischer famously argued that the German decision for war in 1914 had been not only a voluntarist act of aggression, but also motivated by a desire to distract from social and political crises at home.6 Not long after, Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s short but seminal and undoubtedly brilliant study Das deutsche Kaiserreich, first set out a programmatic ‘primacy of domestic policy’ – Primat der Innenpolitik – in which German foreign policy was seen as effectively subservient to the domestic aims and problems of the German elites.7 By the end of the 1970s, observers had begun to speak of a ‘New Orthodoxy’ from which the spectre of foreign policy had been largely banished.8 Since then, however, as the co-authors of this volume tried to show several years ago,9 there has been a renaissance 1

2

Introduction

of the primacy of foreign policy in the study of German history.10 In short, the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ has undergone something of a Renaissance in German history. It therefore seems appropriate to explore whether the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ has anything to tell us about British history.

∗ ‘Knowledge of the secondary literature’, the German medieval historian Hermann Heimpel liked to say, ‘guards against new discoveries’.11 The editors of this volume therefore begin by stressing that they do not propose to re-invent the wheel. There is no shortage of studies on British foreign policy, and certainly no lack of work on British society, culture, and politics. Most treatments of Britain’s relations with Europe and the wider world, for example, those of Hamish Scott, Jeremy Black, and John Charmley, take the domestic context in which policy was formed into account.12 There has also been important research done on the impact of war and foreign policy on English or British domestic politics. It is a theme which runs through recent work by David Trim, Jonathan Scott, Tony Claydon, and Jonathan Parry, to name but some.13 Nor have students of British society, state formation, and political thought neglected the broader European and global context. One thinks for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of Peter Dickson’s study on the ‘financial revolution’, John Brewer’s seminal study of the ‘fiscal-military state’,14 and Istvan Hont’s magisterial Jealousy of trade,15 the studies by Bob Harris and M. John Cardwell on the role of foreign policy in the growing British public sphere, and Stephen Conway’s extensive oeuvre on the connection between war, foreign policy, and state formation in mid- to late-eighteenth-century Britain.16 Historians such as Allan Macinnes, Tom Bartlett, and Patrick Geoghegan have shown how the constitutional architecture of the British state has been shaped by the imperatives of war.17 Geoffrey Hicks has recently examined the impact of European politics on Conservative party politics in the mid-nineteenth century.18 Frank Trentmann notes the impact of imperial rivalry and foreign policy on civil society,19 while K. W. Mitchison shows how the rising German threat across the North Sea forced governments to ramp up the mobilisation of domestic manpower.20 Imperial competition before 1914, as Christian Wipperfürth, Paul Ward, and earlier G. R. Searle argued, affected a wide range of domestic social and political issues from education to radical politics.21 Harriet Jones was able to claim in a recent essay that ‘a wide range of contemporary British historians working on entirely different subjects have come to see the Cold War as a dominant theme, despite the fact that it was strictly limited as a military conflict.’22 As if to reflect this new emphasis, the most recent North American Conference on British Studies included a range of papers and roundtables on the external context to British history.23

Brendan Simms and William Mulligan

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By and large, however, the two spheres have been considered in isolation, or at any rate, the impact of foreign policy on domestic affairs has not been explored systematically, or systematically enough, in the way that an earlier generation of German historians did for Prussia, or historians of the Cold War have done for America.24 This is especially true for the modern period. Back in 1988 Steve and Michael Smith noted that ‘it is striking that relatively few works on British politics include explicit treatment of foreign policy issues, even though many of the processes and issues they present have important international origins.’25 Theo Hoppen, in his contribution to the Oxford History of Britain, considers foreign and imperial policy in isolated chapters, downplaying the relationship between foreign and domestic political contexts.26 Likewise, Martin Pugh hives foreign policy into chapters at the end of each section in his study of modern Britain, though he does not ignore its impact on British domestic politics and identities.27 On the other hand, Keith Robbins’ history of modern Britain starts each section with a chapter on foreign policy. Although he notes that ‘wars and rumours of wars dominated the experience of men born in the 1880s’ and that the wars of the twentieth century shattered ‘normality’, he does not offer a sustained account of the impact of foreign policy on domestic issues.28 Others downplay the significance of foreign policy in their introductory remark only to find that it elbows its way back to the forefront of their narrative. Take Peter Clarke’s elegant history of twentieth-century Britain, Hope and Glory, as an example. He begins by explaining that histories of British decline in the twentieth century concentrate on foreign and imperial history, ‘now often regarded as old-fashioned’. He makes a strong case for a wider view of history, incorporating research from social and cultural history. Yet, he argues, that in the late 1930s ‘British politics were about . . . foreign policy.’ Britain’s international financial position, the strains of occupying Germany after 1945, and the Korean War placed severe limitations on the post-war Labour governments’ welfare and economic reforms. In the 1950s, the ‘make-or-break issue of Eden’s premiership lay in foreign affairs.’ By the late 1980s ‘Britain’s relations with the European Community formed the submerged reef on which the Thatcher government foundered in successive ministerial crises.’29 As with the early modern period, students of state formation pay closest attention to the pressures the international system exercised on domestic affairs. Although Philip Harling stresses the rise of the welfare state in the twentieth century, he notes that the pressures of the international system and war spurred greater state intervention and spending from the late nineteenth century onwards.30 James Cronin argues that the two world wars swept away much of the resistance to the expansion of the state, as survival legitimised high levels of state expenditure.31 The purpose of this volume, therefore, is to explore the usefulness of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ as a tool for understanding the broad thrust of British history since the late seventeenth century. It will be a study not of

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Introduction

foreign policy itself, but of the way in which the internal development of the British Isles was substantially driven by considerations of grand strategy. The ultimate aim of this project is therefore much more than just the ‘additive’ inclusion of the external context to the understanding of British history, welcome though that would often be. Ultimately, the intent is to provide a substitutive framework which will enable us to look at that history in a completely different light. A brief preliminary sketch of an alternative narrative of British history will therefore be attempted in the ‘Conclusion’. The first step in our exercise will be to establish the relative hierarchy of foreign and domestic policy, and the relationship between them in a given period or context. Which – to adapt Lenin’s famous question – drives what? Are we dealing with an objective or a subjective primacy of foreign policy: are we simply saying that the protagonists made their history within a commanding international context, whether they were aware of it or not? Was foreign policy, to borrow Michael Bentley’s terminology,32 the ‘centre of attention’ at home? Are we making the more ambitious claim that the actors were making their own history fully conscious that it was part of a much broader canvas? More particularly, we need to ask: which bits are driven by what? For it is not enough to demonstrate that security or expansion were the principal preoccupations: the implications of this for society, economy, the development of national institutions, and political culture, amongst other issues, need to be assessed. Did strategic pressures arrest or stimulate the growth of participatory politics in Britain? Did they increase the penalties on domestic dissenters, or did they open the way for a more inclusive polity in the long run? To what extent was the formation of the British Isles, the distinctive constitutional architecture tying together England, Scotland, and Ireland driven by strategic considerations? Was the primacy of foreign policy a constant, or did it ebb and flow over time? To what extent have previous generations of historians of British domestic politics taken the foreign policy context into account? All the while, we need to be on our guard for solipsism and source mining. We will therefore need to pause from time to time to ask ourselves the question: is the division between the domestic and foreign spheres always clear or even useful?

∗ This book cannot, of course, do more than make a start. That said, the individual chapters do cover a broad chronological sweep, beginning with the Restoration and ending in 1997 with Labour’s election victory. The thematic range is broad too. Political history, with the contributions by David Onnekink, John Bew, Adrian Brettle, William Mulligan, Nicholas Crowson, and James McKay, is well represented, but there are also chapters by Gabriel Glickman, Doohwan Ahn, and Brendan Simms on the public


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sphere, by Andrew C. Thompson on administrative history, a historiographical chapter by David Edgerton, and intellectual history by Duncan Bell and Casper Sylvest. Electoral politics are treated by Phil O’Brien and Antoine Capet. Gideon Mailer and Paul Readman examine debates over religious and national identity. Allan Macinnes and Anthony Howe consider the question of political economy, while Ivar McGrath examines the relationship between constitutional development, finance, and war in eighteenth-century Ireland. There are important chronological gaps, such as the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. Some major themes in social, political, and economic history received less attention than we would have liked. After all, changing perceptions of gender roles and the rise of the welfare state owed much to the pressures of two world wars, while the tax system was the most significant link between foreign and domestic politics for centuries, following the financial revolution after 1688.33 Many of the chapters show that despite recent work, there are still large historiographical gaps in our understanding of the impact on foreign policy on British domestic history. Gabriel Glickman, for example, shows that the link is noted for the late seventeenth century, but misconstrued. David Onnekink reminds us how traditional views of the Glorious Revolution and even some recent accounts (pp. 33–5) have neglected the crucial external dimension. Andrew C. Thompson notes how the (still) dominant Whig interpretation of British administrative history has missed the centrality of foreign policy in the development of the cabinet. For the early nineteenth century, John Bew notes that the foreign-political context to the Irish question has been largely ignored by historians (pp. 138–9), and while the Crimean War has of course bulked large in most accounts of mid-nineteenthcentury British history, Adrian Brettle shows that in the 1850s foreign policy accounted for the fall of every single Prime Minister. William Mulligan laments the tendency of historians of late-nineteenth-century Britain to study international relations in isolation and to ignore their impact on domestic issues. There are also large remaining gaps in the study of twentieth-century Britain. Thus Paul Readman’s study of Edwardian patriotism regrets that foreign policy has been studied ‘as if hermetically sealed off from other aspects of history’ (p. 260). David Edgerton argues that even our understanding of appeasement and the Second World War has suffered from ‘an implicit domestic primacy thesis’, which stresses the ‘welfare’ over the ‘warfare state’. Almost all of the contributors stress the importance, and even the primacy, of foreign affairs during their period. Gideon Mailer notes that the Committee of Estates in Burgh was more concerned with the question of foreign alliances in the 1640s than suppressing domestic rebellion by Roman Catholics (pp. 121–2). David Onnekink remarks that William III was ‘obsessed’ with foreign policy. Andrew C. Thompson observes that in the early eighteenth century the Secretary of State for the Northern or

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Introduction

Southern Departments often took on the role of chief minister; this did not automatically fall to the First Lord of the Treasury. William Mulligan shows that even in the late-nineteenth century (p. 185) radicals spoke of foreign policy as ‘much the most interesting province of cabinet work’. Likewise, Thomas Otte, quoting the Liberal Prime Minister Lord Rosebery, speaks of the Foreign Office as ‘the chief of all the offices’. This centrality did not recede much in the twentieth century. Foreign policy and war were clearly to the fore during both world wars, but these themes also had a profound effect on British politics during the inter-war and postwar periods. Thus Richard Grayson’s chapter shows that Europe and the Empire dominated Liberal politics during the 1920s, not only the leadership but also the grass roots. After 1945, people could turn away from the ‘strategy of survival’ to the ‘arts of life’, but as Capet, Crowson, and McKay show, foreign policy remained an important party political and electoral concern.34 There were many reasons why Britons attached such importance to foreign affairs. The most obvious was physical survival: diplomatic or military misjudgements might result in loss of sovereignty, liberty, and, in extreme cases, even of their own lives. As one late-nineteenth-century radical remarked ‘in home politics, if we make a mistake we find it out and correct it; if we regret reforms one year, we pass them the next. But mistakes in foreign policy rarely admit of corrections and often involve evils reaching into the future’ (Mulligan, p. 186). There was also widespread domestic feeling that England or Britain’s role in Europe and the world mattered. Thus Gabriel Glickman shows that Restoration politics were dominated by a concern for England’s ‘reputation’. Towards the end of the volume, Capet’s chapter notes that Labour’s 1950 manifesto claimed that under Tory rule in the 1930s, the ‘prestige of Britain sank to its lowest ebb for a century or more’ (p. 322). Foreign policy also served as a vehicle for the articulation and export of domestic ideology and values. Mailer remarks on how the Scottish Covenanters of the 1640s wanted to contain the Habsburgs by spreading their Covenant to mainland Europe. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Glickman, Thompson, Ahn, and Simms show, England and Britain promoted – or was supposed to be promoting – the twin causes of Protestantism and the Ancient Constitution. As Gideon Mailer shows, many Scotsmen saw the Union with England in 1707 as a chance to project the Protestant – and especially the Presbyterian – cause beyond their own borders (pp. 124–5). In the nineteenth century, Britons became exercised with spreading constitutional government. John Bew notes the support of early nineteenth-century Ulster Unionists for the Greeks and constitutionalism (p. 142) and the way in which the Union enabled Irishmen of all stripes better to promote their humanitarian values abroad, especially anti-slavery. Adrian Brettle notes similar tendencies for the mid-century; it was left to Peel to remark wryly, if incorrectly, that one could not spread liberty by dictating to other countries (pp. 161). Likewise, Readman observes that the


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liberal language of patriotism in the 1870s castigated Disraeli for abandoning British values in the interest of containing Russia (pp. 262). Caspar Sylvest is making the same point for the world of political thought when he remarks on how British intellectuals wanted to transfer the characteristics of British domestic politics to the international sphere. All this was by no means just international do-goodery: just as early modern Britons felt that their own liberties would be safer if those of the continent were, so did a later generation feel that British liberalism was most secure in a liberal world. As a result of all this, foreign policy was a crucial factor in domestic political polarisation and high politics. As Glickman and Onnekink show in their chapters, the divide between Whigs and Tories largely originated in a disagreement about what England’s role in Europe should be. Simms and Ahn note that the rise and fall of most eighteenth-century ministries was primarily caused by events in the European state system – the Treaty of Utrecht, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War – and debates about how they were to be interpreted. Brettle makes the same point for the mid-nineteenth century, when governments came and left office on the basis of their handling of the Crimean War, Italian unification, war with China, the military budget, and other strategic issues. Mulligan argues that foreign policy brought down at least two administrations later in the century, as Gladstone’s stance on naval policy and Home Rule allegedly weakened Britain’s standing in the world (p. 190). Party leaders were acutely aware of the links between their domestic prospects and Britain’s standing in the world. In 1886, for example, Salisbury responded to Russia’s moves in Bulgaria by saying that the loss of Constantinople ‘would be the ruin of our party and a heavy blow to the country’. Readman also notes that in the 1898 by-election, the Liberal imperialists exploited Conservative difficulties over the Far East.35 Throughout the twentieth century, foreign policy issues remained at the forefront of popular and high politics. During the January 1910 election, O’Brien argues that Conservatives instrumentalised the navy in order to secure their base, an early instance of ‘dog-whistle’ politics. Towards the end of the Cold War, Labour’s position on nuclear disarmament had disastrous electoral repercussions, as Capet’s contribution shows. The dynamics of internal party politics, Crowson and McKay contend, were shaped by Britain’s relationship with the European Community, while it was no accident that Europe (the abbreviation for this complex relationship) prompted a slew of resignations from Thatcher’s cabinet. It should come as no surprise to find that foreign policy not only periodically dominated the public sphere, but also hastened its emergence. Glickman’s late-seventeenth-century pamphleteers were primarily concerned with the problem of Universal Monarchy and how to contain Louis XIV. Ahn and Simms show that foreign-political concerns, and especially European ones, loomed large in public debate in the first 60 years or

8

Introduction

so of the eighteenth century. Strategic debates remained central to public debate in the modern era. In the late nineteenth century, Bell argues, arguments for the unification of the British colonial empire through Imperial Federation ‘embodied a claim . . . about the existence (or potentiality) of an ocean-transcending public’ (p. 206). Creating a single public sphere in which the security of the union could be debated had contributed substantially to reinforcing the bonds with Scotland (though not with Ireland); a unified imperial public sphere would, they hoped, do the same for the Empire. There was widespread agreement that the defence of Britain’s interests abroad both required unity at home, and would help to heal domestic rifts. Thus Glickman shows that the Tories hoped to rally support behind the crown through a dynamic imperial posture overseas, rather than pursuing a divisive Whig policy of engagement in Europe. Brettle highlights the common mid-nineteenth-century belief, which goes back to Canning, that a successful foreign policy could only be waged by a popular government. In 1891, Lord Salisbury demanded ‘the banishment of party feeling from . . . external affairs’. Failure to pull together at home, it was feared, would lead to defeat and humiliation abroad. Thus Mailer notes how the Scotch Covenanters of the 1640s believed that the advance of European Counter-Reformation forces was attributable to their own divisions (p. 123), just as their late-eighteenthcentury counterparts explained the losing war with the American colonists with the supposed triumph of ‘effeminacy’ in British society (pp. 126–8). Nearly a hundred years later, William Mulligan observes the same ‘moral panic’ argument in radical critiques blaming ‘unmanliness’ at home for British military shortcomings during the Crimean War. The same could be said of the ‘national efficiency’ debate following the fiascos at the start of the Boer War. But this demand or hope was more often honoured in the breach than in the observance as many of the chapters on the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries contend. The primacy of foreign policy also had some more tangible effects on British domestic structures. One of these was the growth of a bureaucracy, partly to fund foreign policy and partly to execute it. The outlines of the resulting ‘fiscal-military state’ are of course well known,36 but the chapters in this volume add many missing dimensions. Glickman, for example, notes the Tory demand for a more effective diplomatic apparatus to cope with external challenges (p. 15–6). Onnekink shows that William III sought the involvement of parliament in his foreign policy (p. 37), and the way in which the emergence of a modest standing army was driven by concerns for the European balance of power (p. 40–1). Andrew C. Thompson notes how the cabinet was largely a creation of Britain’s ‘geopolitical engagement’ in Europe (p. 68–9). McGrath finds that similar military pressures shaped the Irish political dispensation in the eighteenth century. The early modern British state, in other words, was a state forged in the crucible of its foreign policy necessities and ambitions.


9

After 1815, the impact of strategic concerns on domestic affairs was transformed for several decades. Howe’s chapter demonstrates that critics of what we now call the ‘fiscal-military state’ believed that the extended engagement of their fathers and grandfathers with the European state system had imported corruption and profligacy into British society. They therefore sought to minimise that involvement, and to erect what Philip Harling and Peter Mandler term the ‘laissez-faire state’ in order to protect virtue at home. This stance was shaken by the Crimean War, and it did not outlast the shock of German unification in 1870–1871. Many now agreed that British society would have to be brought into line to cope with the new challenges. The fiscal-military state dismantled after 1815, Mulligan argues, now had to be reconstructed. He quotes one radical as saying that foreign policy ‘is by far the most important element of practical statesmanship. It makes budgets, regulates finance and taxation’ (p. 186). Likewise, Readman notes that Joseph Chamberlain’s conception of tariff reform was a measure to unify the empire to meet external threats, particularly from Germany: ‘I am a fiscal reformer mainly because I am an imperialist’, he said (p. 264). O’Brien reminds us that the controversial tax increases and reforms of Lloyd George’s 1909 budget were introduced to pay for new Dreadnoughts to contain the Kaiser. During the First and Second World Wars, of course, British society was geared almost completely to meeting external challenges, resulting in what Edgerton calls the ‘warfare state’ of the 1940s. The numbers employed by and the amount of money spent on the military remained a sizeable proportion of British government activity throughout the twentieth century. Britons were divided, however, on whether the demands of foreign policy required more or less domestic freedom. Here the balance between parliamentary and monarchical, and later executive authority, was central. In the 1690s, as David Onnekink shows, William III leant towards the otherwise obnoxious Tories, because their emphasis on the royal prerogative was helpful to his campaign against Louis XIV (p. 38). Two hundred years later, Readman quotes Lord Rosebery calling for ‘continuity in foreign administration’, so that other states would know that they were ‘dealing not with a ministry, possibly fleeting, and possibly transient’, but with a ‘great, powerful and united nation’ (p. 266). Conservative MP Harry Crookshank’s notion that foreign policy should be a matter for ‘the few’ echoed Rosebery’s comment about the importance of continuity and stability in the formation of foreign policy. At the same time, the primacy of foreign policy could be used as argument for greater domestic political participation, reform, and religious toleration. Glickman notes that the Lord Treasurer Clifford wanted to extend toleration to Roman Catholics the better to mobilise them in support of English foreign policy. William III, as Onnekink reminds us, pursued the same policy towards Protestant dissenters (p. 36–7). The relaxation of the penal laws restricting Irish Catholic rights was, in part, a result of the need to raise troops to preserve fight in Europe and around the globe. In Gladstone’s

10

Introduction

time, Mulligan observes, many radicals argued that the franchise should be widened in order to make Britain more unified at home and consequently more formidable abroad. Strategic imperatives also left an enduring mark on British constitutional arrangements. As early as the 1640s, Mailer tells us, Scottish Covenanters had sought close and permanent links with England, the more effectively to help the ‘Protestant cause’ in Europe, especially the Palatines (p. 123). By the early eighteenth century most Scots thought their religious and political best safeguarded against the absolutist pretensions of the Stuarts and their continental backers by throwing their lot in with the English. From London’s perspective, Macinnes shows, the Anglo-Scottish Act of Union in 1707 was designed to secure England’s northern border against French subversion through a Jacobite comeback, and to lock Scotland economically and militarily into the war effort against Louis XIV during the War of the Spanish Succession. So anxious was London to secure this assistance that it granted the Scots very generous terms on financial matters, the law, education, and the scale of Scottish representation at Westminster. McGrath shows the enormous contribution made by eighteenth-century Ireland, in terms of finance and manpower, to the expansion of British power and the consequences of this contribution for Anglo-Irish relations. Nearly a hundred years after union between Scotland and England, the same strategic imperative manifested itself again, when Britain entered into an Act of Union with Ireland in 1800–1801 designed to deny France the ‘back door’ to England, and to mobilise Irish resources for the war against Napoleon. As Bew shows, this argument for union had traction with many northern Irish Protestants, including some who had been radicals in the 1790s. They believed that early nineteenth-century Europe was too dangerous a place for a small nation such as Ireland to survive on its own. As Castlereagh put it, it was ‘absurd and romantick to imagine that we can exist for any length of time as a separate and independent state’ (p. 141). Foreign policy, more so than Protestantism and commerce, helped to weld the Atlantic archipelago together. The great constitutional debates of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries were also very much informed by strategic considerations. As Mulligan shows, one of the strongest arguments against Home Rule was the fact that it would weaken the coherence of the United Kingdom at the very moment when other major European states were embarked on a round of unifications and territorial expansion. It would also expose England directly to foreign attack: Goschen warned against ‘a separate nation planted on our flanks’ (p. 190). Likewise, Bell reminds us, Imperial Federation was very much a response to the new geopolitical challenges of the late nineteenth century: German unification, Russian expansionism, and the rise of the United States. Similarly, Grayson tells us that Leo Amery favoured a strengthening of imperial bonds to ward off the threat of European war, though he


11

was contradicted by Austen Chamberlain who did not want to see British diplomacy encumbered by the need to consult with the Dominions (p. 287). To be sure, many of the contributors to this volume are sceptical about the notion of a primacy of foreign policy. John Bew, Allan Macinnes, Tony Howe, Paul Readman, Duncan Bell, Phillips O’ Brien, Caspar Sylvest, T. G. Otte, Richard Grayson, Antoine Capet, Nicholas Crowson and James McKay all register various reservations about the concept. It is striking that, with one exception, all of these authors deal with the later periods, where the emergence of mass politics and the ‘social’ question seems to push strategic concerns to one side. They point out that over the past 150 years or so Britons have generally been more interested in domestic reform, taxation, employment, labour relations, law and order, and education, than in foreign policy and war. Moreover, some of the contributors wonder whether foreign and domestic policy can usefully be separated. Following Paul Kennedy, Readman speaks of a ‘dynamic interaction’ between the two (p. 269), and Bell also questions the idea of a binary distinction, arguing that the ‘dynamics between “domestic” and “foreign” were mutually reinforcing’ (p. 198). All that said, those chapters still contribute to rescuing the primacy of foreign policy from historiographical oblivion. Thus Bew stresses that we see ‘foreign affairs seep[ing] into areas of debate where one might otherwise presume the primacy of domestic policy’ (p. 140). Howe demonstrates how the early nineteenth-century radicals who wanted to retreat from European engagement were ultimately frustrated in their desire to shrink the state by the Russian threat and various cross-channel invasion scares. Mulligan shows that while Gladstone started with a strong bias towards domestic affairs, the state of Europe soon forced strategic matters to the top of the agenda. Finally, Sylvest tells us that while British liberal intellectuals began by rejecting German ideas of the primacy of foreign policy, they ended by realising that the survival of British freedoms forced them too to make the international scene their first priority (p. 226–7).

∗ Let us return to Heimpel’s warning, with which we began. It is far too early to propose an over-arching alternative model for history with the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ as the organising principle. There is nothing more hazardous than parachuting into an established field from above, or at least from outside. There is a danger that as at Dieppe in 1942, we find that the defences are stronger than we expected. Thanks to faulty intelligence, we may find an army of existing scholars in occupation, which has already reconnoitred the ground in question. On the other hand, we may, in our haste, encourage like-minded historians, oppressed by various orthodoxies, to break cover and declare themselves in favour of the primacy of foreign policy before we are in a position to help them. So: this is not an invasion; no occupation will

12

Introduction

be attempted as yet. Rather, this volume is a raid, designed to probe enemy defences. If the lie of the land looks promising, the main effort will follow later.

Notes 1. For a discussion of the historiographical fortunes of the primacy of foreign policy see B. Simms (1997) The Impact of Napoleon. Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 2–8. 2. H. Oncken (1918) ‘Über die Zusammenhänge zwischen äußerer und innerer Politik’, Vorträge der Gehe Stiftung zu Dresden (Dresden and Leipzig), p. 16; Mommsen, cited in B. Faulenbach (1980) Ideologie des deutschen Weges. Die deutsche Geschichte in der Historiographie zwischen Kaiserreich und Nationalsozialismus (Munich: Beck), p. 25. 3. L. von Ranke (1950) ‘A dialogue on politics’, in T. von Laue (ed.) Leopold von Ranke. The Formative Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 172. The other seminal text is Leopold von Ranke’s (1981) essay on ‘The great powers’, in R. Wines (ed.) Leopold von Ranke. The Secret of World History. Selected Writings on the Art and Science of History (New York: Fordham University Press), pp. 121–155. 4. Ranke, ‘A dialogue on politics’, p. 169. 5. O. Hintze (1962) ‘Weltgeschichtliche Bedingungen der Repräsentativverfassung’, in O. Hintze (ed.) Staat und Verfassung. Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur allgemeinen Verfassungsgeschichte, G. Oestreich (ed.) (Göttingen). See also in the same collection the articles ‘Staatenbildung und Verfassungsentwicklung. Eine historischpolitische Studie’, esp. pp. 34–35 and ‘Machtpolitik und Regierungsverfassung’, esp. pp. 425–426. A selection of Hintze’s most important work can be found in F. Gilbert (ed.) (1975) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 6. F. Fischer (1961) Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914/18 (Düsseldorf: Droste); (1969) Krieg der Illusionen. Die deutsche Politik 1911 bis 1914 (Düsseldorf: Droste). 7. H.-U. Wehler (1973) Das deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). 8. M. Hochedlinger (1998) ‘Die Frühneuzeitsforschung und die “Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen”. Oder: Was ist aus dem “Primat der Aussenpolitik” geworden?’ in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, CVI, 167–179. 9. See William Mulligan and Brendan Simms (2003) Special issue of German History, XXIII, especially Brendan Simms, ‘The return of the primacy of foreign policy’, pp. 275–291. 10. K. Hildebrand (1995) Das vergangene Reich. Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), pp. 5, 35, 169, 197, 865, 876, 881 et passim. See also the very perceptive review by J. Angelow (1996) Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, LV, 230–234; H.-U. Wehler (1996) ‘Moderne Politikgeschichte? Oder: Willkommen im Kreis der Neorankeaner vor 1914’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, XXII, 257–266, here: pp. 257–259, 264. See also the critique in S. Berger (1996) The Search for Normality. National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Germany Since 1800 (Oxford: Berghahn), pp. 114–115. H. Scott (2001) The Emergence of the Eastern Powers, 1756–1775 (Cambridge: Cambridge


11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

13

University Press); P. Wilson (1995) War, State and Society in Württemberg, 1677–1793 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). B. Simms (1998) The Struggle for Mastery in Germany, 1779–1850 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 1–6; for an intelligent critique see the Wehlerite review by P. Nolte (2002) Bulletin: German Historical Institute London, XXIV (2), 77–83; Simms, Impact of Napoleon, pp. 2–28 for methodology. T. C. W. Blanning (2002) The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture. Old Regime Europe, 1660–1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 3; B. Simms (1999) ‘Reform in Britain and Prussia, 1797– 1815: (Confessional) Fiscal-Military State and Military-Agrarian Complex’, in T. C. W. Blanning and P. Wende (eds) Reform in Great Britain and Germany, 1750–1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), esp. pp. 82–83. As quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 January 2001. H. M. Scott (1990) British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon); J. Black (2000) A System of Ambition? British Foreign Policy, 1660–1793, 2nd edn (Stroud: Sutton); J. Charmley (1999) Splendid Isolation? Britain and the Balance of Power, 1874–1914 (London: Hodder & Stoughton). D. Trim (1999) ‘The context of war and violence in sixteenth-century English society’, Journal of Early Modern History, III, 233–255; idem (2008) ‘Calvinist internationalism and the shaping of Jacobean foreign policy’, in T. Wilks (ed.) Prince Henry Revived. Image and Exemplarity in Early Modern England (London: Southampton Solent), pp. 239–258; J. Scott (2000) England’s Troubles. SeventeenthCentury English Political Instability in European Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Claydon (2007) Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism. English Liberalism, National Identity, and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. Winter (1986) The Great War and the British People (London: Macmillan). See J. Brewer (1989) The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: Unwin & Hyman). I. Hont (2005) Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge MA: Harvard), pp. 6, 11, 15–17, 53, 79, 81, 87 et passim. E.g. B. Harris (2002) Politics and the Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 7–9, 15–16 et passim; M. J. Cardwell (2004) Arts and Arms. Literature, Politics and Patriotism During the Seven Years War (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 2, 13, 22 et passim; and S. Conway (2006) War, State and Society in Mid-eighteenth Century Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press). A. Macinnes (2007) Union and Empire. The Making of the United Kingdom in 1707 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Bartlett (1992) The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: the Catholic Question, 1690–1830 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan); P. Geoghegan (1999) The Irish Act of Union. A Study in High Politics, 1798–1801 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan). G. Hicks (2007) Peace, War and Party Politics. The Conservatives and Europe, 1846–59 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). F. Trentmann (2003) ‘Introduction’, in id. (ed.) Paradoxes of Civil Society. New Perspectives on Modern German and British Society (Oxford: Berghahn), pp. 34–39. K. W. Mitchinson (2005) Defending Albion. Britain’s Home Army, 1908–1919 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). C. Wipperfuerth (2004) Von der Souveraenität zur Angst. Britische Aussenpolitik und Sozialoekonomie im Zeitalter des Imperliasmus (Stuttgart: Steiner); P. Ward (1998)

14

22.

23.

24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

36.

Introduction Red Flag and Union Jack. Englishness, Patriotism, and the British Left, 1881–1924 (Woodbridge: Boydell), pp. 51–70, 103–118; G. R. Searle (1970) The Quest for National Efficiency. A Study in British Politics and Political Thought, 1899–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell). H. Jones (2005) ‘The impact of the Cold War’, in P. Addison, H. Jones (eds) A Companion to Contemporary Britain, 1939–2000 (Oxford: Blackwell), p. 24; P. Deery (1999) ‘ “The Secret Battalion”: Communism in Britain During the Cold War’, Contemporary British History, XIII, 1–28; R. Toye (2000) ‘The Labour Party’s external economic policy in the 1940s’, Historical Journal, XLIII, 189–215. The North American Conference on British Studies, Cincinnati, 3–5 October 2008 included papers on ‘Labour and the politics of internationalism, 1900–1914’ (Edward McNeilly), a panel on ‘Jacobethan England and international religiopolitics: three cases for a narrow channel’, and most relevantly for this volume ‘The dilemmas and domestic imprint of foreign policy, 1603–1660’. M. Bentley (2001) makes this point in Lord Salisbury’s World. Conservative Environments in Late Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 251. S. Smith and M. Smith (1988) ‘The analytical background’, in M. Smith, S. Smith and B. White (eds) British Foreign Policy. Tradition, Change and Transformation (London: Unwin Hyman), p. 8. K. T. Hoppen (1998) The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846–1886 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). M. Pugh (1994) British Political and Social History, 1870–1992 (London: Arnold), pp. 93, 117, 326, 333. K. Robbins (1994) The Eclipse of a Great Power. Modern Britain, 1870–1992 (London: Longman), p. 88. P. Clarke (1996) Hope and Glory. Britain, 1900–1990 (London: Allen Lane), pp. 3, 184, 228–246, 256–263, 392–404. P. Harling (2001) The Modern British State. An Historical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity), pp. 113, 134–135, 155–157. J. Cronin (1991) The Politics of State Expansion. War, State, and Society in Twentieth Century Britain (London: Routledge), p. 14. See M. Bentley (1984) Politics without Democracy. Great Britain, 1815–1914. Perception and Preoccupation in British Government (London: Fontana), pp. 13–14. M. Daunton (1999) Trusting Leviathan. The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1799–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); idem (2002) Just Taxes. The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914–1979 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); D. Fraser (2009) The Evolution of the British Welfare State. A History of Social Policy since the Industrial Revolution (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); P. Levine and S. Grayzel (eds) (2009) Gender, Labour, War, and Empire. Essays on Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). K. O. Morgan (1992) The People’s Peace. British History, 1945–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 157. See also T. G. Otte (2006) ‘ “Avenge England’s dishonour”: By-elections, parliament, and the politics of foreign policy in 1898’, English Historical Review, CXXI, 385–428. Brewer, Sinews, pp. 137, 141 et passim.

2 Conflicting Visions: Foreign Affairs in Domestic Debate 1660–1689 Gabriel Glickman

In a succession of works written within the reigns of the later Stuart monarchs, the poet John Dryden surveyed the prospects for the three kingdoms of the British Isles under the restored Stuart monarchy. The strength of the throne, he believed, would be reflected in the performance of the nation overseas, when expansion in world trade, the decline of Spain, and an increase in colonial competition had opened up a new space to reshape the global landscape.1 At stake, he suggested, were ‘the greater half of the globe, the commerce of nations and the riches of the universe’.2 After several decades of neglect, scholarly re-examinations have started to re-engage with the themes of Restoration poetry and polemic, revealing the way in which political commentary in late Stuart Britain was framed inside an international context. Historians have begun to depict seventeenthcentury Englishmen mediating between contested loyalties towards compatriots, fellow Protestants and Europeans, theorising over questions of empire and speaking of the wider world in terms of liberty, religion, legitimate monarchy, and arbitrary government: the language of their own political community.3 Restoration debate started to bristle with references to Britain as a potential great power, with domestic policy judged according to the needs and obligations of the state overseas. With a conception expressed by one Stuart diplomat that it was the ‘duty of every subject’ to be aware of ‘the affaires of war and peace’, the idea of a ‘patriot’ was shifting from the image of a man who defended the liberties of his countrymen at home to one devoted to the service of his nation abroad.4 Debate over British foreign policy after 1660 was animated at once by the awareness of new possibilities and a profound sense of dissatisfaction. Set against the high aspirations voiced by Dryden, the three decades following the Restoration are perceived to have produced a notably inglorious period for the monarchy in the conduct of foreign affairs. The Stuarts were unable to develop the diplomatic and bureaucratic apparatus to bring a long-term conception of the national interest into the workings of their embassies abroad. The failure to fund or develop the government departments dealing with 15

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Conflicting Visions

northern and southern Europe colluded with fragile royal finances, domestic instability, and dependence on the royal prerogative to thwart the creation of the fiscal-military state that would eventually drive Britain into power politics after the 1688 Revolution.5 However, contemporary disenchantment was also aroused by the stance of a court seemingly tilting towards quietism overseas: searching for shelter from the entanglements of the continent, and seemingly impervious to the hegemonic aspirations arising in the kingdom of Louis XIV. Throughout the reigns of Charles II and James II, the most destabilising moments of domestic upheaval were created as responses to the apparent strategic, political, and moral shortcomings of the house of Stuart on the global stage. In 1667, the impeachment of the Earl of Clarendon as Lord Chancellor followed the disappointments of the second Anglo-Dutch War. Six years later, the defeat of the royal Declaration of Indulgence, the passing of the Test Act, and the smoking out of James, Duke of York, as a Roman Catholic delivered the parliamentary response to the court’s negotiation of an Anglo-French alliance. In 1678, the same controversy returned to unleash the allegations of a ‘Popish Plot’ contrived by a fifth column of foreign interests at court, and provoked the first attempt to exclude James from the royal succession. The Stuarts, in the eyes of their critics, had neglected to perform the basic duty of monarchy: the defence of the British interest abroad, and the strategic misjudgement was brought home when the arrival of a Dutch fleet under William of Orange precipitated the fall of James II and the Revolution of 1688, with the acquiescence of the majority within the political nation.6 The narrative introduced by recent historians for the role of foreign affairs in Restoration debate has therefore stressed the gradual alienation of the house of Stuart from the opinions dominating the public sphere. Jonathan Scott and Steven Pincus have seen disputes over foreign policy prefiguring larger constitutional change, highlighting the role of parliament in defining an anti-French consensus to attack the misuses of the royal prerogative and exert a greater grip over the conduct of war and diplomacy.7 Tony Claydon has pinpointed a unifying European consciousness among English pamphlet commentators – underpinned by the growing perception that Charles and James were failing to safeguard a beleaguered Protestant ‘Christendom’.8 This chapter will argue, however, that these assessments have underplayed the scale and fluidity of a national debate over foreign affairs between the Restoration and the entry of the British kingdoms into the Nine Years’ War under William III: a wider political and ideological conflict that ran deeper than dissent over the actions of individual monarchs. The critiques of the house of Stuart represented one element within a larger fragmentation of domestic opinion, splintering over contested notions of how to secure political and commercial dominion, fulfil international obligations, and stay true to the virtues of a Protestant kingdom. English responses to the problem of France revealed the unsettled nature of the national interest, expressed

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in rival European, confessional, and imperial ideas of how monarchs and ministers ought to act abroad. This chapter will trace the growth of the conflicting visions in late Stuart political literature, as British ministries began to aspire towards the attainment of greater global power. Firstly, I will suggest that a growing primacy of the foreign began to condition the discourse of the public domain, creating a view of the interdependence between events within the British kingdoms, the Atlantic colonial world, and the continent, which rose in certain moments into an overt primacy of foreign policy. Secondly, foreign affairs shaped the dividing lines in domestic politics: the records of parliament show how emergent Whig and Tory identities served to enshrine the tensions especially between maritime and continental ideas of the nation’s commitments and obligations abroad. Thirdly, these conflicts were obscured rather than dissolved in the national moment of unity against Louis XIV that legitimised the Glorious Revolution and the deposition of James II. The coalition that had assembled to demand action against the French concealed an underlying multiplicity of objectives, and the consensus unravelled under the burdens of the continental wars imposed by William III, setting the tone for almost a century of contention. It was the most potent legacy of this clash of opinions that the outcome of the Glorious Revolution was debated, defended, and assailed within an international context.

∗ According to the secretary of state, Sir Joseph Williamson, speaking in May 1677, ‘The king has but few prerogatives, as coining money and making war and peace’, but ‘they are as landmarks, and are known . . . and a curse is upon him that removes them’.9 In the two decades following the restoration of Charles II, a fertile genre of political literature concentrated on the importance of the correct use of this prerogative power, accentuating the capacity of global affairs to dictate the standing and welfare of English monarchs. Pamphleteers jostled to advise the king that the precarious condition of international politics carried grave implications for the crowned heads of Europe, with a collection of former royalist émigrés reappraising the civil tumults of the 1640s within the larger context of the Thirty Years’ War. The diplomat Sir Richard Bulstrode believed that despite the saintly image that enshrouded Charles I, ‘ye soldier like spirit in ye Prince hath ever been much more fortunate, & more esteemed than ye Pious’, and better justified according to the needs of the time.10 Sir Richard Bellings presented a vision of cosmic disorder in The Eighth Day (1661) to suggest that Charles II must control his domain as a ‘well-order’d camp’ under the aegis of trained ‘martialists . . . the props of kingdoms and support of kings’, expecting the possibility of international conflict reaching into the British Isles.11 James Howell argued that the most vital tool of royal policy was the ability to

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interpret the shifting ‘balance of Europe’, when the Restoration had been accomplished without the aid of an obvious foreign ally.12 The royalist idea of international relations was developed in a body of treatises written between 1665 and 1672 in support of the Anglo-Dutch wars, by authors in the salaried employment of the king’s ministers, connecting the security of the Stuart throne with the stance it struck abroad. Firstly, as the Earl of Castlemaine asserted, competition between states amounted to a ‘law of nature’ and any kingdom bedevilled by weak foreign policies would soon find herself assailed from outside.13 The pseudonymous pamphleteer William de Britaine developed the Machiavellian diagnosis that ‘It is not enough for a Prince to be great among his own subjects, but he must carry a Grandezza among Kings’ when ‘Reputation abroad and reverence at home are the pillars of safe sovereignty.’14 The Dissenting minister Henry Stubbe agreed that ‘the welfare and being of each particular Man is suspended’ upon his ‘Prince’s Reputation abroad’, just as the state of a trade rested upon the credit earned by its merchants.15 Secondly, the same pamphleteers believed that this maxim applied especially to the Stuart domain, because her three main rivals – France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic – were all jousting towards the goal of ‘universal monarchy’: their methods in commerce, warfare, and diplomacy tending towards the subversion of other kingdoms.16 The actions of a state abroad could be predicted, Stubbe argued, from its internal political character: England, as a monarchy settled within the structures of an ancient constitution, might be a force for peace, but arbitrary government in France and Spain and republican tendencies in the United Provinces left each country’s rulers as much a danger to their neighbours as their own subjects. Charles must be prepared to strike before others struck at him, and all subjects must stand guard ‘with Lives, Prayers and Fortunes’.17 Royalist theorists contended that the causes of civil unrest originated largely outside the British Isles, with domestic ‘factories of sedition’ planted by foreign powers to advance their bids for global dominion. Dutch links to the radical Calvinists of the 1640s were placed in parallel with the continuing peril of ‘Spanish popery’ to suggest that the standing of Charles II among his European neighbours dictated not just the welfare, but the allegiance of his people.18 In 1678, the journalist Marchamont Nedham, writing in the pay of Lord Treasurer Danby, speculated that stirrings among the Covenanters of south-west Scotland offered the first sign of hostile attentions from France, implanted by ‘bolstering a boisterous Presbyterian party’ in unstable regions of the Stuart domain.19 If these treatises linked their arguments to a fundamental tenet of domestic policy – the security of the throne – the logic of their claims was that the house of Stuart should elevate international affairs to a level that approached outright primacy. Royalist writers enjoined Charles II to raise the Stuart monarchs as ‘arbitrators of Christendom’ and ‘Law-givers . . . holding within the palms of their hands the results of war and peace’. Without the intervention of the king of England, Nedham suggested,

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‘Humane societies’ would become ‘as dangerous as the company of Lions and Tygers’.20 Although these authors believed they would be buttressing royal authority by presenting the king with an idea of how to act abroad, the impact of their writings was nonetheless to release a notion of the national interest that offered subjects a standard with which to judge the performance of the court. The English, according to Stubbe, had no choice but to involve themselves in the wider world, having ‘so much to give, and all to lose’.21

∗ If the literature of the 1660s accentuated the perils for the house of Stuart on the continent of Europe, the greatest opportunities for grandezza appeared to lie elsewhere. In September 1660, Charles II committed himself to an ‘Act of the encouraging and increasing of shipping and navigation’, and the initiative informed a push to establish a British commercial empire, supporting territorial outgrowth in North America, India, and North Africa, funding the largest merchant fleet in Europe, and aiming to enrich the city of London as an entrepot for global commodities.22 The ambitions of the house of Stuart were underpinned by continuing territorial outgrowth in North America, signalled further in the protection and endorsement of the joint-stock companies driving commerce through the Indian Ocean and the African Gold Coast, and confirmed by the acquisition of Tangier and Bombay with the marriage portion of Catherine of Braganza. ‘His Majesty hath an Imperial name’, declared William de Britaine: ‘It was Charles that brought the Empire into France; Charles that brought it first into Spain: why should not Great Britain have his turn?’23 There was more continuity in the Stuarts’ imperial vision than many courtiers liked to admit. Reinvigorating the imagery of James Harrington’s Oceana, Marchamont Nedham returned to the justifications behind Cromwell’s abortive Western Design, to suggest that a unified island enjoying sovereignty over its surrounding waters should look naturally towards greater dominion over the western seas.24 If the physical infrastructure of a stable British Empire remained inchoate, the imaginative apparatus was already being established. The ideal of establishing London as the new Rome was presented in the pageantry and processions of the merchant companies, the torch-lit naval masques outside the East India House in 1670 and the visual recasting of Charles and James in the form of Augustus.25 The appearance of ‘Britannia’s issue’ on the London stage framed reflections on the national myth against the background of pamphlet commentaries surveying the legal and theoretical justifications for a British imperial dominion.26 James Howell resuscitated medieval charters to affirm that the ‘sovereignty of the seas’ encircling the archipelago fell within the jurisdiction of the kings of England, with foreign frigates obliged by law to lower their flags even before English fishing vessels.27 Oceanic authority was traced to the navy of the Saxon King Edgar,

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after whom the Duke of York named his short-lived son in 1667, with the authenticity of the claim encapsulated in the portcullis depicted in the royal badge – signifying ‘to all the World’ the kingdom’s ability ‘to shut up, and open the sea when we thought fit’.28 To John Evelyn, the ‘art of navigation’ offered the key to control of ‘the world itself’.29 To the commercial strategist George Downing, ‘the sea is no less capable of private dominion than the land’, and the wooden vessels of the Royal Navy would symbolically plant English oak around her coastal borders.30 The contrast with ‘universal monarchy’ came because this empire protected liberty, defined its frontiers by law, and defended them by merchant fleets. For the ‘court party’ in English politics, the imperial mission had the potential to reshape the multi-kingdom monarchy, foregrounding the needs of the state over its composite political and religious identities. Evelyn drew from Florentine humanist theory the idea of imperial expansion as the glue to bind together three kingdoms against a world ‘in continual Flux and Vicissitude’. Without new trading opportunities, a large population could be a cause of instability, with its merchants becoming ‘caterpillars of the commonwealth’.31 The protection of overseas dominions justified the enlargement of the armed forces, and in the negotiations preceding the 1670 Treaty of Dover, imperial priorities sanctioned the diplomatic shift towards the court of Versailles. In return for acquiescing the continental ambitions of Louis XIV, Charles II declared his resolve establish a ‘mastery’ of the western seas, ‘reducing to the obedience of His Majesty all the places and countries in America now belonging to the Spaniard’.32 More contentiously, the negotiators at Dover suggested that an imperial state could no longer sustain its exclusive Anglican character, and the push for liberty of conscience in 1672 was defended according to the needs of commercial expansion. Lord Treasurer Thomas Clifford posited the opportunity for the three kingdoms to flourish by attracting refugees, to pave the way for ‘a very considerable increase . . . of Riches and Trade, and a wonderfull addition to the forces of the Nation when the offspring of those Strangers shall become in their affections English, and our neighbouring Kingdoms much drayned of their Inhabitants’. The demolition of religious barriers to public service would set all subjects, Anglican, Catholic and Nonconformist, at liberty to advance the ‘honour and prosperity of the Empire . . . both at home and abroad’.33 For the Stuarts therefore, the advancement of the British dominions became the raison d’être for the domestic development of a centralising monarchy, tolerant in its religion, but absolute in its sovereignty, strong enough to carry the riches of the oceans back to its island domain.

∗ If the belief in an imperial possibility shaped the discourse of Restoration foreign policy, the route to this goal proved more uncertain. Shared theories

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about the potential of British power did not amount to an agreed grand strategy, and the consensus that accompanied the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667) soon unravelled in the face of successive military defeats. By 1685, even avowedly pro-court writers confided disappointment in the performance of Charles II on the world stage. Evelyn lamented that ‘never had a King more glorious opportunities to have made himselfe, his people and all Europe happy . . . had not his too Easy nature resign’d him to be menag’d by crafty Men’.34 Dryden’s Threnodia Augustalis suggested in 1685 that the task incumbent upon the new king, James II, was to remilitarise the realm, and restore its state of honour.35 But the court was increasingly faced with a sterner challenge: the formation of an alternative consensus over the national interest, interrogating not merely the practice of diplomacy, but the ideological and strategic thinking that had guided successive ministries under Charles II. Political opposition came to rest upon the terms of the French alliance: for the king, a vital prerequisite to make possible British expansion over the Atlantic, for his critics, a failing that imperilled each of ‘the four main interests of a Nation . . . Religion, Reputation, Peace and Trade’.36 From the surrender of Dunkirk in 1661 to the Francophone fashions pervading the court, the house of Stuart was accused of becoming corrupted – ‘with eyes fast closed to the French Delilah’ – into surrendering England’s historic source of security: her diplomatic and territorial ‘counterscarp’ on the continent of Europe.37 The critics of Charles II used parliament and the pamphlet press to attack certain preconceptions central to Stuart foreign policy. The Treaty of Dover had been established on the principle of a common Anglo-French interest against republican and expansionist tendencies in the United Provinces: ‘wch have presumed to equall its power with that of Kings’.38 However, by 1673, the return of William of Orange as Stadtholder and the defeat of the republican party in the States General had rendered a central feature of this claim inoperative. Moreover, the kingdom of Louis XIV was rapidly emerging as an imperial competitor with equally discomforting ambitions. The military advance of the Sun King into northern Europe in 1667 and 1672 provoked Country pamphleteers to confront a second assumption of Stuart policy: that a permanent state of tension between France and Spain could be relied upon to limit the expansion of Catholic powers.39 Even before the Restoration, the effect of the revolutions in Naples and Portugal had diminished the chance of rivalry for Louis XIV emerging from the Iberian Peninsula; faced with French attacks on her remaining possessions in Netherlands, the court of Spain failed to offer any signs of serious recovery. Finally, the appearance of Huguenot refugees in English ports overturned the reputation of the house of Bourbon as the embodiment of a moderate, Gallican form of Catholicism – a counterweight to militant ‘popery’ elsewhere on the continent – which had been invoked to justify Anglo-French alliances from the reign of Elizabeth into the Protectorate.40 Seen in this

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light, the identity of the most deadly enemy to the British kingdoms was becoming unmistakable. To Sir Thomas Littleton, speaking in the House of Commons in 1677, the court was showing lamentable neglect of the principle enshrined by Grotius that ‘if a prince makes extraordinary preparations . . . it is not only a just cause for neighbouring prince to arm, for jealousy of his safety, but, unless he desists that preparation, to make war on him’.41 Faced with the failures of a third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674) seemingly hewn to the benefit of Louis XIV, the changes in Europe were starting to rouse the parliament into furious speculation over the suspected secret designs that had induced timidity in the nation abroad. After 1673, pamphlet literature thundered with calls to ‘return to our Old English Spirit and Humor, which is naturally more grave, manly and martial’, by ‘curing the overgrown Dropsie of the French Greatness’.42 Animosity to Louis XIV reactivated an older, martyrological discourse, freighted with the iconography of international Protestantism, and promoted by Huguenot merchant groups on the London Common Council.43 The Presbyterian preacher Roger Morrice and the ‘latitudinarian’ Anglican Gilbert Burnet shared the conviction that they were witnessing ‘the fifth great crisis’ of international Protestantism.44 The City republican Slingsby Bethel saw the rise of the Sun King prefiguring ‘the deaths of many millions of precious Christians in the Netherlands, Germany, the Alpine Valleys, Italy and Spain’. Such slaughter would be sure to follow in England itself, he prophesised, where the interests of France depended on nurturing a ‘popish’ party at court, to reduce the Stuart realm to the position of a neutered client state.45 The Ottoman presence at the gates of Vienna served as a reminder of the ramifications threatened on the frontiers of ‘Christendom’ when any universal monarch was allowed to upset the delicate ‘balance of Europe’ and subvert the territorial integrity of other sovereign princes.46 It was not just the radical tribunes in the city and the press who started to confront the court with alternative blueprints for the conduct of foreign affairs. At Somerset House, the Catholic entourage around Queen Catherine of Braganza declared discontent with England’s state of submission, recommending Portuguese resistance towards Spain as a reminder of the need for independent commercial nations to stand against aspiring tyrant emperors.47 At court, Lord Arlington and the Earl of Carlingford pressed the case for an alliance with the Austrian Empire, and persuaded Charles II to send English troops into imperial service against French king’s Turkish allies in 1683.48 The case for a Dutch alliance was put before Whitehall by the diplomatists Sir William Temple and Henry Coventry, on the grounds that ‘to be neutral in the quarrels of our neighbours, is a counsel which . . . no wise man ever took’.49 Confessional concerns were grafted onto the strategic principle of maintaining ‘the balance of Europe’, an idea traced back to the reign of Elizabeth, when the protection of European

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Protestant minorities was linked to the ability of English monarchs to keep Catholic kings contained within their own frontiers.50 Countering the Stuart celebration of England’s ‘naval kings’, critical authors turned to medieval precedents to raise their own regal mythology, highlighting a tradition of English engagement on the continent as the foundation of domestic security and prosperity. An anonymous scholarly life of the Black Prince sketched out a continuum of ‘conquering princes’, who had made ‘proud France tremble’, for ‘the freedom of trade, our religion, a great joy and lasting peace’.51 The rhetoric of international Protestantism even converged in court circles on the personality of Prince Rupert, whose challenge to Charles II was presaged by a succession of appeals exhorting him to embrace his Rhenish inheritance and protect the godly communities of Europe.52 The challenge to Charles II reified in the parliamentary opposition to the third Anglo-Dutch War, with the factions of so-called ‘Country’ peers and MPs drawn together after 1675 in the development of an organised Whig party, under the aegis of the Earl of Shaftesbury.53 The Whigs shaped their view of the perils of domestic tyranny, and their attempts to make inroads into the royal prerogative, from a vision of events abroad. The 1679 bid to exclude James, Duke of York, from the line of succession was introduced to the Commons with reference to a gathering crisis overseas: when, as Sir Henry Capel put it, ‘the popish interest hath so far got the ascendant of the Protestant interest’, and, to Ralph Montagu, the Catholic party at court had aroused misplaced hostility to the Dutch, with a view towards ‘destroying Protestants abroad (which are so many bulwarks to us)’.54 Foreign affairs brought a form of commonality to the rhetorical universe of the opposition that domestic politics could not provide. Despite his self-image as ‘Whig prince’ Rupert departed from the parliamentarians by attempting to keep intact the powers of the crown as the sole authority to discharge war and peace. By promoting marital alliances with the houses of Orange and – unsuccessfully – Hanover for Charles’s daughters, he offered dynastic, rather than constitutional solutions to the problem of international popery.55 While radicals pressed for a more aggressive view of the Protestant interest, Temple, Coventry, and pro-Dutch grandees could accept the 1678 peace treaty at Nijmegen as the basis for placing a more limited constraint upon Bourbon ambitions. The movement of opposition to the house of Stuart in English politics represented a fragile, eclectic coalition, in which different principles and opinions interlocked. Four years after the fall of the Exclusionist Parliament and the scattering of Whig leaders into continental exile, the importance of the internationalist critique was reaffirmed when the Duke of Monmouth lodged the allegation that the house of Stuart had been ‘instigating a confederacy with France, and a warr with Holland’ at the forefront of his rebellion against James II.56 He spoke for a party created through a shared reading of the primacy of foreign policy.

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∗ The expansion and aggression of Louis XIV slowly changed the terms of English domestic politics. As the Tory, Sir Edward Seymour recalled in 1689, ‘the King of France has been the Devil and walking Ghost in every Parliament’, the leading source of political anxiety, and the spectre against whom Englishmen had no choice but to unite.57 By 1685, recognition of the need for action against France had moved beyond the opposition circles of the previous decade, and the effect was to create a climate scarcely propitious for the accession of a Catholic king. As lamented by the Scottish Catholic bishop Thomas Nicolson, the concern that ‘the King of France intended the destruction of all protestantes, and that it was according to his religion to do so . . . had a dismall influence to alienate the hearts of [the Stuarts’] subjects’.58 However, the growing recognition of the French threat did not signify a new state of consensus over the identification of the ‘national interest’. Instead, contrasting visions of how to address affairs on the continent separated the developing Whig faction from loyalist Tory voices offering a prescription in foreign affairs more closely bound to the Atlanticist interests behind the Treaty of Dover. High Tories hoped that Louis XIV would prove a temporary aberration in a realm they saw as England’s natural ally: Dryden dedicated to Charles II a translation of Louis Maimbourg’s history of the French wars of religion, with an approving nod to the role of past Bourbon monarchs as opponents of ‘the usurpations and encroachments of the papacy’ and the poison of Calvinist ‘republicans’.59 Tory animosity towards the Netherlands was renewed when William of Orange began to play host to a gathering of the radical Whig exiles who had sought the elimination of the Duke of York from the throne. The MP Sir John Reresby viewed the call for solidarity with the United Provinces as the smokescreen for a confessional ‘Geneva Party’; the diplomat Sir John Lytcott agreed that Whig promotion of ‘the Dutch interest’ threatened to make ‘the thrones of all Europe totter’.60 In a pamphlet surveying the unappetising choice of continental alliances, one unnamed ‘minister of state’ demanded to know: ‘are we Knights-errant, to expose our Lives in the revenging of other men’s Quarrels?’, warning that to ‘thrust our Sickle’ into such ‘blighted corn’ would carry a fatal unintended consequence – raising the ghost of Catholic Spain.61 In 1681, Sir William Temple located the party division in English foreign policy between the overtly continentalist strategy of the Whigs, and an alternative view rejecting the implication that the French threat could be countered by entry into a new network of continental partnerships.62 The Tory parliament of 1685 endorsed the growth of the standing army in readiness for use against France, but the party’s supporters remained sceptical over the possibility of fixing any rational and permanent ‘balance of Europe’.63 A manuscript presented among Tory reading circles by the author John Caryll argued that entry into the Grand Alliance with the Dutch and

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the Austrians would render England ‘a lesser figure in ye Confederacy’, sure to be ‘frail and short-lived, consisting of so many independent Bodies and Interests’.64 Tory assessments of the continent arose less from concern with the ‘law of nations’ or ‘the Protestant interest’ than the security of Britain’s colonial dominions. To Caryll, the kingdom needed to act primarily to preserve the natural sea-wall that granted her the chance to discover ‘a free, undisturbed Trade and Commerce all ye Worlde over’.65 A maritime reading of the national interest, promulgated by the Duke of York’s supporters in the East India Company, diagnosed the United Provinces as a threat equal to that of France: confronting the ‘violence, injustice and irreligion’ of Dutch merchants in the South Seas had left Britain with a new ‘book of martyrs’.66 To the economic theorist Sir William Petty, the control of global trade would resolve the problem of France by replacing the ‘balance of Europe’ with the Hobbesian solution of supreme British power, dispensing judgement, and resolving conflict among kingdoms whose interests flowed from Atlantic and Asian commerce.67 Making the Stuarts unassailable on the seas would, as James II’s envoy in Rome believed, prove the most effective way of compelling European powers to seek ‘London’s Magistrate’ as ‘arbiters of the peace’.68 James II was, ironically, considered by the French ambassador to be ‘less docile’ than his brother in response to the rise of Louis XIV, and ‘most headstrong on what are called the true interests and honour of England’. The stance inspired his belated attempt to establish himself as an international mediator, sending new envoys into the courts of Rome and Vienna to restate a commitment to the ‘peace of Europe’.69 However, by 1688, with the shadow of the Sun King running through the Rhenish Palatinate, James had not acted rapidly enough to allay international alarm; indeed, by turning down the offer of protection from French troops on the Channel coast, he squandered the only feasible benefits of a relationship with the court of Versailles. Belief in the continuance of an Anglo-French alliance emboldened the prince of Orange towards his descent upon England; the same fear constrained any opposition to the Dutch landing within the political nation, and encouraged William to voice the claim to replace his father-in-law on the throne.70 In the wake of the Revolution, it could be argued tendentiously but not implausibly by Whig propagandists that ‘If the King had followed his own Interest, he might have enjoyed his three Kingdoms . . . professed his Religion, favoured his Catholick Subjects . . . But instead of pursuing his own Interest, he blindly embraced that of France’.71 For the MP Sir John Maynard, the breaking of the hereditary royal succession was justified after the previous decade has proved that ‘there is no Popish Prince in Europe but would destroy all Protestants, as in Spain, France and Hungary’.72 When the legislators met to settle the crown in January 1689, the reluctant exclusionists in Tory ranks also linked the right of William as a de facto monarch to ‘the interest of the nation’ overseas. Sir Thomas Clarges lamented that James had

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‘deserted’ his realm to embrace the enemy, with the result that ‘we are not debating for ourselves but for all the King’s dominions’, and his judgement represented as close to a tacit endorsement as the party came to justifying the overthrow of the doctrines of obedience and non-resistance, and changing the holder of the British crown.73 As defined in the Convention Parliament, the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ delivered a rebuke to Dryden’s belief that, by concentrating on his Atlantic possessions, James could ‘our balance hold, the world’s, our Isle’.74 Yet if the need to resist the court of Versailles could be accepted, the extent of the post-revolutionary English counter-attack remained subject to contention. The debates throughout 1689 showed the parliament no more at one over the international than the domestic ramifications of the Glorious Revolution. While Whigs sounded the drumbeat for ‘the Protestant interest’ and ‘the liberties of Europe’, Tories qualified their support for the war, accentuating instead the ‘guarding of the sea’ as the strongest rationale for a conflict fought primarily to prevent ‘the decay of Trade and loss of Treasure’, with continental entanglements extending no further than seaborne descents on the French coast.75 Sir John Thompson denied that William’s enthronement levied any greater obligation towards the Dutch than bringing France to the point of mediation: diverting troops from the three kingdoms into the Grand Alliance represented, he believed, an ‘odd way’ to fulfil the clearest strategic need of the moment: the defence of the Atlantic archipelago and its colonial possessions.76 ‘Carrying on the war for the Confederates’ was not the reason why Sir Edward Seymour had accepted the Revolution, and if the forging of new continental alliances offered the only shield of security, it was cause for deep regret ‘that Englishmen are not fit for English interest’.77 The old clash of maritime and continental visions stirred the latent grounds for animosity between the Tories and the new Dutch sovereign. The international uncertainties that had plagued the later Stuart realm were to last throughout another reign.

∗ The ‘primacy of foreign policy’ in later Stuart England developed when the diplomatic, confessional, and imperial obligations of the nation brought domestic and constitutional anxieties into close contact with fluctuating conditions in international affairs. After 1689, a Dutch King obliged to spend 40 per cent of his reign on foreign shores, a nexus of new alliances and a succession contest fought against the Stuarts in exile produced a decisive resolution of the conflict of grand strategy in favour of the continent. But the initiation into a new Grand Alliance, the shouldering of a military burden that saw British tax-payers funding 170,000 troops in continental service by 1710, and the swelling of patriotic pride through successive military victories did not disguise the cleft between visions of a country

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bound into European responsibilities, and the countervailing prospect of an independent trading nation, seeking out its ‘empire of the seas’.78 Whig pamphleteers hailed ‘the Belgick Lyon’ as a crusader prince installed to fight across ‘the greater bulwark of Christendom’, clergymen enshrined the war as a godly mission in days of prayer and fasting, while government defences invoked ‘the law of nations’ against ‘universal monarchy’ to justify politique alliances with the Catholic powers of Austria and Spain.79 By contrast, the voices of dissent were emerging by 1692 against a war that appeared to leave the nation caught inside a contest between vast armies and continental emperors, ‘pouring out’ English blood ‘yet more plentifully’ on foreign fields.80 A new Country party, composed of Tories and estranged Whigs, meditated on the decline of empires by military exhaustion, revisited the idea that Dutch trade not French arms embodied true ‘universal monarchy’, and highlighted the paradox that a Revolution against ‘popery’ had left England bound to the ambitions of Vienna and Madrid.81 The party dividing lines over foreign affairs became more pronounced in the following century. From the ‘Junto’ under William III to the ‘Old Corps’ administrations of the reign of George II, defenders of the Revolution invoked the belief, expressed by the Duke of Devonshire that an island now ‘bless’d with Liberty’ had won the ‘right to set all Europe free’.82 Conversely, the ‘blue water’ vision would animate the literature of a selfproclaimed ‘Patriot’ opposition after the Hanoverian accession, with its spokesmen Viscount Bolingbroke and the Earl of Marchmont deducing from ‘a Maze of contradictory Treaties with every State in Europe’ a view of ‘the political principles which had generally prevailed in our government from the Revolution of 1688 to be destructive of our true interest’.83 The tensions between continental and Atlanticist conceptions of national defence haunted domestic politics for a century, as British statesmen wrestled with succession crises in Spain and Austria, addressed the Jacobite challenge and contemplated the problem of how best to safeguard colonial possessions. Clashes of strategy had been transformed into a conflict of ideologies, and different conceptions of how to act within the world had left a splinter of discord at the heart of British national identity, set to prove as polarising within the parliaments of George III as it had inside the court of Charles II.

Notes 1. K. O’Brien (1997) ‘Protestantism and the Poetry of Empire, 1660–1800’, in J. Black (ed.) Culture and Society in Britain 1660–1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 146–162; L. Brown (2004) ‘Dryden and the imperial imagination’, in S. N. Zwicker (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 59–74. 2. J. Dryden (1668) An Essay on Dramatic Poesy.

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3. S. Pincus (1996) Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy 1650–1668 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. Scott (2000) England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Claydon (2007) Europe and the Making of England 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ‘Pincus’s argument has been forcefully restated in his new work 1688: The First Modern Revolution (Yale, 2009).’ 4. [John Caryll] ‘Reflections upon ye Expediency of a War at present with France’, n.d. B.L. Add. MSS. 28252, fo. 136. 5. G. Holmes (1993) The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Georgian Britain 1660–1722 (London: Longman), pp. 93–105; F. M. G. Evans (1923) The Principal Secretary of State, 1558–1680 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 139–140. 6. J. I. Israel (ed.) (1991) The Anglo-Dutch Moment: Essays on the Glorious Revolution and Its World Impact (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–46. 7. S. Pincus (1996) ‘From butterboxes to wooden shoes: the shift in English popular sentiment from anti-Dutch to anti-French in the 1670s’, Historical Journal, XXXVIII, 333–361; Scott, England’s Troubles, pp. 161–204. 8. Claydon, Europe and the Making of England, pp. 241–252. 9. A. Grey (1763) Debates of the House of Commons, From the Year 1667 to the Year 1694 (London), Vol. IV, p. 379. 10. Sir R. Bulstrode, ‘A Discourse of Monarchy & of ye Kings Prerogative In dispensing with Penal Laws’, Harry Ransom Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Pforzheimer MS. 2d, p. 33. 11. Sir R. Bellings (1661) The Eighth Day (London), pp. 3–4. 12. J. Howell (1662) A Brief Account of the Royal Matches or Matrimonial Alliances Which the Kings of England Have Made from Time to Time Since the Year 800 (London). 13. R. Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine (1672) A Short and True Account of the Material Passages in the First War, between the English and Dutch Since His Majesties Restauration (London), pp. 102–107. 14. W. de Britaine (1672) The Interest of England in the Present War with Holland, pp. 10, 13. 15. H. Stubbe (1672) A Justification of the Present War Against the United Netherlands, pp. 1–2. 16. H. Stubbe (1670) Campanella Revived (London). 17. Stubbe, Justification, pp. 8, 39. 18. De Britaine, Interest of England, pp. 14–20. 19. M. Nedham (1678) The Pacquet-Boat Advice, or, A Discourse Concerning the War with France, pp. 24–26, 38–39. 20. M. Nedham (1678) Christianissimus Christianandus, or, Reason for the Reduction of France to a More Christian State in Europe, p. 17. 21. Stubbe, Justification, p. 1. 22. Holmes, Making of a Great Power, pp. 58–68; C. Wilson (1957) Profit and Power: A Study of England and the Dutch Wars (London: Longman), pp. 1–23. 23. De Britaine, Interest of England, pp. 20–21. 24. Nedham, Christianissimus Christianandus, p. 80; D. Hirst (1994) ‘The English Republic and the Meaning of Britain’, Journal of Modern History, LXVI, 451–486. 25. J. Ogilby (1669) An Embassy from the East India Company (London); T. Jordan (1677) The Goldsmiths’ Jubile, or, London’s Triumphs; H. Erskine-Hill (1983) The Augustan Idea in English Literature (London: Edward Arnold), pp. 14–18, 216.

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26. H. Weinbrot (1975) Britannia’s Issue: The Rise of British Literature from Dryden to Ossian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); B. Orr (2001) Empire on the English Stage, 1660–1714 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 27. J. Selden (1663) In J. Howell (ed.) Mare Clausum: The Right and Dominion of the Sea in Two Books; D. Armitage (2000) The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 100–125. 28. G. Downing (1672) A Discourse Written by Sir George Downing, The King of Great Britain’s Envoy Extraordinary to the States of the United Provinces (London), pp. 108–113; E. Ravenscroft (1677) King Edgar and Alfreda; Nedham, Christianissimus Christianandus (London), p. 69. 29. J. Evelyn (1674) Navigation and Commerce: Their Origin and Progress (London), pp. 13–21, 67–71, 90–94. 30. Downing, A Discourse, pp. 95–107. 31. Evelyn, Navigation and Commerce, pp. 16, 18, 26–30. 32. Advice to a Souldier in Two Letters, Written to an Officer in the Late English Army (1680), pp. 7–8; ‘A project of a secret treaty between the King of Great Brittain and the most Christian King’, BL Add MSS. 65138, fos. 77–80. 33. ‘Concerning the present disturbances in England about religion’, BL Add MSS 65139, fos. 17–25; C. Hughes Hartmann (1937) Clifford of the Cabal (London: Heinemann). 34. J. Bowle (ed.) (1985) The Diary of John Evelyn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 319. 35. J. Dryden (1685) Threnodia Augustalis: A Funeral-Pindarique Poem. 36. (1677) The Present State of Christendome and the Interest of England with Regard to France, in a Letter to a Friend (London), p. 4. 37. The Design of France against England and Holland (1686), p. 2; J. F. Bosher (1994) ‘The Franco-Catholic Danger, 1660–1715’, History, LXXIX, 5–30. 38. Charles II to Louis XIV n.d. 1669, BL Add MSS 65138, pp. 30–1. 39. A Free Conference Touching the Present State of England Both at Home and Abroad in Order to the Designs of France (1678), pp. 8–13. 40. Q. Skinner (1978) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, The Age of Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), II, pp. 293–310; S. Bethel (1668) The World’s Mistake in Oliver Cromwell (London). 41. Parliamentary History, IV, p. 872. 42. The Present State of Christendome and the Interest of England with a Regard to France, in a Letter to a Friend (1677), pp. 18–27; A Letter from a Friend to the Wise and Learned, in England, Scotland, France, and Ireland (1678), pp. 17, 67–69. 43. R. Gwynn (2001) ‘The Huguenots in Britain, the “Protestant International” and the defeat of Louis XIV’, in R. Vigne and C. Littleton (eds) From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550–1750 (Portland: The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland and Sussex Academic Press), pp. 412–424. 44. G. Burnet (1833) In M. J. Routh (ed.) Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time, 2nd edn, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press), II, p. 574, III, p. 75; S. Taylor (2009) ‘An English Dissenter and the Crisis of European Protestantism: Roger Morrice’s perception of European politics in the 1680s’, in D. Onnekink (ed.) War and Religion after Westphalia, 1648–1713 (Farnham: Ashgate), pp. 177–195. 45. S. Bethel (1673) The Present Interest of England Stated by a Lover of His King and Country, pp. 17–22. 46. Free Conference Touching on the Present State of England, pp. 58–60, 66–67.

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47. George Throckmorton, newsletter, 6 April 1682, Warwickshire County Record Office, Throckmorton MSS LCB/17; E. Corp (2002) ‘Catherine of Braganza and cultural politics’, in C. Campbell Orr (ed.) Queenship in Britain 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 53–73. 48. (1856) Francis Taaffe to the Earl of Carlingford, 24 July 1683, Memoirs of the Family of Taaffe (Vienna), pp. 225–227; T. Barker (1982) Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy: Essays on War, Society and Government in Austria, 1618–1780 (Boulder: Social Science Monographs), pp. 56–8. 49. Sir William Temple to Lord Arlington, 1 October 1667, TNA, State Papers, 77/3. 50. G. Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1972) ‘Character of a Trimmer’, in J. Kenyon (ed.) Halifax: The Complete Works (London: Penguin), p. 88; Present state of Christendome, pp. 12–13. 51. (1680) The Conquest of France with the Life and Glorious Actions of Edward the Black Prince, Son to Edward the Third, King of England, pp. 1, 21. 52. (1677) A True Relation of the Sad Estate of the Reformed Churches in France and the Great Persecution They Lye Under; (1683) Historical Memoires of the Life and Death of That Wise and Valiant Prince, Rupert, Prince Palatine of the Rhine; (1680) A Congratulatory Poem upon the Arrival of His Electoral Highness the Prince Palatine of the Rhine Nephew to his Highness Prince Rupert; (1680) The High Dutch Minerva a-la-mode . . . . Most Humbly Dedicated to His Royal Highness Prince Rupert Count Palatine of the Rhine. 53. K. H. D. Haley (1953) William of Orange and the English Opposition 1672–4 (Oxford: Clarendon). 54. W. Cobbett (ed.) (1820) The Parliamentary History of England, 36 vols (London: Longman), IV, pp. 1165–1168. 55. L. Chree O’Malley (1976) ‘The Whig Prince: Prince Rupert and the Court vs. Country Factions during the reign of Charles II’, Albion, VIII, 333–350. 56. (1685) The Declaration of James, Duke of Monmouth. 57. Grey, Debates, IX, p. 95. 58. Thomas Nicolson to William Leslie, 1 February 1689, Scottish Catholic Archives, Blairs Letters, I, 132/2. 59. (1684) The History of the League. Written in French By Monsieur Maimbourg. Translated Into English According to His Majesty’s Command. By Mr Dryden, Preface. 60. Sir John Lytcott to Sir Robert Throckmorton, 20 April 1682, Throckmorton MSS LCB/17; James J. Cartwright (ed.) (1875) The Memoirs of Sir John Reresby . . . written by himself (London), p. 101. 61. A Free Conference Touching the Present State of England, pp. 15–16. 62. Temple, Miscellanea (1681), pp. 40–46. 63. London Gazette No. 2018 (19–23 March 1985). 64. [Caryll] ‘Reflections upon ye Expediency of a War at present with France’ n.d., B.L. Add. MSS. 28252, fo. 136. 65. Ibid., fo. 137. 66. Sir Josiah Child to the Earl of Middleton, 1 September 1683, BL Add MSS, 41822, fo. 25. 67. Sir William Petty, [‘Dominion of the Sea’] (1687) BL Add. MS 72865, p. 12; Armitage, Ideological Origins, pp. 122–125. 68. Lord Thomas Howard to Cardinal Howard, 9 October 1688, Howard of Norfolk MSS Miscellaneous Correspondence, 67.

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69. (1688) Modern History, or, A Monethly Account of All Considerable Occurrences, p. 20; Thomas Bruce (1890) Earl of Ailesbury, Memoirs, written by himself, ed. W. J. Buckley, 2 vols (Roxburgh Club), I, pp. 165–166; E. Gregg (2003) ‘France, Rome and the Exiled Stuarts’, in E. T. Corp (ed.) A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France 1689–1718 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 13. 70. S. C. Pincus (1998), ‘ “To protect English liberties”: the English nationalist revolution of 1688–1689’, in T. Claydon and I. McBride (eds) Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland c. 1650–c. 1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 75–104. 71. (1689) A view of the True Interest of the Several States of Europe (London), p. 6. 72. Cobbett, Parliamentary History, V, p. 39. 73. Grey, Debates, IX, pp. 28, 54, 88. 74. Ibid., IX, p. 6; Dryden, Britannia Rediviva (1688). 75. Grey, Debates, IX, pp. 419–421. 76. Ibid., pp. 349–350. 77. Ibid., p. 390. 78. Holmes, Making of a Great Power, pp. 92–100. 79. (1689) A View of the True Interest of the Several states of Europe; R. Ames (1692) The Double Descent a Poem (London). Also see T. Claydon (1996) William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 80. C. Lawton (1693) A French Conquest Neither Practicable Nor Desirable (London), p. 22; C. Lawton (1694) A Reply to the Answer Doctor Welwood Has Made to King James’s Declaration, p. 9; R. Ferguson (1695), A Brief Account of Some of the Late Incroachments and Depredations of the Dutch upon the English (London), p. 66. 81. A. Fletcher (1698) Discourse Concerning the Affairs of Spain; C. Davenant (1701) Essay upon Universal Monarchy. 82. (1706) An Allusion to the Bishop of Cambray’s Telemachus, in imitation of Homer . . . by the Duke of Devonshire, pp. 3–4. 83. Bolingbroke (1717) A Letter to Sir William Wyndham, p. 20; Earl of Marchmont (1740) A Serious Exhortation to the Electors of Great Britain (London), p. 9.

3 Primacy Contested: Foreign and Domestic Policy in the Reign of William III David Onnekink

‘Today is the first day of my kingship’, William III declared to the House of Commons on 6 May 1689, a month after his actual coronation in Westminster Abbey.1 His exuberant mood was instigated by Parliament’s pledge to support his wish to declare war on France in response to the French invasion of the Palatinate and the declaration of war against the United Provinces. William’s exclamation epitomised his lifelong obsession with the conduct of foreign policy in general, and with the containment of France in particular. Indeed, it was this obsession that led his opponents to criticise the King for his neglect of domestic policy. His passionate commitment to warfare earned him the epithet ‘warrior-king’ from at least one historian,2 and the nickname ‘Dutch William’ by those contemporaries who were suspicious about his zeal for the safety of his native country. From this perspective, the primacy of foreign policy3 in Williamite England seems obvious. During the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) she developed a tremendous military and financial capacity, which was seemingly primarily driven by foreign rather than domestic concerns. On the other hand, it could be argued that it was precisely the successful domestic revolution that caused England to become a strong and stable state and enabled her to exert influence on the continent. The relationship between foreign and domestic policy in the Williamite era is the subject of this chapter. The main question is not so much how this relationship should be precisely characterised, but rather whether it was asymmetrical. The main title of this chapter, ‘primacy contested’, is related not only to the actual situation in the 1690s, but also to the historiographical debate about this subject.4 This chapter therefore falls into two parts. The first section will provide a brief historiographical analysis. Secondly, the question as to whether a primacy of either foreign or domestic policy can be established for Williamite England will be tackled by two short casestudies. These focus on the conduct of foreign policy and the army debates 32

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in England in 1692–1693 during the middle of the Nine Years’ War, and in 1697–1699 after the Peace of Rijswijk respectively.

∗ Whig historiography of the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath was primarily domestically oriented.5 The emergence of England as both a liberal and a powerful state was seen as the result of its glorious constitution. The revisionist wave of the 1960s and after adjusted this imbalance and paid more attention to the international context of the event. A number of revisionists focused on the Glorious Revolution in particular. John Carswell, Stephen Baxter, and Jonathan Israel have emphasised the fact that the Revolution must be regarded as the result of a foreign invasion and cannot be separated from its international context.6 The tercentenary commemoration of the Glorious Revolution witnessed a flood of publications which explicitly studied the momentous event within its European context. Evidently the foreign intervention and events on the continent were vital in causing the Revolution.7 This interpretation of events has been widely accepted, even though it has been qualified by those historians who argued that the case must not be overstated. For even if an invasion triggered the Revolution, it was still developing within an English context, and proof that William decisively forced the hand of the Convention is non-existent.8 Our understanding of late-seventeenth-century British foreign policy is mainly based on work conducted in the 1960s and 1970s by a school of revisionist historians dominated by the LSE professor Ragnhild Hatton. They questioned the Whiggish grand narrative of a grand struggle against French absolutism, and carefully reconstructed the actual conduct of diplomacy and foreign policy based on thorough primary research.9 The revisionist work of John Brewer was rather different.10 The domestic political developments in England were ‘unintended consequences’ of a negotiation process between King and Parliament, in which the political system adapted to the requirements for war after 1688. This led to what Brewer described as the ‘fiscal-military state’. He pointed to the paradox of the English state being able to maintain liberty in a domestic context and develop an enormous military capacity to exert power abroad.11 In his view, this was the result of specific political choices within a uniquely constituted state. Brewer argued that expansion of state bureaucracy was not ‘caused’ by war, but war was still ‘responsible’ for triggering the domestic changes.12 Although Brewer acknowledged the importance of continental events, his analysis is concerned only with domestic developments. It is also interesting to see which choices have not been made in English historiography. Despite the Realist flavour of some revisionist work, no historian of the Williamite period seems to have embraced a full-fledged Realist view of international relations, that is, the view that policy is essentially

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shaped by geopolitical forces. Obviously, such a view would assign primacy to foreign policy. Interestingly, William III himself claimed that the army was necessary in connection with ‘circumstances of affairs abroad’.13 The war was ‘not so properly an act of choice as an inevitable necessity in our defence’.14 In other words, his policy was necessitated by geopolitical forces outside his control.15 John Brewer seems to suggest that geopolitical forces were dominant in shaping England’s foreign policy when he wrote that ‘after 1688 the English were involved [in war on the continent] whether they liked it or not’.16 However, nowhere does he explicitly argue that England’s constitution was functionally shaped by her geopolitical position, and the argument is seldom used in the literature.17 As from the 1990s, the study of England’s foreign relations has been somewhat influenced by the ‘New Diplomatic History’,18 but the ‘New Cultural History’19 has left more significant traces in historiography. Attention was paid to the role of national identities and cultures in the shaping of foreign policy. This new view was succinctly typified by Andrew C. Thompson: ‘Foreign policy was not simply determined either by the desire for profit or territorial gain. It was part of a complex web of ideas that were intimately related to a broader political culture.’20 Likewise, Tony Claydon and Steven Pincus have attempted to write new histories of late Stuart foreign policy, taking into consideration religious and ideological factors, which had been virtually ignored in revisionist historiography.21 Typically, a recent synthesis of Williamite England is primarily concerned with political attitudes rather than policy.22 One of the advantages of this postrevisionist turn is that domestic and foreign policy are functionally reconnected. For example, Pincus complained that ‘The traditional historiographical separation of domestic and foreign policy . . . obfuscates more than it explains.’23 However, even though someone like Tony Claydon explicitly sees the ‘making of England’ as a result of European influences, postrevisionist historiography has an innate tendency to see foreign policy as a function of national culture.24 It is therefore also liable to the gravitational forces of an interpretation that is dominated by attention to domestic policy. Despite the acknowledgement that England rose to become a world power during this period, the Nine Years’ War has been rather neglected as a topic in itself. With the notable exception of John Childs’s work on the military capacity of England and its manifestation on the continent, most studies have been concerned with domestic politics.25 Remarkably, as Jeremy Black observed, even those studies that refer to the importance of foreign policy do so only marginally.26 This is well illustrated by the most recent synthesis of the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath by Tim Harris. It does a formidable job by studying the Revolution as a British event, but ignores the international context, even though its importance is cursorily acknowledged.27 For practical reasons this may seem legitimate, but the underlying

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assumption seems to be that the Glorious Revolution can be perfectly understood as a domestic event.28 It is, of course, crucial to understand that foreign and domestic affairs were inextricably connected. John Brewer underlined the importance of the ‘link between the fate of English domestic political arrangements and the outcome of the struggle between Louis XIV and his enemies’.29 In this way, the Nine Years’ War was also the ‘War of the English Succession’, even though that phrase seems rather Anglocentric in itself. Nevertheless, the historiography of the 1690s remains dominated by domestic matters. Few studies take a real interest in literature of primary sources from abroad. Indeed, ‘abroad’ is glaringly neglected in the historiography on the Williamite era. Erroneously, even the conduct of foreign policy is taken to be a solely ‘domestic’ process. Decisions are understood to be taken at home, in Westminster, in Whitehall. This domestic perspective of the conduct of foreign policy makes it difficult to separate the two, but in practice the ‘gravitational’ forces will pull any interpretation of foreign policy into the domestic sphere. In actual fact, however, foreign policy is to an important extent conducted by commanders in the field, captains at sea, and diplomats abroad. As John Hattendorg argued, ‘The system was clearly a decentralized one in which leaders in London depended upon the perceptions, insights and proposals of those on the scene for both policy and strategy.’30 Moreover, perceptions of ‘abroad’ cannot be equalled with ‘abroad’. In addition to this, any understanding of English foreign policy falls short without an outward perspective, say, an analysis of French foreign policy vis-à-vis England. The revisionist and postrevisionist shift in interpretation notwithstanding, then, in practice historians of the Revolution do not really take into account the international context. Over the last few decades historians of later Stuart England (1660–1714) have shown little real interest in foreign affairs. A fair assessment was made by Jeremy Black when he wrote that ‘The history of British foreign policy [in the early modern age] has been a marginal subject for several decades.’31 This is certainly true for the Williamite period in particular. A comprehensive study of Williamite grand strategy, foreign policy, and diplomacy is lacking, despite the fact that primary material for this study in the State Papers Foreign in the National Archive is abundant but ignored. The historiography of the 1690s, therefore, is typified by a dichotomy. Even if historians pay lip service to the view that continental events pulled England into a maelstrom that triggered the domestic developments, in practice they primarily focus on domestic concerns.

∗ One of the ways in which historians have tended to sustain this dichotomy was the artificial contrast between the foreignness of ‘Dutch William’ and

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Parliament’s Englishness. It is now orthodoxy to argue that Dutch William was not really interested in England, let alone Scotland and Ireland.32 This stereotyping is for instance illustrated in Jeremy Black’s study in a chapter entitled ‘Dutch William’ and his war, in which he wrote that ‘the post-Revolution monarchs “distorted” foreign policy to serve personal interests.’33 A significant body of opposition pamphlet literature during the 1690s emphasised the foreignness of William, complaining moreover that William was surrounded by Dutch advisers and promoted the interest of the United Provinces at the expense of England.34 The first criticism is factually untrue, the second debatable.35 Another way of accentuating William’s foreignness has been the suggestion that he was ignorant of English domestic affairs. This was not so. As a Stadholder he had surrounded himself with seasoned advisers on English affairs. He held long conversations with English ambassadors and visited England three times for extended periods of time. Nor was he ill-equipped to understand English politics. Simon Groenveld has convincingly argued that ‘[William’s] tug-of-war with the provincial and general States in the Republic had prepared him, better than any of his predecessors, for establishing realistic relations with English parliaments. His personal experience, gained in dealing with local and provincial Dutch factions, facilitated intercourse with Whigs as well as Tories.’36 One English MP observed in 1689 about William that ‘For the present, the King is a stranger to England . . . [but] it is a wonder he knows so much already’.37 The idea that William neglected English affairs was already observed immediately after the Revolution by his most important adviser in England, the Marquis of Halifax, who wrote in his diary: ‘[William] hath such a mind to France, that it would incline one to think, hee tooke England onely in his way.’38 William spent most of his time during his reign on the continent, which underlines the judgement of Halifax. Initially, William regarded England primarily as a cornerstone of his grand strategy. However, this image can be easily overstated, as William understood very well the importance of the liberties of England. In fact, when he was marching for London in the autumn of 1688, he realised that he needed to play a constructive role in England, and that the safeguarding of parliamentary liberty had to be a crucial policy goal in itself, albeit a prerequisite to conducting the foreign policy he desired. As he explained to his confidant, Lord Dijkveld, he wished ‘that through a Parliament these realms may be made useful in order to assist our State [the United Provinces] and her allies’.39 One example proving William’s eagerness to take domestic policy in England very seriously is the issue of religion. When discussing the Comprehension scheme in 1689, aimed to reintegrate dissenters into the Church of England, William sought the advice of a number of theologians. One of these, Samuel Desmarets, argued that a union between Anglicans and dissenters would imply ‘the most mortal blow which papism can receive’.40

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Protestantism would be safeguarded in England only when the Anglican and dissenting churches would merge. William’s religious policy in England was neither one of opportunism nor of indifference, it tied in precisely with his international concern for the safety of Protestantism: England would have to be a bulwark of European Protestantism. This is illuminated by a private letter written by the Earl of Portland to William in which he reflected upon the purpose of the invasion of England in 1688. In his view, it had been for ‘the service of God, the defence of the laws of England and the liberty of that state and the interest of the whole of Europe’.41 Portland makes no distinction between the domestic concerns of England and the concern for international Protestantism. To William, likewise, English domestic concerns were inseparable from those of Europe. That William and his Parliament disagreed as to the diagnosis of the problems and their cure is another matter entirely. Although the introspective nature of Parliament during William’s reign has often been emphasised by historians,42 there is a real sense in which the House of Commons developed in the 1690s. The conduct of foreign policy had always been a prerogative of the House, which only had the power of the purse to influence the King’s decisions. This power increased markedly during the 1690s, most notably through the influential Committee of Public Accounts which kept an eye on government expense, through which it also developed a sense of responsibility for foreign affairs. Moreover, the Nine Years’ War made some knowledge of foreign affairs vital for MPs. By 1700, Parliament had become far more self-confident to speak out on foreign policy matters, as becomes clear from its criticism of the King’s conclusion in secret of the Spanish Partition Treaties. But the case must not be overestimated. Few MPs had a real knowledge of foreign affairs or were able to speak French,43 and during William’s reign Parliament never had any direct influence on the direction of foreign policy. Mark Thomson studied the role of Parliament in foreign policy between 1689 and 1714 and concluded that it was increasingly influential,44 but perhaps only after the turn of the century.

∗ If it may tentatively be concluded that the dichotomy between the Englishness of Parliament and the foreignness of William is a false one, it also seems clear that the precise relationship between foreign and domestic policy was continuously being negotiated. That William preferred the primacy of foreign policy is clear, that Parliament preferred the primacy of domestic policy likewise. The following two case-studies should shed light on the question as to how these differences played out in the 1690s. The first brief analysis focuses on the parliamentary session 1692–1693, right during the middle of the Nine Years’ War. The Revolution had changed the constitutional balance, as the King was dependent upon frequent

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parliamentary meetings which would ensure financial support for the war. Moreover, the spectre of the danger of absolute monarchy established by the standing army seemed remote while war was raging on the continent.45 That being said, the King was extraordinarily independent in the actual formulation and conduct of foreign policy. The secretaries of state were relatively weak (with the exception perhaps of the Earl of Nottingham who held the post until 1693), and the King held the admiralty in commission.46 Secretary of State the Earl of Shrewsbury complained that on occasion he was even unable to get an audience with the King, who was, meanwhile, devising his foreign policy together with his favourites, primarily the Earl of Portland.47 Whereas both Whigs and Tories sought the King’s favour, and whereas the King had tried to balance the interest of both parties in his government, by 1692 the Tories were by far the strongest party. The main reason was that William, despite his reservations, preferred a party that strove to uphold the royal prerogative. By 1692 however, the Tories found it increasingly difficult to find the financial means to conduct the war, realising this was of cardinal interest to William. An underlying problem was that the Tories were supporting a war they held strong reservations about, preferring blue-water strategy to Williams’s continental war. According to one pamphleteer, the continental strategy led to ‘the exhausting of the Wealth, the Stock of the Nation, in the vast Sums drawn out from thence, for the use of Foreign Countries, and the numerous Troops paid in those countries’.48 A clash between William and the Tories over strategy during this period was the result. It is epitomised in a correspondence between the Earls of Portland and Nottingham during the summer of 1692 after the successful naval encounter at La Hogue. Following the defeat of the French fleet, the Tory secretary of state had proposed a descent upon the French coast, to be undertaken by a sizeable military force that was to disembark and engage the enemy. The advantage of a swift follow-up of the naval victory was obvious to Portland, but he became increasingly aware of the significance of such a strategic shift. Since a few thousand troops would have to be diverted to the invasion army, Nottingham suggested that although perhaps a few fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands would be taken by the French, the strategic advantages of the descent would outweigh such losses. Portland was not a principal opponent of the naval descent, the difference between the two was only gradual. But the vehemence with which the favourite opposed the shift of resources from a continental to a naval campaign underlines the fact that he saw it as a prelude to fundamental strategic shift. Moreover, the secretary argued that such a strategy ‘will encourage the Parliament to pursue [the war] with the uttmost vigour and resolution’.49 The argument was reasonable, since the executive had to operate within the parameters defined by parliamentary support, but Portland regarded the statement of Nottingham as a means to exert pressure on the King

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to conform to Tory demands. Scathing attacks on the government and its misdirected foreign policy ensued in the parliamentary session during the winter of 1692–1693. Country politicians from both parties, such as Sir Thomas Clarges and Paul Foley, fired criticism in the House of Commons in November and December 1692. On 26 November, Foley complained that ‘England bears almost the charge of the war and others reap the benefit of it.’50 Faced with such opposition, the Court Tories were weak and bemused, and pessimistic about acquiring the necessary funds for the 1693 campaign.51 By the end of 1693 Nottingham and most Tories had been removed from office and made place for an overwhelmingly Whig cabinet. The Tories had thus been unable to exert any real pressure on the King to alter his foreign policy. Instead, they were forced to adapt and comply in case they wanted to stay in power. The inability of the Court Tories to bring themselves, let alone a majority in the House, to support William’s continental strategy led to their demise. The dilemma for the Whigs was comparable. They had been thoroughly disappointed with the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, which had not brought the sweeping constitutional changes many had hoped for. The royal prerogative was, despite an increase in parliamentary influence, still largely intact. Unlike the Tories, they were, however, willing to support William’s foreign policy. This dilemma led to a split in the Whig party. Whereas the Country Whigs stayed in opposition, the Court Whigs decided to accept office and abandon most of their constitutional demands.52 William was willing to consider cabinet posts for the Whigs, because they argued that the government’s failure to manage Parliament had led to a shortage of supplies for the war. According to Henry Guy, ‘People are posessed of a most dangerous opinion, that England is not taken care on; that must bee cured, or all signifyes nothing, which may bee done, and the Allyes supported to the height; but if it is not done, the confederacy will quickly bee at an end.’53 In a deal, brokered by the Earl of Sunderland, John Trenchard, John Somers, and Charles Montague succeeded the Tories in most offices in 1693. Of course the Whigs were able to negotiate to some extent. Sunderland emphasised the fact that the government needed the Whigs, who were, moreover, supporters of William’s foreign policy anyway. ‘you will not think that wee would have the businesse of Flanders or Holland neglected, which is of so vast importance’, he wrote to the Earl of Portland.54 The Earl of Shrewsbury was able to wrest from William the concession of the Triennial Act, but the Place Bill was consistently vetoed by the King. These royal concessions were too shallow for the Country Whigs, who stayed in opposition against the Court Whigs. A fundamental and lasting split in the Whig party had occurred. Evidently domestic policy adapted to foreign policy. A similar clash occurred during that same winter over the standing army. The debate was triggered by an uproar concerning an incident which

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involved William’s Dutch general Count Solms, who had reportedly not only snubbed English troops but also unnecessarily sacrificed them on the battlefield of Steenkirk in August 1692.55 This in turn led to a general debate on the desirability of foreign officers. That William should prefer foreigners in command was understandable. Not only did he know many of them personally, for obvious reasons they were more experienced than their English counterparts. The criticism was understandable as well. In the first place it was considered un-English to have a foreign mercenary army. Moreover, it amplified fears of arbitrary government which could be established with the help of a standing army. There were more practical causes for the mounting discontent. The attack on foreign officers was led by several ambitious young English officers such as John Churchill who resented being passed over by foreigners.56 In this case as well, the pressure put on the King ultimately had little effect. The Court carried the day; William’s foreign officers remained in command.57 Thus, an upsurge of xenophobia combined with vehement ideological opposition to the Court could not provide enough leverage to achieve any notable changes in foreign policy. Party ideology, moreover, adapted to the requirements of the continental war, and domestic policy, if conducted at all, was insignificant in comparison to the foreign policy. Indeed, according to Julian Hoppit, between 1690 and 1693 the government pursued no policy at all, except supporting the King in his war effort.58

∗ The end of the Nine Years’ War in the autumn of 1697 marked an important moment. Whereas during the war the King’s continental strategy overrode any domestic concerns, the primacy of foreign policy now became contested. According to the King, the Rijswijk settlement was of a temporary nature, and it was expected that war with France could be resumed at any time. Therefore it was vital to maintain a sizeable standing army. The opposition questioned the King’s pessimism and therefore the necessity of the army and moreover, based on the Bill of Rights, contested the decision of the King to maintain an army in peacetime. The size of the army became the main subject of debate in the parliamentary debates of 1697–1698 and 1698–1699. Indeed, observers divided the new Parliament in a pro-army and the anti-army party.59 The Court wanted to maintain at least 30,000 troops, but such hopes appeared unfounded when the opposition leader, the Country Whig Robert Harley, moved to reduce the number even further. Even the attempt by the Crown to retain at least 10,000 troops backfired. The Court ministers were performing weakly. Eventually, supplies were voted for 7000 troops only. Secretive plans by Portland and the Huguenot general the Earl of Galway to maintain a sizeable army in Ireland outside Parliament’s control enraged the Commons

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and soured relations even further.60 The King in turn was infuriated, for he now saw his foreign policy utterly collapse. The Dutch Grand Pensionary Anthonie Heinsius warned William that without a strong army Anglo-Dutch containment policy would fail.61 In despair William even threatened to give up his crown and retire to the United Provinces.62 The army debates were considered of fundamental and historic significance by both parties.63 Pro-army ideology focused on foreign policy mainly. Although even some of the Court Whigs were naturally inclined against a large standing army, the threat from France alleviated all domestic fears. Moreover, a professional army was required, as the militia were not up to the task. The view that a large standing army could pose a threat to English liberties was rejected, since ultimately Parliament would control the army through the purse.64 The leader of the anti-army party, Robert Harley, argued precisely that a standing army in peacetime would threaten the liberties of England. The ideologues of the anti-army movement argued moreover that one could rely on militia. But since the militia were, of course, useless as an instrument of foreign policy, arguably the thrust of the argument was rhetorically tactical rather than substantive.65 In practice the New Country Party was willing to accept a small standing army.66 In the ensuing pamphlet war the arguments were spun out. John Somers, the Lord Chancellor, in A letter balancing the necessity of keeping a Land-Force in times of peace (1697), elucidated the Court Whig position. Whereas a standing army was not a good thing in itself, in times of danger it was necessary to maintain. He was supported by such propagandists as Daniel Defoe.67 Ironically, it was a Whig as well, a Country Whig, who picked up his pen in reply. According to John Trenchard, the debate was essentially about domestic concerns. An argument shewing that a standing army is inconsistent with a free government and absolutely destructive to the constitution of the English monarchy (1698) saw the problem in constitutional terms. Resistance against the standing army was part of a proud long country Whig tradition, it was the essence of the good old cause. William complained about the extreme isolationism of the Country opposition in a letter to Grand Pensionary Anthonie Heinsius: ‘one would say, either this island is the only thing on the face of the earth or that it has nothing to do with the rest of the world.’68 The Earl of Portland, upon hearing about the unwillingness of Parliament to vote generous funds for the army, put it more bluntly, arguing that one could only hope that ‘Providence will direct affairs for the good of your Majesty, of religion and of the nation, when it seems that men are working for their own destruction.’69 According to John Brewer, the anti-standing army view has to be qualified as ‘parochial’.70 Lois Schwoerer goes even further when she concluded that ‘The antiarmy writers were ill-informed about international affairs . . . In none of the antiarmy tracts is there evidence of a sense of responsibility for the liberty and religion of the continent or understanding that what

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happened there would affect England. These men were the isolationists of the seventeenth century, interested in the fleet, colonies, and overseas dominion.’ They were, Schwoerer argues moreover, naive about the technological complexities of modern warfare, not aware of the inadequacy of any militia on a battlefield confronted with a professional army.71 Reconsidering the standing army debates, one can only conclude that these constituted a series of well-articulated debates which betray however a virtual absence of any real communication, since both parties were talking about entirely different things. For Trenchard and the radical Whigs the issue was political, constitutional.72 They simply did not sufficiently understand international relations, nor could they detach themselves from the fears from the past. Moreover, William lacked both constitutional insight as well as sensitivity which prevented him from understanding domestic fears of the standing army. To him, the opposition was leading England on a road to destruction. As such, no serious constructive debate was held on either the constitutional issues or a sensible foreign policy. Instead, both sides dug in and became increasingly uncompromising. William himself was, then, to a large extent part of the problem. It would be difficult to find any evidence of an attempt on his behalf of using the army to his own advantage, but his tendency to keep not only Parliament but also his most trusted ministers completely in the dark magnified fears of his intentions.73 His practice to sideline the formal diplomatic channels and rely on trusted agents caused resentment even in diplomatic circles.74 This became painfully clear when he negotiated the Spanish Partition Treaties without even informing his closest ministers. The negotiations coincidentally took place in utter secrecy simultaneously while the standing army debates were raging in Parliament. After the Nine Years’ War, William was negotiating with Louis XIV over the Spanish inheritance, as the childless King of Spain Carlos II was expected to die soon. Both Louis XIV and Leopold I were claimants to the succession, which, if passed undivided to either, would upset the balance of power in Europe. William and Louis agreed on negotiating a partitioning of the Spanish Empire. There has been much speculation about the reasons behind Louis’s decision to ultimately ignore the Partition Treaty in 1700 and accept the Will of Carlos II, which allotted the full Spanish inheritance to his grandson. Obviously, the King must have been pleased with the Will, but he must also have realised the dangers of insulting and antagonising William III and Leopold I. There is perhaps one reason, often ignored in literature, which explains his behaviour. The negotiations, conducted by the Earl of Portland and the French ambassador Count Tallard, underline the extent to which foreign and domestic policy were inextricably linked.75 The Earl of Sunderland had already warned the King about the fall-out of the setbacks in the standing

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army debates, and strongly advised that ‘the King must treat with every body abroad as if all things went well here [in Parliament].’76 William himself was convinced that parliamentary opposition tactics had weakened his hand in foreign policy.77 The Lord Chancellor, John Somers, likewise argued in his pamphlet that ‘the best guaranty of peace is a good force to maintain it.’78 The correspondence of the Earl of Portland shows how the standing army debates, which occurred in tandem with the negotiations, effectively influenced the talks with the French. On the day when the Dutch Guards, William’s elite troops, were disbanded, the French raised their demands in the negotiations. Portland pessimistically wrote that: ‘The affairs in Parliament are as before, the guards embark today . . . it becomes clear that [the French] regulate their measures according to the conduct of Parliament.’79 Tallard had written to Louis that the debates in Parliament over the standing army and the financial debts incurred after the Nine Years’ War were hampering William’s ability to conduct foreign policy. With an insignificant army and a lack of funds his options were very limited. But Tallard also assured the King that William was not completely neutralised. Should war come, Parliament would support the King.80 Louis XIV reflected thoughtfully upon William’s position and concluded that it was quite like that of one of his predecessors, Charles II. One would expect at this conjuncture that the King of France would be pleased by the misfortune of his fellow monarch. However, he earnestly wanted to strike a deal with William, and realised that he needed his alliance since any partition of the Spanish Empire would be contested by the Emperor. However, precisely because Louis was in earnest seeking an understanding with William, the latter’s weakness was considered problematic. This made Louis reconsider the value of an agreement with William over the Spanish Partition.81 The standing army debates in England had severely hampered William’s foreign policy, to the extent that he was hardly able to conduct a foreign policy at all. Ultimately, one of the reasons why Louis XIV ignored the Partition Treaty he had concluded with William and decided to accept the Will of Carlos II, which allotted the whole of the Spanish inheritance to his grandson, was his conviction that William had been neutralised by the standing-army debates.82 In a very practical way as well the conduct of foreign affairs was hampered. During the winter of 1698–1699 the Brandenburg envoy in London, Frederick Bonnet, noted that the court was incensed by Parliament’s proceedings concerning the army and completely occupied with army business. This was also the reason why Bonnet was unable to speak to any of the ministers dealing with foreign affairs, such as the King’s favourites the Earls of Portland and Albemarle, and the Secretary of State James Vernon.83 The French ambassador Tallard said that he was unable to determine whom to

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talk to about business at all. By this time, in a way England had no foreign policy at all.

∗ It has been established that the primacy of foreign policy was contested in two spheres: historiographically, as well as in actual fact in Williamite England. Those studies that prefer to focus on either domestic or foreign policy seem unsatisfactory and exhibit an uncomfortable dichotomy. A number of revisionist and postrevisionist historians have tried to focus rather on their relationship. Nevertheless, whereas in actual fact the primacy of foreign policy for the Williamite period is often acknowledged, in practice most studies tend to gravitate towards a domestic interpretation of events. The purpose of this chapter has been to rethink the relationship between foreign and domestic policy during this era. When the two case-studies are compared, no clear picture about the primacy of foreign or domestic policy emerges. During the Nine Years’ War, domestic policy was primarily shaped by the crucial decision of 1689 to go to war and pull England out of her isolation. This revolution in foreign policy fundamentally changed the fiscal and financial structure of England, but also had a profound impact upon the constitution and the political landscape. These changes in themselves reshaped the capacity of England to act abroad. It is therefore necessary first to acknowledge the interaction and interdependence of foreign and domestic policy. The demands of war in 1692–1693 clearly dominated domestic policy to the extent that it became insignificant as an autonomous process. Even if partisan ideology fuelled parliamentary debates, foreign policy demands were able to split both the Tory and Whig party and neutralise their country wings. Court Tories and Whigs remained in office only when they delivered what the King required for the war. By 1697–1698 the situation was reversed. After the end of the war the King tried in vain to maintain a large standing army against the mounting opposition of the Country platform. As a result his negotiations over the Spanish Partition proved abortive, and his foreign policy effectively collapsed, pulling England back into isolation. The ineffectiveness of domestic policy in the first case and the absence of any meaningful foreign policy in the second should serve as a warning not to generalise about the Williamite era. Neither a primacy of foreign nor domestic policy can therefore be established for the entire period; rather these were continuously contested.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Stephane Jettot for his comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Any shortcomings are of course entirely my own.

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Notes 1. Quoted in N. Japikse (1930) Willem III, de stadhouder koning (Amsterdam: Nederlandsche Historische Bibliotheek), II, p. 287. 2. D. Rubini (1968) Court and Country (London: Hart-Davis), pp. 14, 24. 3. B. Simms (2003) ‘The return of the primacy of foreign policy’, German History, XXI, p. 276. 4. This distinction is also made by Simms, ‘The return of the primacy of foreign policy’, 275–276. 5. E.g. T. B. MacAulay (1849–1861) The History of England from the Accession of James II, 10 vols (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz). 6. J. Carswell (1973) The Descent on England (London: Cresset Press); J. I. Israel (ed.) (1991) The Anglo-Dutch Moment. Essays on the Glorious Revolution and its World Impact (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); S. Baxter (1966) William III (London: Longmans). 7. R. Beddard (ed.) (1991), The Revolutions of 1688 (Oxford: Clarendon); E. Cruickshanks (1989) (ed.) By Force or by Default? The Revolution of 1688–1689 (Edinburgh: John Donald); D. Hoak and M. Feingold (eds) (1996) The World of William and Mary – Anglo-Dutch Perspectives on the Revolution of 1688–1689 (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Israel, The Anglo-Dutch Moment; J. R. Jones (ed.) (1992) Liberty Secured? Britain before and after 1688 (Stanford: Stanford University Press); L. Schwoerer (ed.) (1992) The Revolution of 1688–1689. Changing Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); W.A. Speck (1988) Reluctant Revolutionaries. Englishmen and the Revolution of 1688 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 8. Cf. R. Beddard (1988) A Kingdom without a King. The Journal of the Provisional Government in the Revolution of 1688 (Oxford: Phaidon), preface. 9. R. Hatton (1976) ‘Louis XIV and his fellow monarchs’ and G. Symcox (1976) ‘Louis XIV and the outbreak of the Nine Years War’ in R. Hatton (ed.) Louis XIV and Europe (London: Macmillan); P. Sonnino (1988) Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. C. Rule (1992) ‘France caught between two balances: the dilemma of 1688’ in: L.G. Schwoerer (ed.) The Revolution of 1688–1689: Changing Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 35–51. 10. J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power. War, Money and the English State 1688–1783 (London: Unwin & Hyman). 11. Ibid., p. xviii. 12. Ibid., p. 137, cf. footnote 16. 13. Quoted in L. G. Schwoerer (1974) No Standing Armies! The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth Century England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), p. 164. 14. Quoted in Brewer, The Sinews of Power, p. 141. 15. But as Michael Walzer has reminded us, ‘necessity’ is not so much a law of nature when applied to the social world, but rather a rhetorical device M. Waltzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York, 1977), pp. 3–20. 16. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, p. 141. 17. Ibid., p. 137 ff. 18. The ‘New Diplomatic History’ emphasises the domestic side of diplomacy. E.g. S. Jettot (2007) ‘Representer le Roi ou la Nation? Les Membres de la Chambre des Communes au Service de la Diplomatie Anglaise (1660–1702)’ (PhD thesis, Sorbonne); see also S. Spens (1997) George Stepney, 1663–1707, Diplomat and Poet

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19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

Primacy Contested (Cambridge: James Clarke); J. Watkins (2008), ‘Toward a new diplomatic history of medieval and early modern Europe’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, XXXVIII, 1–14. A term to describe a broad and incoherent development in which cultural, linguistic and anthropological studies influence the humanities in general and history in particular. For an introduction see Peter Burke (2008) What is Cultural History? (Malden: Polity). 100 ff. Cf. Watkins, ‘Toward a new diplomatic history’. A. C. Thompson (2006) Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press), p. 2. S. Pincus (1996) Protestantism and Patriotism. Ideology and the Making of English Foreign Policy 1650–1668 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Claydon (1996) William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Claydon (2007) Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). C. Rose (1999) England in the 1690s: Revolution, Religion and War (Oxford: Blackwell). Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism, p. 452. Claydon, Europe and the Making of England. J. Childs (1987) The British Army of William III 1689–1702 (Manchester: Manchester University Press); ibid. (1991) The Nine Years’ War and the British Army 1688–1697: The Operations in the Low Countries (Manchester: Manchester University Press). J. Black (1989) Knights Errant and True Englishmen: British Foreign Policy, 1660–1800 (Edinburgh: Donald), preface. Brewer’s The Sinews of Power is a good example. T. Harris (2007) Revolution. The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy 1685–1720 (London: Allen Lane), preface, p. xvi. Even although this ‘New British’ (cf. J. G. A. Pocock (1975) ‘British history: a plea for a new subject’, The Journal of Modern History, XLVII, 601–621) or even a simply ‘British’ approach does broaden our understanding of the Revolution, it is, in a new way, still ‘parochial’ in its neglect of European matters. See Israel’s criticism, Anglo-Dutch Moment, pp. 10–11, and J. Morrill’s (1996) rebuttal of Israel’s criticism in ‘The British problem’, in Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill (eds) The British Problem c. 1534–1707. State formation in the Atlantic Archipelago (Basingstoke: Macmillan), p. 17. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, p. 141. J. B. Hattendorf (1987) England in the War of the Spanish Succession. A Study of the English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy, 1702–1712 (New York: Garland), p. 46. Black, Knights Errant and True Englishmen, p. v. A. Murdoch (1980) The People Above. Politics and Administration in Mid-EighteenthCentury Scotland (Edinburgh: Donald), p. 1. For a revision of this view, D. Onnekink (2006) ‘The Earl of Portland and Scotland (1689–1699) a re-evaluation of Williamite policy’, Scottish Historical Review LXXXV, 233. J. Black (2000) A System of Ambition. British Foreign Policy 1660–1793 (Stroud: Sutton), p. 158. G. van Alphen (1938) De stemming van de Engelschen tegen de Hollanders in Engeland tijdens de regeering van den koning-Stadhouder Willem III 1688–1702 (Assen). D. Onnekink, (2000) ‘ “Dutch counsels”: The foreign entourage of William III’, Dutch Crossing, XXIX, 5–20. S. Groenveld (1991) ‘ “J’equippe une flotte très considerable”: the Dutch side of the Glorious revolution’, in Beddard (ed.) The Revolution of 1688 (Clarendon), pp. 242–3.

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37. Van Alphen, De stemming van de Engelschen, p. 72. 38. 2 June 1689, G. S. First Marquis of Halifax, ‘The Spencer House Journals’ in H. C. Foxcroft (1898) (ed.) The Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax (London: Longmans), II. p. 219. 39. William to Dijkvelt 19 December 1688 in N. Japikse (ed.) (1927–1933) Correspondentie van Willem III en van Hans Willem Bentinck, eersten graaf van Portland, RGP Kleine Reeks 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 5 vols (The Hague), p. XXVIII. 40. J. van den Berg (1994) ‘Dutch Calvinism and the Church of England in the period of the Glorious Revolution’, in: S. Groenveld and M. Wintle (eds) The Exchange of Ideas. Religion, Scholarship and Art in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Seventeenth Century (Zutphen: Walburg Instituut), p. 95; Letters to Portland in October 1689, Lambeth Palace Library, Gibson Manuscript 932, fos. 70–75. 41. Bentinck to William 22 March 1690 (The Hague), Japikse, Correspondentie, XXIII, p. 153. 42. Cf. footnotes 68 and 69. 43. French was not only considered to be the most appropriate language for diplomatic discussion, but was also used by the elites. Anglo-Dutch communication, as well as Anglo-French, was typically conducted in French. The archive of the Earl of Portland contains a document, the title of which speaks for itself: ‘Liste des Lords, du nombre de ceu qui parlent françois et qui peuvent être employez a négotier avec les plénipotentiaires de France, conjointement avec ceux des alliez’. It is followed by a list of lords who understand ‘entender’ French, and similar lists for MPs. Neither list is very long. Correspondentie, ed. N. Japikse, XIV, p. 81. 44. M. A. Thomson (1968) ‘Parliament and foreign policy, 1689–1714’, in R. Hatton and J. S. Bromley (eds) William III and Louis XIV (Liverpool: Liverpoool University Press). Moreover, ‘he was no believer in the primacy of foreign policy’: Review by D. B. Horn (1969) of R. Hatton and J. S. Bromley (eds) William III and Louis XIV: Essays 1680–1720 by and for Mark A. Thomson, The English Historical Review, LXXXIV, pp. 356–358. 45. H. Horwitz (1977) Parliament, Policy and Politics in the Reign of William III (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 85–87. 46. Ibid., pp. 89, 90. 47. Shrewsbury to Nottingham 3 October 1689, S. C. Lomas (ed.) (1913–2004) Manuscripts of the late Allan George Finch, Esq., of Burley-on-the-Hill Rutland, 5 vols (London: Historical Manuscripts Commission), II, p. 252. 48. Quoted in Rose, England in the 1690s, p. 117. 49. Nottingham to Portland 14 June 1692, HMC, Finch Mss, IV, p. 232. 50. Quoted in Rose, England in the 1690s, p. 118. 51. J. Hoppit (2000) A Land of Liberty. England 1689–1727 (Oxford: Clarendon), p. 150. 52. Cf. L. G. Schwoerer (1974) No Standing Armies! The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth Century England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universty Press), p. 156. 53. Henry Guy to Portland, n.d. November 1692, Japikse, Correspondentie, XXIV, p. 37. 54. Sunderland to Portland, 21 August 1693, Nottingham University Library, Portland Mss, PwA 1230. 55. Rose, England in the 1690s, p. 39. 56. Childs, The British Army, pp. 74–75 57. Ibid., pp. 75–77. 58. Hoppit, A Land of Liberty?, p. 147. 59. Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics, p. 224. 60. Childs, The British Army, pp. 194–196.

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61. Heinsius to William 25 March 1698, in F. J. L. Krämer (1907–1909) (ed.) Archives ou correspondance inédite de la maison d’Orange-Nassau Troisième serie, 3 vols, (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff), II, p. 77. 62. Paul Grimblot (1848) (ed.) Letters of William III, and Louis XIV and of their Ministers; Illustrative of the Domestic and Foreign Politics of England, from the Peace of Ryswick to the Accession of Philip V. of Spain, 1697 to 1700, 2 vols (London: Longman), I, p. 220. 63. Schwoerer, No Standing Armies, pp. 155–156; Brewer, The Sinews of Power, pp. 59, 140. 64. Schwoerer, No Standing Armies, p. 160. 65. Ibid., p. 170. 66. Ibid., p. 162. 67. C.-E. Levillain (2005) ‘William III’s military and political career in neo-Roman context, 1672–1702’, Historical Journal, XLVIII, 342–343. 68. Quoted in Schwoerer, No Standing Armies, p. 158. 69. Portland to William 23 January 1698, W. J. Hardy and E. Bateson (eds) (1913–1969) Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, in the Reign of William and Mary, 11 vols (Nendeln: Stationery Office). 70. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, p. 140. 71. Cf. Schwoerer, No Standing Armies, pp. 181–183. 72. Ibid., p. 180. 73. Ibid., No Standing Armies, p. 171. 74. M. Lane (1927) ‘The diplomatic service under William III’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, X. 75. D. Onnekink (2008), ‘The Spanish partition treaties: a re-evaluation’, in G. Richardson (ed.) The Contending Kingdoms of France and England: 1066–1904 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 161–177. 76. Sunderland to Portland 4 March 1699, NUL, Portland Mss, PwA 1277. 77. Schwoerer No Standing Armies, p. 158. 78. Quoted in ibid., p. 186. 79. Portland to Heinsius 24 March 1699, Nationaal Archief, The Hague, 3.01.19/2189. 80. Tallard to Louis 22 May 1698, Grimblot, Letters of William III, and Louis XIV. 81. Louis XIV to Tallard, 30 January 1699, Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Cahiers Politiques d’Angleterre 179. It is doubtful such an offer was actually made. 82. Dispatch Bonnet 17–18 March 1701, BL, Add MS 30000E, fos. 92v–93r. 83. Dispatch Bonnet 20/30 December 1698, BL Add MS 30000B, fo. 282; Dispatch Bonnet 6/16 January 1699, BL Add MS 30000C, fo. 7.

4 Anglo-Scottish Union and the War of the Spanish Succession Allan I. Macinnes

At first reading, there is a clear diplomatic symmetry between the AngloScottish Union of 1707 and the War of the Spanish Succession. Initial talks for Union under Queen Anne commenced after her accession and the outbreak of the War in 1702. The Union was accomplished in the midst of the War. Scottish peers and MPs commenced proceedings in the British Parliament to terminate the Union as peace was being negotiated at Utrecht in 1713. The War of the Spanish Succession, just as its predecessor the Nine Years’ War of 1688–1697, placed England in direct opposition to France under Louis XIV. Scotland yet again appeared to offer a backdoor for a French invasion of England, especially as Louis XIV favoured the restoration of the exiled house of Stuart. James VII and II had been relieved of the common monarchy of Scotland, England, and Ireland at the Revolution of 1688– 1691 for his professed Roman Catholicism and his authoritarian reliance on the prerogative powers of the crown rather than working with or through parliaments. His son-in-law, William of Orange and his daughter Mary had succeeded him. On his death in 1701, his son James VIII and III was recognised by Louis XIV as the legitimate Jacobite claimant to the three kingdoms. However, the English Parliament had that same year already determined unilaterally on the succession. On the death of William’s designated heir, his sister-in-law Anne, the common monarchy would be settled on the German house of Hanover as her nearest Protestant heirs. Accordingly, there was a real prospect that the War of the Spanish Succession could turn into the War of the British Succession. Yet this prospect had been apparent in 1703 when England was content to break off negotiations for Union with Scotland and to refuse overtures for Union from Ireland. When negotiations for Union with Scotland resumed in 1706, France was contemplating suing for peace having been heavily defeated by English and allied forces under John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim and Ramillies. Union itself revived rather than ended the Jacobite threat from Scotland with major risings in 1715 and 1745 and minor ones in 1708 and 1719. Accordingly, we must look at 49

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wider considerations, particularly those of political economy, to explain why England became the driving force for the Treaty of Union.

∗ In 1696, the English Parliament had placed oversight of the American colonies and overseas commerce in the Council for Trade and Plantations, more commonly known as the Board of Trade.1 Its establishment marked a decisive shift in the servicing of England as a fiscal-military state. Under William of Orange, England had been consolidated as a global power by the massive build up of the armed forces to fight the French in the Nine Years’ War. Military engagements and commercial opportunism on a global scale were fructified by the creation of the National Debt in 1693, financed through the Bank of England from 1694. England’s war effort was becoming increasingly reliant on indirect taxes on trade and consumption – the customs and excise respectively – rather than direct taxes on land which required regular parliamentary votes of supply. The largest component of customs was that levied on the colonial trade with the Americas. English colonial officials from New Hampshire to South Carolina had long noted the clannish cohesion as well as the acquisitiveness of Scottish entrepreneurs who operated not only from Scottish and colonial ports but through commercial hubs based in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Hamburg as well as London. They circumvented the Navigation Acts designed to protect the English colonial trade by exporting the practice of tramp-trading from the Baltic to the Caribbean and by counterfeiting ships’ documents. Court officials and juries summarily threw out local initiatives by English colonial officials to have the Scots declared foreigners and aliens incapable of wholesale trading or holding public office. For officials reporting to the Board of Trade, the Scots had become a greater threat to the operation of the Navigation Acts than the Dutch, or even the Caribbean buccaneers.2 Accordingly, the Navigation Acts were again reinvigorated in 1696 with a particular emphasis on appointing to places of trust in the colonies only natives of England and Ireland, a measure that was particularly interpreted as a licence to treat Scots as aliens and incapable of public employment, be that civil or military.3 English colonial officials and the Board of Trade connived to undermine the attempted Scottish colonisation of Darien on the Panama Isthmus, which resulted in a critical but not crippling loss of venture capital by 1700. Yet, in the wake of the Darien fiasco, Scots moved from significant obstructions to potential pillars of empire among shapers of English colonial policy. This change was primarily brought about by the altering perspectives on how to service the fiscal-military state. The renewal of war in 1702 led to the decisive shift away from direct towards indirect taxes. There was also an important shift in the nature of recruitment to the army which was raised

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from around 76,000 to 92,000 men. Growth in military manpower masked an increased reliance on foreign auxiliaries. England was becoming more dependent on recruiting continental troops than those raised within the British Isles. Twenty-six per cent of the troops raised in the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) were foreign auxiliaries: their numbers fluctuated between 54 and 67 per cent during the War of the Spanish Succession. As the prevailing strategy in both wars required the offensive commitment of both the army and the navy, costs rose significantly from an annual average of around £2.5 million in the Nine Years’ War to over £4 million during the War of the Spanish Succession.4 The war also strained England’s global aspirations. The acquisition of the Spanish Crown by Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, made the fate of the Spanish Empire a key issue of the war. The English colonies in America were now threatened by an arc of menace that stretched from the North Atlantic through to the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean. Marlborough and Sidney Godolphin, respectively the military and fiscal leaders of the English war effort, were notably reluctant to commit troops and naval resources away from the main European theatres.5 The War crystallised the key question of political economy in relation to British state formation: did England have the capacity to sustain a colonial presence in the Americas, to develop manufacturing at home, and to recruit extensively for the army and navy without recourse to external assistance? Although London had grown in the Restoration era to become Europe’s largest city, its population, estimated at 530,000 was purportedly stagnating, as was that of England as a whole at no more than 5.5 million souls. These relatively accurate estimates were made by Gregory King in 1696 in an endeavour to demonstrate to the English ministry that England did not have the resources in population and national income to prolong the Nine Years’ War beyond 1698. Natural increase in population, which was seen as the basis of sustainable national prosperity, had been channelled mainly towards emigration to Ireland and the American colonies.6 King’s political arithmetic was taken up by Charles Davenant whose concerns over the ways and means to finance the war effort led him to take a wider, multilateral approach to the balancing of trade. He emphasised the importance of manufacturing and of re-exporting goods from the plantations as from the East Indies and the Levant. These concerns were intensified with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession as England in 1702 had an overall trading imbalance. Brought onto the government payroll by Godolphin, Davenant led a renewed debate on the value of the plantation trade. He argued for selective support through continuing migration to promote colonies whose economy was dominated by tobacco and sugar plantations which were, in turn, to be provisioned with fish, grain, and livestock from the more agriculturally diverse northern colonies.7 Although his arguments did not go unchallenged

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in North America, Davenant struck a receptive chord with the Board of Trade. The Board was especially concerned that colonial migration was not only depriving English manufactures of skilled labour, but also mounting effective competition that undercut English products with respect to price, quality, and fashion. Colonial manufactures not only impaired the balance of trade with the Americas, but also diminished the prospect of earning revenue from the re-export of colonial raw materials once manufactured in England. Some alternative source of a productive and reliable people required to be found. French Protestant émigrés fitted both requirements, but in insufficient numbers. Ireland, whose population had reputedly increased in excess of 2 million, largely through migration within the British Isles, was still predominantly Roman Catholic (at least 80 per cent of the populace) and therefore deemed unsuitable on both accounts. Although its population had in all probability fallen to below a million, Scotland came into the position of favoured nation.8 Calls for Scots to be used in the wider service of England won selective endorsement from the colonies. In advance of the War of the Spanish Succession, planters in Barbados and the Leeward Islands were calling for free trade with Scotland as a means of securing supplies of servants and militiamen. Colonial governors also expressed their frustrations. With English forces stretched to the limits they were disadvantaged by a continuing reluctance to give Scottish officers leading positions of command when confronting the French in the Caribbean. Governor Joseph Dudley in Massachusetts and New Hampshire wanted a Scottish colony of frontiersmen to be established in Maine from 1703. Dudley subsequently supported a proposal from within the Scottish community in Boston, that an expeditionary force of up to 5000 men should be recruited from Scotland to retake Nova Scotia and threaten Quebec. Calls that 2000–3000 Scotsmen be given free passage to Jamaica to facilitate the defence of the island complemented Governor Thomas Handasyd’s plea that existing Scottish settlers, along with other foreigners of proven substance, should not be denied the opportunity to serve in civil and military office. As the Treaty of Union was passing through the Scottish Estates in late 1706 and early 1707, Daniel Parks, governor-general of the Leeward Islands, made vituperative but not entirely facetious overtures that French threats could be averted by the dispatch of an expendable Scottish force to attack either Martinique or even Porto Rico. While this was rebuffed by the English ministry as both inopportune and insensitive, there was no outright rejection of using Scots in the frontline of imperial policy.9

∗ While issues of political economy can be given precedence there were two diplomatically related perspectives vital to the making of the United

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Kingdom: the fear of Jacobitism and Queen Anne’s defence of the royal prerogative. The dynastic issue raised by the unilateral English Act of Settlement in 1701, coupled to the prospect of political incorporation to secure the Hanoverian Succession, provided a patriotic fillip to Scottish Jacobitism. Jacobite networks in Scotland and the continent were actively working with French agents to capitalise on popular antipathy to Union. The enhanced presence of Jacobites in the Scottish Estates following the general election of 1703 and their willingness to act independently from the Country Party made them more a disruptive than a constructive presence. Yet, their influence in determining the political agenda tended to be overstated not only by the Jacobite Court in exile at St Germain but also by the English ministry which all but succumbed to the credibility of the Scotch Plot of 1703, whereby Queen Anne was to be replaced by her half-brother, the exiled James Stuart, with armed assistance from Louis XIV.10 A further complicating factor was Queen Anne. Despite her steadfast pronouncements in favour of political incorporation, her support for the Revolution as for the Hanoverian Succession cannot be taken as unequivocal. Nevertheless, Anne was determined to uphold the royal prerogative against any radical platform mounted by the Whigs in England or elements within the Country Party in Scotland.11 The Scotch Plot was essentially a fabrication of Simon Fraser of Beaufort, a disreputable individual convicted of treason in his absence in 1698 for attempting to acquire the vacant title and estates of the Lord Lovat and the chiefship of Clan Fraser by kidnap, rape, forgery, fraud, and extortion. The Court at St Germain initially resisted his deployment as an agent in Scotland, but after Beaufort turned Roman Catholic on escaping from Scotland into exile in France, he managed to ingratiate himself at the Court of Louis XIV. Despite justifiable scepticism at Versailles about Beaufort’s claims to be able to mobilise the Highland clans, the Jacobite Court was prevailed upon to support Beaufort’s exploratory mission to Scotland. Beaufort made contact with James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry and queen’s commissioner to the Scottish Estates, during the parliamentary session of 1703. Queensberry, though extremely doubtful of Beaufort’s sincerity, was intrigued by his purported contacts. James Douglas-Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton, was a ready target, not only for his leadership of the Country Party, but also for his long suspected association with St Germain. John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl, was viewed as potential political rival whom Queensberry was not averse to discrediting. Queensberry financed and twice gave passes to Beaufort to travel unmolested to the Highlands in order to take soundings from clan chiefs and thereafter to journey to England to make contacts with Jacobite networks among the London Scots. Queensberry had also procured from Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, then Secretary of State in the English ministry, passes under false names to allow Beaufort to make his escape to the continent once his activities in London were discovered.12

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After Atholl duly exposed Queensberry’s complicity before Queen Anne in October 1703, the English ministry commenced an investigation into Beaufort and his associates. By December, the House of Lords decided to intervene and take control of an investigation that appeared more intent on damage limitation to the ministries in Scotland and England than holding those incriminated to account. A committee of seven lords, all leading Whigs, proceeded not only to investigate the associates of Beaufort based in London but also questioned, without prior clearance from the Scottish Privy Council, contacts Beaufort had made within the military establishment in Scotland. This intrusive insensitivity, compounded by an address to the Queen claiming that leading Scottish politicians were undoubtedly implicated in plotting, provoked another bitter round of Anglo-Scottish tensions.13 Within Scotland, the conduct of the Lords cemented the accord between the Country Party and the Cavaliers (or Jacobites) that had developed rather uneasily following the resumption of the Scottish parliament in May 1703. Hamilton with the support of Atholl gained the backing of almost all the Cavaliers to join the Country Party in pursuing a programme to redress the interference of English ministers in Scottish affairs.14 This programme caught the English ministry off guard and initiated a legislative war between the Scottish Estates and the English Parliament. Two key acts restricted the prerogative powers of the monarchy. The first was the act concerning peace and war which laid a binding commitment on Queen Anne’s successor, if the common monarchy continued, to gain consent from the Scottish Estates before any war could be declared. This desire to prevent a repetition of the dubious dealings by which the English ministry manoeuvred the Scots into the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702, by gaining support from a compliant Privy Council rather than the Scottish Estates, was also a feature of the second measure, the act of security. In this case, however, it was presumed that the common monarchy would not continue unless, prior to the death of Queen Anne, there were fundamental limitations settled and enacted which recognised the honour and sovereignty of the separate crown and kingdom; the freedom, frequency and power of parliaments; and that the religion, liberty and trade of the nation should not be subject to English or any foreign interference. As these limitations were to be in place during the queen’s lifetime, they applied not to her successor but to the English ministry. The Scottish Estates were intent on a bilateral agreement on trade secured by a federative union. They were insistent on their sole right to elect a hereditary successor on Anne’s death from the Stuart line provided he or she was Protestant. The new sovereign was committed to accept not only the coronation oath but all and any limitations imposed by the Scottish Estates prior to Anne’s death and in the 20 days thereafter.15

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While Queensberry as the queen’s commissioner was prepared to accept the act concerning peace and war, he deferred giving consent to the act of security pending instructions from Court. Despite her English ministry being willing to pass both acts with a view to rescinding them in a later session, Anne emphatically rejected what she deemed the exorbitant demands of the Scots. Parliament was duly prorogued in September. Queen Anne no less than her English ministry was concerned about the threat posed to the prerogative powers of the monarchy by legislation for limitations in the Scottish Estates, not just because they created a precedent for similar encroachments in the English Parliament, but because they left the door open to the restoration of the royal house in exile should James Stuart convert to Protestantism.16 Anne’s cumulative loss of confidence in Queensberry for his involvement in the Scotch Plot and his maladroit handling of legislative limitations created opportunities for a political grouping, drawn mainly from the Country Party to pursue office at the expense of the highly compromised queen’s commissioner. This grouping, never more than 30, formed the New Party, latter the Squadrone Volante, under the nominal leadership of John Hay, 2nd Marquess of Tweeddale. The New Party was also able to draw support from the Court Party in firming up support for the Hanoverian Succession and conserving the Revolution Settlement. The New Party was notably compliant to the dictates of the English ministry.17 Tweeddale was appointed as commissioner to the reconvened session of the Scottish Estates that commenced in July 1704. In this session, the New Party was comprehensively outmanoeuvred by the Country Party in alliance with the Cavaliers. But the Country Party could also count on support from Queenberry’s closest friends and followers led, in his absence, by John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar, whose numbers at least equalled that of the New Party. Tweeddale’s primary remit from Queen Anne and the English ministry was to secure the Hanoverian Succession in return for some moderate, and reversible, limitations on the prerogative. However, Hamilton, abetted by the oratorical and polemical skills of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, pressed the necessity of no discussion on the Succession without prior agreement for a bilateral agreement on trade. The Country Party was also determined on detailed limitations that even the Cavaliers deemed necessary to rectify the constitution and secure the independence of the nation. Tweeddale was powerless to do anything but stall.18 Anne was faced with a choice. She could reject the Act of Security or accept limitations on the prerogative that could serve as a precedent for similar action in the English Parliament. Godolphin was now convinced the latter option was the lesser risk. Anne relented. The triumph of the Country Party, however, was far from complete. They had failed to elect commissioners to negotiate a treaty with English counterparts, a manoeuvre which would

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either have restricted negotiations to a federative arrangement or forced their outright collapse. Prorogation in September denied them the opportunity to carry the fundamental programme of limitations devised by Fletcher of Saltoun. More significantly, the Scottish Estates in the eyes of Queen Anne had strayed onto dangerous constitutional grounds.19 The debates on union and empire during the legislative war that spilled over into the final session of the Scottish Estates in 1706–1707 were not just matters of polemical and intellectual sparring on politic order and state formation.20 They carried an immediate political resonance with Queen Anne and her English ministry. This was particularly true in relation to Poland– Lithuania as the Commonwealth of Two Nations. The merger of Poland and Lithuania from the later sixteenth century was termed a ‘real union’ through an elective monarchy and a common parliament. But this Commonwealth also retained distinctive institutions with regard to regional parliaments and separate armed forces. The Commonwealth mainly impinged on British consciousness with regards to the need for unanimity before any measure could pass in the common parliament and its contested elections to the monarchy. This latter aspect was given particular notoriety by the tradition of greater and lesser nobility confederating to assert rights of resistance that elevated the Commonwealth over the monarchy. This practice of exercising these rights in a rokosz was affirmed first in 1608, thereafter in 1662, and contemporaneously in 1704 against the monarch elected 7 years earlier, Augustus II (who was also Elector of Saxony). The French were intimately involved in both the election and the rebellion.21 The right of the Scottish commonwealth to resist ungodly monarchy that had established the Reformation between 1560 and 1567 can be viewed as a rokosz, as can the fundamental limitations in Kirk and State imposed on Charles I in 1640–1641, which were notably appealing to constitutional reformers in the Country Party. Likewise the Claim of Right, which forfeited James VII in 1689 and laid the basis for the Revolution settlement in Scotland asserted similar rights. Fletcher of Saltoun’s, programme of fundamental checks on monarchy, would have required a radical reform of this Settlement; a situation anathema to Queen Anne. Her firm resolve to defend her prerogative was bolstered by details of the latest rokosz carried in newsletters and political commentaries. Whigs ambitious for office were keen to distance themselves from past associations as a Polish interest from the Exclusion Crisis of 1678–1681. Tory polemicists had castigated Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, as the ‘King of Poland’ for his endeavours to prevent the succession of the future James VII and II.22

∗ The Whig position was of critical importance in the aftermath of the Scottish parliamentary session of 1704. Nottingham had demitted his post

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as Secretary of State in the spring of 1704, partly in response to attacks on his integrity by the committee investigating the Scotch Plot, but primarily because of his growing frustration at the failure of the English ministry to cut back on military expenditure. With Tory backing, Nottingham mounted a sustained attack on Godolphin for moving the queen to assent to the act of security. Godolphin was only spared a motion of censure during a state of the nation debate in late November by the Junto which led for the Whigs in the Lords. Their support cemented Marlborough’s direction of the war.23 The Whig Junto in the Lords was instrumental in promoting the Alien Act in December 1704, which eventually passed through both houses by February 1705. Readily endorsed at Court, this act represented the English backlash to the Scottish offensive during the legislative war. More importantly, it marked a signal switch in public policy, with the English ministry no longer concentrating on securing the Hanoverian Succession but giving priority to political incorporation both as a means of pre-empting the Scottish programme of limitations and bringing Scottish commerce at home and abroad under regulation from Westminster. The Scots were invited to treat for Union or face from Christmas 1705 an embargo on commodities specifically targeted at the landed interest, notably with respect to rental income derived from rearing cattle and sheep, from extracting coal, and from spinning and weaving linen. At the same time, a clear steer was also given that an agreement to enter into Union would consolidate Scottish commercial prospects at home and abroad. Coercive persuasion was furthered by the accompanying instruction that garrisons at Carrickfergus, Carlisle, Berwick, Newcastle, and Hull were to be stepped up to facilitate an invasion of Scotland by land and sea if necessary. Scotland now faced the prospect of a rerun of the Cromwellian occupation and forced union of the 1650s.24 The prospect of an invasion was not just a perceived but an actual threat. Indeed, in terms of British strategic security, this ongoing threat was accepted by pro-Union polemicists and commentators as well as feared by opponents of Union.25 Much has been made of the pro-British conditioning among the Scottish elite by service in the European theatres of the Anglo-French wars. Overseas commitments, however, tended to clash with parliamentary sessions.26 More pertinent was Godolphin’s cultivation of the officer corps stationed in Scotland, particularly those eligible to attend and vote in the Scottish Estates as peers or commissioners for the shires and burghs. Underwriting future wages and salary arrears created a British interest that could not be relied upon to oppose and English invasion.27 Following pressure from the Whig Junto and discreet lobbying by Queensberry, the youthful John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll was released from his service with Marlborough to return as queen’s commissioner to the recalled Scottish Estates in June 1705. Never averse to exploiting place and patronage, Argyll brought a military ruthlessness to his political planning. He made full use of the managerial skills of Mar, who was particularly adroit

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in maintaining links with Hamilton and the Country Party. Argyll’s remit from Court was to secure Union in return for unfettered Scottish access to England’s colonies and to permit moderate limitations that would not be binding in the event of political incorporation.28 Argyll duly accorded priority to trade and commerce, which subtly prepared the ground for Union by favouring manufactures developed through landed enterprise rather than overseas trade. When the limitations were discussed, Fletcher of Saltoun’s programme achieved only piecemeal success while the promoter became increasingly marginalised. The Country Party gradually lost their controlling influence in the course of these debates as Queensberry’s friends and followers firmly aligned themselves with the Court Party. When the Estates moved from limitations to discuss treating for Union, Mar drafted an overture for a meeting of commissioners that judiciously left out how they were to be chosen. Late in the evening of 1 September, Hamilton dramatically rose to his feet and proposed that the nomination of the commissioners should be left to the queen. This measure, which aborted the prospect of election by the Estates, was adroitly accepted by to James Ogilvie, 1st Earl of Seafield, who presided as Lord Chancellor.29 George Lockhart of Carnwath, the leading Jacobite organiser in the Scottish Estates, perceptively attributed Hamilton’s quixotic behaviour to Mar’s covert dealings for the duke to become a commissioner if he left nominations to the queen. Argyll subsequently refused to serve as a commissioner on a point of honour once Queen Anne vetoed Hamilton’s nomination. Argyll had gained considerable political leverage over Hamilton 2 months before the parliament commenced when once again he was specified as the Scottish lynchpin in another Jacobite plot.30 With nomination by Queen Anne a fait accompli, the parliamentary session of 1705 petered out. The removal of the specific sections of the Alien Act deemed derogatory to Scotland was duly carried through the English Parliament with no more than token demurring on the part of the Tories. By the outset of 1706, Union was on course as an English initiative supported both by the ministry and the Whig Junto. However, there was still much to play for before political incorporation became a reality.31 Negotiations between the commissioners of both kingdoms had to be carried to a successful conclusion. Of the 31 Scottish commissioners, Lockhart of Carnwath was the token representative of opponents to Union. Negotiations from a Scottish perspective were more noted for their ineptitude rather than their accomplishments. The Whig junto was more than a touch disdainful that the Scots had sold themselves short in negotiations. The agreed Treaty had then to pass through both parliaments. Although extra-parliamentary pressures were anticipated in Scotland with even a possibility of a coup d’état by the Jacobites, Queensberry, restored as queen’s commissioner and Mar carried the day in the Scottish Estates from October 1706 to January 1707. They did so principally through sophisticated

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techniques of parliamentary management rather than by bribery. Although the management of both the Lords and Commons by Robert Harley (the future Earl of Oxford) on behalf of the English ministry was actually more heavy-handed in February and March 1707, the Treaty of Union also came through unscathed in London as in Edinburgh.32

∗ The key articles of the Treaty of Union are highly revealing in terms of political economy. Article IV created a common market in which a comparatively under-resourced and undercapitalised Scotland lacked a competitive edge in manufacturing and skilled labour. Nevertheless, this article ended all prospects of a renewal of tariff wars that had culminated in the English Alien Act of 1705. Moreover, this article had two major and enduring benefits. In the first place, it allowed for the free flow of capital across the Borders. No longer could English investors be prevented from investing in Scottish ventures, as had been the case at Darien. In the second place, the Scots were now guaranteed access to the American colonies of the Crown. Although the Scots could now trade legally in the West Indies, the East Indies remained a monopoly of the merging East India Companies based in London, which was the only English trading concern able to exclude rival companies or restrict the active participation of anyone wishing to engage in commerce overseas. There was no question of the English becoming the British East India Company.33 The major assertion of English control over Scottish trading operations occurred with Article VI. Henceforth, all parts of the United Kingdom were to be under the same trading regulations and liable to the same customs and duties. Article VII imposed the same rates of excise. There were several inherent disadvantages in the Scots having to adjust to English commercial regulation and meet higher duties for customs and excise. The Scottish carrying trade was specifically targeted with respect to exports of wool from England, a practice that was now proscribed throughout Britain. The immediate beneficiaries were English not Scottish manufacturers. Higher duties of customs and excise made smuggling an attractive option. Scottish commercial networks did not abandon their circumvention of the Navigation Acts once they became British.34 Because Scotland had been guaranteed access to English and domestic colonial trade under Article IV, it was not unreasonable to expect that Scotland should pay a share of the English National Debt after 1707. However, this debt had been magnified by the War of the Spanish Succession and stood at around £20 million when the Union was negotiated. Moreover, there was a shortfall of £3 million in the funds provided to service the National Debt. Accordingly, it was deemed equitable that Scotland should be indemnified by a capital equivalent of £398,085 that was to be paid over

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7 years from the customs and excise as recompense for higher public burdens, for the standardisation of the coinage and as reparations for Darien. A rising Equivalent of £2000 was to be paid annually for 7 years out of the customs and excise to promote the manufacture of coarse woollens, linen and fishing. It soon became evident that the customs and excise to be raised in Scotland in the first year after the Union was not likely to amount to more than that raised in 1700. It was also apparent that foreign trade was not likely to advance more than £40,000 per annum in the first 7 years of Union. As the inevitably delayed Equivalents were to be raised by higher taxes on Scotland, the Scots were effectively paying for their own compensation, reparations, and investment in manufacturing.35 In terms of economic growth, the Union failed to meet expectations in all but two aspects. Droving of black cattle took off with unrestricted access to expanding markets stimulated by the growth of London into Europe’s largest city, by naval demand for salt beef, and by the growth of manufacturing towns in England. However, the area which immediately benefited from this trade was the Highlands and Islands which, along with the northeast, were the Jacobite heartlands of Scotland. Unrestricted access to the American colonies after 1707 enabled Glasgow merchants to secure dominance in the tobacco trade, primarily by expanding the store system under which the merchant rather than the planter bore the risk of transatlantic shipping. Advances of credit on future tobacco sales in Europe was tied to the purchase of merchandise from the colonial store, a practice that was particularly suited to the expansion of small plantations along the Chesapeake and into the hinterlands of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Whitehaven, hitherto third after Bristol and Liverpool in the Atlantic trade, was so eclipsed by Glasgow merchants’ use of the store system in tandem with smuggling mainly through the Isle of Man, that the Cumbrian town actually petitioned for repeal of the Treaty of Union in 1710.36 Subordinate Scottish representation at Westminster, the sacrifice of Scottish sovereignty and the monopolising of places of profit by Scottish politicians favoured by the predominantly English ministries, ensured that Jacobitism remained viable as a political cause if not a sustained movement. Indeed, Scottish Jacobitism required not only new impetus but also new direction from the Union. Far from securing peace within the British Isles, the Union provoked a minor rising in 1708 that foundered primarily through French ineptitude rather than British solidarity. The Hanoverian Succession in 1714 having terminated his ministerial career, the first major rising on 1715 was led by Mar, the Scottish political manager of the passage of Union.37 Guarantees for the retention of distinctive Scottish institutions, such as the Kirk, the law courts, and local government were made equivocal by Whig and Tory negligence in the governance of Scotland. Misgovernance was demonstrated in the initial British Parliament of 1708 with the passage

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of the Act for Improving of Union by the Whig dominated ministry. Instead of making the Union ‘more complete’, the act consisted of three measures that brought home to Scotland the nature of political incorporation. The first measure was the establishment of a Court of Revenues for Customs and Excise to ensure the effective extension of English fiscal regulation and administration to Scotland. English dominance over the judicial proceedings of this court gave an added edge to smuggling not just as an illicit activity but an expression of political protest. The second measure was the imposition of the English Treason Law on Scotland to ensure easier conviction of Jacobites. The third measure was the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council. At a stroke, Scotland was deprived of its central executive with powers of judicial and administrative oversight. Gun-running and credit transfers among Jacobites became more difficult to monitor.38 In addition to administrative dismantling there were further breaches in the spirit if not the letter of Anglo-Scottish Union. Scottish representation in the new British Parliament was restricted to 16 elected peers in the House of Lords and 45 MPs in the House of Commons, less than that enjoyed by the county of Cornwall. Rewarded with a British peerage as Duke of Dover, Queensberry was nevertheless denied the right to vote for the elected Scottish peers in 1709. Two years later, Hamilton was created Earl of Brandon by the Tory-led ministry who had come to power in 1710. However, he was not only denied the right to vote for elected peers, but he was also barred from taking his seat in the Lords to deter other Scots from seeking British peerages. In 1711, the British parliament also proved unreceptive to measures to lower tariffs on imported salt to aid the Scottish fishing industry and likewise measures for the promotion of linen were thwarted by a vociferous Anglo-Irish lobby. The passage of the Toleration and Patronage Acts in 1712 was a particular source of tension and division for the Presbyterian establishment in the Kirk. Scots were outraged by the introduction of an augmented malt tax in 1713, prior to the conclusion of the Treaty of Utrecht. The Treaty of Union had specifically ruled out any increase in the malt tax during time of war. More importantly, equalising of fiscal rates worked to the material disadvantage of Scotland. Such was the level of outrage that leading Scottish politicians who had actively supported the making of the Union now began to work closely with those politicians who had opposed the Treaty. A contributory diplomatic factor for Scottish disillusion with Union was the failure of British negotiators to achieve a favourable commercial treaty with France in anticipation of peace, particularly as Scottish shipping as well as exports of salmon and herring, textiles, and unfinished wool had all suffered since the Union. Trade with France, which had been healthily in the black notwithstanding high imports of wine and brandy, was now firmly in the red. The motion eventually debated in the Lords during 1713 was not actually to dissolve the Union but to instigate a formal debate towards the

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same end. This effort was marshalled by Seafield (now 4th Earl of Findlater). The Union was only saved by 4 proxy votes.39 The fiscal demands of the War of the Spanish succession made it imperative for the incumbent English ministry to bring under control the disruptive impact of Scottish commercial networks at home and abroad. The War also highlighted critical problems of manpower supply that made political incorporation an attractive proposition. The distrust and outraged engendered at Court by the radical intent of the Scottish Estates to impose fundamental limitations on the royal prerogative furthered this conservative process of state formation. The creation of the United Kingdom in 1707 allied the landed interests of both England and Scotland to a British fiscal-military state. A shared vision of national prosperity and imperial opportunity promoted the primacy of landed enterprise in a common British market. But this vision ran counter to the embryonic growth in manufacturing achieved by Scots prior to 1707 that was overwhelmingly the accomplishment of commercial networks engaged in overseas trade. Notwithstanding the freeing up of colonial access, the Treaty of 1707 mired Scotland in an economic recession which, when compounded by misgovernance, threatened the continuance of Union beyond the War of the Spanish Succession. Nevertheless, Anglo-Scottish Union not only survived, but actually thrived from the mid-eighteenth century with the crushing of Jacobitism following the last major rising in 1745. The Scottish landed elite, merchants, and professional classes came to realise that Empire presented them with a golden opportunity for personal and family advancement, and the burgeoning fiscal-military state learned to cultivate their evangelical capacity for enterprise and exploitation.40

Notes 1. C. M. Andrews (1943) The Colonial Period of American History: England’s Commercial and Colonial Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. 157–168, 272–317. 2. A. I. Macinnes (2007) Union and Empire: The Making of the United Kingdom in 1707 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp.12–50. 3. M. J. Braddick (1996) The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 27–45. 4. D. W. Jones (1988) War and Economy in the Age of William III and Marlborough (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 1–65, 131–168. 5. B. Simms (2007) Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire (London: Allen Lane), pp. 44–76. 6. G. E. Barnett (ed.) (1936) Two Tracts by Gregory King (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins). 7. C. Whitworth (ed.) (1968 [original 1771]) The Political and Commercial Works of Charles D’Avenant, 5 vols (London: R. Horsfield), II, pp. 1–77. 8. Huntington Library, Huntington Manuscripts, HM 1264, ‘(Nehemiah) Grew, The Meanes of a most Ample Encrease of the Wealth and Strength of England in a few years humbly presented to Her Majesty in the 5th Year of Her Reign’.

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9. A. I. Macinnes (2008) ‘The treaty of union: Made in England’ in T. M. Devine (ed.) Scotland the Union, 1707–2007 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 54–74. 10. A. I. Macinnes (2004–2005) ‘Le jacobitisme en Écosse, cause épisodique ou mouvement national?’, L’évolution des mondes modernes, Séminaire de D.E.A. De l’Institut de Recherches sur les Civilisations de l’Occident Moderne, Université Paris Sorbonne, II, 1–28. 11. Rigsarkivet Copenhagen [RC], T.K.U.A. England, Akter og Dokumenter nedr Sofart og Handel: Order med Bilag, 1702–1707, A.III/ 207–210. 12. Scotch Plot, 1702–1704. Papers of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, BL, Add MS 31249, fos. 17, 19–22, 26–27, 29–30. 13. Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Carte Papers (1701–1719), MS Carte 180/11; A Collection of Original Papers about the Scots Plot (London, 1704), part I, pp. 4–5, 7–61 & part II, pp.1–22, 32–40, 49–87. 14. A. Aufrere (1817) (ed.) The Lockhart Papers: Memoirs and Correspondence upon the Affairs of Scotland from 1702 to 1715 (London), I, pp. 51–69. 15. G. Ridpath (1704) Proceedings of the Parliament of Scotland begun at Edinburgh, 6th May 1703 (Edinburgh). 16. RC, T.K.U.A. England, Akter og Dokumenter nedr Sofart og Handel: Order med Bilag, 1703–1704, A.III/ 207/45, /46, /50, /55–57, /59, /61–63, /65–67 & /208/71, /84 & /209/1–2, /10, /17, /20, /27–28. 17. D. J. Patrick and C. A. Whatley (2007) ‘Persistence, principle and patriotism in the making of the union of 1707: The revolution, Scottish parliament and the squadrone volante’, History, XCII, 162–186. 18. Sir David Hume of Crossrigg (1828) A Diary of the Proceedings in the Parliament and Privy Council of Scotland, 1700–1707, J. Hope (ed.) (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club), pp.136–162. 19. RC, T.K.U.A. England, Akter og Dokumenter nedr Sofart og Handel: Order med Bilag, 1704, A. III/209/35, /44–45, /47–48, /49, /52–54. 20. J. Robertson (1995) ‘Empire and union: two concepts of the early modern European political order’ in J. Robertson (ed.) A Union for Empire Political Thought and the British Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 3–36. 21. A. I. Macinnes (2008) ‘The hidden commonwealth: Poland-Lithuania and Scottish political discourse in the Seventeenth Century’ in K. Friedrich and B. M. Pendzich (eds) Citizenship and Identity in a Multi-National Commonwealth. Poland-Lithuania in Context, 1550–1750 (Leiden: Brill), pp. 233–260. 22. RC, T.K.U.A. England, Akter og Dokumenter nedr Sofart og Handel: Order med Bilag, 1702–1705, A.III/207/56, /62–66 & /209/45, /48 & /210/38, /42–43, /45–46. For Fletcher of Saltoun’s programme of limitations see Macinnes, Union and Empire, p. 268. 23. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time: From the Restoration of King Charles the Second to the Treaty of Peace at Utrecht, in the reign of Queen Anne (London, 1857), pp. 763–766. 24. Earl of Minton (1842) (ed.) Correspondence of George Baillie of Jerviswood, 1702– 1708 (Edinburgh), pp.12–27. 25. J. R. Young (1999) ‘The parliamentary incorporating union of 1707: Political management, anti-unionism and foreign policy’, in T. M. Devine, J. R. Young (eds) Eighteenth Century Scotland: New Perspectives (East Linton: Tuckwell), pp. 24–52; C. A. Whatley (2008) ‘The issues facing Scotland in 1707’ in S. J. Brown and

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26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39.

40.

Anglo-Scottish Union C. A. Whatley (eds) Union of 1707: New Dimensions (Scottish Historical Review, supplementary issue, Edinburgh), pp. 1–30. C. Storrs (2008) ‘The union of 1707 and the war of the Spanish succession’, in Brown and Whatley (eds) Union of 1707: New Dimensions (Edinburgh), pp. 31–44; K. M. Brown (1991) ‘From Scottish lords to British officers: state building, elite integration and the army in the seventeenth century’ in N. MacDougall (ed.) Scotland and War, AD 79–1918 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 133–69. Sidney, 1st Earl of Godolphin: Official Correspondence Home, 1701–1710, BL Add MS 28055, fos. 27–8, 41, 92, 98, 111–113, 132–133, 144–145, 241, 324–325. P. W. J. Riley (1978) The Union of England and Scotland: A Study in Anglo-Scottish Politics of the Eighteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 145–151. D. H. Colonel Wm Dalrymple, Parliamentary Notebook, 1704–1705, A 817/1, pp.56–132. Lockhart Papers, I, pp.134–137; Sidney, 1st Earl of Godolphin: Official Correspondence. Home 1701–1710, BL Add MS 28055, fos. 174–182; SC, p. 405. D. H., Colonel Wm Dalrymple, Parliamentary Notebook, 1704–1705, A 817/1, pp.133–153; C. Jones and G. Holmes (1985) (eds) The London Diaries of William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle 1702–1718 (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 302–303, 312, 331–332. Macinnes, Union and Empire, pp. 277–309; C. A. Whatley with D. J. Patrick (2006) The Scots and the Union (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 274–321. A. Mackillop (2005) ‘Accessing empire: Scotland, Europe, Britain and the Asia trade, c. 1695–c. 1750’, Itinerario, XXIX, 7–30. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (1993), in D. Duncan (ed.) History of the Union of Scotland and England (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 190–195. A State of the Public Revenues and Debts of England, Together with a Scheme of the Sums of Money Allowed to Scotland by the Treaty of Union in name of Equivalent (Edinburgh, 1706). J. Redington (ed.) (1708–1814) Calendar of Treasury Papers (1557–1728), 6 vols (London: Longman), pp. 117, 170, 229, 241, 252–253, 261. A. I. Macinnes (2007) ‘Jacobitism in Scotland: Episodic cause or national movement?’, Scottish Historical Review, LXXXVI, 225–252. D. H., Notes. Hon. William Dalrymple, First Parliament of Great Britain 1707– 1708, A 817/3, pp.3, 38–43, 88–92; Blenheim Papers, vol. DXXXII, BL Add MS 61632, fos. 47–54. G. Holmes (1986) Politics, Religion and Society in England, 1679–1742 (London: Hambledon), pp. 109–138; (1713) Reasons for Dissolving the Treaty of Union Betwixt Scotland and England In a Letter to a Scots Member of Parliament, from One of His Electors (London); Anon. (1713) The Trade of Scotland with France Considered (Edinburgh). T. M. Devine (2003) Scotland’s Empire, 1600–1815 (London: Allen Lane), pp. 62–68.

5 The Development of the Executive and Foreign Policy, 1714–1760 Andrew C. Thompson

Constitutional history in the first half of the eighteenth century might seem initially to be rather unpromising ground for innovation of any sort, let alone revision via Prussian theoretical intervention. Yet, as this chapter seeks to demonstrate, rethinking what was happening to British political institutions in the early eighteenth century and, more importantly, why it was so doing shows the extent to which foreign political concerns and contexts provided the impetus for significant changes and developments in the way in which Britain was governed. The chapter grows out of work on the interface between Britain and Hanover in the eighteenth century: what it meant to be part of a multiple monarchy, what impact the connection between the two entities had on identity in both locations, how the union was conceptualised and justified and, most importantly for present purposes, what impact a peripatetic monarchy had on the governance of both Britain and Hanover.1 It was the very movement of monarch and ministers between Britain and Hanover that had a particularly significant effect on the structures of governance in both places, as the second half of the chapter will show in some detail.2 However, it is necessary to begin by looking both at the existing models of executive development and how these relate to broader historiographical trends, as well as how the account adopted here differs from these. Within older, and more whiggishly inclined, historiographies, the eighteenth century was a period of peculiar importance. For the likes of Macaulay and Trevelyan and their followers, it had been after 1688 that the House of Commons had moved into the ascendancy within the constitutional Trinity of the ‘King in Parliament’ that had dominated earlier thinking. 1688 itself was conceived of primarily as a domestic revolt against the tyrannical power of Stuart despots, hell-bent on corrupting English morals with foreign Catholicism and destroying English liberties through arbitrary government. William’s intervention, the last successful invasion of these islands, was not really considered for its foreign political legacy but for putting England, and later Britain, firmly on the path of constitutional 65

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righteousness and progress.3 One of the key characteristics of the whig account was its tendency to focus almost entirely on domestic, rather than foreign, political factors as being crucial for change and development.4 Following on from the defeat of absolutist government, the establishment of constitutional monarchy, and the triumph of the Commons, other signs of constitutional progress were clearly discernible within eighteenth-century history. The need to manage the Commons inevitably led to the rapid realisation that all the best ministers were leaders within the Commons and historians consequently focused much attention on them – Sir Robert Walpole, Henry Pelham, William Pitt, père et fils. The circularity of an argument that presumed Commons pre-eminence and then praised those who successfully managed that body as being particularly important or influential went largely unnoticed. Beyond the increased attention lavished on the First Lord of the Treasury, a further trend was towards upgrading the importance of the Commons as a source of authority in ministerial choice and governance more generally. One way in which that new found authority might also take expression institutionally was through the cabinet. Macaulay argued in the fourth volume of his History of England (1855) that the cabinet had become a necessity in the aftermath of 1688 to make parliamentary government work.5 Or at least many people thought that was what Macaulay meant. A careful reading of Macaulay’s argument suggests that he thought that the evolution of a system which placed the House of Commons and a ministry drawn from the two houses was necessary in the aftermath of the Revolution. Macaulay concluded his discussion of the necessity of a ministry thus: It is by means of Ministries thus constituted, and thus changed, that the English government has long been conducted in general conformity with the deliberate sense of the House of Commons, and yet has been wonderfully free from the vices which are characteristic of governments administered by large, tumultuous, and divided assemblies. A few distinguished persons, agreeing in their general opinions, are the confidential advisers at once of the Sovereign and of the Estates of the Realm. In the closet they speak with the authority of men who stand high in the estimation of the representatives of the people. In Parliament they speak with the authority of men versed in great affairs and acquainted with all the secrets of the State. Thus the Cabinet has something of the popular character of a representative body; and the representative body has something of the gravity of a cabinet.6 Mention of the cabinet is slipped in at the end, and there is more than a whiff of justifying the nature of the British political settlement in the aftermath of the 1832 Reform Bill with the comment about being able to combine a popular element in government without giving way completely to popular pressure. Walter Bagehot in the essays published in the Fortnightly Review between 1865 and 1867 and later gathered together as The English constitution was keen to stress the importance of the cabinet as the efficient part of

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government that could get things done – perhaps even more important than parliament.7 The cabinet was for him ‘the connecting link’ and ‘by that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. The legislature has many committees, but this is its greatest. It chooses for this, its main committee, the men in whom it has most confidence’.8 Bagehot was prepared to concede that the choice of ministers may not have been directly within the purview of parliament; he acknowledged that the prerogative was still a reality and that ministers were the Queen’s servants. However, his contention was that more and more in the eighteenth century these ministers were royal servants in name only. As he remarked shortly after the passage quoted above ‘the crown is, according to the saying, the “fountain of honour”; but the Treasury is the spring of business’.9 Bagehot’s role in constructing a whig-liberal view of the eighteenth century has come in for some typically forceful criticism of late from Jonathan Clark – Bagehot was, after all, a Unitarian so could not be expected, pace Clark, to be anything other than wrong about everything.10 What is perhaps more interesting, though, is the extent to which Bagehot, Macaulay, and their successors were correct in their description but wrong in their explanation. Before exploring this point further, however, it is necessary to conclude the historiographical overview. It might be thought that concentrating initially on nineteenth-century whig historians misses the point. After all, isn’t that all old-hat now? Nobody really still accepts a whig view of the eighteenth century, do they? The answer to both these questions is, of course, in some sense affirmative. Large chunks of the ice-cap of whig history have disappeared under the pressure from successive waves of historiographical erosion. Namier, and his disciples, challenged the ideological superstructure of the whig account.11 Butterfield, in a different sense, showed the limitations of whig history.12 Jonathan Clark and John Brewer have both tried to erect new edifices – be they a confessional or a fiscal-military state.13 Yet, precisely because certain aspects of whig history had become so embedded, they have taken longer to challenge. The emergence of the cabinet is arguably one of these. While not of course an entirely scientific measure, a search of the Royal Historical Society bibliography for items related to the eighteenth-century cabinet published since 1980, once the plethora of literature on furniture and cabinets of curiosities has been removed, reveals just two items, an article by the late Philip Lawson about George III’s cabinet and Michael Jubb’s piece on cabinet in the reign of George I.14 Neither piece is what can really be described as a sustained discussion of the broad scope of cabinet government. Instead both pieces point to particular sources that might shed further light on discussions of the emergence of the cabinet. Jubb’s central point is to show that the distinction between a ‘cabinet council’ and the ‘lords of committee’ was not nearly as precise in practice as the distinctive nomenclature suggests, and he concludes with the telling observation that ‘there is room for much detailed work on the constitutional forms and practices

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of eighteenth-century England.’15 Lawson’s contribution concerns his discoveries within the portion of the Grenville papers that had recently been acquired from Sir John Murray by the British Library and the light that they shed on both attendance at cabinet, such as the practice that the archbishop of Canterbury was present for solemn occasions,16 and Grenville’s assiduous recording of cabinet business.17 Jubb, in particular, conveys a sense of unease about the existing literature, perhaps inspired by the debate over Geoffrey Elton’s thesis about the transformation from the King’s Council to the Privy Council. Yet overall the sense is not of constitutional change being a hot historiographical topic. This contrasts markedly with the picture in the early twentieth century where debate on the status and development of the cabinet if not exactly burning, certainly smouldered pretty effectively, largely in the pages of the English Historical Review. Following on from D. A. Winstanley’s discussion of George III’s cabinet in 1902,18 which included an emphasis on the importance of patronage that was to characterise Namier’s work later,19 Harold Temperley and William Anson offered broader surveys which partly complemented and partly contradicted the work that Edward Raymond Turner was publishing in the United States.20 Much of this work turned around questions of nomenclature – where and when did the Privy Council transform itself into the cabinet? Was there a distinction between the inner and outer cabinet and, if there was, what did this mean in practice? The usual structure of change was from a large Privy Council ceasing to be effective and then being replaced first by an outer and then an inner cabinet grouping. Turner himself acknowledged that many of the differences were on points of detail, rather than the general outlines.21 There is a vivid sense in which the main point at issue seems to be at what precise point a whig view of cabinet government might be said to have become central, rather than whether this move took place at all. Macaulay’s dating of cabinet government to 1694 might have seemed overly optimistic; there was some disagreement as to whether the Walpolean period constituted a period of cabinet government or not – Romney Sedgwick devoted a whole article in 1919 to this subject.22 Yet, all the authors mentioned in this brief overview would have subscribed to Turner’s judgement that ‘the period of the first two Georges is beyond all others the era when cabinet government began in England. During those years the great lords and politicians, once servants and advisers, became advisers and masters of the crown.’23 So far, so good or rather so far, so simplistic. The remainder of this chapter sets out in greater detail reasons for thinking that this account of the emergence of the cabinet, while superficially attractive, fails to explain adequately what occurred and proposes an alternative explanation to put in its place. In addition, the suggestion is that adopting a different account of constitutional change, one that is alive to the importance of external factors, will also provide different and more satisfying explanations to other features of

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the constitutional and political history of the period, not least the seeming disjunction between the politics of the 1750s and those of the 1760s. It was suggested above that the whiggish description of the situation was largely accurate, whereas the explanation was misleading. How might this point be elaborated? The whig account assumes that various factors need to go together: an increase in the power of the Commons must be accompanied by a necessary decrease in the power of the crown. The growth of cabinet government was similarly a sign of decreasing monarchical power. A focus on the Commons leads to a marginalising of both Lords and Crown. This focus is deemed appropriate because we ‘know’ in the long run that it was the Commons that would emerge triumphant as the dominant partner in British constitutional arrangements. Yet all of this assumes a largely internal account of constitutional development – it was domestic struggles for place and patronage that would shape institutions, rather than the forces applied by external pressure. Taking a step back from this cosy whig teleology, and asking some basic questions about what the eighteenth-century British state did and looked like, allows a rather different picture to emerge. It hardly needs to be restated here that many nineteenth- and twentiethcentury assumptions about the size and purpose of the eighteenth-century British state were deeply flawed. Instead of being a small state on the liberal model, eighteenth-century Britain had a state apparatus more extensive and invasive than most of its European great power rivals. The work of Peter Matthias and Patrick O’Brien shows how comparatively effective Britain’s tax-raising apparatus was.24 John Brewer and Mike Braddick have developed and enhanced this work in a variety of directions, both in terms of showing how bureaucratic practice developed and how the excise came to be a key component of national revenues.25 Thomas Ertman, drawing heavily but critically on some of the theoretical insights of Otto Hintze,26 has placed all these developments into a broader context and argues that it was the very transparency of British revenue-raising procedures that served to increase credit and induce trust.27 Parliament, particularly the Commons, had a key part to play in all this through the approval of both taxes and estimates for the armed forces. By looking at both how much money would flow in through taxation and how much was flowing out in expenditure, it was possible to keep debt within manageable proportions, and the hypothecation of tax revenue to fund debt interest payments meant that over time, the rates of interest paid by the British state fell and so more money could be spent on ships and soldiers and less on debt service – quite literally more bang for the buck. Within this account, therefore, the growth in the importance of parliament has little to do with the history of British constitutional struggle and the final defeat of the Stuarts but it emerges, in part, as the unintended consequence of William III’s reorientation of British foreign policy towards an active commitment to continental involvement. This is not to say that parliament was not used by different groups for different purposes – the

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volume of private members’ bill brought in to deal with local issues strongly suggests otherwise. Yet, from a royal perspective, parliament’s key role was initially in the provision of funds and only secondarily as a forum of debate and discussion. This raises a second, and related, point about focus. One of the neglected, but nevertheless revealing, facts of eighteenth-century British history is that, with the exception of the 12 years of Anne’s reign (1702–1714), from 1688 to 1837, the holder of the British thrones was simultaneously ruler of significant continental European territories – the United Provinces under William III and the electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg or Hanover under the eponymous Hanoverians.28 These continental commitments had important policy consequences. It is widely accepted that an interest in European affairs played an important part in shaping British foreign policy until at least 1760. Some, such as Jeremy Black, have viewed this influence as largely negative and a distraction from Britain’s true interests.29 Others, including Brendan Simms and Hamish Scott, have taken a different view.30 The evaluation of British interest in Europe, though, is not really the primary concern here. Rather, it is the mechanics of that involvement that are of interest, both in terms of men and means. William III was absent from Britain for long periods during the Nine Years’ War, much to the frustration of various elements within the British political nation.31 When the question of what would happen to the British thrones after William’s, or more particularly Anne’s, demise was being determined, various conditions were placed upon future occupants of the throne through the Act of Settlement (1701). Protestantism became the sine qua non for British monarchs, thus removing at a stroke more than 50 potential claimants. After William’s sister-in-law Anne, the succession would now fall upon a granddaughter of James I and VI, Sophia, the dowager Electress of Hanover. Only natural or naturalised Britons could be created British peers, thus alleviating some of the fears that a future German monarch would be able to promote his or her favourites in quite the same way that William III had promoted Bentinck and Keppel.32 Finally, royal absences from Britain would require parliamentary sanction and thus, it was hoped, the Hanoverians would be a more constant presence in their new lands than William had seemed to be.33 Some of these conditions were more rigorously enforced than others. Despite some initial worries about the dynasty’s Protestantism, particularly from high tory pamphleteers who argued that Lutheranism was nearer Catholicism than godliness,34 the Protestant succession was quickly established. When both George I and George II wanted to reward their respective mistresses with peerages, they did at least ensure that they were naturalised first. Ehrengard Melusine von der Schulenburg, who accompanied George I on his journey to London in 1714 was created duchess of Munster after being naturalised in 1716 and became duchess of Kendal in 1719. Amalie von Wallmoden’s relationship with George II probably began on the king’s

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visit to Hanover in 1735. She moved to London, following the death of George II’s wife, in 1738. In February 1740 she was naturalised and was created countess of Yarmouth in March 1740. The prohibition on travel without parliamentary approval proved more difficult to maintain. When George I first talked about visiting his electoral territories again after his accession, his ministers quickly came to the conclusion that it was beneath his royal dignity to have to ask for parliamentary permission to do so. Those provisions of the Act of Settlement were consequently quickly revoked.35 George I travelled back to Hanover in the summer of 1716 and remained a frequent visitor for the remainder of his reign, returning in 1719, 1720, 1723, and 1725. He was en route for Hanover when he was struck down with a heart attack in June 1727, dying at Osnabrück. During the early years of his father’s reign, George II, while Prince of Wales, had made considerable play of his ‘English’ credentials and interests, as opposed to the seeming Hanoverianism of George snr.36 Yet, after 1727, George II proved to be just as willing and frequent a visitor to Hanover as his father had been. Although his first visit was delayed until 1729, he returned in 1732, 1735, 1736, 1740, 1741, 1743, 1745, 1748, 1750, 1752, and 1755. George I and II were therefore absent from Britain for at least one summer in three. The pattern of visits remained very similar – indeed the Hanoverian ministry developed a standard set of instructions for how the journeys were to be managed, including details of where horses were to be changed, who was to accompany the royal entourage, how many wagons would be needed and other such niceties.37 The monarch would tend to leave London as soon as the parliamentary session had been concluded in May. Travel would be via the United Provinces, where diplomatic consultations could take place. The frequency of consultations was partly a result of design (the Dutch were, after all, an old ally), partly of the preferred royal route from London to Hanover and sometimes a result of inclement weather. George I’s arrival in London in 1714, for example had been delayed by adverse winds, leading to extended consultations in the Hague.38 George II’s return from Hanover in 1736 was persistently delayed, leading wits to put a paper around the royal exchange stating that ‘it is reported that his Hanoverian Majesty designs to visit his British dominions for 3 months in the spring’.39 Some time would be spent at the summer palace of Herrenhausen; there would be hunting, either at the Göhrde or another of the royal estates. George I also liked to take the waters at Bad Pyrmont, although he was forced to make do with the less scenic waters of Richmond when domestic concerns prevented a trip to his native land in 1718.40 Guests, especially relations, were frequently received. George I valued the opportunities to meet his daughter, Sophia Dorothea, the wife of Frederick William I of Prussia. As George II’s offspring married more widely into Northern European protestant royalty the summer sojourn in Hanover might also see guests from Hessen-Kassel, Denmark

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or the United Provinces. Part of the purpose of such visits was recreational but a more important part was political. Such visits not only enabled the Hanoverian monarchs to reconnect with their homelands; they also facilitated the conduct of diplomacy more generally. It was much easier for the monarch to meet with their own diplomats and those of other powers outside the glare of the Westminster village.41 It was much more difficult for reports of negotiations to leak out at Hanover than it was in London and it also allowed the monarch to conduct diplomacy in person.42 George I had acquired considerable diplomatic experience, at least comparable to most of his ministers, prior to his accession and George II maintained a keen interest in genealogy, diplomacy, the army, and history. Both were formidable diplomatists in their own right, in addition to retaining executive control of the foreign policies of both Britain and Hanover by virtue of their position.43 While foreign policy remained an important part of the royal prerogative, it was never entirely a solo effort. Mention has been made already of the diplomats who were summoned to meet the sovereign in Hanover. It was also usual for the monarch to be accompanied on these trips by one of the British Secretaries of State. The importance of these men should not be underestimated. Whereas whig accounts have tended to focus on the position of the first Lord of the Treasury, it is arguable that the more important political figures in this period were the Secretaries of State.44 The casual use of the phrase ‘prime minister’ to describe eighteenth-century politicians, especially when used to describe Sir Robert Walpole as the first such individual, has inhibited a proper appreciation of the situation.45 The job of the first Lord was really ancillary to that of the Secretary. The former ensured the steady provision of funds which enabled the latter, in close collaboration with the monarch, to do their job. Secretaries of state have not attracted as much attention historically, not least because most of them were aristocrats whose power base lay with royal favour and their position in the House of Lords, rather than in the Commons. Some secretaries came from military backgrounds, such as Stanhope; most had previous diplomatic experience, such as Townshend, Harrington, Carteret, Chesterfield, Craggs, Methuen and Holdernesse. Very few were career politicians. Newcastle almost defies classification – he had initially found favour as a member of the royal household and was able to combine the lives of both courtier and politician. It was only really in the 1750s, with the appointment of first Henry Fox and then William Pitt that the first signs of parliamentarians as secretaries can be discerned. Under the first two Georges it was usually the case that it was the senior Secretary who accompanied the king to Hanover, not least because it was more likely that it would be this person who took a greater degree of responsibility for the direction of policy with the monarch. The only occasion on which both secretaries accompanied the king to Hanover was in 1723 when both Townshend and Carteret made the journey. The dual journey was unusual though and reflected domestic political tensions

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between the two secretaries and was part of an ongoing struggle for influence and supremacy in the king’s councils. Townshend had felt excluded and marginalised when Stanhope had accompanied George I to Hanover in 1716 and probably wanted to avoid a repeat performance. Royal absence meant that structures had to be put in place to cope with absenteeism. The Hanoverians had some experience of this, as they had already had to put in place means to deal with their absence from their electoral home after 1714. The structure that had been developed there centred round a Reglement that listed the precise responsibilities of the various sections of the central administration in Hanover, all of which were located in the Leineschloss in the centre of Hanover itself.46 All important decisions, particularly anything related to foreign policy, had to be referred to the king directly. In addition, a small group of officials accompanied the new king to London and what became known as the Deutsche Kanzlei set up shop in quarters in St James’s palace.47 As well as providing secretarial support, it became the norm for at least one Geheimer Rat or Privy Councillor to be in London with the monarch to act as chief on-hand advisor. Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff and Friedrich Wilhelm von Görtz accompanied George I in 1714 to join Hans Kaspar von Bothmer, who was already in George’s new capital. The number of Hanoverian ministers in London subsequently declined. Following Bothmer’s death in 1732, no new Privy Councillor was dispatched to join Johann Ernst von Hattorf. From 1748 onwards, the head of the Deutsche Kanzlei was Philip Adolf von Münchhausen, the brother of Gerlach Adolf von Münchhausen. Given that Philip’s elder brother was effectively Hanover’s chief minister, relations between London and Hanover were good in this period, but at other times relations between the minister in London and those back in Hanover could sometimes be fraught. On the British side, a more temporary set of arrangements could be utilised. When the king was away, a Regency council was appointed to handle business. In 1716 there was some discussion about whether the Prince of Wales should be appointed Regent, although he eventually was.48 However, the whig split ensured that this pattern was not repeated in future years. George II used his wife as the head of the regency council until her death in 1737.49 Thereafter, it operated under the direction of the chief officers of state in the standard order of precedence.50 Various historians, including Michael Jubb in the last article to be published on George I’s cabinet, have suggested that the Lords Justices of the Regency were worthy of further investigation.51 Close observation of their activity seems to bear out this suggestion. The pattern during royal visits to Hanover was for the Lords Justices to assemble on particular days of the week, usually those that coincided with the post days, to read the dispatches that had been sent over by the king and advise on any of the points raised. Initially, such activity served mainly to rubberstamp and reinforce decisions

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already taken by the chief actors. Yet the situation began to change in the 1740s.52 For the first time the Secretary that travelled with the king was not necessarily the senior and more influential. Newcastle was beginning to emerge from Walpole’s shadow, and Harrington was increasingly looking to Newcastle, rather than Robert Walpole for guidance as the political credit of the Pelhams began to rise. The effect of this was to create a situation in which there was a powerful group of ministers left in London, physically separated from the monarch, and becoming ever more determined to see their views taken seriously.53 What tended to happen now was that a small group amongst the Lords Justices met together prior to the meeting of the Regency Council, either in the Cockpit or at Newcastle’s London residence, to ensure that they could agree on a collective response. Newcastle’s correspondence with Hardwicke during George II’s absence in Hanover during the summer of 1741 shows how this worked in practice. To take but one example, when dispatches from Hanover mentioned that the question of Hanoverian neutrality was being considered by the king, Newcastle reported that a group consisting of Sir Robert Walpole, the Dukes of Grafton and Devonshire (Lord Chamberlain and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland respectively), Newcastle’s secretary Andrew Stone and Newcastle himself had met to discuss matters.54 It was this sort of pre-arrangement that also contributed to pressure on George II to return to Britain in September 1745 when rebellion was looming in Scotland.55 Once established, this arrangement of affairs developed a dynamic of its own. It survived a return to an older pattern of the senior Secretary travelling with the king to Hanover. In 1748, Newcastle, having been a Secretary for a mere 24 years, made his first visit to the continent and he was also to join the king at Hanover in 1750 and 1752. The group of ‘select Lords’ back in London, as Newcastle tended to refer to them in his correspondence, included his brother Henry Pelham, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, and the Lord President Granville. This was also a period in which quite serious policy differences were developing – those in Britain were much less enamoured by the costs of Newcastle’s elaborate scheme to ensure that Archduke Joseph was elected king of the Roman’s than the plan’s chief protagonist.56 In 1755, on what proved to be George II’s last visit to the continent, Newcastle, by now First Lord, stayed at home and the regency maintained its structure and growing influence. The suggestion, therefore, is that the development of cabinet structures was not really driven by the exigencies of parliamentary government in any significant sense. Rather, it was, like the increasing importance of parliament, a product of Britain’s geo-political engagement. One of the key drivers was the extent to which structures were needed to cope with regular monarchical absence. Once ministers had got used to expressing views in some circumstances, it was increasingly difficult to stop them expressing them in others. Ironically, a desire on the part of monarchs to maintain close

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personal control over foreign policy by conducting it themselves while visiting Hanover led to much greater demands on the parts of ministers to be part of that process. There was, therefore, a shift, as an older generation of whig historians correctly noted, but the reasons for that shift were tied into a largely external, rather than internal, political dynamic. The implications of this view could be illustrated in several ways but one should suffice for now. The 1760s have been seen by some since at least the publication of Edmund Burke’s Thoughts on the present discontents (1770) as a decade dominated by ‘secret influence’ and a monarchical plot to overthrow the balanced constitution and institute tyranny.57 Leaving aside the problems of taking Burke’s Rockinghamite propaganda at face value, there were two important structural reasons why politics were so unstable in the 1760s. The first is an age-related point. George II was an old man in the 1750s – contemporary political comment is frequently directed towards the next reign, especially by those who had fallen out with the king. As Henry Pelham remarked to George Bubb Dodington when the latter came to visit him in May 1752, his plan was ‘to chuse a new Parliament that should be all of a piece, such a one as might serve the King if he liv’d; and be steady to put the young King in the right way, if the old one dy’d’.58 Moreover, the Old Corps whigs, as the Pelhams now styled themselves, had enjoyed power for so long that they had forgotten the lesson that what had happened in 1727 was the exception rather than the rule. Most new reigns began with a new influx of ministers. Linda Colley has suggested that George II might have turned to the tories to form a new administration when he became king.59 How likely this was does not, in a sense, matter. The common view circulating in 1727 was that George II would rid himself of Walpole and it was only with some difficulty that Walpole was able to stop Spencer Compton, to whom George had initially turned, from taking the reins of power. The atypicality of Walpole’s achievement in this regard makes it all the more noteworthy and is a far greater testament to his political skills than any ascription of a prime ministerial role. A youthful George III was keen to establish himself as an executive monarch and there was little in the way of established constitutional precedent to suggest that he could not.60 Secondly, and possibly more importantly, there was the fact that George III chose not to visit Hanover. The significance of this is less to do with the direction of policy than with the fact that it meant that the monarch for the first time in nearly half a century was omnipresent in Britain. Ministers who had grown used to be being able to convene together and advise and decide without a monarch looking over their shoulder had to face up to new realities. The results were predictably fraught – as John Mackintosh remarks in his history of the cabinet ‘thus though the accession of George III involved no more than a change in the central personality it was nevertheless an alteration in the most important single factor affecting the cabinet.’61 Areas of contention in the 1760s started

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with foreign policy and then turned to domestic reform. And what could be a better illustration of the primacy of foreign policy than that?

Notes 1. Recent literature includes R. Rexheuser (ed.) (2005) Die Personalunionen von Sachsen-Polen, 1697–1783 und Hannover-England, 1714–1837: Ein Vergleich (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz); A. C. Thompson (2006) Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756 (Woodbridge: Boydell); B. Simms and T. Riotte (eds) (2007) The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); N. Harding (2007) Hanover and the British Empire, 1700–1837 (Woodbridge: Boydell); and B. Simms (2007) Three Victories and a Defeat (London: Allen Lane). 2. U. Richter-Uhlig (1992) Hof und Politik unter den Bedingungen der Personalunion zwischen Hannover und England (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung). 3. For an overview of some recent work, which adopts a different picture, see T. Harris (2008) ‘James II, the Glorious Revolution, and the destiny of Britain’, Historical Journal, LI, 763–776. 4. See, for example, G. M. Trevelyan (1904) England under the Stuarts (London: Methuen), p. 1: ‘England has contributed many things, good and bad, to the history of the world. But of all her achievements, there is one, the most insular in origin, and yet the most universal in effect. While Germany boasts her Reformation, and France her Revolution, England can point to her dealings with the House of Stuart . . . the transference of sovereignty from Crown to Parliament was effected in direct antagonism to all continental tendencies. During the seventeenth century a despotic system of society and government was so firmly established in Europe, that but for the course of events in England it would have been the sole successor of the mediaeval system.’ 5. T. B. Macaulay (1848–1861) The History of England from the Accession of James II (London: Longman), IV, pp. 434–436. 6. Ibid., p. 436. 7. W. Bagehot (2001 [1867]) The English Constitution, P. Smith (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 8. Ibid., p. 9. 9. Ibid., p. 9. 10. J. C. D. Clark (2007) ‘The re-enchantment of the world? Religion and monarchy in eighteenth-century Europe’, in M. Schaich (ed.) Monarchy and Religion: The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 42–45. 11. L. Namier (1929) The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (London: Macmillan). 12. H. Butterfield (1931) The Whig Interpretation of History (London: G. Bell). J. Stapleton (2008) ‘Modernism, the English Past, and Christianity: Herbert Butterfield and the Study of History’, Historical Journal, LI, 547–557. 13. J. C. D. Clark (2000) English Society, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. Brewer (1989) The Sinews of Power (London: Unwin Hyman). 14. M. Jubb (1982) ‘The cabinet in the Reign of George I’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LV, 108–110; P. Lawson (1984) ‘Further reflections on the cabinet in the early years of George III’s reign’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LVII, 237–240. 15. Jubb, ‘Cabinet in the reign of George I’, p. 110.

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16. Lawson, ‘Further reflections’, p. 238. 17. Ibid., p. 239. 18. D. A. Winstanley (1902) ‘George III and his first cabinet’, English Historical Review, XVII, 678–691. 19. Ibid., 686. 20. H. W. V. Temperley (1912) ‘Inner and Outer Cabinet and Privy Council, 1679– 1783’, English Historical Review, XXVII, 682–699; W. R. Anson (1914) ‘The cabinet in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, English Historical Review, XXIX, 56–78. Contrast E. R. Turner (1912–1913) ‘The development of the cabinet, 1688– 1760: part I’, American Historical Review, XVIII, 751–768; dem (1913–1914) ‘The development of the cabinet, 1688–1760: part II’, American Historical Review, XIX, 27–43. 21. E. R. Turner responded to some of the arguments put forward by Temperley and Anson (1917) ‘The cabinet in the eighteenth century’, English Historical Review, XXXII, 192–203. 22. R. R. Sedgwick (1919) ‘The inner cabinet from 1739 to 1741’, English Historical Review, XXXIV, 290–302. 23. Turner, ‘Development of the cabinet: part II’, 27. 24. P. Mathias and P. K. O’Brien (1976) ‘Taxation in Britain and France, 1715–1810. A comparison of the social and economic incidence of taxes collected for the central government’, Journal of European Economic History, V, 601–651. 25. Brewer, Sinews of Power; M. Braddick (1996) Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). 26. T. Ertman (1997) Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–34. 27. Ibid., pp. 187–223. 28. Although see fn. 1 for works that start to redress the balance. 29. See inter alia J. Black (1988) ‘The tory view of eighteenth century British foreign policy’, Historical Journal, XXXI, 469–477 and idem (1998) America or Europe? British Foreign Policy, 1739–1763 (London: UCL Press). 30. Simms, Three Victories; H. M. Scott (1990) British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon). 31. See T. Claydon (2002) William III (Harlow: Longman), pp. 170–9. 32. D. Onnekink (2007) The Anglo-Dutch Favourite: The Career of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland (1649–1709) (Aldershot: Ashgate). For resentment at Keppel’s position, see W. Troost (2005) William III, the Stadholder-King trans. J. C. Grayson (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 232–237. 33. Clause III of the Act included the provision that ‘no person who shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without the consent of Parliament’, in A. Browning (ed.) (1966) English Historical Documents: VIII 1660–1714 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode), p. 134. 34. Thompson, Britain, Hanover, p. 12. 35. R. Hatton (1978) George I: Elector and King (London: Thames and Hudson), p. 158. 36. J. Black (2007) George II: Puppet of the Politicians? (Exeter: University of Exeter Press), pp. 47–8; J. M. Beattie (1967) The English Court in the Reign of George I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 266–275. 37. See Hauptstadtsarchiv, Hanover [hereafter HStAH], Dep. 103, IV, 228 and XXIV, 2647 and 2651 for detailed instructions about the management of royal journeys.

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38. R. Hatton (1950) Diplomatic Relations between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, 1714–21 (London: East & West Ltd.), p. 55. 39. John, Lord Hervey (1931) In R. Sedgwick (ed.) Some Materials Towards Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 3 vols (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode), II, p. 610. 40. Hatton, George I, p. 205. 41. A. C. Thompson (2003) ‘The protestant interest and foreign policy in Britain and Hanover, 1719–1736’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge), p. 1. The centrality of the monarch for foreign policy-making and the advantages that travel to Hanover had for that process form two of the central themes of the dissertation. 42. Hatton, George I, pp. 157–163. 43. This is one of the prominent features of Hatton’s work on George I and will also feature strongly in my forthcoming biography of George II. 44. Simms, Three Victories, pp. 680–681. 45. J. H. Plumb’s (1956–1961) incomplete biography of Walpole, Sir Robert Walpole, 2 vols (London: P. Cresset), played a significant role in establishing Walpole’s ‘prime ministerial’ credentials. 46. For the text of the Reglement, see Richard Drögereit (1949) (ed.) Quellen zur Geschichte Kurhannovers im Zeitalter der Personalunion mit England 1714–1803 (Hildesheim), pp. 5–15. 47. R. Grieser (1952) ‘Die Deutsche Kanzlei in London, ihre Entstehung und Anfänge’, Deutsche Blätter für Landesgeschichte, LXXXIX, 153–168. 48. Beattie, English Court, p. 229. 49. H. Smith (2006) Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 216. 50. The records of the periods of regency are to be found in the State Papers 43 designation at the National Archives, Kew. The formal records of the meetings of the Lords Justices can also be found in the SP 44 series. 51. Jubb, ‘Cabinet in the reign of George I’, p. 110. 52. What follows is based upon extensive reading in the Hardwicke and Newcastle papers in the British Library, with particular examples chosen. 53. H. M. Scott (2007) ‘Hanover in mid-eighteenth-century Franco-British geopolitics’, in Simms and Riotte (eds) Hanoverian Dimension, pp. 275–300. 54. See Newcastle to Hardwicke, Claremont, 19/7/1741, BL Add MS 35407, fos. 43–44. 55. J. B. Owen (1957) The Rise of the Pelhams (London: Methuen), pp. 277–279. 56. D. B. Horn (1927) ‘The origins of the proposed election of the King of the Romans, 1748–50’, English Historical Review, XLII, 361–370; R. Browning (1967–1968) ‘The duke of Newcastle and the Imperial election plan, 1749–1754’, Journal of British Studies, VII, 28–47; Thompson, Britain, Hanover, pp. 208–216. 57. For a judicious overview of George III’s changing reputation in the historiographical debate, see G. M. Ditchfield (2002) George III: An Essay in Monarchy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), ch. 1; W. A. Speck’s review (2008) of J. Black’s recent biography of George III (Historical Journal, LI, 560–563) revisits the issue of tyranny as well. 58. J. Carswell and L. A. Dralle (eds) (1965), The Political Journal of George Bubb Dodington (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 156. 59. L. Colley (1982) In Defiance of Oligarchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 207–208. 60. J. Black (2006) George III: America’s Last King (New Haven: Yale University Press). 61. J. P. Mackintosh (1977) The British Cabinet, 3rd edn (London: Stevens), p. 67.

6 European Great Power Politics in British Public Discourse, 1714–1763 Doohwan Ahn and Brendan Simms

To say that the history of eighteenth-century Britain must primarily be seen within its international context is hardly controversial today. The past 15 years or so have seen an explosion of research on the imperial or ‘Atlantic’ dimension to eighteenth-century British history by Kathleen Wilson, Peter Marshall, David Armitage, and many others.1 Nor, thanks to the work of Hamish Scott and Jeremy Black, has there been any lack of attention to the European diplomatic framework.2 It is also well known that from 1714, Britain was dynastically and geopolitically linked to the European mainland through the Personal Union with Hanover.3 It is equally no secret that the apparatus of the ‘fiscal-military state’ – the Bank of England, the National Debt, the stock market, the Royal Navy, and the standing army – was primarily designed to sustain Britain’s international role in Europe, not to defend against domestic rebellion.4 Moreover, as Istvan Hont has recently shown, much contemporary British political thought centred on Britain’s position within the international state system.5 Finally, trade with continental Europe far outstripped that with the rest of the world until very late in the century.6 As Brendan Simms attempted to show in Three Victories and a Defeat. The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, the question of Britain’s position in Europe, and issues of grand strategy more generally, structured British politics and public political discourse throughout the period 1714–1783. The importance of foreign policy, in short, extended far beyond just diplomatic questions. It also drove most aspects of domestic policy.7 As James van Horn Melton has pointed out, ‘military and diplomatic events triggered almost every domestic crisis and political cause célèbre in eighteenth-century Britain.’8 What we shall attempt to do in this chapter is to highlight just one aspect of this ‘primacy of foreign policy’: parliamentary and pamphlet debate. The purpose throughout will not be to analyse the arguments themselves, but to demonstrate the salience of the issue. More particularly, the 79

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chapter will show the centrality of European over colonial and maritime concerns. The public preoccupation with foreign policy, and especially with Europe, was a legacy of the seventeenth century. Most propertied Englishmen believed that the maintenance of the European balance was essential to the preservation of their own liberty and security. As Jonathan Scott and Tony Claydon have shown, this interest manifested itself in a lively pamphlet and parliamentary debate.9 In 1688, the Whigs had made the revolution to pursue a Protestant foreign policy; they did not – as is sometimes assumed – undertake a Protestant foreign policy in order to protect the Revolution, although that imperative naturally followed.10 The other seventeenth-century legacy was the regular scrutiny of foreign policy by parliament and the public sphere.11 In 1694, the Triennial Act laid down that elections should take place every 3 years; a year later, the Licensing Act was allowed to lapse, effectively ending censorship. There was an immediate boom in journalism to respond to the new appetite for commercial and diplomatic news, which is reflected in Alain Veylit’s graph below. Between them parliament and the public sphere could now hold the executive to account. Even if it was kept in the dark about important details and treaties, the political nation now ‘owned’ English grand strategy. In the early to mid-eighteenth century, British policy and politics were also largely shaped by the European state system.12 Most ministries rose and fell according to how well the King or the political nation felt they had performed in the strategic sphere. The Tories triumphed in 1710, as the War of the Spanish Succession stagnated. They were more or less proscribed after 1714, not so much on account of their alleged Jacobite leanings, but because of their perceived betrayal of British interests at the Treaty of Utrecht.13 Thereafter, the fate of most Whig administrations was decided by foreign policy. James, Earl Stanhope triumphed in 1716–1717 because of his approach to Bremen and Verden. And while many believe that Robert Walpole came to power in 1721 as a safe pair of financial hands to sort out the South Sea mess, the real reason for his triumph lay in the fact that George I saw him and especially his crony Lord Townshend as the more effective vehicle for his German ambitions. George II’s reluctance to fire Townshend during the Anglo-French diplomatic crisis over the Austro-Spanish alliance in the late 1720s may also be explained on the same grounds.14 In any case, Walpole fell in 1742 primarily because of his perceived failure to stop the imminent disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy. Lord Carteret followed him 2 years later, again because of difficulties in central Europe. The loss of Minorca did for the Duke of Newcastle in 1756; Spain for William Pitt the Elder in 1761; the ‘German War’ for Newcastle in 1762; and the peace for the Earl of Bute in 1763.15 It is therefore hardly surprising that European politics should also have dominated press and parliamentary debate throughout this period.16 As

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Veylit has shown in his pioneering statistical study of the English Short Title Catalogue (Hereafter ESTC), a bibliographic database of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those of more than 2000 university, private, and public libraries worldwide, from 1473–1800, there was a steady growth in output throughout most of the eighteenth century (Figure 6.1). 17 The nearly 50 per cent of the population who were literate could participate in this booming public sphere of pamphleteering and coffee-house debate.18 As Joseph Danvers, the independent MP from Totnes, observed in 1738, ‘the people of Great Britain are governed by a power that never was heard of as a supreme authority in any age or country before. It is the government of the press.’19 Three years later, David Hume described that ‘nothing is more apt to surprise a foreigner, than the extreme liberty, which we enjoy in this country, of communicating whatever we please to the public, and of openly censuring every measure, entered into by the king or his ministers.’20 The attention of the public was primarily on war and diplomatic developments. Foreign news – often translated French or Dutch reports – generally took up the first page of a newspaper, and indeed dominated the press in general. This meant that there was a critical public of hundreds, certainly of tens of thousands, in Britain who followed developments in Europe very closely, partly in order to make informed decisions about trade and investments, but principally because of the national obsession with containing Louis and his designs for ‘Universal Monarchy’. Nowhere else in Europe, with the exception of the Dutch Republic was there such a vibrant public sphere in which questions of foreign policy and grand strategy were the subject of intensive discussion.21 This trend has been widely discussed by historians. As Douglas Coombs has shown, the pamphlet onslaught on the Whig alliance with the Dutch in the closing years of the Spanish succession played an important part

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in the subsequent triumph of the Tories.22 More recently, Jens Metzdorf has stressed the saliency of strategic debates to the Tory–Whig polarisation during the same period. Graham Gibbs wrote about the importance of European diplomacy in the pamphlet controversies of the early Walpole years. A few years ago, John Cardwell demonstrated the centrality of European issues throughout the Seven Years’ War not only in the pamphlet debate but also in popular iconography and poetry. And of course, the extensive researches of Jeremy Black have shown the salience of European issues in the press across the full span of the eighteenth century.23 This chapter goes beyond the literature, in that it posits a ‘primacy of foreign policy’ in the eighteenth-century British political public sphere. It seeks to do so by putting the salience of strategic concerns in public debate on some kind of quantitative basis, however rudimentary. In so doing, the chapter explores themes opened up but never fully developed by Simms in Three Victories and a Defeat, where the pamphlet debate was only dealt with in passing. We base ourselves primarily on the abundant book and pamphlet literature, and the parliamentary debates as recorded in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History. We shall be supplementing our picture with a sideways glance at selected newspapers. This chapter will not consider anything not in some way associated with the ‘public sphere’, such as private correspondence and diplomatic exchanges. That said, there are, of course, all kinds of potential methodological problems with our research. The printed record in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History is far from complete, and has been assembled from diverse contemporary and near-contemporary sources at a time when parliamentary reporting was illegal. Even William Pulteney who had championed the freedom of press in the columns of the Craftsman, one of the leading opposition journals of the time, with the anti-minister Viscount Bolingbroke in the early 1730s maintained in 1738 that ‘no appeals should be made to the public with regard to what is said in this assembly, and to print or publish the Speeches of gentlemen in this House’.24 Finally, it must be stressed that the emphasis in the discussion of parliamentary debate is on qualitative, rather than quantitative evaluation. Our research on pamphlet discourse is based on Eighteenth Century Collections Online (Hereafter ECCO).25 ECCO is a digitised microfilm collection compiled by Thomson Gale.26 First introduced to the public in the summer of 2004, it has now more than 155,000 volumes from more than 138,000 titles (33 million pages in total).27 It contains every significant Englishlanguage and foreign-language title printed in Britain during the eighteenth century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. ECCO is an ongoing project based on ESTC, and we estimate that it currently has accumulated more than one-third of the total volumes included in the latter, approximately 460,000 items (see ‘Appendix’). According to Leonard Schwarz, ECCO has a hit rate over 70 per cent for material of national


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coverage.28 For example, ECCO has 95 per cent of references mentioned in Chapter 2 of Wilson’s Sense of the People, and 76 per cent of Chapter 3 of Paul Langford’s Polite and Commercial People. England, 1727–1783. We have mainly used ECCO’s full-text search function for our research. It searches for any word or words within the full text of a work as well as the fields of information included in the keyword search. Our graphs thus show the total number of pamphlets and books in ECCO that contain designated words.29 In some cases, we were able to check most of printed materials in our search results. For instance, in the ‘army’ column, we have tried to take out all the books and pamphlets that used the word in strictly biblical terms. And in other cases, we have used a combination of words to limit the cases. In the ‘commerce and trade’ column, for example, we only counted printed materials that have both the words ‘commerce and trade’. It also needs to be stressed here that even if a pamphlet or booklet contains the word ‘navy’ or ‘naval force’, this does not automatically mean that it is about the Royal Navy. In other words, what our columns and graphs show is the frequency of some of politically important words. Thus, considering the nature of the eighteenth-century pamphlet discourse, it is highly likely that many of printed materials included in our ‘Jacobitism’ column, for example, are to be found in the ‘constitution’ column as well. In recent years, there have been a few attempts to use this kind of method in historical research, not least Veylit’s above-mentioned study.30 But we believe ours is the first serious attempt to use ECCO statistically. On the one hand, we have not been able to read more than a fraction of the 60,000 pamphlets considered in this article and relied instead on keyword searches with the aid of the online resource ECCO, which in turn does not hold all of the relevant titles. On the other hand, we were able to read most of the parliamentary debates on foreign policy, and a qualitative assessment here is more tenable. Even so, in both the press and the parliamentary cases, it is often difficult to establish whether a pamphlet or a speech should be filed under foreign or domestic politics. Most attacks on Robert Walpole’s administration were indictments of both his corruption and his diplomatic incompetence. Moreover, the dividing lines between the domestic and the foreign-political are highly fluid. Some pamphlets generally thought of as primarily domestic in focus are really about foreign policy. John Wilkes’s No. 45 of the North Briton, which lambasted Bute’s foreign policy in 1763, is a case in point.31 Indeed, many of the ‘domestic’ issues which roiled eighteenth-century Britain, such as Jacobitism, the Catholic question, and taxation, were driven by strategic concerns. We have divided the period into five parts. Firstly, the years bounded by the Hanoverian succession in 1714 and the controversial Treaty of Hanover in 1725; secondly, the period from 1726 to the renewal of the Austrian alliance in 1731; thirdly, the period from 1732 to the outbreak of the War of the Austrian succession in 1740; fourthly, the period from 1741 to the end of

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that war; fifthly and finally, the 14 years from 1749 to the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, during which it is commonly accepted that colonial concerns were coming increasingly to the fore. In some ways, of course, these dividing lines are arbitrary. The debate on the Treaty of Hanover, for example, rumbled on into 1726 and well beyond, just as 1739, the year when war with Spain broke out, or 1740, when Frederick invaded Silesia, would make equally plausible caesura. The purpose of this exercise, however, is not to make specific claims about the centrality of foreign policy to British politics at a given moment, but to demonstrate its salience over the longue durée.

∗ Foreign policy dominated parliamentary debate in the first 10 years or so after the Hanoverian Succession. Of some 1500 columns of debate in the two Houses of Parliament (House of Lords and House of Commons) printed in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History, for the years 1714–1725, about half were devoted to foreign policy or foreign policy-related matters. To be sure, the South Sea Company was the biggest single issue,32 well ahead of the Peerage Bill.33 But foreign policy not merely dominated much of the time, it also structured political debate throughout. The very first issue that George I’s parliament tackled in August 1714, after the addresses of congratulation and the civil list, was a ‘Motion for paying the Hanoverian troops, and offering a reward for the apprehension of the Pretender’.34 Much of the next session was consumed by the inquest into the Treaty of Utrecht. The hugely controversial intervention against Sweden in the Northern War roiled subsequent sessions, and parliamentarians were equally vexed over the attack on the Spanish Fleet off Cape Passaro in 1718 before war had been formally declared.35 Moreover, it must be borne in mind that many debates on apparently domestic subjects were partly or primarily driven by strategic considerations. The annual Mutiny Bill, fiscal appropriations to fund the army and navy or pay subsidies to continental powers, penalties against Roman Catholics, anti-Jacobite measures after the 1715 rebellion,36 the Septennial Bill,37 and the fallout from the Atterbury Plot,38 all fall into this category. Thus one peer argued in favour increasing the interval between elections from 3 to 7 years, on the grounds that frequent contests gave ‘a handle to the cabals and intrigues of foreign princes’.39 Others claimed that the domestic instability generated by constant elections damaged Britain’s diplomatic credibility abroad and made her less valued as an ally. Likewise, the Mutiny Bill and the ‘Number of the Land Forces’ bills were necessary, as the chief minister Stanhope put it ‘to suppress any insurrection at home, or to repel any insult from abroad and to make good our engagements for maintaining the repose of Europe’.40 By contrast, those who opposed these measures warned that the ministry was simply exploiting strategic imperatives to advance a repressive


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programme at home. For example, the openly Jacobite MP William Shippen asked how many nations had lost their liberties to the alleged ‘ambitious designs of their neighbour nations and the need to preserve the balance of power’.41 If we turn to the pamphlet literature, a similar picture emerges (Figure 6.2). Partly because of the Hanoverian Succession, ‘constitution’ emerges as the greatest preoccupation by keyword search. But ‘commerce and trade’ is ranked third only after ‘army’, suggesting that the army was at the forefront of the British fiscal-military state. Considering the ongoing Whig purge against the Utrecht peace settlement, in particular Bolingbroke’s abortive attempt to normalise the Anglo-French trade relationship, as well as the impact of the South Sea Bubble of 1720 on the direction of the public discourse, this result is significant.42 Besides, throughout the eighteenth century, the Opposition more often than not exploited the economic issue to attack the government. The decline of commerce and trade was a staple of Opposition propaganda, and closely linked to perceptions of Britain’s proper role in Europe. As Charles Davenant, a leading Country economic analyst at the turn of the century, had revealingly stated, ‘if trade cannot be made subservient to the nation’s safety, it ought to be no more encouraged here than it was in Sparta.’43 Daniel Defoe, too, proclaimed in his Plan of the English Commerce, published in 1728, that ‘money raises army, and trade raises money; and so it may be truly said of trade, that it makes princes powerful, nations valiant.’44 Neither ‘colony’ nor ‘navy’ yielded as many keyword mentions as

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Figure 6.2

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‘army’. ‘Jacobitism’, of course, did register, but as we have seen it was a term synonymous with fears of French and Spanish invasion.

∗ Surprisingly, foreign policy was less prominent in parliamentary debate from 1726–1731, when only about one in four columns out of the 373 printed in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History concerned foreign policy or related topics.45 This was, after all, at a time of intense controversy over the Anglo-Austrian estrangement and the British-Hanoverian common front against Emperor Charles VI in Germany; perhaps the parliamentary record is simply incomplete here. A quick glance at the detail of business in both houses shows how much strategic issues dominated political life, none the less. Eight of the first nine debates in the 1726 session of the Lords and Commons concerned foreign policy: starting with the perennial ‘Debate in the Commons on the number of the Land Forces’, through the ‘Debate in the Commons on the Treaties of Hanover and Vienna’ (and associated debates in the Lords), ‘Lord Lechmere’s motion for a clause to be added to the address relating to the King’s Dominions’, to ‘The Lords’ address of thanks to the king for communicating the Treaties’.46 The start of 1727 was similarly characterised by diplomatic concerns, starting with the ‘Resolution of the Lords, approving of the measures with regard to Spain’ and ending with a ‘Motion for a copy of the letter on which the King of Spain founded his demand of the restitution of Gibraltar’.47 Subsequent sessions were less focussed on the European balance, but there were still acrimonious exchanges on the hire of Hessian troops to defend Hanover, the Treaty of Seville with Spain and the ‘Spanish depredations’ which were beginning to exercise the political nation.48 In respect of the pamphlet discourse (see Figure 6.3 and also the Appendix), the first thing to note in this period is a sharp decrease in the overall number of publications. Possibly this reflects a certain apathy as the Hanoverian state found its feet, a process which J. H. Plumb famously referred to as ‘the growth of political stability’,49 or perhaps the absence of an existential external threat comparable to previous and subsequent decades. This change in the political climate is most clearly reflected in the dramatic shrinking of the constitution column, from around 3700 in the preceding period to just over 1600. It is also notable that the number of printed materials containing the word ‘Jacobitism’ and other relevant words such as ‘Pretender’ had decreased from little less than 1300 to about 300. Furthermore, thanks in part to George I’s policy of rapprochement with France since 1717, the ‘commerce and trade’ overtook the ‘army’.50 But all this does not amount to the lessening of interest in foreign affairs. One telling episode in this connection is the prosecution of the main editor of the Craftsman Richard Franklin in the winter of 1731. He was put on trial for printing the ‘Extracts from a private letter from the Hague’, which was alleged to be Bolingbroke’s work, in


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Figure 6.3

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No. 235 of the journal earlier in the year. This ‘Hague letter’ ridiculed George II’s inability to take on the Alliance of Vienna by saying that ‘a Misunderstanding soon discover itself between the Allies of Seville; and that certain Ministers having at length found out that too close Union with France, and a War upon the Foot of the Treaty of Seville are quite against the Grain of the People, are endeavouring to bring about an Accommodation with the Emperor, and to undo every Thing They have been doing for these five Years past.’51 Complicated though these issues may have been, they were clearly of interest to the general public and hence a matter of sensitivity to the government.

∗ Foreign policy was back at the centre of things in the following decade as the nation polarised over such issues as the renewal of the Austrian alliance, the decline of the House of Habsburg and the escalating confrontation with Spain. Although very much a colonial and maritime struggle on the surface, a closer look at the latter issue shows that the principal concern was Europe: what worried Britons most was the Spanish advance in Italy at the expense of the Austrians, and what was at stake overseas was not trade per se, as the increased European leverage it was believed to confer. Of some 4337 columns printed in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History for the years 1732–1740, not far short of half-concerned foreign policy or foreign policy-related matters.52

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Figure 6.4

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Commerce and trade

Navy


If we turn to our ECCO result for this period (Figure 6.4), we see a gradual rise in the total number of printed materials compared to the previous period. This may be safely attributed to years of political turmoil from the Excise Crisis of 1733 to the outburst of the anti-Spanish sentiment in the late 1730s.53 The Craftsman was most active in this period, forcing Walpole to spend almost £50,000 on subsidising five leading newspapers – the London Journal, the Free Briton, the Daily Courant, the Corn-Cutter’s Journal, and the Daily Gazette – between 1731 and 1741 to counter anti-ministerial patriotic propaganda.54 The gravity of the paper war in this period was such that even George II had to state in his speech to the House of Commons in 1733 that ‘it be your care to undeceive the deluded, and make them sensible of their present happiness, and the haphazard they run of being unwarily drawn, by specious pretences, into their own destruction.’55 It is also noteworthy that despite the worsening Anglo-Spanish relationship in the West Indies, the ‘army’ column is still slightly ahead of the ‘colony’ column which includes the word ‘plantation(s)’. No doubt, this partly reflected continuing preoccupations with the European military situation. But it was also a token of opposition concern with the imminent imposition of a royal ‘military government’ under cover of a national emergency. Indeed, although Walpole was able to maintain the Whig supremacy throughout the period by securing a victory in the general election of 1734, he was constantly attacked by Shippen, Pulteney, Bolingbroke, and Sir William Wyndham for his part in George’s excessive civil list, which, in their opinion, was the main fount of corruption and despotism.56 Seen


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against the background of the unstable European balance of power after the collapse of the Anglo-French alliance in 1732, the persistence of national debt, the Excise Bill, the increased civil list revenue, the worsening electoral corruption, the Pension Bill, the escalating foreign subsidy money, and the maintenance of a large professional armed force in peacetime, all indicated the threat of a German-style ‘army government’.57 The centrality of foreign policy to this fear is evident from reading the pages of the Craftsman. It was Bolingbroke’s firm belief that without adopting an isolationist foreign policy, it would be impossible to eradicate corruption which had become rampant since the Nine Years’ War.58 In this way, the crucial interconnection between British foreign and domestic policy was affirmed.

∗ The 1740s – the decade of the War of the Austrian Succession in which Britain confronted Spain and France – was unsurprisingly characterised by intense parliamentary interest in foreign policy. It took up a huge amount of parliamentary time: about half of the 3721 printed columns. As the war with Spain soured, more and more critics charged that the government had not provided Admiral Vernon with the resources to follow up his famous victory at Porto Bello in 1739. They also demanded to see the instructions given to Admiral Haddock, the commander of the squadron in the Mediterranean, who was charged with letting the Spanish through to attack the Austrians in Italy, in return for sparing the King’s patrimony of Hanover the rigours of a French occupation. But the choicest invective was reserved for the ministry’s alleged failure to stop the Bourbon-inspired plan to dismember the Habsburg monarchy, which most Britons believed to be the key to the European balance of power. It drove the sustained attempt to impeach the Prime Minister Robert Walpole. The capital offence here was not his corruption but the mismanagement of British security interests. Even after his fall in 1742, parliament remained preoccupied with foreign policy and polarised around the issue of the payment of Hanoverian troops to protect the Electorate and fight a land war against France. 59 Turning once again to our ECCO result (Figure 6.5), the pattern of interest is not very different from the preceding period. The ‘constitution’ column is still well ahead of other columns. Again, ‘army’ has generated as many hits as ‘commerce and trade’. Even at a time when popular enthusiasm for maritime exploits ran high, it still is of greater interest than the ‘navy’. This figure helps us to contextualise Vernon’s victory at Porto Bello, the capture of Louisburg and Anson’s voyage around Cape Horn. In any case, interest in trade and colonies was very much driven by a concern with the continental state system. So much so that the dismayed Barbadian planter-writer John Ashley begged the British public as well as the ministry during the War of the Austrian Succession to realise the long-term benefits of lessening tax

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3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1741−1748

Figure 6.5

Army

Constitution

Jacobitism

Colony

Commerce and trade

Navy


burdens on the American colonies to the enhancement of Britain’s military and diplomatic status in Europe.60 The battle of Culloden in 1746 is reflected in a relative increase of printed materials on Jacobitism, nearly half of which were produced between 1745 and 1747.61

∗ The printed parliamentary record for the 1750s and early 1760s, the years of the great confrontation with France in Europe and overseas, which culminated in the Seven Years’ War of 1756–1763, is clearly incomplete. This is the only way of explaining the fact that fewer than a third of the 2497 columns printed in the Parliamentary history, deal with foreign policy or related concerns. All the same, peers and MPs fought some very bitter battles on foreign policy during this period: over the Treaty which had ended the previous war in 1748; the complex system of European alliances needed to sustain the new conflict; the Russian, Hessian, and Prussian treaties concluded as renewed war with France seemed imminent; the court-martial and subsequent execution of Admiral Byng for losing Minorca; and the negotiations which brought the Seven Years’ War to an end.62 The period of the Seven Years’ War reveals a sharp increase in the total number of printed materials (Figure 6.6 and see also ‘Appendix’). This is not surprising. As one pamphleteer pointed out in 1760 against Voltaire, who had been fulsome in his praise of Britain’s vibrant public sphere, its nature ‘appears more manifestly in that inundation of political pamphlets, which


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8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 1749–1763

Figure 6.6

Army

Constitution

Jacobitism

Colony

Commerce and trade

Navy


flows with such a rapid course from the press, whenever we are engaged in war’.63 All the columns doubled their sizes from the previous period. The ‘navy’ might be gaining on the ‘army’, but the latter was still comfortably ahead. But what was most notable in this period is the rise of the economic concern as represented in the columns of ‘colony’ and ‘commerce and trade’. This obviously reflects the victories of Clive in India, Wolfe in Canada, Amherst in the thirteen colonies, and Anson and Howe at sea. Nonetheless, as shown in our Empire graph below, this should not be taken at face value. Still the term British Empire was not commonly used, and when it was used it generally meant the British Isles.64 Thus the famous political economist Malachy Postlethwayt used the word in his Britain’s Commercial Interest Explained and Improved, published in 1757, to urge an immediate consolidation of all the colonies, including not just American plantations but also Ireland and Scotland, to counter recent mercantilist endeavours of France and other major continental powers.65

∗ What we are dealing with here is not just a ‘primacy of foreign policy’, but for most of this period at any rate, a primacy of European policy. Let us take a look at the following graph showing the number of geographical keywords used. In the ‘Europe’ column, we have included all the major European powers from France to Russia (but excluding Britain). In the ‘America’ column,

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14,000 12,000 10,000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 1714–1725 Europe Figure 6.7

1726–1731

1732–1740

1741–1748

America

South sea

East India

1749–1763 Africa

Europe or America, 1714–1763

we counted not just America but also major colonies (Virginia, Carolinas, Georgia, and even Nova Scotia and Newfoundland). These columns clearly show that the eighteenth-century public sphere was dominated by European concerns. The colonies and plantations in America and the Caribbean and India featured less prominently, even as late as the Seven Years’ War. This also explains why in previous tables we have seen more keyword mentions of the army than the navy. Of course, this is hardly surprising since European politics rather than overseas expansion was the central preoccupation. The relative importance of Africa throughout the entire period might be attributed to French imperial ventures (slave trade and plantations), or to be more specific, Britain’s jealousy of their seeming success (as evidenced by the establishment of the African Company of Merchants in 1752 replacing the Royal African Company).66 It is also worth pointing out the sharp increase of the America column in the period between 1749 and 1763, yet even then Europe predominated. In any case, taken together the figures and the rhetoric cast doubt on the widespread notion that eighteenth-century Britain was a maritime and commercial nation with its principal attention focussed on overseas expansion rather than the European continent.67 The Eurocentricity of the British public sphere was also reflected in the greater prominence given to European news within publications. Thus the National Journal directed its printers to place news items in the following order. In the case of ‘foreign news’, articles from France should be placed first, those from Spain second, Portugal third, Italy fourth, Switzerland fifth, Austria sixth, Hungary seventh, other parts of Germany eighth, and so on.


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Articles from Africa were last on the list at place 15. ‘London news,’ was to be presented with ‘foreign articles’ in first place and ‘Articles dated from the Plantations, Gibraltar or Port Mahon (Minorca)’ last at eighth place. So routine was the privileging of European news that the Grub Street Journal jibbed at ‘the great impropriety to begin with foreign news and end with domestick . . . like travelling into foreign countries before we have taken a survey of our own’.68 Even the contemporary use of language was Eurocentric. When eighteenth-century British pamphleteers referred to contemporary European empires, they were far more likely to refer to the Holy Roman, that is, the German Empire, than the British Empire. This is not very surprising, when one bears in mind the intense early and mid-eighteenth-century preoccupation with Hanover.69 Thus the table below shows that keywords mentions of the Holy Roman or German Empire outstripped those of the British Empire throughout the century. References to ‘British’ Empire include those to the ‘English’ Empire. The ‘German Empire’ includes mentions of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire, Hapsburg Empire, Imperial House, Empire of Germany, and German Empire, but not Austria, and may thus slightly under-represent the reality. Interest in the British Empire picked up from the mid-1760s – no doubt in response to the growing crisis in America – but it never outstripped the German Empire, even during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This was even truer of parliamentary discourse, where the ‘Empire’ nearly always meant Germany, and ‘Electorate’ or ‘Electoral’ more or less invariably referred to the German Electorate of Hanover. It is true that many contemporaries, especially monarchs and ministers, often used to call Britain ‘my Empire’ or ‘her/his Majesty’s Empire’. For instance, the County of Surrey in its address to George II at his accession praised him as ‘a prince born for Empire’.70 We also noticed that ‘our Empire’ was in use throughout the century.71 These variations we were unable to check and include in our graph, and thus our British Empire column is far from perfect. However, before the Imperial crisis in America, these variations were often used when calling for a united stance on Jacobitism or on foreign powers. Thus, the reverend Thomas Prince, minister of the Old South Church in Boston, called Britain ‘our empire’ to celebrate the triumph at Culloden in his 1746 sermon.72 And during the Seven Years’ War, Britons often employed the word British Empire as a slogan in war propaganda in the form of ‘the glory, pride, and strength of the British Empire’ (Figure 6.8).73 If we look at the graph for the period 1764 to 1800, the extent to which the Independence of America had contributed to the transformation and dissemination of the concept of empire in Britain becomes clear. Even if we take into account the dramatic increase in the total number of printed materials in the later half of the century (see Veylit’s graph),74 the rise of the British Empire column around the time of the American crisis is impressive. The fact that the term had not been widely used before the war with the thirteen

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6000 5000 4000 3000 2000

British Empire Figure 6.8

German Empire

Hanover

1783–1800

1775–1782

1764–1774

1749–1763

1741–1748

1732–1740

1726–1731

0

1714–1725

1000

Roman Empire

Empires, 1714–1800

colonies in America tells us an important story about the geopolitical direction of the British public.75 This becomes much more evident when we look at the Hanover column, which, along with that of the Roman Empire, dominates our graph. The proliferation of a pan-Atlantic conception of the British Empire coincided not so much with the outbreak of the War of Jenkins’ Ear of 1739 as with the crisis in America in the 1770s and 1780s.76

∗ However one interprets or assembles the figures, the centrality of European concerns in British public debate is beyond question. This is a quantitative judgement as far as the pamphlet literature is concerned; a qualitative assessment with quantitative bulges in the case of the published parliamentary debates. Europe trumped not only colonial and commercial, but also domestic issues. To be sure, there were peaks and troughs in this interest, but it remained remarkably consistent over time. It is therefore no surprise to find eighteenth-century Britons discussing the army rather more extensively than the navy. Moreover, the primacy of the European state system informed much of British debate on domestic issues. It is the red thread running through the debates, even when it is not the dominant pattern. In that sense, therefore, we can truly speak of a ‘primacy of European politics’ between the Treaty of Utrecht and the end of the Seven Years’ War.


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25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5000 0 1714–1725

1726–1731

History and geography Social sciences Literature and language Law Figure 6.9

1732–1740

1741–1748

1749–1763

Fine arts Medicine, science and technology Religion and philosophy General reference


Appendix The above graph (Figure 6.9) shows the total number of printed materials in ECCO categorised into eight subject areas as in the official website. Our research is not based on this classification.

Notes 1. D. Armitage (2002) ‘Three concepts of Atlantic history’, in Armitage and Michael J. Braddick (eds) The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 11; K. Wilson (1995) The Sense of the People. Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); P. Marshall (1995) ‘A nation defined by empire, 1755–1776’, in A. Grant and K. J. Stringer (eds) Uniting the Kingdoms. The Making of British History (London: Routledge), pp. 208–222. 2. J. Black (1991) A System of Ambition. British Foreign Policy, 1660–1793 (Harlow: Longman); H. M. Scott (1990) British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon). 3. A. C. Thompson (2006), Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756 (Woodbridge: Boydell); B. Simms and T. Riotte (eds) (2007) The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); N. Harding (2007) Hanover and the British Empire, 1700–1837 (Woodbridge: Boydell). 4. J. Brewer (1989) The Sinews of Power. War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: Unwin & Hyman); P. G. M. Dickson (1967) The Financial Revolution in England. A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756 (London:

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5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

European Great Power Politics in British Public Discourse Macmillan); L. Stone (ed.) (1993/1999 reprint), An Imperial State at War. Britain from 1689–1815 (London: Routledge). Istvan Hont (2005) Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge MA: Belknap). E. Boody Schumpeter (1960) English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697–1808 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), especially pp. 17–18. B. Simms (2007) Three Victories and a Defeat. The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783 (London: Allen Lane), pp. 1–2. B. Harris (2002) Politics and the Nation. Britain in the Mid-eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 105; S. Conway (2006) War, State, and Society in Mid-eighteenth Century Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 4–5 et passim. J. van Horn Melton (2001) The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 30. J. Scott (2000), England’s Troubles. Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Claydon (2007) Europe and the Making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). J. Black (1989) ‘The Revolution and the development of English foreign policy’, in Eveline Cruickshanks (ed) By Force or by Default? The Revolution of 1688–1689 (Edinburgh: John Donald), pp. 135–158. Also see the contributions to this volume by Gabriel Glickman and David Onnekink. M. Knights (2005) Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain. Partisanship and Political Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press). B. Simms (2007) ‘ “Ministers of Europe”. British strategic culture, 1714–1760’, in H. Scott and B. Simms (eds) Cultures of Power in Europe During the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 110–132. Bolingbroke (1932), in G. M. Trevelyan (ed.) Bolingbroke’s Defence of the Treaty of Utrecht; Being Letters VI–VIII of the Study and Use of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University press). W. Coxe (1798) Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford (London: T. Cadell), I, pp. 332–339; J. Black (1987) The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1727–1731 (Gloucester: Sutton), pp. 146–161. This is the theme of Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat. G. C. Gibbs (1962) ‘Parliament and foreign policy in the age of Stanhope and Walpole’, English Historical Review, LXXVII, pp. 18–20, 26; J. Black (2004) Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 234, claims that parliament was ‘dominated by local issues’. This graph and all other information on ESTC are provided courtesy of Veylit at Claremont Colleges Digital Library. For more on the computation of this figure based on a sample estimate of ESTC conducted at the Centre for Bibliographical Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, see his, ‘A statistical survey and evaluation of the English Short Title Catalogue’, Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of California, Riverside (1994); http://estc.ucr.edu/ESTCStatistics.html (5 December 2008). B. Harris (1996) Politics and the Rise of the Press. Britain and France, 1620–1800 (London: Routledge), p. 12. Parliamentary History, X, col. 448. J. Black (1985) ‘Flying a kite. The political impact of the eighteenth century British press’, Journal of Newspaper and Periodical History, I, 12–19; W. T. Laprade (1928) ‘The power of the English press in the


20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

30.

31.

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eighteenth century’, South Atlantic quarterly, XXVII, 425–434; J. Raymond (ed.) (1999) News, Newspapers, and Society in Early Modern Britain (London: Cass). David Hume (1994), ‘Of the liberty of the press’, in K. Haakonssen (ed.) Political Essays (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press), p. 1. K. Tilman Winkler (1998) Woerterkrieg. Politische Debattenkultur in England, 1689– 1750 (Stuttgart: Steiner), which perhaps tends to underestimate the importance of foreign affairs; J. A. Downie (1987), ‘The development of the political press’, in C. Jones (ed.) Britain in the First Age of Party, 1680–1750. Essays Presented to Geoffrey Holmes (London: Hambledon), pp. 111–27, which virtually ignores foreign policy, and (1979) Robert Harley and the Press. Propaganda and Public Opinion in the Age of Swift and Defoe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). On the centrality of war and foreign policy to the public sphere see E. S. De Beer (1968) ‘The English newspapers from 1695 to 1702’, in R. Hatton and J. S. Bromley (eds) William III and Louis XIV. Essays 1680–1720 by and for Mark Thomson (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), pp. 117–129; J. Metzdorf (2000) Politik-Propaganda-Patronage. Francis Hare und die englische Publiztik im spanischen Erbfolgekrieg (Mainz: P. Von Zabern), pp. 58, 64 et passim; H.-J. Muellenbrock (1997) The Culture of Contention. A Rhetorical Analysis of the Public Controversy About the Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession, 1710–1713 (Munich: Fink). D. Coombs (1958) The Conduct of the Dutch. British Opinion and the Dutch Alliance During the War of the Spanish Succession (The Hague: Nijhoff). J. Black’s chapters in Black (1994) (ed.), Britain in the Age of Walpole (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 93–99, 108–113, 160–170; ‘Parliament, the press and foreign policy’, in K. W. Schweizer (2006) (ed.), Parliament and the Press, 1689– 1939 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 9–16; ‘The British press and Europe in the early eighteenth century’, in M. Harris and A. Lee (eds) (1986) The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Century (Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson), pp. 64–79. Parliamentary History, X, col. 806. Our figure is based on the August 2008 version (Last checked in December 2008). The following information is from Gale. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. c Gale. a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. www. cengage.com/permissions. ECCO includes multiples of editions of works. But since the existence of different copies in general indicates more public interest, we did not count them out. According to Veylit’s new ESTC research, the percentage of unique titles per total number of records decreases from around 90 per cent in the seventeenth century to around 85 per cent in the eighteenth century. See http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/schwarzL.html (5 December 2008). This electronic review is last updated on 28 July 2004. It should be noted here that the search engine itself is not perfect. On rare occasions, it may not count an item which contains a designated word, confusing it with other words. We were unable to redress such failings in this paper. J. Hoppit (2006) ‘The contexts and contours of British economic literature, 1660–1760’, Historical Journal, XLIX, 79–110; S. A. Reinert, ‘Recipes for empire. A quantitative analysis of economic translations in Europe, 1500–1849’, presented at the graduate workshop on the political economy of empire, University of Cambridge, 4 November 2006. Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe, pp. 34–37.

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32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Parliamentary History, VII, cols. 629–650; 678–692; 694–911. Ibid., cols. 589–628. Ibid., cols. 7–8. Ibid., cols. 53–56; 64–219; 461–465; 475–496. Ibid., cols. 223–292. Ibid., cols. 292–375. Ibid., cols. 54–362. Cited in Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat, p. 103. Ibid., pp. 3–4. Ibid., p. 104. On the sudden rise of the number of economic pamphlets around the time of the financial fiasco, see the South Sea Bubble resources in the Kress collection at the Barker library, Harvard University. C. Davenant (1771), ‘Essay upon the probable methods of making a people gainers in the balance of trade’, in Sir Charles Whitworth (ed.) The Political and Commercial Works of the Celebrated Writer Charles Davenant (London: R. Horsfield), II, p. 275. D. Defoe (1728) A Plan of the English Commerce (London: Charles Rivington), p. 153. Parliamentary History, VIII. See Ibid., cols. 491–512. Ibid., cols. 523–548. See Ibid. cols. 642–644; 682–700; 771–775, 841–843 et passim. J. H. Plumb (1962) The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675–1725 (London: Macmillan). See C. M. Andrews (1915) ‘Anglo-French commercial rivalry, 1700–1750. The western phase I and II’, The American Historical Review, XX, 539–556, 761–780; A. McCandless Wilson (1936) French Foreign Policy During the Administration of Cardinal Fleury, 1726–1743. Study in Diplomacy and Development (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press). Cited in D. B. Horn and M. Ransom (eds.) (1996), English Historical Documents, 1714–1783 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode), pp. 248–250. See Parliamentary History, IX, ‘The King’s Speech on opening the session’, ‘Debate in the Commons on relating to the execution of the Treaty of Seville’, ‘Debate in the Commons for the instructions given to the British minister in Poland’, and so on, cols. 182–365; 519–601; 800–838; Parliamentary History, XI, ‘Declaration of war against Spain’, ‘Debate in the Commons on motions for papers relating to the war with Spain’, and so on, 1–328; 698–845; 894–995; 1027–1222. P. Langford (1975) The Excise Crisis. Society and Politics in the Age of Walpole (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 44–61, 151–171; P. Woodfine (1997) Britannia’s Glories. The Walpole Ministry and the 1739 War with Spain (Woodbridge: Boydell), pp. 46–74. S. Targett (1991) ‘Sir Robert Walpole’s newspapers, 1722–1742. Propaganda and politics in the age of Whig supremacy’, Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge; id. (1994) ‘Government and ideology during the age of Whig supremacy. The political argument of Sir Robert Walpole’s newspaper propagandists’, Historical Journal, XXXVII, 289–318; ‘A pro-government newspaper during the Whig ascendancy. Walpole’s London Journal, 1722–1738’, in J. Black and K. W. Schweizer (eds) (1988), Politics and the Press in the Hanoverian Britain (Lewiston,

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

53.

54.


55. 56.

57. 58.

59.

60. 61.

62.

63. 64.

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NY: Mellon), pp. 1–32; R. Browning (1982) Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Baton Rouge: Louisiane State UP); S. Varey (1976) ‘The Craftsman, 1726–1752. An historical and critical account’, Unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge. Parliament History, IX, col. 181. W. Shippen (1732) Five Speeches: As They were Spoken in the House of Commons (London); (1727) A Speech Against Sir R— W—’s Proposal for Increasing the Civil List Revenue (London); W. Pulteney (1729) A Letter from a Member of Parliament to a Friend in the Country, Concerning the Sum of 115,000l. Granted for the Service of the Civil List (London); Some Farther Particulars Concerning the Sum of 150,000l (London); (1734) An Humble Address to the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses, Elected to Represent the Commons of Great Britain in the Ensuing Parliament (London); Bolingbroke (1997) ‘A dissertation upon parties’, in D. Armitage (ed.) Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 177–191 (originally published in the Craftsman, p. 443 (28 December 1734); John, Lord Hervey (1884) in John Wilson Croker (ed.) Memoirs of the Reign of George II from His Accession to the Death of Queen Caroline (London: Bickers & Son), I, pp. 42–46, 177–179, 183–185 et passim. Coxe, Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, I, pp. 283–286, 290–292, 299–300, 321–322, 358–361, 395–428 et passim. Bolingbroke, ‘The idea of a patriot king’, in Political Writings, pp. 217–294. See also S. Varey (ed.) (1982) Lord Bolingbroke. Contributions to the Craftsman (Oxford: Oxford University Press). See e.g. Parliamentary History, XI, ‘Debate in the Lords on a motion for Admiral Vernon representations for more ships’, cols. 1015–1017; ‘Protest against refusing the motion for a secret committee to enquire into the conduct of the war’ (col. 1019); ‘Debate in the Lords on Lord Carteret’s motion for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole’ (and related debates, cols. 1047–1387); Parliamentary History, XII, ‘Debate in the Commons on a motion for a subsidy to the queen of Hungary’, cols. 167–184; ‘Debate in the Commons on continuing the British troops in Flanders’, cols. 906–940; ‘Debate in the Commons on taking the Hanoverian troops into British pay’, and related debates, cols. 940–1189. J. Ashley (1743) Memoirs and Considerations Concerning the Trade and Revenues of the British Colonies in America (London). G. Plank (2006) Rebellion and Savagery. The Jacobite Rising of 1745 and the British Empire (Philadelphia: University Presses Marketing); B. Lenman (1980) The Jacobite Risings in Britain, 1689–1746 (London: Methuen), pp. 231–259. Parliamentary History, XIV, ‘Debate in the Commons on a motion for papers relating to the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle’, cols. 383–394; ‘Mr Horace Walpole’s speech on the subsidy to the Queen of Hungary’, cols. 491–496; ‘Debate in the Commons against entering into subsidiary treaties with foreign powers’, cols. 1197; Parliamentary History, XV, ‘Debate in the Commons on the treaty with Prussia’, cols. 783–802; ‘Resolutions of the Commons relating to the loss of Minorca’, cols. 822–827; ‘Debate in the Commons on the preliminary treaty of peace with France and Spain’, cols. 1257–1271. Anon. (1760) Conjectures on the Present State of Affairs in Germany (London), p. 1. For a different view, see J. Truslow Adams (1922) ‘On the term “British Empire” ’, The American Historical Review, XXVII, 485–489.

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65. M. Postlethwayt (1757) Britain’s Commercial Interest Explained and Improved (London), I, pp. 56–73, 280–329, 469–473. It is worth remembering that Postlethwayt was one of the few leading analysts of commerce who saw the economic value in the acquisition of Bremen and Verden. See his (1757) Great Britain’s True System (London), pp. xcii–cxl. 66. M. Postlethwayt (1745) The African Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in America (London); (1746) The National and Private Advantages of the African Trade Considered (London); Anon. (1772) A Treatise upon the Trade from Great Britain to Africa (London). K. G. Davies (1999) The Royal African Company (London: Routledge). 67. Colley has expressed scepticism about the current vogue for ‘imperial’ and ‘Atlantic’ history, in her Captives. Britain, Empire and the World, 1600–1850 (London: Jonathan Cape), pp. 8–9, 160–161, 167, from the perspective of Britain’s Mediterranean commitments. 68. ‘Directions for the printer of the National Journal how to place or range the articles of news’ (14 June 1746), in L. Hanson (1936) Government and the Press, 1695–1763 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 146.; G. A. Cranfield (1962) The Development of the Provincial Newspaper, 1700–1760 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 65–67 (Grub Street Journal quotation, p. 67); J. Black (1987), The English Press in the Eighteenth Century (London: Croom Helm), pp. 197–244. 69. B. Harris, ‘Hanover and the public sphere’, in The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, pp. 183–212; B. Harris (1993) A Patriot Press. National Politics and the London Press in the 1740s (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 7–9, 15–16. More generally see Harris, Politics and the Nation, and Politics and the Rise of the Press, p. 37. M. J. Cardwell (2004) Arts and Arms. Literature, Politics and Patriotism During the Seven Years’ War (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 2, 13, 22 et passim. 70. (1727) The Addresses to George II on His Accession to the Throne (London), p. 151. 71. See e.g. Anon. (1762) A Letter to a Member of the Honourable House of Commons, on the Present Important Crisis of National Affairs (London), pp. 20, 21; Anon. (1743) Britons Awake. Look About You; Or Ruin the Inevitable Consequence of a Land-War (London), p. 19; Anon. (1733) The Occasional Writer. To the People. And for the People (London), p. 24; The True Briton (15 July 1723); Anon. (1718) A Letter to a Friend at the Hague, Concerning the Danger of Europe (London), p. 34. 72. Thomas Prince (1746) A Sermon Preached at the South Church in Boston, N.E. August 14, 1746 (Boston). 73. Anon. (1760) A Full and Candid Answer to a Pamphlet, Entitled, Considerations on the Present German War (London), p. 15; W. Pulteney (1763) Reflections on the Domestic Policy, Proper to be Observed on the Conclusion of a Peace (London), pp. 2, 5, 54, 66–67. 74. H. Barker (1998) Newspapers, Politics and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon). 75. Even John Oldmixon whose 1708 two-volume treatise on the British Empire in America exerted considerable influence on the development of imperial topography across Europe, appearing in Dutch and German in 1721 and 1744 respectively, staunchly defended the Whig continentalist foreign policy centred on, first the Dutch Republic, then Hanover. See, Oldmixon (1712) The Dutch Barrier Our’s; Or the Interest of England and Holland Inseparable (London); P. Rogers (1973) ‘An early colonial historian. John Oldmixon and The British Empire in America’, Journal of American Studies, VII, 113–123.


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76. D. Armitage (2000) The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 170–198; R. Koebner (1961) Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 61–237; I. K. Steele (1986) The English Atlantic, 1675–1740. An Exploration of Communication and Community (New York: Oxford University Press); P. N. Miller (1994) Defining the Common Good. Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 150–213.

7 Waging War: The Irish Military Establishment and the British Empire, 1688–1763 Charles Ivar McGrath

The arrival of William of Orange in England in 1688, and the constitutional and financial revolutions that ensued, had extensive repercussions for Ireland. The significant changes in British foreign policy – in particular the extended periods of war in the British Isles, on the continent, and across the Atlantic in the eighteenth century – were attributable in large part to the events of 1688–1689 and the ensuing reign of William III.1 In Ireland the war of 1689–1691, which was a direct result of the Glorious Revolution, paved the way for the emergence of a new political and constitutional reality, centred upon a wholly dominant Protestant minority ruling elite which controlled the public purse strings through a parliament that took centre stage in Irish affairs. This new reality was made possible primarily because of the Irish government’s increasing need from the 1690s onwards for money to pay for the enlarged military Establishment in Ireland, as the country became a permanent barracks for the largest part of Britain’s peace-time standing army and the first port of call for active troops for overseas service when Britain went to war. Such a situation came into existence because the Irish parliament put in place the financial structures necessary to maintain that army at home and, on occasion, to pay for it when overseas. In so doing, the Irish Protestant political nation engaged in financial innovation that mirrored much of what occurred as part of England’s Financial Revolution, which in turn provided the money necessary to fight the four main wars that Britain was involved in between 1689 and 1763. Ultimately, those four wars were central to the growth in size and power of the British Empire in the first seven decades of the eighteenth century. As such, Ireland played an important role in the execution of British foreign policy in the eighteenth century with regard to international war and the expansion of empire. The most common perceptions of Ireland’s contribution to the British Empire have been formed on the basis of work that focuses upon two particular phenomena: (1) the massive Irish emigration from the seventeenth 102

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century onwards to the various colonies of the empire and (2) the large-scale and predominantly Irish Catholic recruitment into the British army in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the ensuing service of those soldiers in far-flung corners of the globe. In the first scenario, Ireland plays an important role in peopling the empire with commercial traders, government administrators, and agricultural and industrial workers, among others. In the second, Ireland takes over from eighteenth-century Scotland as the main provider in the British Isles of the cannon-fodder for English empire-building enterprises.2 Such perspectives, while central to establishing an understanding of how the colonies were peopled and governed, ultimately fail to provide any significant engagement with some of the more fundamental reasons for the establishment of that empire in the first place. In looking at the reasons for the emergence of the British Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, financial power and military strength – money and men – have been identified as key factors by a number of British historians.3 For the most part, the focus has been upon England and, more recently, Scotland.4 It is the purpose of this essay to examine to what extent Ireland made a contribution in those two key areas in the formative years of the British Empire, from the Glorious Revolution to the end of the Seven Years’ War.5

∗ The growing interest in Empire Studies in recent years has included examination of early modern Ireland. The most recent writings for the seventeenth century focus primarily upon Ireland as a testing ground for future British imperial adventures, particularly in terms of providing a destination for colonists and a place of conquest.6 As for the eighteenth century, one of the most recent studies presents 1763 as a key date, because prior to that time ‘empire meant above all trade: after 1763 it meant dominion as well’. Central to this change of focus were the ‘knotty problems of defence, finance, and administration’.7 In fact, Ireland had already commenced playing an active part before the seventeenth century concluded in the developments and events that were facilitating the establishment of the empire. The ‘knotty problems’ of defence and finance in particular were already central to Ireland’s role long before 1763. One of the most visible signs of change in Ireland after the Glorious Revolution was the advent of regular parliaments from 1692 onwards, and the placement of parliament at the centre of a constitutional framework that was particular to the eighteenth century. In the 1690s the Irish House of Commons won a series of constitutional concessions from government in relation to the restrictions placed upon the legislative role of parliament by a 1494–1495 statute known as Poynings’ Law. The Commons’ main weapon was their control of the amount and duration of the additional supplies

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required to meet the government’s increased expenditure following the Irish war of 1689–1691.8 The single most important reason for the long-term continuation of increased government expenditure in Ireland from the 1690s onwards was the English parliament’s decision to maintain a standing army in Ireland, to be paid out of the Irish public revenue. Prior to the Glorious Revolution, the size of the army in Ireland had varied depending on the circumstances: in 1641 it had stood at 3240; in the 1650s at 30,000; and in 1661 at 7500, a figure which continued into the 1680s.9 The 1689–1691 war in Ireland, which from an international perspective was just one theatre of conflict in the longer Nine Years’ War, saw a massive escalation in the number of soldiers in the country. The Jacobite army initially numbered around 36,000, reducing to 28,400 by late 1690 and increasing slightly to 30,500 during 1691. The meagre 9030 men recorded on the Williamite side at the start of the war rose to 29,954 by the end of 1689. Having risen to 35,000 by early 1690, at the end of June that year William III was able to muster 36,000 soldiers at the Boyne in opposition to James II’s 25,000. The Williamite army remained at similar levels for the rest of the war.10 Such large numbers could not be maintained in the long term, but the ongoing threat from the war on the continent, and the internal threat – perceived or real – from Catholic Ireland, ensured that after 1691 the army was to be maintained at a level significantly higher than had previously been the norm.11 It fell to the English parliament to decide upon the number of soldiers to be stationed and paid for in Ireland. The figure of 12,000 was settled upon in late 1691, with a further 8000 in Scotland, 10,000 in England, and 32,000 in Flanders and elsewhere.12 During the next 6 years, as the war continued on the continent and in North America, the number of soldiers in Ireland fluctuated between 12,000 and 15,000, with a similar variation in cost to the Irish government.13 Though often lacking forward planning, the movement of soldiers in and out of Ireland during 1692–1697 presaged the development of a more coherent and strategic policy for the regular rotation of soldiers within the empire as the eighteenth century unfolded. The conclusion of the Nine Years’ War in 1697 prompted renewed assessment of the size of the army to be maintained in the British Isles. The continuing aversion in England to a standing army meant that William’s wartime forces would be drastically reduced in size. The culmination of these considerations in the Westminster parliament resulted in the Disbanding Act of 1699. While 7000 soldiers were to be maintained in England, 12,000 were to be kept in Ireland.14 In practice this meant that many of the existing regiments in Ireland were disbanded or reduced in size while others from Flanders and elsewhere were transported over to take their place.15 The readjustments in the army in Ireland in 1697–1699 highlighted the way in which the new military arrangements would work during the eighteenth century. In peacetime, the standing army on the Irish Establishment


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consisted wholly of reduced regiments, with a higher than normal ratio of officers to enlisted men, so that in time of emergency active regiments could be transported quickly to England or elsewhere, brought up to strength either with draughts from other Irish regiments or new recruits raised in Britain, and put in the field without delay. The remaining regiments in Ireland could then be brought up to wartime strength with new recruits and additional companies, or new regiments could be raised.16 The maintenance of the standing army in Ireland in peacetime also required the introduction of a military innovation that was to become more common throughout the empire in later years, namely the building of a countrywide network of permanent barracks. The residential barracks as envisaged for Ireland differed from the more traditional form of military complexes that already existed in the British Isles in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Built for coastal defence and at other strategically important locations, garrisons and other military fortifications were not intended to provide residential facilities for large numbers of soldiers as part of a permanent standing army. Rather, they were closely associated with the smaller number of soldiers who were officially allowed in England in peacetime – the ‘guards and garrisons’.17 Prior to the 1690s it was the norm in Ireland, as in England and elsewhere, for soldiers to be billeted – or quartered – either in public houses or, when such premises were not available, in private homes. Such practice often provoked discontent within the populace for a variety of reasons. An army of occupation would naturally be resented by the indigenous population. If the army was not to be quartered upon the conquered populace, then the burden of billeting would weigh heavily upon the colonial settlers, even if the presence of the soldiers offered reassurance in a hostile environment. Quartered soldiers also caused discontent in their country of origin owing to the invasion of privacy, the economic burden, the disruption to daily life, and the associated problems arising from the introduction into small settled communities of large groups of outsider males. For all persons upon whom soldiers where quartered, an added evil, particularly in wartime, was the danger that the army might live at free-quarter, not paying for their keep and subsistence.18 The system of quartering was not best for the soldiers either. The health, well-being, morale and discipline of the army could be undermined by the practice. Unsanitary dwellings, uncertain diet, the dispersal of troops over a wide area, the absence of officers, and the temptations of taverns and social liaisons could all lead to a breakdown in the health and well-being of army units.19 In England, a long-standing aversion to barracks remained throughout the eighteenth century, and was inextricably linked to the more general reasons behind the opposition to a standing army.20 In Ireland, however, the arguments against quartering held greater sway than those against

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permanent residential barracks. Following the war of 1689–1691, the question of army quartering was high on the list of grievances put forwarded by Irish politicians to the government.21 The subject was an emotive one. In the parliament convened in August 1695, the opposition proposed that the ‘quartering on private houses and the right of it must be enquired into and if possible voted illegal’. Yet, from the government’s perspective, such a course of action ‘must starve and ruin the army especially on their marches where it is impossible to find public houses to receive them’.22 If Ireland truly lacked sufficient taverns to house the army, while at the same time the general populace was unable or unwilling to take up the slack, then an alternative solution was required. Government officials were not blind to the problem. As early as April 1692 it had been proposed in London that the pressure placed upon Irish towns by the quartering of the army should be eased by building barracks and stables, a proposal that appears to have been the first formal acknowledgement of the necessity of a barrackbuilding project in Ireland.23 However, in order to undertake such a scheme, the government needed money. In 1697 the Irish administration appealed to the Dublin parliament for funds for that purpose. In highlighting the arrears due to the ‘army and civil list’, the government drew parliament’s attention to ‘the debt due to the country for quarters’ and made explicit reference to the need to build residential barracks.24 Parliament duly complied by passing a supply act which included the appropriation of £25,000 of the income arising from the additional taxes for the building of barracks.25 When parliament reconvened in 1698–1699, the government confirmed that money had already been advanced for the barrack-building project and appealed for further funds to complete the work, duly receiving a further £33,000 from the supply voted that session.26 By the time a parliament met again in 1703, the administration claimed to have spent even more than had been voted on the barrack project. Parliament’s reaction was to appropriate the vice-treasurer’s fees of 6d. in the pound in order to finance the building of barracks in Dublin.27 Thereafter during the eighteenth century, parliament provided a regular source of income for the continued building and maintenance of a country-wide network of barracks. The barracks of eighteenth-century Ireland currently have a chequered, though incomplete, history. Much has been made of the reports of corruption, embezzlement, and shoddy workmanship, while little attention has been paid to the lengthy periods when the buildings and those associated with them did not earn any public notoriety. It was certainly the case that contracts for building barracks, and their locations, were used as forms of patronage and favours. The economic benefits of having a barracks in the local vicinity was not lost on people, as was noted in 1715 when 150 individuals, including many MPs as well as the archbishop of Tuam, sent the government proposals for barracks on their own estates.28 At times, most notably in the 1740s and 1750s, parliament itself entered


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into exhaustive inquiries into the barracks, their management and their cost. Excessive expenditure was criticised, poor workmanship itemised, and cronyism, favouritism, and corruption denounced.29 Others wrote in defence of the barracks.30 And somewhere in between the truth lay. The number of barracks fluctuated over time. In part the reason related to the fact that although they were permanent residential buildings, they were not built to last forever. Many, for contractual and other reasons, were built to last only 20 or 30 years, with materials to suit such a life-span.31 The mapping and listing of the barracks around the country during the century demonstrated this phenomenon. In 1714 the German geographer Herman Moll listed 102 barracks ‘for quartering the standing army’ on a map of Ireland dedicated to the lord lieutenant, Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury.32 In similar vein, in the late 1750s, Thomas Jeffreys produced and presented a map of Ireland to the lord lieutenant, John Russell, Duke of Bedford, which included details of all the cast, or abandoned, barracks as well as all those still in use. The map was recycled in 1770 by the Irish administration of George, Viscount Townshend, when it was used to provide manuscript additions of red- and blue-coloured areas denoting the presence of either infantry or cavalry units. Within those coloured areas alone there was a minimum of 66 barracks still in use and 13 that had been abandoned. Both the Moll and Jeffreys maps demonstrated how the locations of the barracks were spread throughout the country with little obvious strategic defensive consideration apparent.33 Other eighteenth-century maps of Ireland told the same story, highlighting the central importance accorded to the newly established network of barracks.34 Manuscript accounts provided similar figures and impressions. A list of the 27 barrack masters employed in Ireland in 1716 included the locations of 101 barracks in their care spread throughout the country.35 At the same time, an account was drawn up of 19 new barracks in the process of being built, including the names of the landowners on whose estates they were located.36 Not surprisingly, the total number of barracks listed in an ‘annual charge for maintaining and upholding the barracks’ in 1717 had increased to 118.37 Presumably either two were still under construction or two older ones had been abandoned in the meantime. In 1749, when the number of barracks in the country was estimated at 112, a report by a Dublin Castle official waxed lyrical about what a wondrous achievement they were: The long experience of fifty years hath demonstrated that this institution of barracks hath been effective to the preservation of peace, to our protection from invasions, to the prevention of intestine riots and rebellions, to the suppression of robberies, to the encouragement of commerce, to the insurance of property, to the confirmation of our liberties in every branch.38

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While such sentiments were clearly not universal in Ireland, the significance and uniqueness of the barracks was not lost on other contemporaries either. In 1766 it was noted that the Royal Barracks, Dublin, one of the first to be built, ‘was the largest and completest building of the kind in Europe’, while in 1787 it was described as ‘the largest building of that nature in the British dominions’.39 Either way, it was certainly the case that ‘until the formation of the camp at Aldershot in 1855, Dublin was the only quarter in the United Kingdom where, at normal times, there were enough troops assembled for a brigade field day.’40 The importance of the building of a countrywide network of army barracks in eighteenth-century Ireland lay in part in the example it set for the permanent barracking of soldiers throughout the empire. In 1704 the Council of Trade and Plantations, reporting to the Westminster House of Lords on problems encountered quartering soldiers in Jamaica, recommended that barracks be constructed ‘as in Ireland . . . wherein the officers may have due care of the health of their soldiers by restraining them from many extravagancies they are subject to, in open and distant quarters’.41 By the 1730s, Jamaica had commenced building permanent residential barracks as well.42 The existence of the barracks also aided and abetted the emerging policy of troop rotation within the eighteenth-century British Empire. Despite protests from Irish politicians about the movement of troops out of Ireland and the continuation of their pay on the Irish Establishment while serving overseas,43 both phenomena increased in practice as the century progressed. In June 1701, 12 battalions of foot had been dispatched to Holland.44 Around the same time, four regiments were serving in the West Indies and being paid from the Irish treasury.45 After the outbreak of the War of the Austrian succession in 1702, the focus for overseas service turned to continental Europe, especially the Iberian peninsula. In 1703 the first of a series of significant troop movements from Ireland to Portugal occurred, with the transporting of three or more regiments.46 At the same time several other regiments were transported to Holland and England.47 Attention turned briefly back to the West Indies in January 1704, with four regiments being sent there.48 That same year an expeditionary force was sent to Portugal which required the drafting of recruits from regiments in Ireland.49 In 1705 attention was briefly directed elsewhere when three regiments were ordered ‘to go on board the fleet’.50 However, the organising of expeditionary forces for the Iberian peninsula was soon back on the agenda with the adoption of plans to ‘succour Catalonia’ in 1706, which resulted in a fleet sailing for Cadiz.51 By the end of February 1707 another expedition was being prepared, with four regiments being sent on this occasion.52 In October 1708 at least two more foot regiments were ordered to Portugal, as were a further six in 1709, three of which continued to be paid from Ireland while abroad.53 The end of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1713 brought with it a change in requirements for service abroad. In accordance with the Treaty of


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Utrecht, Gibraltar, captured by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1704, was to remain in British hands. The garrison, however, was to be provided from Ireland.54 A year later, the possibility that the succession of George I might encourage Jacobite supporters to attempt a Stuart restoration affected the overseas use of the military Establishment in Ireland, with half-pay officers being put on full pay in preparation for a possible move to Scotland.55 The mounting evidence during 1715 of an intended rebellion in support of the Jacobite Pretender resulted in the movement of regiments from Ireland to England and Scotland.56 In total, 12 regiments were sent to Britain during this period: eight to Scotland and four to England.57 Ireland’s military contribution to the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion and the securing of the new Hanoverian regime, and with it the empire, had been significant, and was acknowledged as such.58 The removal of the Jacobite threat in early 1716 eased the demand for soldiers from Ireland for a time. With Britain officially at peace, requirements for regiments overseas were more low-key, involving the occasional rotation of soldiers. Threat of war, however, always resulted in preparations for a return to a more aggressive policy of troop movement. In March 1717 the possibility of an attack by Sweden on Hanover resulted in the Irish government being notified that orders were on the way for a number of regiments to ‘hold themselves in readiness to embark’ for that service should the king require it.59 While nothing came of this affair, Ireland continued to send regiments overseas, and on occasion to pay for them while abroad. Examples of the latter included six regiments in Gibraltar in the late 1720s and early 1730s60 and two in Nova Scotia in the 1740s and 1750s.61 A 1728 account for the previous 10 years demonstrated how the Irish military Establishment served imperial needs even in peacetime. Since 1718, a total of 31 regiments on the Irish Establishment had been employed in England and abroad (Table 7.1).62 A similar pattern continued in the 1730s and 1740s. For example, in 1742 seven regiments were sent to the West Indies.63 Renewed war with France resulted in increased draughts of regiments from Ireland, including an urgent re-supply of the infantry in Flanders after Fontenoy in 1745.64 In the 1750s the pattern continued: in 1755 one regiment was sent to the West Indies and two to North America.65 The number of regiments sent abroad while continuing to be paid from the Irish treasury increased further during the Seven Years’ War (Table 7.2).66 With the parliamentary augmentation of the size of the army in Ireland at the end of 1769, a more settled arrangement was entered into, with the agreement between government and parliament allowing for five regiments on the Irish Establishment to be abroad at any one time.67 The system of troop movement in and out of Ireland which had evolved over the previous decades was readily incorporated within the formal policy of troop rotation adopted throughout the empire in the aftermath of the

110 Table 7.1 An account of the regiments on the Irish Establishment that have been employed in England and abroad Number

From

To

3 regiments 3 regiments

May 1718 July 1718

2 regiments 2 regiments 4 regiments 1 regiment 4 regiments 1 regiment 1 regiment 1 regiment 1 regiment 1 battalion 2 regiments 2 regiments 1 regiment 2 regiments

March 1719 March 1719 August 1719 June 1722 August 1722 July 1725 July 1725 August 1725 August 1725 May 1726 June 1726 June 1726 June 1726 February 1727

July 1718 December 1720 November 1719 July 1719 September 1721 December 1719 December 1719 December 1722 December 1722 August 1725 August 1725 October 1725 May 1728 July 1726 July 1726 May 1728 Still abroad Still abroad

Source: TNA, SP 63/390/234.

Table 7.2 Comparative view of the army on the Irish Establishment, 1750–1770, with regiments at home and abroad Year

Regiments at home

Regiments abroad

36 35 34 24 22 25 22 22 30 26 31 32 37 37 35 36 36 34 34

0 1 2 4 4 4 5 4 5 6 6 6 4 5 6 6 6 8 5

1750 1751–1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 Source: Nat. Arch. Ire. 999/308/3/13.


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Seven Years’ War. The manner in which it worked was demonstrated in 1765 when, as part of the general plan of rotation for troops in the ‘American dominions’, three regiments from Ireland were sent to relieve garrisons in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Quebec, and Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island. The latter two locations had only recently become part of the empire following the conclusion of the war. The regiments which were relieved from those locations were in turn to go to Ireland, where they were to be reduced to the standard peacetime size for the Irish Establishment. The men reduced as part of that process were then transferred to those other regiments still in Ireland from which men had been taken in order to bring up to strength the three regiments sent from Ireland as relief in the first place.68

∗ By means of this process of barracking and rotating soldiers, Ireland actively contributed to Britain’s eighteenth-century wars and the expansion of the first British Empire.69 But in order to do so successfully, Ireland had to be able and willing to pay for the maintenance of a substantial part of the British standing army. The crucial question of finance therefore requires explanation also. The maintenance in Ireland from 1692 onwards of a standing army to fight imperial and continental wars as well as to secure Britain’s flank led to a rapid increase in the Irish government’s expenditure. Whereas in the 1680s the highest yearly cost of government had been £243,663, by June 1698 it had leapt to the unprecedented level of £390,627 per annum. Although this figure was reduced to just under £340,000 by the end of the year, the annual cost of government tended to fluctuate between about £325,000 and £350,000 in the early 1700s.70 By the 1720s annual expenditure had crept beyond £400,000, and continued to rise steadily thereafter to more than £600,000 by the late 1750s and early 1760s.71 The government’s annual income from the non-parliamentary perpetual or hereditary revenues was not sufficient to meet the post-1692 increase in expenditure.72 At the same time, the post-Glorious Revolution Irish parliament made it clear that it would not vote any more perpetual or hereditary revenues, and instead opted for a policy of enacting short-term supply measures only. First utilised in England in the 1660s, this policy involved voting an increased levy upon an existing customs or excise duty for a regulated period of time, in order to provide an estimated amount of money. The government’s pressing need made it compliant, and with the annual shortfall wholly dependent upon these new short-term additional parliamentary duties, the Irish legislature entered into an era of regular assembly and a more central role in running the country.73 Between 1692 and 1714 the Irish parliament enacted a range of additional duties which facilitated the government in paying for the increased military Establishment. While the politics was volatile and the policy innovative,74

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the actual financial details appeared relatively prosaic: twenty-one shortterm supply acts were passed during 11 sessions of parliament, imposing duties on a range of goods including alcohol, tobacco, linen, muslin, calicoes, drapery, and silk. The public income was further topped-up with two poll taxes, a land tax, and a first experiment in taxing the salaries and pensions of absentee public officials.75 From 1715–1716 onwards the duration of supply acts settled at two years, thereby ensuring biennial parliamentary sessions. In the 23 sessions between 1715 and 1760, a total of 40 supply acts were passed. As a result of that legislative output, the government’s annual income continued to increase on a year-to-year basis, primarily through the introduction of new rates on existing parliamentary additional duties and the addition of new commodities such as treacle, tea, coffee, chocolate, and cocoa-nuts (1719), hops, china, earthen, japanned or lacquered ware, and vinegar (1731), romals, cotton, and cotton/linen goods (1737), hides (1743), cider and soap boilers’ waste (1761), and velvet and linen rags (1763).76 All of these parliamentary additional duties remained the mainstay of the government’s year-by-year income. But in times of particular need or crisis other financial innovations were introduced. Following the Hanoverian succession, and as a direct result of that event, the Irish parliament took the next step in committing Ireland to participating financially in the expansion of the empire by bringing into existence an Irish national debt. The first loan was raised on the basis of an unlimited vote of credit by the Commons, and the promise in the third money act of the 1715–1716 session that provision for repayment of an unspecified principal sum, with interest, would be made in the next session. The government borrowed £50,000, the immediate financial necessity being the raising of 13 new regiments as a result of the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland.77 Thus, even though defence may have been the foremost thought in the minds of Irish politicians, their actions still resulted in Ireland making an active contribution to British military activity and strength. Increasing pay arrears on the military Establishment in the 1720s resulted in a second loan in 1729 of £150,000.78 Following a further loan of £100,000 in 1731 for similar purposes, the renewed security crisis upon the outbreak of war with Spain in 1739 led to further borrowing for military requirements.79 In 1741 a new loan of £125,000 was voted, while the outbreak of hostilities with France and the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland resulted in yet another loan in 1745, on this occasion for £70,000.80 In the 1750s the Irish government managed to avoid further borrowing and reduced the national debt to £5200. However, Britain’s return to war with France from 1756 onwards did not take long to impact upon Ireland, and in financial terms necessitated a return to public borrowing in 1759, when parliament legislated for a loan to the government of £150,000.81 The immediate cause of the new loan was the widespread fear


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of a Franco-Jacobite invasion.82 Two months later the Commons felt obliged to pass a further vote of credit for £300,000. The government availed of £200,000, thereby increasing the national debt to £350,000 by February 1760. This dramatic increase in the debt just three months after a return to public borrowing was occasioned by the landing at Carrickfergus of the French privateer, François Thurot, in the same month.83 The continuing concerns over defence in the early 1760s saw the national debt rapidly increase. In 1761, a new loan of up to £400,000 was legislated for.84 For a time even this amount did not appear to be enough. In January 1762 the lord lieutenant requested further supplies in order to increase the size of the army in Ireland by five battalions, ostensibly due to an ‘inevitable rupture with the Court of Spain’. The Commons reacted favourably, passing a new vote of credit for up to £200,000.85 In the mid-1760s three more loans, all of £100,000, were legislated for. The government, however, continued to exercise some restraint, and did not borrow the full amounts allowed. Even still, the principal sum for the national debt in 1769 had reached £655,000. In that same year the longawaited augmentation of the army in Ireland was finally agreed. A loan of £100,000 was allowed for the stated purposes of raising and supporting for two years a further 3325 soldiers on the Irish Establishment. The full amount of the loan had been borrowed by June 1770, bringing the principal sum to £725,000.86 The newly enlarged standing army in Ireland would not have to wait long to see active service, nor the Irish parliament to increase the country’s debts for such military purposes. With the outbreak of war in the American colonies, drafts of regiments from Ireland increased dramatically, while the national debt escalated to £1,919,386 by 1783.87 But there was nothing very new in such a commitment of men and money from Ireland. It was a system that had been functioning since the late seventeenth century. By adopting and adapting financial innovations utilised in England as part of the Financial Revolution of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Irish parliament had facilitated a significant monetary and military contribution to British foreign policy in the eighteenth century with regard to international war and the expansion of empire.

Notes 1. B. Simms (2007) Three Victories and a Defeat. The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783 (London: Allen Lane), pp. 38–40. 2. D. Fitzpatrick (1999) ‘Ireland and the empire’ in A. Porter (ed.) The Oxford History of the British Empire. The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press), III, pp. 494–521; Kevin Kenny (2004) ‘The Irish in the empire’ in idem (ed.) Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 90–122. 3. J. Brewer (1989) The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: Unwin Hyman); L. Colley (1992) Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837

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4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

Waging War (New Haven: Yale University Press); P. G. M. Dickson (1967) The Financial Revolution in England. A Study in the Development of Public Credit 1688–1756 (London: Macmillan); D. Stasavage (2003) Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State: France and Great Britain, 1688–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). T. M. Devine (2003) Scotland’s Empire (London: Allen Lane). F. Anderson (2000) Crucible of War. The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (London: Faber), p. xv. J. Ohlmeyer (1998) ‘ “Civilizinge of those rude parts”: Colonization within Britain and Ireland, 1580s–1640s’ and T. C. Barnard (1998) ‘New Opportunities for British Settlement: Ireland, 1650–1700’ in N. Canny (ed.) The Oxford History of the British Empire. The Origins of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press), I, pp. 124–147, 309–327; J. Ohlmeyer (2004) ‘A laboratory for empire?: Early modern Ireland and English imperialism’ in Kenny (ed.) Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 26–60. T. Bartlett (1998) ‘ “This famous island set in a Virginian sea”: Ireland in the British empire, 1690–1801’ in P. Marshall (ed.) The Oxford History of the British Empire. The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press), II, p. 262; idem (2004) ‘Ireland, empire, and union, 1690–1801’ in Kenny (ed.) Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 61–89. C. I. McGrath (2000) The Making of the Eighteenth-Century Irish Constitution: Government, Parliament and the Revenue, 1692–1714 (Dublin: Four Courts Press); idem (2006–2007) ‘Government, parliament and the constitution: the reinterpretation of Poynings’ Law, 1692–1714’, Irish Historical Studies [hereafter IHS], XXXV, 160–172; J. Kelly (2007) Poynings’ Law and the Making of Law in Ireland 1660–1800 (Dublin: Four Courts Press); D. B. Quinn (1940–1941) ‘The early interpretation of Poynings’ Law, 1494–1534’, IHS, II, 241–254; R. D. Edwards and T. W. Moody (1940–1941) ‘The history of Poynings’ Law: part I, 1494–1615’, IHS, II, 415–424; A. Clarke (1972–1973) ‘The history of Poynings’ Law, 1615–1641’, IHS, XVII, 207–222. A. J. Guy (1996) ‘The Irish Military Establishment, 1660–1776’ in T. Bartlett and K. Jeffrey (eds) A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 211–213. J. Childs, ‘The Williamite War, 1689–1691’ in Bartlett and Jeffrey (eds) Military History, pp. 190, 193–196, 201. Guy, ‘Irish Military Establishment’, p. 216. John Pultney to Thomas Coningsby, 19, 28 November 1691 (PRONI, De Ros MSS, D638/13/69, p. 74). See BL, Add. MS 4761, fo. 41; Nat. Arch. Ire., Wyche papers, 2/7, 51; TCD, MS 1178, fo. 69; PRONI, De Ros MSS, D638/18/6; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1693, p. 3; Cal. Treas. Bks 1696–1697, p. 304; (1796–1800) The Journals of the House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland, 21 vols, 3rd edn (Dublin) [hereafter C.J.I.], II, pt. ii, pp. xv–xviii. D. W. Hayton (ed.) (1996) The Parliamentary Diary of Sir Richard Cocks, 1698–1702 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. xxxviii–xxxix, xl, lxix, 1–2, 13–14; H. Horwitz (1977) Parliament, Policy and Politics in the Reign of William III (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 222–270. BL, Add. MSS 28881, fo. 606; 40771, fo. 188; Nat. Arch. Ire., MSS M3070; M2455– M2457; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1697, pp. 427, 434, 446; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1698, pp. 11, 65, 78–79, 91–92, 105, 113, 146, 174–175, 307, 335, 381, 386, 396; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1699–1700, pp. 71, 91, 101–102.


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16. TNA, SP 63/373/88, 112, 144, 148–150, 193, 242–243; 63/374/26–27, 42–43, 59–60, 63–65; 63/375/49; 63/377/28–29, 59–60, 171–172; 63/378/35–36; 63/387/50–51, 197–198; 63/388/170, 196; 63/389/117; 63/390/234; 63/391/ 184–185; 63/397/88, 90–91, 97–99, 111, 115–118, 129, 143; 63/399/7, 9, 42, 46, 58; 63/403/63; 63/404/82; 63/406/1, 30–31, 37–38, 79, 113, 118–119, 121, 125, 139, 143; 63/407/146–148; 63/408/98–101, 106–108, 110–112, 130; Guy, ‘Irish Military Establishment’, pp. 216–217, 228. 17. R. E. Scouller (1966) The Armies of Queen Anne (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 81, 83–86. 18. J. Childs (1982) Armies and Warfare in Europe 1648–1789 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 185–190; L. G. Schwoerer (1974) ‘No Standing Armies!’ The Anti-army Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England (London: Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 20–22; Scouller, Armies of Queen Anne, pp. 163–165, 168–172. 19. Anon. (1756) Reasons for Building of Barracks; Disincumbering The Inn-Keepers and Publicans; Restoring Discipline to the Army; and A Right Understanding Between the Soldiers and the People (London: Cooper), pp. 4–5. 20. H. C. B. Rogers (1977) The British Army of the Eighteenth Century (London: Allen & Unwin) p. 38; Brewer, Sinews of Power, p. 48. 21. Alan Brodrick to St John Brodrick, 26 June 1693 (Surrey RO, Midleton papers, 1248/1/261–2). 22. Alan Brodrick to St John Brodrick, 17 December 1695 (Surrey RO, Midleton papers, 1248/1/278–279). 23. Cal. S.P. Dom. 1693, p. 115. 24. C.J.I., II, 833–834, 836; C.S.P.D. 1697, p. 281. 25. Stat. Ire., III, 353–358; T. J. Kiernan (1930) A History of the Financial Administration of Ireland to 1817 (London: P. S. King & Son), pp. 122–123. 26. C.J.I., II, 994, 1070, 1074–1076, 1078–1079; Lords justices to Blathwayt, 1, 3 December 1698 (Nat. Arch. Ire., MS M2456, [unfol.]); Nat. Arch. Ire., MS 2447, p. 34; BL, Add. MS 28883, fos. 285–286, 287; G. P. R. James (ed.) (1841) Letters Illustrative of the Reign of William III, from 1696 to 1708, Addressed to the Duke of Shrewsbury, by James Vernon, esq. Secretary of State, 3 vols (London), II, pp. 230–231. 27. Stat. Ire., IV, pp. 7–10. 28. [Eustace] Budgell to Addison, 9 February 1715 (BL, Add. MS 61636, fos. 163–164, 167). 29. For examples, see C.J.I., IV, 481–483; V, 106, 128, 192; (1754) The Cabinet: Containing, A Collection of Curious Papers, Relative to the Present Political Contests in Ireland; Some of Which Are Now First Published (London), pp. 1–11. 30. For examples, see H. Brooke (1747) The Secret History and Memoirs of the Barracks of Ireland (London); T. Eyre (1760) A Reply to the Report of the Commissioners and Others, Upon the Condition of the Dublin Barracks (Dublin). 31. Brooke, Secret History, pp. 22–24; An account of the Barrack Masters and Barracks, c. 1716 (TNA, PRO 30/26/60, fo. 16). 32. A New Map of Ireland Divided into its Provinces, Counties and Baronies, wherein are distinguished the Bishopricks, Borroughs, Barracks, Bogs, Passes, Bridges, &c. . . . . By Herman Moll Geographer . . . . 1714 (TNA, WO 78/419/19). 33. A New and Accurate Map of the Kingdom of Ireland divided into Provinces, Counties and Baronies: with all the Cities, Boroughs, Post-Towns, Barracks and Princial Villages . . . . By Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to his Majesty [c. 1759] (TNA, MPF 1/315).

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34. A Correct Map of Ireland Divided into its Provinces, Counties and Baronies, Shewing the Roads and the Distances of Places in Computed miles by Inspection where Barraques are Erected &c . . . . 1711 (UCD Special Collections, W1.U.2/1-2; IVRLA, http://hdl.handle.net/10151/OB_1000184_SC); A Map of the Kingdom of Ireland, Divided into Provinces, Counties and Baronies, Shewing The Archbishopricks, Bishopricks, Cities, Boroughs, Market Towns, Villages, Barracks, Mountains, Lakes, Bogs, Rivers, Bridges, Ferries, Passes . . . By J. Rocque [d. 1762] Chorographer to his Majesty [undated] (UCD Special Collections, W1.U.4/1-4; IVRLA, http://hdl.handle.net/10151/OB_1000186_SC). 35. An account of the Barrack Masters and Barracks, c. 1716 (TNA, PRO 30/26/60, fos. 13–17). 36. An Account of the number of Barracks Building in Ireland Anno 1716 (TNA, PRO 30/26/60, fo. 17). 37. An Establishment of the Annual Charge for maintaining and upholding the Barracks, 1717 (TNA, PRO 30/26/60, fos. 80–81). 38. Mr Waite’s paper about the present state of Ireland, [May 1749] (BL, Add. MS 35919, fos. 268–269). 39. Walter Harris (1766) The History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin, from the Earliest Accounts (Dublin), p. 473; Richard Lewis (1787) The Dublin Guide: or, A Description of the City of Dublin, and the Most Remarkable Places within Fifteen miles (Dublin), p. 41. 40. Scouller, Armies of Queen Anne, p. 165. 41. HMC, House of Lords MSS, n.s., VI, 102, quoted in Scouller, Armies of Queen Anne, p. 169. 42. (1793) An Abridgement of the Laws of Jamaica, 2 vols (Jamaica), I, 20–21. 43. See for example C.J.I., III, 11–12, 15. 44. Cal. Treas. Bks 1700–1701, p. 280. 45. BL Add. MS 28946, fo. 356; Nat. Lib. Ire., Keightley papers, folder 2600. 46. BL Add. MSS 28890, fo. 271; 28891, fo. 9; 28947, fos. 91–92; 34774, fos. 1, 8, 10–11. 47. BL Add MSS 28890, fo. 220; 34774, fos. 10–11. 48. BL Add. MS 34774, fos. 26–27. 49. BL Add. MSS 38153, fos. 64, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 88; 28892, fo. 399; PRONI, De Ros MSS, D638/48/1–4. 50. BL Add. MS 28893, fo. 27. 51. BL Add. MSS 38153, fos. 90, 106, 108, 126, 138; 38154, fo. 1; TNA, SP 63/365/252, 254, 257–259, 301–302; Nat. Arch. Ire., MS 2447, pp. 93–94. 52. BL Add. MS 61638, fo. 26; 38154, fos. 170, 176. 53. BL Add. MSS 61633, fo. 124; 61634, fos. 85, 92–93; TNA, SP 63/367/25–26, 29–30. 54. TCD, MS 2022, fo. 234. 55. TCD, MS 2023, fos. 59, 76–77, 81; BL, Add MSS 61635, fos. 33; 61635, fo. 41. 56. BL Add. MS 61635, fos. 125, 128; TNA, SP 63/373/88, 112, 144, 150, 193; PC 2/85, pp. 288–290; É. Ó Ciardha (2002) Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685–1766: A Fatal Attachment (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 113–114, 134–136; Devine, Scottish Nation, pp. 37–38. 57. C.J.I., III, pt. ii, p. lxxvi; Rogers, British Army, p. 20 (which states that 13 regiments were dispatched from Ireland). 58. [William King], ‘Some observations on the taxes paid by Ireland to support the government [undated, c. 1726]’ (Nat. Lib. Ire., MS 694, p. 68). 59. Col. Bladen, London, to Charles Delafaye, 14 March 1717 (TNA, SP 63/375/49).

Charles Ivar McGrath 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73.

74.

75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

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TNA, SP 63/389/117. TNA, SP 63/412/112–113. See Table 7.1. C.J.I., IV, 407; appendix, p. clxxvi. TNA, SP 63/403/63; 63/404/82; 63/406/30–31; 63/406/79; 63/406/118–119; 63/406/139; 63/407/12; 63/407/146–147; Nat. Arch. Ire., MS 2446. C.J.I., V, 225; appendix, pp. cclxxiv–cclxxvi. See Table 7.2. Printed scheme for augmentation of the army, 4 December 1769 (TNA, SP 63/430/207–208). TNA, SP 63/423/200–202; Anderson, Crucible of War, pp. 35, 250–258, 387–415. Brewer, Sinews of Power, p. 32. Nat. Lib. Ire., MS 43, fos. 1, 3, 10–11; TCD, MS 2022, fo. 111; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1697, pp. 462, 528, 593; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1698, pp. v–vi, 23, 29, 33–34, 57–58, 427–428, 430–431, 437–440; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1699–1700, pp. viii–x, 5, 11, 43–44, 65, 68; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1703–1704, pp. 172–173; Cal. Treas. Bks. 1698, pp. 139–143; Cal. Treas. Bks. 1699–1700, pp. 141–157, 364–367; Cal. Treas. Bks. 1700–1701, pp. 338–339, 433–446; Cal. Treas. Bks. 1703, pp 123–125; Cal. Treas. Bks. 1709, pp. 114–123; McGrath, Irish Constitution, pp. 294–295. Accounts of Net Public Income and Expenditure of Great Britain and Ireland, 1688–1800, pp. 255–321, 434–439, H.C. 1868–1869 (366) xxxv.1, 483. For details see McGrath, Irish Constitution, pp 49–72, 291–292. C. I. McGrath (2001) ‘Parliamentary Additional Supply: The Development and Use of Regular Short-Term Taxation in the Irish Parliament, 1692–1716’, Parliamentary History, XX, 27–54; idem (2001) ‘Central Aspects of the EighteenthCentury Constitutional Framework in Ireland: The Government Supply Bill and Biennial Parliamentary Sessions, 1715–1782’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, XVI, 9–34. For politics and policy, see McGrath, Irish Constitution, passim; D. W. Hayton (2004) Ruling Ireland, 1685–1742: Politics, Politicians and Parties (Woodbridge: Boydell), passim. Stat. Ire., III, 245–246, 312–313, 328, 353–358, 374–396, 451–373; IV, 1–2, 7–10, 69–70, 109–112, 187–190, 251–257, 291–293. Stat. Ire., IV, 315–317, 318–320, 325–327, 431–432, 433–438, 504–508; V, 1–5, 75–81, 137–142, 193–18, 201–206, 333–336, 337–340, 483–486, 487–492; VI, 1–4, 5–9, 171–174, 175–180, 389–393, 393–398, 479–483, 483–489, 601–605, 605–612, 639–643, 643–650, 689–702, 702–710, 805–809, 810–817; VII, 1–5, 6–15, 99–103, 104–111, 255–260, 271–276, 491–497, 613–619, 619–22l; McGrath, ‘Constitutional Framework’, pp. 11–19; D. W. Hayton (2001) ‘Introduction: The long apprenticeship’, Parliamentary History, XX, 23–25. Stat. Ire., IV, 325–327; C.J.I., III, 60, 73–76, 80, 86, 92–93, 98, 112; III, pt. ii, p. xxxviii; TNA, SP 63/374/63–65. Stat. Ire., V, 337–340; C.J.I., III, pt. ii, pp. cccxcvi–cccxcviii; McGrath, ‘Constitutional Framework’, pp. 16–19. Stat. Ire., V, 487–492. Stat. Ire., VI, 605–612, 702–710; VII, 6–15. Stat. Ire., VII, 619–622. F. G. James (1973) Ireland in the Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP), pp. 259–261.

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83. Stat. Ire., VII, 801–807; C.J.I., VII, 13; James, Ireland in Empire, pp. 259–261. 84. Stat. Ire., VII, 809–820; C.J.I., VII, 95, 97–98, 147–149, 151–152. 85. C.J.I., VII, 108–110, 117–118; Stat. Ire., IX, 7–17. For the attitude of the executive at this time towards the question of using an invasion scare as a means of forcing more money out of the Irish parliament for the purpose of increasing the size of the army, see Thomas Bartlett (1981) ‘The augmentation of the army in Ireland 1767–1769’, English Historical Review, XCVI, p. 542. 86. Stat. Ire., IX, 7–17, 272–285, 489–503; X, 6–22; Bartlett, ‘Augmentation of the army’, pp. 540–559. 87. Stat. Ire., X, 71–87, 342–356, 647–662; XI, 13–29, 311–333, 353–372, 407–422; XII, 19–50; R. V. Clarendon (1791) A Sketch of the Revenue and Finances of Ireland (Dublin: Byrne), appendix, p. xvi.

8 Europe, the American Crisis, and Scottish Evangelism: The Primacy of Foreign Policy in the Kirk? Gideon Mailer

Is not this nation, once in a manner the arbiter of the fate of Europe now become the scorn and derision of her neighbours and all that are around about her? John Witherspoon, ‘Prayer for National Prosperity’ (1758) During the early stages of the Seven Years’ War, John Witherspoon lamented that Britain was no longer ‘the arbiter of the fate of Europe’. He did so in a sermon with the full title: ‘Prayer for National Prosperity and for the revival of Religion inseparably connected’.1 As a religious leader, he did not discount the importance of external military interventions, or their primary role in maintaining Britain’s position as ‘arbiter’ of the European balance of power. Rather, he linked recent evidence of the declining power of the British armed forces to domestic ‘irreligion’. Witherspoon asked rhetorically: ‘How numerous and expensive, but how useless and inactive, have been our fleets and armies?’2 A domestic focus on private and worldly interests either made British soldiers ‘useless’ or prevented their deployment altogether (they were ‘inactive’). By 1758, Witherspoon was leader of the evangelical wing of the Scottish Kirk, known as the Popular Party.3 His focus on the necessary link between domestic morality and the success of the British army in foreign affairs did not amount to a watered-down version of Christian humanism; the social gospel writ large. It was a central component of evangelical revival. The ego prevented sociable sympathy with other humans. Acknowledging this fallen predicament would gift the individual with a form of grace that provided true communal connection.4 According to Popular Party members, the rise to prominence of political leaders on the domestic stage was to be legitimated by their ability to transform national covenant into international regeneration; the ability to use their domestic eminence in order to orientate Britain’s political focus towards issues which were not of immediate domestic concern: foreign policy and foreign peoples. The lack of immediate prioritisation was, after all, part and parcel of revivalist Christianity: moving 119

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beyond the selfish concerns of ‘this world’ was the first step into the City of God.5 Just as the individual was to transcend his own subjective concerns, in order to receive the salvation of grace, a nation composed of individuals was to transcend its immediate domestic interests, and focus on that which happened outside of its bounds; even if – and perhaps even because – its immediate priority might not be apparent. A failure to focus on the nation’s outside actions, rather than its internal and subjective interests, might (divinely) punish that nation with international losses that affected those very internal interests. Ironically, this evangelical vision for British union, and the primacy of its external policy, grew out of a history of extra-British evangelism. Tony Claydon and Ian McBride include this facet of evangelism to question Linda Colley’s thesis that eighteenth-century British national identity was formed according to the unity engendered by anti-Catholicism: [I]t is worth asking whether the reformed faith could ever have been a sound basis for a unifying national identity. The Protestant community’s sense of the true church as something mystical rather than human; its appeal to foreigners; its universal mission to convert all mankind; its tendency to fissure; all made Protestantism an unlikely bedrock of nationality in the early modern period.6 This phenomenon developed during the previous two centuries, when calls were often made for the protection of foreign Protestants against other hostile powers. A single Church, or even a single polity, was even referred to on occasion.7 Among Scottish evangelicals between 1730 and 1780, the specific origins of this external focus were to be found in the ‘covenanting diplomacy’ that first appeared in the 1640s, and reappeared in 1707.8 Jeremy Black argues that during the eighteenth century, ‘Tory’ blue-water foreign policy differed from ‘Whig’ interventionism partly because the advocates of the former were more religious – even ‘lapserian’ – and therefore more ‘pessimistic’ about the ability of fallible humans to exert change through intervention.9 Members of Witherspoon’s Popular Party, however, supported landed intercessions in Europe and America precisely because they wanted to follow these manoeuvres, and the new communities they encountered, with the spread of evangelism. The extension of a ‘pessimistic’ religious ideology – human depravity and individual subjectivity – was linked to a positive element: the widening community of those who could acknowledge this predicament and receive salvation. As we will see, bluewater foreign policy did not have a monopoly on dark visions of the human condition. Reference to previous centuries of Scottish religious experience, including the formation of the Solemn League and Covenant, championed a British union whose foreign policy could carry Knox and Buchanan’s message to new populations. The spread of Presbyterian discipline became

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confederal, rather than locally national: a ‘union for empire’ that also included America.10 As John Gibson wrote in 1768, Presbyterians in America and Scotland were part of a communion of saints, which included ‘all nations and tongues’.11 During the same year, Witherspoon emigrated to America. For the former Popular Party leader, covenanting diplomacy culminated in 1776, in a new American union: there he carried the Scottish covenant, and its focus on external policy, after it had been abandoned by Britain in the decades after it had formed its own new union in 1707.

∗ In his classic definition of the primacy of foreign policy, Leopold von Ranke wrote in 1836: ‘There is no trend of opinion, however dominant which can break the force of political interests.’12 Domestic concerns, including prevailing religious ideologies, were to be subordinate to foreign alliances that transcended ideological divisions. During the 1640s, Scottish Presbyterianism did not, on first glance, conform to this goal. Its ‘Covenanted’ proponents made diplomatic decisions that were seemingly at odds with national security. Between June 1640 and the end of 1643, several attempts were made to extend the Solemn League and Covenant, an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians, to the European continent.13 In 1641, the Committee of Estates in Edinburgh even called for the formation of a confederation involving the States General of the United Provinces and the Scottish and English Parliaments.14 As John Young has argued, this would have left Scotland, still as a political entity unto itself, in direct conflict with the Spanish Habsburgs.15 This was not in the obvious strategic interest of Scotland’s Committee of Estates. These quixotic attempts reflected a domestic wish to re-orientate the focus of any potential union between Scotland and England. Their proponents looked towards those outside the British Isles, and to a diplomatic policy that could override domestic concerns – even national stability – in favour of international Protestantism.16 These proposals failed to get off the ground for a number of political and dynastic reasons, not least the marriage of the King’s eldest daughter Mary to William, son of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, whose Royalist support caused anxiety among some Dutch Republican Calvinists.17 Notwithstanding their loss on this specific matter, Covenanters remained central to Scotland’s political culture in 1644. After all, despite the failure to install a more universal European covenant, diplomats associated with that venture became intimately involved with Estates and Commissions in the various nations. Thomas Cunningham, who had been involved in the shipment of military supplies to Scottish Covenanters in 1639, was appointed in May 1644 by the Kirk to be represented alongside the incorporated monarchy of Britain.18 As Commissioner and Ordinary

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Agent in the Netherlands he was charged with influencing the Dutch States General, ‘all incorporations, good towns and cities’ as well as to ‘all other persons of place and power civill and ecclesiastick . . . to joyne with us in the Covenant and really assist this cause wherein the glorie of God and propagation of his gospel are so much interested’.19 The Solemn League and Covenant was to be extended to the Dutch Republic. This was a central aim in the ‘expansionist ideology’ promoted by the leaders of the Scottish Covenanting movement in 1643–1644.20 These leaders included men such as Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, who had been responsible for securing Covenanting entry into the English Civil War.21 In 1644, Scottish commissioners in London sought to influence Scottish military officials in order to add to joint Anglo-Scottish regiments in other Protestant areas, such as Sweden, Switzerland, and various Protestant princely states.22 The Swedish alliance in particular would have put Scotland and England’s strategic interests in relation to Denmark at threat, for a gain that was not discernable materially or in terms of secular strategy.23 This is all far removed from Ranke’s emphasis on bipartisan ideological interests. The wish to extend the Solemn League and Covenant might be termed a diplomatic folly: an impracticable wish to orientate the union between England and Scotland towards a policy that reflected domestic evangelical identity, rather than international strategic interests.

∗ On closer analysis, the interplay between foreign policy and domestic religion in the example above was more ‘Rankean’ than one might think. After all, in his 1833 article ‘The Great Powers’, as well as in his 1836 work on ‘Dialogue on Politics’, Ranke claimed that every state is given a special moral character from God, and that individuals should strive to best fulfil the ‘idea’ of their state.24 For the average Covenanter, the ‘idea’ of Scotland was that of a state formed by God to be a light unto other nations. According to Allan Macinnes, ‘Covenanting Scotland, as the new Israel, was preparing the ground for not just European but global reordering when the forces of godliness had vanquished those of the Anti-Christ.’25 It is within this context that we can detect the Rankean method in the strategic madness of men like Thomas Cunningham, and John Campbell, the Lord Chancellor of Scotland and 1st Earl of Loudon.26 By focusing on the interests of other Protestants in Europe, and seeking to orientate national diplomacy towards ends that did not meet obvious strategic interests, they could take one more evangelical step towards revival within Scotland. Covenanting diplomacy implored Scotland to negate its obvious strategic interest in favour of an external enterprise that connected it to those outside its internal national orbit. In the long-term, this would prevent the internal disintegration of the nation, and prolong its strength in relation to other states. External aims

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provided evidence of inner humility, which would allow Scotland to receive divine blessing, and confederal support from similarly blessed nations. This was the evangelical way of guaranteeing the state’s self-interest. For Ranke, the primacy of foreign policy in any given state also served to explain the internal social and constitutional development of that state: ‘The degree of independence’, Ranke wrote, ‘determines a state’s position in the world, and requires that the state mobilise all its inner resources for the goal of self-preservation. This is its supreme law.’27 The external focus of covenanting diplomacy certainly influenced Scotland’s domestic institutions. Of those who engaged in international circles, and who were subsequently given the most prominence in domestic political culture, Scottish Covenanters loomed large. In the years and months before the formation of the Solemn League and Covenant, Scottish legislative councils that dealt with internal affairs, as well as Anglo-Scottish policy, were composed of individuals who had endeavoured to link any further connection between England and Scotland to its enhanced ability to protect Palatine Protestantism, through diplomacy or otherwise.28 As John Scally and John Young have shown, of the four English nobles on an important committee that dealt with potential Anglo-Scottish joint trade and diplomacy, at least two were associated with the Marquis of Hamilton, and a pro-Palatine stance. While in Swedish service, Hamilton had been at the centre of an attempt to strengthen the cause of the Palatine house.29 It was possible for any of these four Englishmen to attend Privy Council meetings in Edinburgh where they could discuss and therefore influence Scottish-Palatine policy. At this particular moment, shared diplomatic policy brought parliamentarians in Scotland and England together, and gave those north of the border their own domestic prominence.30 This is not to say that their later domestic prominence was the motivation for their earlier focus on foreign affairs. Rather, negotiations with England regarding the nature of its religious union with Scotland were likely to be carried out by the same men who felt that this union would be best placed to exert an ethically Protestant foreign policy. Those who had devoted time and energy to thinking about the nature of union and federation with other European peoples were also most keen to promote the potential for religious cooperation within the British Isles. If we define social and confessional strife within the British Isles as a ‘domestic’ issue, then covenanting diplomacy may be further related to the Rankean definition of the primacy of foreign policy. Alliances with other Protestant nations were understood by some in Scotland as central to their own ability to curtail problems on the other side of the Irish Sea, and in the Highlands.31 External policy was a priority for the Covenanter because without its strategic manoeuvring, Scotland’s stability and strength in relation to other European nations would be threatened. This would open it up to an attack from Catholic powers, or by their proxies who remained within the British Isles. In order to maintain stability within the realm, a greater priority

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was attached to alliances outside its bounds. The Committee of Estates in Edinburgh spent more time debating its proposed foreign alliances than it did regarding the domestic infrastructure that it might deploy if a Catholic rebellion within the British Isles needed to be suppressed. The Committee sought to convince the Dutch to join the Solemn League and Covenant, in order to provide a convincing case for other nations in Europe to do the same. Only this would create the necessary bulwark against Popish elements in Britain and Ireland.32 There were direct links between the committees that dealt with Scotland’s response to Irish insurrections, those sessions that dealt with Palatine Protestant communities in Europe, and those that sought to gain support from Scottish Estates for religious federations in Protestant Europe.33 The prospect of a closer alliance between Scotland and Sweden (despite the diplomatic problems this might have raised with Denmark) was even connected to the enhanced ability of an Anglo-Scottish political effort against Catholicism within the Atlantic archipelago.34

∗ Scottish Presbyterian opposition to the domestic terms of the Act of Union in 1707 was often accompanied by an alternative form of unionism. This alternative drew impetus from the seventeenth-century example of covenanting diplomacy. For many orthodox Presbyterians in 1707, the religious integration of the British peoples was a ‘long-term ideological goal to which they were pledged by the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643’.35 Based on this covenant, support for any new British union was partly conditional on the primacy it attached to foreign policy, and the welfare of Protestant people abroad. This conditionality could only be met if the Kirk were to maintain its religious independence after Scotland’s political incorporation into Britain. This independence would allow the unique influence of the Scottish covenant to expose itself to wider populations brought into its orbit by the expansive nature of any new political union.36 Expansion needed to be matched by a robust and interventionist foreign policy if its political core was to remain blessed by God.37 In conjunction with English military might, Scottish evangelism foresaw an enhanced ability to act for those outside the bounds of a new Anglo-Scottish union. This would guarantee its blessed stability within its new borders, and its blessed strength in relation to other states.38 Missionary action among the Catholic Acadians of Nova Scotia was publicly advocated as a prime objective for Scots such as Samuel Vetch, who became colonial Governor after the British reconquest of Port Royal in 1710. As a devout Presbyterian, Vetch demonstrated increasing opposition to Anglican representatives in the region, whom he suspected of impiety, and of minimising the role of missionary activities in British foreign policy endeavours.39 The Scottish chapter of the Society for the Promotion of

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Christian Knowledge was dominated by Popular Party members, who sought to infiltrate British battalions working in Europe, Canada, and America.40 It is true that the SSPCK was founded in 1709 in order to evangelise communities in the Scottish Highlands, and even in parts of England. Part of its anxious remit was to prevent any Jacobite sentiment in these areas. Yet this anxiety was transferred from the Highland frontier to the Indian frontier in America.41 Both before and after King George’s War (1744–1748), and the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the SSPCK made its greatest efforts among Native Americans in America, partly because it was thought that these communities were susceptible to Jesuit and Jacobite-leaning French forces.42 These efforts were ultimately connected to the fate of British interventions in Europe: strategic gain against France in America was seen as a further front in a European conflict.43 Reverend Thomas Randall’s anniversary sermon, preached on 3 January 1763 before the general meeting of the SSPCK in St. Giles Church, Edinburgh, looked back at British interventions in previous decades, and noted the positive opportunity for the expansion of the Scottish mission that had followed. He linked the primary importance of this expansive mission to events back in Britain, including the waning of the Jacobite threat after 1745.44 It was not just the top-rung of evangelical ministers who related their domestic identity to the priority of British intervention abroad. An evangelical middling sort – particularly in western Scotland – supported external military regulation above any concern with domestic commercial policy. The Protestant identity of Scottish traders had long been associated with their ability to create commercial links to Europe unencumbered by any one hegemonic power. This was the constituency for anti-patronage sentiment, and Popular Party evangelism.45 British involvement in European affairs was believed to guarantee a continental balance of power that was more favourable to the international commerce of Scottish traders. So long as some of their earnings were given over to mission organisations, or to the support of popular revivals in areas untouched by patronage on both sides of the Atlantic, these trading classes could avoid the charge of worldliness.46 This offered a contrast to the activities of those Scottish placemen and patronage-seekers who sought to circumvent this economic system through their own ‘managed’ interests at home.47

∗ Thomas Randall invoked Britain’s success in 1763 in order to re-orientate its interventionism towards the specific cause of Scottish evangelism. His hopeful vision was not matched by other evangelicals during this period. Given the vested interests of its most important backers in Scotland, the basis of support for political union in 1707 was pragmatic, and domestic, rather than religiously inclined, and trans-national.48 For a disappointed

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but vocal minority in the Kirk in the decades after 1707, the evangelical conditionality they imposed on British union offered a counterpoint to its political reality. By the 1740s, men such as John Witherspoon, John Erskine, and William Thom criticised the dominant Moderate wing of the Church of Scotland for its role in the corrupted terms of British union.49 In a 1758 sermon preached before the SSPCK, Witherspoon therefore condemned the ecclesiastical restraints that prevented his supporters from evangelising populations brought into view by the expansion of the British Empire, and the interventions of its fighting forces: There is another part of their [the SSPCK] design, to spread the knowledge of Christ, the only saviour of sinners, among the unenlightened Heathen nations . . . . But, except the very restricted efforts of the society, little or nothing has ever been attempted by the British nation.50 In his sermon on ‘National Prosperity’ Witherspoon not only linked Britain’s ‘weak and divided councils’ to her failure to act as ‘arbiter of Europe’. He also connected Britain’s departure from ‘that purity of faith and strictness of morals which was the glory of the reformation’ to a wider phenomenon in which the ‘protestant states of Europe’ faced being ‘brought under the rod’.51 Moral failure at home prevented the prioritisation of Britain’s actions abroad. This had a knock on effect for other ‘protestant states’ alongside its diminishment of Britain’s own ‘national prosperity.’ The success of the former could not be divorced from that of the latter. Indeed, Witherspoon accused some political leaders of ‘incautiously’ and prematurely celebrating their role in support of victories abroad. Ironically, they did so because they impiously prioritised their own domestic position above these external victories. If this were not the case, then they would have demonstrated humility rather than triumphalism; for all the latter did was encourage the kind of ‘unchristian’ behaviour that would eventually lead to Britain’s loss in the conflicts that they claimed had already been won: We give pompous details of armaments, and prophesy, nay, even in a manner describe their victories, long before the season of action. What proud and arrogant sentiments do we often express on the subject of our national courage, and ancient British fire, as it is called? In short, we seem to have got entirely into that vain-glorious, ostentatious system, with which we used to upraid our neighbour and rival nation; and they seem to have given it up in our favor, and to have adopted the wiser and more profitable method of putting deeds for words.52 Continued domestic humility was needed because foreign policy was a continuing process: a balance of power had to be maintained rather than won. This required actions abroad, rather than proud words at home. When

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it came to ‘putting deeds’ before ‘words’ France increasingly adhered to a pious model that Britain had once mastered. British leaders failed to focus on the long-term strategy of events abroad. Instead, their short-term domestic gain was ‘dressed by human art and supported by the wisdom of words’.53 According to Witherspoon, the parochialism of the Moderate Kirk prevented the true potential of the Scottish covenant: its ability to make all people aware of their affliction.54 Instead of focusing on worldwide regeneration, William Robertson’s followers subscribed to an anthropocentric doctrine of innate sociability, which downplayed its necessity, and relied on patronage for its promotion.55 These were the men Witherspoon had in mind when he castigated those who preferred domestic ‘art’ over action abroad. Witherspoon connected the difficulties that British forces faced against France in America with the failure of its leaders to absorb the central tenets of expansive evangelism: Such a particular interpretation of the language of Providence may be thought bold; but there are many circumstances which, in a manner, constrain us to confess its propriety. We have been a nation early and long favoured with the light of divine truth, and are therefore bound to communicate it to others. That distant country was a refuge to many of our pious forefathers, when flying from the rage of ecclesiastical tyranny; and the territory either taken from, or ceded to us by these people, has been the great source of wealth and power to this nation.56 In a British union whose Scottish Moderate constituents failed to promote the central tenets of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the blessing of the Scottish covenant had been squandered in her actions among the ‘Indians’, whose evangelisation ought to have been a political as well as a moral priority: And is not God, in his righteous Providence towards us at present, manifestly and severely punishing us for this neglect? Are we not engaged in war with a potent and formidable neighbour, in which the supreme Disposer of all events hath visibly written disappointment on every one of our attempts? Does not this war take its rise from the disputed limits of our territories in America? Are not our colonies in that part of the world exposed to the most cruel and merciless depredations? . . . Who then are the instruments of this cruelty? Must we not answer; Those very Indians, a great part of whose territory we possess, and whom, with a contempt equally impolitic and unchristian, we suffer to continue in ignorance of the only living and try God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent?57

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If British foreign policy had focused on its outward evangelism, rather than its potential for domestic gain, then ‘Indians’ would have become allies against France in North America, rather than tools of their ‘merciless depredations’. Instead, Witherspoon argued, the American colonies became the focus of worldly interests on the British mainland, rather than a Protestant arena whose expansion ought to have benefited from Britain’s continued interventions in Europe: They [the American colonies] are the chief theatre of war because they are the chief subject of the contest . . . . If it please God to suffer our enemies and continue their progress, it is hard to say how far the desolation may extend, or how universal it may prove.58 The only thing that provided greater fodder for the Scottish evangelical sermon than national defeat was the lack of Christian magnanimity shown by a nation’s subjects after national victory. This was the case after the successful end to the Seven Years’ War, which Witherspoon had not envisaged in 1758. Subsequent British defeats against the American colonists in the 1770s, however, were linked by Popular Party members to Britain’s response to unexpected victory against France in 1763. Where Scottish evangelicals had called for fast days and thanksgiving ceremonies to thank God for delivering victory against France in the new world, Britain’s governing classes had, in collusion with the Moderate-dominated General Assembly of Scotland, ignored their moral call for magnanimity.59 Rather, in the Popular Party vision, they used this victory to focus on maximising the worldly interests that they could gain from a more secure American colony. External policy ought to have guaranteed trade and the spread of evangelism. Moderates were accused of focusing instead on the domestic riches that could be siphoned from British mercantilism.60 In 1778, William Thom even placed American Protestants in a suffering history that linked their abandonment in the 1760s to that of various Protestants in Europe by Britain in the previous 100 years: for example, the wars that a corrupt monarch like Charles II, allied with Louis XIV, waged against the Dutch Calvinist brethren of the Scots.61 The Reformation and the Glorious Revolution had brought greater freedom as well as a purer faith, but the opportunity to harness Scottish covenanting ideology within the new British union had been lost. This was evidenced by Americans who now went the same way as Dutch Calvinists, earlier abandoned by the nation that should have been their natural ally in Europe, but whose elite constituents looked within, rather than without.62 Recall the discussion of seventeenth-century covenanting diplomacy that began this chapter. It linked its pro-Palatine stance, and the focus on external policy that sought to maintain its aims, with the continuation of domestic opposition to Catholic relief in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Despite the importance of this domestic opposition, its strength was understood in

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relation to those external alliances that might allow it to continue. By the 1760s, Americans were the new Palatine Protestants. As Robert Donovan has shown, Scottish evangelical support for America was often a primary means of opposing Catholic relief at home.63 When Britain acquired Grenada in 1763, government concessions to Catholics there awoke complaints that surfaced again in the American war. A failure on the part of British governors to look beyond their own individual selves, and their own domestic interests, prevented the support of their natural brethren in America. Instead, they saw their relationship with the colonies in terms of the domestic gains that could be derived from this imperial relationship. This corruption was linked to the potential concessions they were rumoured to be offering Catholic regiments within the British archipelago, in favour for military service against America. These rumours developed in the wake of Lord North’s support for Catholic relief in Canada, and Britain’s 1774 Quebec Acts.64 This provided the link between pro-American sentiment, and domestic opposition to Catholic relief. For a minister like William Thom, a primary focus on events in America – rather than on domestic affairs – was necessary because without a quick move towards American independence, Catholic powers would gain a foothold in North America. They would do so through their alliance with America, forced on to the latter by its protracted military conflict with Britain. In turn, this would enable the greater economic strength of Catholic Europe, and alter the continent’s balance of powers. Funds could then be funnelled to those in Ireland, and on the Scottish mainland, who sought Catholic relief, or even insurgence.65 The primacy of foreign policy for domestic confessional control morphed into support for the urgency of American independence. Moderates writing in the Caledonian Mercury attacked Popular Party representatives for sounding like ‘correspondents from Massachusetts Bay’ and stated that they were ‘fitter for a rebellious Congress than for a Scottish Synod.’66 American-style ‘Committees of Correspondence’ were set up in opposition to Catholic relief, while the main Glasgow anti-Catholic society was privately referred to as a ‘congress’. In letters between its constituents, it was stated that they had taken this term from reports of American organisation in Washington and Philadelphia.67 By 1776, William Thom’s colleague, John Witherspoon, had become an American Patriot. Having moved from Scotland to America, where he assumed the role as President of the College of New Jersey, Witherspoon became the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. His speeches in the American Congress also looked to Protestant confederations, such as the Netherlands. He reflected his Popular Party counterparts’ wish for Britain when he lauded the Netherlands as a most likely ally for the new American union.68 In the same speech to Congress ‘Upon the Confederation’, Witherspoon stressed that man could only be good if ‘purified by the light of truth, and renewed by the Spirit of the living God’.69 Similar sentiment was demonstrated during the seventeenth century, when Scottish

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covenanting estates yearned for a diplomatic move towards religious confederation with the Netherlands. In 1776, Witherspoon wanted Americans to learn that despite their growing separation from Britain, its underlying meaning heralded their greater proximity. As he stated in the first sermon he delivered on American soil: Could we but think as we ought, of the great removal, which we are making from time to time, into an eternal state; the removal of our bodies, and the change of our scene of service from Europe to America, would appear altogether unworthy of notice.70 The movement of an individual body from Scotland to America was nothing compared to the necessary ‘removal of our bodies’ associated by evangelicals with the ‘eternal state’. This was the meaning of piety. According to Witherspoon, it provided a greater cohesion between Americans, and inevitable victory against Britain. But it might also provide the means to reach out to Britain after this victory, given its reliance on the humility that made Americans yearn to transcend their own selves, and proclaim the affliction they shared with those who lived in Britain, and throughout the world.71 In Scotland, evangelical support for the American cause continued to make this same point. Like Americans, Britons needed to be man enough – magnanimous enough – to recognise their own shared depravity with other men both within and without their political union. Paradoxically, only then would its military be effective and successful; able to enjoy the support of a nation whose leaders and subjects were blessed by their ability to look beyond their selves. In the end, this would provide their national stability in relation to other states. In 1758, Witherspoon lamented Britain’s inability to keep France in check as a result of domestic impiety. By 1781, he argued in his Memorial and Manifesto of the United States that the growing power of America: added to that of Great Britain, would give her such a dominion of the sea, as must be dangerous to the liberty and commerce of other nations . . . [It] pleased God to incline the heart of the French King to give relief by entering into a treaty with the United States which gave ‘a new turn to our affairs, and a new dignity to our cause’.72 This was evangelism’s diplomatic irony: France’s providential support for America would benefit her enemy on the other side of the English Channel. American independence would prevent Britain’s overweening status, and allow an equilibrium to develop in Europe that would be beneficial to its overall position as a trading power. This was the same argument that Witherspoon had previously made in relation to Britain’s need to intervene against France. Confederal union within America was rather similar

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to the balance of powers in a Europe confederated by trade, and separated by nationhood. America: . . . distinct though confederated, wholly settled upon republican principles, and fit only for agriculture and commerce, [and therefore] cannot be an object of jealousy to other powers, but by free and open intercourse with them a general benefit to all; it is hoped that the revolution that they have effected, will meet with universal approbation.73 Officially, of course, the Popular Party remained neutral during the early stages of the crisis with America.74 This was despite its members’ rhetorical use of the American cause as early as the 1760s. The Popular Party’s official neutrality partly derived from a fear that opposing the crown would risk opposing Hanoverian rulers whose Protestant ascendancy they supported, in principle. This was not the Hanoverian milestone around Britain’s neck that others depicted during this period.75 After all, it was this Hanoverian dimension that permitted the Whig interventionism in Europe that Scottish evangelicals conditionally supported. In late May 1776, however, the Kirk General Assembly met and drafted its annual address to the Crown. Popular Party attempts to insert pleas for the American cause were blocked by Moderate churchmen who dominated the chamber.76 After further British defeats in Yorktown, Popular Party delegates in the Synod of Galloway in 1782 passed an address that congratulated the King on ending the war, outlined the positive benefits of American independence, and urged moral and political reform at home so as not to lose any more of the British Empire.77

∗ The same Britain that subjugated American Protestants, and indulged Catholics in Grenada and Quebec, also sidelined Scottish evangelicals through the perverted terms of its union. American Protestantism could no longer rely on Britain’s fiscal-military state, whose evangelical engine had been stalled. For many in the Popular Party, the Christian magnanimity that bound the new American union ought to have connected England and Scotland in 1707. It ought to have manifested itself in a duty to those outside its union, who were as depraved, and in need of revival, as those within. This needed a focus on external policy, rather than domestic interests. This was not to be, and the American Revolution was the necessary punishment. American Protestants were subjugated at the same time that Britain lost sight of its interventionist strategy in Europe and beyond. Britain’s leaders were too focused on the primacy of their own commercial interests, and the primacy of their own individual reason in relation to the counterclaims of the colonists. They failed to look beyond their individual selves, and beyond their collective national self. They lost part of an empire, and part of the

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very national interest whose lot they had connected to their individual gain. Evangelical Scots justified British union according to the nature of its external policy. That they became more estranged from Moderate members of the Church of Scotland as a result of this justification demonstrates its power in transforming the structure of domestic life; even if this transformation responded to their perception that one side of the Kirk had abandoned its central tenets.

Notes 1. J. Witherspoon (1802) ‘Prayer for national prosperity and for the revival of religion inseparably connected’, in The Works of the Rev. John Witherspoon, D. D. L. L. D, Ashbel Green (ed.) 4 vols (Philadelphia: William Woodward), I, p. 471. 2. Ibid. 3. J. R. McIntosh (1998) Church and Theology in Enlightenment Scotland: The Popular Party, 1740–1800 (East Lothian: Tuckwell Press), pp. 19, 37, 43–47, 79–81, 85–89, 117–118, 128–131, 158–160. 4. Evangelical Christians used New Testament texts in order to understand the Fall, and the need to acknowledge its effects on human sociability. These included: Galatians 5: 17–21; Ephesians 2: 4–10; Romans 5: 6–8; Colossians 2: 13–15; M. Noll, D. Bebbington, and G. Rawlyk (1994) Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 3–6. 5. R. E. Olson (2004) The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press), p. 26; P. G. Ryken (1999) ‘Scottish reformed scholasticism,’ in C. R. Trueman and R. S. Clark (eds) Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle: Paternoster Publications), pp. 200–203. 6. T. Claydon and I. McBride (2007) ‘The trials of the chosen peoples: recent interpretations of Protestantism and national identity in Britain and Ireland,’ in T. Claydon and I. McBride (eds) Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 14–15. 7. P. Collinson (1988) The Birth Pangs of Protestant England (Basingstoke: Macmillan), chap. 1; K. Firth (1979) The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 106–109; R. Bauckman (1978) Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth Century Apocalypticism, Millenarianism and the English Reformation (Oxford: Sutton Courtenay Press), p. 86; A. H. Williamson (1982) ‘Scotland, antichrist and the invention of Great Britain’, in J. Dwyer et al. (eds) New Perspectives on the Politics and Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald), pp. 34–58; R. A. Mason (1994) ‘The Scottish Reformation and the origins of Anglo-British imperialism,’ in R. Mason (ed.) Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 8. J. R. Young (2001) ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy 1641–1647: The Palatine, the Dutch Republic and Sweden,’ in S. Murdoch (ed.) Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 (Leiden: Brill), pp. 81–87. 9. J. Black (2004) Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 196. 10. J. Robertson (1995) ‘Empire and Union: two concepts of the early modern European political order,’ in J. Robertson, A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 36;

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14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

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in the same volume, see N. Landsman, ‘The legacy of British Union for the North American colonies: provincial elites and the problem of Imperial Union,’ pp. 297–318; J. Pocock, ‘Empire, state and confederation: the War of American Independence as a crisis in multiple monarchy,’ pp. 318–349. See also McIntosh, Church and Theology, pp. 19–40, 142–166. J. Gibson (1768) The Unlimited Extent and Final Blessedness of God’s Spiritual Kingdom (Edinburgh: Sands, Murray & Cochran), pp. 8–9. L. von Ranke (1950) ‘A dialogue on politics’, in T. von Laue (ed.) Leopold von Ranke: The Formative Years (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 172. See A. Macinnes (2000) ‘Covenanting ideology in seventeenth-century Scotland,’ in J. H. Ohlmeyer (ed.) Political Thought in Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Kingdom or Colony? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 191–221; J. G. A. Pocock (1996) ‘The Atlantic archipelago and the War of the Three Kingdoms,’ in B. Bradshaw and J. Morrill (eds) The British Problem, c. 1534–1707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipeligo (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.172–191; J. Morrill (1993) ‘The Britishness of the English revolution, 1640–1660,’ in R. G. Asch (ed.) Three Nations – A Common History? England, Scotland, Ireland, and British History, c. 1600–1920 (Bochum: Universitätsverlag), Chap. 2; D. Stevenson (1987) ‘The early covenanters and the Federal Union of Britain,’ in R. Mason (ed.) Scotland and England, 1286–1815 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press); J. R. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy’, pp. 81–87. J. R. Young (1996) The Scottish Parliament 1639–1661: A Political and Constitutional Analysis (Edinburgh: John Donald), pp. 28–29. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ p. 87. A. Macinnes (1990) ‘The Scottish Constitution, 1638–1651: The Rise and Fall of Oligarchic Centralism’, in J. Morrill (ed.) The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 131–132, footnote 49. Journals of the House of Lords, 4, 1628–1642, pp. 176, 178, 180; Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ p. 87. The Journals of Thomas Cunningham of Campvere, 1640–1654; E. J. Courthope (ed.) (1928) (Edinburgh: T. A. Constable) pp. 82–83. Ibid. Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ p. 87. A. Macinnes (1991) Charles 1 and the Making of the Covenanting Movement (Edinburgh: John Donald), p. 27; Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ p. 90. The Journals of Thomas Cunningham of Campvere, 5. A. Grosjean (1998) ‘Scots and the Swedish state: Diplomacy, military service and ennoblement 1611–1660’ (unpublished PhD, Aberdeen University), pp. 182–183, 200. G. P. Gooch (1913) History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Longman’s), p. 80; Leopold von Ranke (1981) ‘The great powers’, in R. Wines (ed.) Leopold von Ranke: The Secret of World History. Selected Writings on the Art and Science of History (New York: Fordham University Press), p. 169; Leopold von Ranke, ‘A dialogue on politics’, p. 174. A. Macinnes (2001) ‘Preface’ in Scotland and the Thirty Years War, p. x. The Journal of Thomas Cunningham of Campere, pp. 82–88; Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ pp. 88–92. Ranke, ‘A dialogue on politics’, p. 169.

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28. Young ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ pp. 79, 83–87; J. Young, The Scottish Parliament, p. 19; Young ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ pp. 83–87; Sir James Balfour, Historical Works; J. Haig (1824–1825) (ed.) 4 vols (Edinburgh: A. Constable), II, p. 50. 29. J. Scally (1993) ‘The Career of James, 3rd Marquess and 1st Duke of Hamilton (1609–1649) to 1643’ (unpublished Ph.D., Cambridge), chap. 3; Young, ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ p. 84. 30. Young ‘The Scottish parliament and European diplomacy,’ p. 84. 31. Ibid., pp. 91–92. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., p. 93. 34. See Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish state,’ p. 196. 35. C. Kidd (2002) ‘Conditional Britons: The Scots covenanting tradition and the eighteenth-century British state,’ English Historical Review, CXVII, 1148. 36. See R. Finlay (1999) ‘Keeping the covenant: Scottish national identity,’ in T. Devine and J. Young (eds) Eighteenth Century Scotland, New Perspectives (East Lothian: Tuckwell Press), pp. 122–134. 37. See R. Mason (1994) ‘The Scottish reformation and the origins of AngloBritish imperialism’, in R. Mason (ed.) Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 161–186; A. H. Williamson (1982) ‘Scotland, antichrist and the invention of Great Britain’, pp. 34–58; S. A. Burrell (1964) ‘The Apocalyptic vision of the early covenanters’, Scottish Historical Review, XLIII, 1–24. 38. A. Macinnes (2007) Union and Empire: The Making of the United Kingdom in 1707 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. Stephen (2001) ‘The kirk and the union, 1706—-7: A reappraisal,’ Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXXI, 68–96; C. Kidd (1995) ‘Religious realignment between the restoration and union’, in J. Robertson (ed.) Union for Empire, p. 286. 39. G. Plank (2003) An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 41–58. 40. E. D. Meek (1989) ‘Scottish highlanders, North American Indians and the SSPCK: Some cultural perspectives,’ Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXIII, 378–396; F. Mills (1994) ‘The society in Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge in British North America, 1730–1775,’ Church History, LXIII, 15–30; H. R. Sefton (1971) ‘The Scottish society in eighteenth century America,’ Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XVII, 169–184; J. Snodgrass (1768) The Means of Preserving the Life and Power of Religion. A Valedictory Sermon on Jude 20, 21 to the Inhabitants of Dundee (unknown binding), pp. 9, 11–12; L. Stevens (2006) The Poor Indians: British Missionaries, Native Americans, and Colonial Sensibility (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 9–10. 41. Mills, ‘The society in Scotland’, 15–30. 42. G. Plank (2005) Rebellion and Savagery: the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and the British Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 77–102; Mills, ‘The society in Scotland,’ pp. 24–30; A. T. Vaughan (2006) Transatlantic Encounters: American Indians in Britain, 1500–1776 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 195, 202. 43. J. Witherspoon (1758) ‘The absolute necessity of salvation through Christ, preached before the society in Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge, in the high church of Edinburgh, on Monday, January 2, 1758,’ Works, II, p. 364.

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44. See T. Randall (1763) Christian Benevolence (Edinburgh: A. Donaldson and J. Reid), pp. 97–105. 45. N. Landsman (1993) ‘Presbyterians and provincial society: The evangelical enlightenment in the West of Scotland, 1740–1775,’ in J. Dwyer and R. Sher (eds) Sociability and Society in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh, The Mercat Press), pp. 194–209; N. Landsman (1995); ‘Liberty, piety and patronage: The social context of clerical calls in eighteenth-century glasgow,’ in A. Hook and R. Sher (eds) The Glasgow Enlightenment (East Linton: Tuckwell Press), pp. 214–227. 46. See Erskine, Shall I Go to War with my American Brethren?, 3; J. Erskine (1780) A Narrative of the Debate in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, May 25 1779, Occasioned by Apprehensions of an Intended Repeal of the Penal Statutes against Papists (Edinburgh), pp. iii–iv; R. K. Donovan (1987) No Popery and Radicalism: Opposition to Roman Catholic Relief in Scotland, 1778–1782 (New York: Garland), pp. 72–73, 158–162, 239. 47. N. C. Landsman (1993) ‘The provinces and the empire: Scotland, the American Colonies and the development of British provincial identity,’ in Lawrence Stone (ed.) An Imperial State at War: Britain From 1689 to 1815 (London: Routledge), p. 265. 48. D. Allan (2007) ‘Protestantism, Presbyterianism and national identity in eighteenth century Scottish history,’ in Claydon, McBride (eds) Protestantism and National Identity, pp. 182–206. 49. See R. Sher (1985) Church and University (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) pp. 52–54. 50. Witherspoon, ‘The absolute necessity of salvation through Christ, preached before the society in Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge, in the high church of Edinburgh, on Monday, January 2, 1758,’ Works, II, p. 364. 51. Ibid., p. 472. 52. Witherspoon, ‘Prayer for national prosperity’, Works, II, p. 473. 53. Ibid. 54. See Witherspoon, ‘The absolute necessity of salvation,’ p. 364. 55. A. Murdoch and R. Sher (1988) ‘Literary and learned culture’ in T. M. Devine and R. Mitchison (eds) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 1, 1760–1830 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 127–130, 133–138; J. Dwyer (1987) Virtuous Discourse: Sensibility and Community in Late Eighteenth Century Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers), pp. 74–77; R. Sunter (1986) Patronage and Politics in Scotland, 1707–1832 (Edinburgh: John Donald), pp. 199–210; Sher, Church and University, pp. 213–261. 56. See Witherspoon, ‘The absolute necessity of salvation,’ p. 364. 57. Ibid. 58. Witherspoon, ‘Prayer for national prosperity’, p. 473. 59. See D. Grant (1779) The Manners of the Times and Their Consequences . . . . A Sermon Preached in the Tolbooth (Edinburgh); W. Thom (12 December 1776) ‘The revolt of the ten tribes’ in The Works of William Thom (Glasgow), pp. 38, 41, 44; W. Thom (9 February 1779) ‘From whence come wars,’ in Works, p. 32; W. Thom (26 February 1778) ‘Achan’s trespass in the accursed things considered,’ in Works, pp. 23–24; R. K. Donovan (1995) ‘Evangelical civic humanism in Glasgow: the American war sermons of William Thom,’ in The Glasgow Enlightenment, pp. 227–245. See also S. Conway (2002) The British Isles and the War of American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press) p. 89.

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60. Thom, From Whence Come Wars, pp. 2–3, 15, 32; The Revolt of the Ten Tribes, p. 44. 61. Thom, ‘Achan’s Trespass’, pp. 30, 42; Thom (1764) ‘Motives which have determined the University of Glasgow to desert the Blackfriar Church’, Works, pp. 231–232. 62. Thom, ‘The revolt of the ten tribes’, p. 22. 63. R. K. Donovan (1995) ‘Evangelical civic humanism in Glasgow: the American war sermons of William Thom’, in The Glasgow Enlightenment, pp. 227–245; R. K. Donovan (1990) ‘The Church of Scotland and the American Revolution’, in Scotland and America in the Age of Enlightenment, p. 87. 64. (1774) Scots Magazine, XXXVI, 299, 302, 304, 306–309; Edinburgh Advertiser (May–June 1774, 23–26 May 1775); Edinburgh Magazine and Review (July 1775), pp. 386–387. See also: P. Lawson (1994) The Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press), pp. 126–147; Donovan, No Popery and Radicalism, pp. 72–73, 158–162, 239. 65. J. Erskine (1780) A Narrative of the Debate in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, May 25 1779, Occasioned by Apprehensions of an Intended Repeal of the Penal Statutes against Papists (Edinburgh: W. Gray); pp. iii–iv; James Murray (1778) An Impartial History of the Present War in America, 2 vols (London: T. Robson); Donovan, No Popery and Radicalism, pp. 72–73, 158–162, 239; R. K. Donovan (1985) ‘The military origins of the roman catholic relief programme of 1778,’ Historical Journal, XXVIII, 79–102. 66. Caledonian Mercury, 26 October 1778. 67. Donovan, No Popery and Radicalism, pp. 146. 68. J. Witherspoon, ‘Speech to congress upon the confederation,’ Works, IV, 347–341. 69. Ibid., 350. See also G. S. Wood (1969) The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), pp. 114–118. 70. Witherspoon, ‘The success of the gospel entirely of God,’ Works, II, 585. 71. Witherspoon, ‘The dominion of providence over the passions of men. A sermon preached at Princeton, on the 17 May 1776. Being the general fast appointed by the Congress through the United Colonies to which is added, an address to the natives of Scotland residing in America,’ Works, III, 3. 72. Witherspoon, ‘Memorial and manifesto of the United States of North America, to the mediating powers in the conference for peace, to the other powers in Europe, and in general to all who shall see the same,’ Works, IV, 370, 373 73. Ibid. 74. Scots Magazine, xxxviii (May 1776), pp. 271–273. 75. W. Thom (1771) A Candid Enquiry into the Causes of the Late and Intended Migrations (Glasgow: P. Tait), pp. 50–56. 76. Caledonian Mercury, 16 February, 25 April, and 25 May 1778; Scots Magazine 40 (1778): 110, 220, 275; Sher, Church and University, pp. 269–270. 77. D. Fagerstrom (1954) ‘Scottish opinion and the American revolution,’ The William and Mary Quarterly, XI, 268.

9 Debating the Union on Foreign Fields: Ulster Unionism and the Importance of Britain’s ‘Place in the World’, c. 1830–c. 1870 John Bew

. . . the nationalities of men will largely die away and the unity of the world will be evoked. Men everywhere are beginning to feel their connection with their fellow-men, no matter how widely separated. The rapidity of transit is blending together the ends of all the earth; and that same commerce which commingles the treasures of every clime, is also carrying with it, from shore to, the thoughts and ideas of mankind, and fusing them into one. Men’s minds are expanding beyond the limits of their own homesteads, or the geographical lines which bound their nationalities . . . thanks to the strides of science, which carries us to England in a few hours, and speaks to our English brother through the mysterious wire in an instant, we cease to remember that the Channel separates us; we feel that we are one people. Ulster Magazine, 18601

This chapter casts new light on the formation of unionism in the north of Ireland, as part of a broader contribution to debates about the formation of British national identity. It challenges the assumption that the ‘invention of Britishness was so closely bound up with Protestantism, with war with [Revolutionary and Napoleonic] France and with the acquisition of empire that Ireland was never able to or willing to play a satisfactory part in it.’ This was the ground on which Linda Colley excluded Ireland from her seminal work on British national identity; for the most part, Colley’s formula has been accepted and cited favourably by Irish historians, though there have been some more recent challenges to it.2 Instead, this chapter posits the existence of a strongly held British national identity among a significant and influential portion of the unionist community in nineteenth-century 137

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Ulster – something I have described in more detail elsewhere.3 Following on from this, a further aim of the chapter is to demonstrate that there was an important extra-Irish dimension to the debates between unionists and nationalists in nineteenth-century Ireland which has often been overlooked.4 In terms of its contribution to this volume as a whole, therefore, what follows emphasises the centrality of foreign political events to the formation of contending identities within a portion of the British Isles. That the area under consideration is one in which political horizons are often assumed to have been highly introspective – beholden to history or confessional identity and failing to keep pace with the world around it – is, in itself, an important consideration. Unionism – taken simply as support for the 1801 Act of Union in Britain and Ireland – was an umbrella position which included those with deeply divided priorities, across confessional, social, economic, and regional boundaries.5 As the first part of the chapter shows, this was one of the reasons why leading unionists attempted to locate extra-Irish terrain on which different shades of unionists could unite. Certain moments, such as the abolition of slavery in 1833, could provide a bond of unity between different strands of unionists. However, such unity was difficult to maintain; as Britain engaged more actively with the European continent in the 1850s and 1860s – as the telegraph wire allowed newspapers to get a quicker flow of news from the Continent and foreign policy became more important to British party political divisions – contending interpretations of foreign affairs fuelled internal divisions within unionism. There were two main ways in which extra-Irish (and extra-British) events shaped unionism throughout this period. The first relates specifically to the field of foreign policy. The extent to which Ulster unionists emphasised their ‘British’ identity – and the manner in which they did so – varied according to how British foreign policy operated under successive governments. Different strands of unionists had clearly defined views of how Britain should act on the international stage. In those instances where they saw their own ideals being fulfilled they were more likely to express their Britishness in enthusiastic terms. By the same token, periods of disillusionment coincided with bitter disputes about just what Britain should stand for and even, in a few instances, led to a questioning of the Union itself. Those unionists who were attached to a civic/liberal tradition believed that Britain had an ‘enlightened’ and emancipatory role to play on the global stage, as the chief opponent of slavery and the champion of constitutional movements; this was often underpinned by a strong belief in the exceptional nature of the British constitution, which was shared by both Burkean conservatives and those who saw themselves as part of a tradition of British radical constitutionalism.6 However, after 1848, this civic unionism was increasingly challenged by a counter-interpretation which held that Britain’s exceptionalism derived from Protestant revelation and that political elites were

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complacent about internal and external dangers; in some instances, this was linked to a pre-millenarianism which saw paganism, idolatry, Popery and Islam as transnational and existential threats. The populist Orange and ultra Protestant challenge to established unionist elites in this period has been acknowledged by a number of historians and is normally attributed to Ulster Protestant revanchism or, in some of the more nuanced accounts, taken as an expression of class politics.7 Class politics played a part. However, the extent to which ultra Protestant loyalism was shaped by a reading of foreign affairs has been overlooked; intense analysis of international events was not just the preserve of an educated civic elite. The second way in which the wider international context influenced the formation of unionism might, on the surface, be seen as more tangential. It can be categorised as an assumption about the international scene, rather than a specific prescription for how Britain should act. This relates to contemporary understanding of the ‘logic’ of historical development beyond the British Isles: how unionists saw the world around them. Given that it was based on an interpretation of the tectonic plates underlying international affairs, rather than the vagaries of diplomacy, it was arguably more deeply entrenched in political consciousness in Ulster. Unionists interpreted the political project of economic and legislative integration (embodied in the Act of Union of 1801) within the framework of events in the European and Atlantic world; as the excerpt from the Ulster Magazine with which this chapter began illustrates, they did not live in a world in which the self-governance and democratic self-determination of Ireland and other small nations were presumed to be the logical outcome of historical progress. While nationalists could draw inspiration from the struggle of small nations against larger powers, unionists drew alternative lessons from the prevailing geo-political trends on the European continent and beyond. Observing the formation of Italy and Germany as nation-states and the triumph of the Union cause in the American Civil War, they believed that greater political units (such as the United Kingdom, or the German Commercial Union) were the most likely outcome of further industrial development; Belgium’s independence from Holland, achieved in 1830 and celebrated by nationalists, was therefore seen as a retrograde step. This rationalist interpretation – often conjoined with statistical analysis – was, to a great extent, a product of the perspective of the commercial elites within Ulster, who were vociferous supporters of free trade and saw themselves as being in the vanguard of technological and industrial development. Though firmly entrenched in Belfast and the surrounding area, it was an interpretation which was overly dismissive of the emotional draw of the nationalist case in Ireland and which also failed to spark much enthusiasm among the wider unionist community.8 Nonetheless, in outlining the strength of this conviction, this chapter also presents an alternative to those interpretations

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which hold unionism to be purely the product of an anachronistic colonial mindset or a siege mentality. With some notable exceptions, the wider international context has been largely neglected by historians of both nineteenth-century unionism and nationalism.9 Of course, there are limitations to how far the case for the importance of extra-Irish events can be pushed. In the case of both creeds, even when this broader perspective can be detected, it often reinforced existing ethnic and sectarian divisions. While a broader understanding of such concepts as state and nation was a crucial feature of the unionist–nationalist divide, the reality remains that unionists and nationalists in nineteenthcentury Ulster certainly did not always articulate their competing identities in lofty or intellectually rigorous language. Nonetheless, it remains the case that there was a whole strand of discourse in nineteenth-century unionist newspapers, public institutions, pamphlets, and journals, which was deeply tuned in to the world around it. In terms of where this chapter stands with regards to the central theme of this volume therefore, I would align myself with Paul Schroeder’s position, outlined at the outset of his diplomatic history, The Transformation of Europe. Like Schroeder, I do not subscribe to a notion of the primacy of foreign policy in every sphere, but instead posit that international politics are ‘inextricably interwoven . . . with other parts of the collective human endeavour’.10 In other words, the intention here is not to argue for the primacy of foreign policy as the driving force of the Irish Question but more for the inescapable importance of the extra-British context; that is, to illustrate the extent to which foreign affairs seeped into areas of debate where one might otherwise presume the primacy of domestic policy.

∗ Among historians of late eighteenth-century Ireland, the recent historiographical trend has been to emphasise the international backdrop to the events which took place in Ireland in the 1790s. It is now agreed that the United Irish radical movement took inspiration from the French Revolution and that Francophile ideals were grafted onto an already established tradition of Atlanticist and European political thought.11 Misleadingly, however, it might be said that there has been a concomitant assumption that the intellectual horizons of Irishmen took an introspective turn after the 1801 Act of Union – particularly those who were associated with the vanguard radicalism of the north of Ireland in the 1780s and 1790s. This assumption has been a feature of attempts to explain one of the definitive changes in postUnion Irish history: the political ‘transformation’ of Ulster Presbyterianism from its association with radicalism and republicanism to staunch support for the Act of Union by the 1830s. Most accounts ascribe this change in sentiment to the reassertion of existing confessional identities,

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galvanised by the evangelical revival and a reaction against Catholic political mobilisation.12 The reality is more complex. Interpretations of continental affairs were as important to the reorientation of Ulster Presbyterian political culture after 1798 as they were before the rebellion. The oscillation of attitudes to France and Britain was the most obvious feature of this shift in perspective. Events in Paris from 1789 to 1792 had indeed provided an inspiration for the Irish patriot movement. Yet, this conviction was based on a momentary juncture in the geo-political context in which France – traditionally the old enemy – became a beacon for reformists in Ireland. After 1793, France’s descent into factionalism and the Terror undermined support for the French experiment, even among those who had baulked at Edmund Burke’s critique of the Revolution. By 1796, for many more erstwhile radicals, France was no longer simply a provocative source of debate but an invading army, inclined to conquest, war and faction; in December of that year, a French invasion force attempted a landing on Irish soil, only to be prevented by treacherous weather.13 A key question for Irish patriots was the viability of Irish independence and the steps which would have to be taken to attain it. As early as 1792, Lord Castlereagh (then Robert Stewart, a reform-minded young MP in the Irish Parliament) had identified what he saw as the fatal flaw of separatist nationalism in Ireland: a belief in the power of Ireland’s ‘insular dignity’. As he came to the conclusion that a legislative union with England was the best solution to the Irish problem, he criticised those Irish patriots who believed that Ireland could survive alone in the context of great power struggles in Europe. In the 1780s, even comparatively small states such as Portugal had been able to usurp Irish commercial interests, before the British Navy had intervened. ‘I am afraid we should cut a sorry figure and exhibit an appearance not very imposing’, he wrote ‘were we to appear before them simply clad in the part of our own Insular Dignity and abstracted Freedom’. For Castlereagh, it was ‘physically impossible we should ever have a fleet of our own’ of the requisite size and ‘absurd and romantick to imagine that we can exist for any length of time as a separate and independent state’.14 By the mid-1800s, it was clear to even the most blinkered radical observer of the Napoleonic army in the Italian states, Dutch provinces, and Swiss cantons, that any dream of an independent Irish state – completely free from foreign interference – looked highly utopian.15 During the last decade of the eighteenth century, Britain had been cast by radicals in the classical role of Rome, the tyrannical Empire in moral and political decline. By 1803, even for committed radicals, the adage seemed more suitably attached to Napoleon’s France which was increasingly difficult to present as a liberating force: ‘Liberty and Bonaparte are terms which the meanest and most uninformed peasant in Ireland has long since learned to disassociate.’16 This theme, of Ireland’s impotence in the face of great power ambitions, was to become another motif in unionist writing, often reappearing at times

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of international instability. ‘An independent Ireland’, concluded a liberal unionist newspaper as late as 1865, ‘under the present reign of diplomacy and standing armies, is a hallucination. To throw off the English yoke (if we may use language which has long since to be appropriate) would be to put on the very real yoke of France.’17 Alongside this, one should not underestimate the effects of growing Irish involvement in the British military effort during the Napoleonic Wars. As early as 1806, some former Ulster radicals were actively revelling in British (and Irish) military ‘glory’ against the French, focusing their energies on eulogising Admiral Nelson, celebrating the martial achievements of the navy and embracing the idea of a united Britain of three kingdoms, represented by the new Union Jack flag.18 It was a trend that increased after 1815, as Irishmen took their place alongside Englishmen and Scotsmen in the administration of the Empire.19 The introduction of a system of open examinations for civil service and army entry was particularly popular among Ulster’s middle classes.20 Indeed, the sons and grandsons of the 1790s radicals found themselves scattered around the globe in the service of the empire (including the Unitarian radical William Porter, who designed the first non-racial constitution in the Cape of Good Hope, allowing for equal voting rights for blacks and whites).21 Thus, by 1899, liberal unionists saw no contradiction in delighting in the stories told by the Ulster rebels of 1798, while, in the same breath, describing the ‘rejoicings in Ulster on Tuesday, June 27th [1815], when the news came of the victory at Waterloo’.22 Another important development was that attitudes to Britain’s role on the world stage underwent an important readjustment in the years following the defeat of Napoleon. George Canning proved to be a popular foreign minister in the mid-1820s, not least because he had replaced Lord Castlereagh (who had been accused of cruelty in suppressing the 1798 rebellion and who was also unpopular because of his close relationship with Count Metternich, the bogeyman of liberal constitutionalists throughout Europe). The inaugural editorial of the Northern Whig (the new organ of Presbyterian radicalism in Belfast, established in 1824) was an attack on the ‘Holy Alliance’, declaring support for all ‘subjugated nations, struggling for independence, peace and liberty’.23 Significantly, however, unlike many nineteenth-century Irish nationalists, Ulster Presbyterians increasingly saw the struggles of patriots in Greece, Italy, and Spain as ‘libertarian’ rather than ‘national’ struggles.24 If anything, the cause of Greek independence – the formative experience for a new generation of the Belfast bourgeoisie – tied local radicals to the English metropolitan Philhellene intelligentsia in the mid-1820s.25 Some of the key figures in nineteenth-century Belfast politics began their careers in public life as exponents of the Greek cause, writing dispatches from the frontline. The most prominent advocate of Ulster philhellenism was Belfast’s first Conservative (and Unionist) MP, James Emerson (later Sir James Emerson Tennent), a much-neglected figure who was The Times’ correspondent in Greece and who fought alongside Byron.26 As one of the

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most articulate exponents of the unionist position within Ulster, Emerson (along with a growing portion of Belfast’s civic elite) believed that the chance for Irishmen to participate in the spread of constitutionalist and humanitarian values was better served by the existence of the Union. Here was a much more expansive expression of identity than the zero-sum concerns of realpolitik and military survival, which coincided with the fading of the French threat and the growth of a dominant liberal, constitutional creed in Britain. Debating the Act of Union with Daniel O’Connell in 1834, Emerson Tennent argued that Ireland could do more than preserve its ‘insular dignity’; in his view, it could also achieve ‘external dignity’ through attachment to a nation with a global reach. Referring to his vote for the abolition of slavery the previous year (his first vote as the newly elected MP for Belfast) he asked, Is it no accession of dignity to an Irish member of this House that he sits here to legislate, not merely for his own little island, but for the interests of the most opulent and powerful empire in the universe? . . . Mr Burke . . . has described it as the great and leading advancement of a seat in Parliament, that it gives an opportunity on an extended scale, ‘of doing good and of resisting evil’ . . . . These are the triumphs beyond the reach of a ‘Local Legislature’ . . . toward which the highest ambition of an Irish Parliament could never soar; these are the honours which enable us, whilst we pride ourselves upon our birth-place as Irishmen, to add to our distinctions, the glory of being Britons.27 On the one hand, this seems a clear exposition of the type of ‘liberal universalist’ British thinking described by Peter Mandler.28 It was certainly removed from the siege mentality, Protestant sectionalism and fear of Catholicism, often assumed to constitute the central elements of unionism. On the other hand, anti-slavery – a long-term cause of popular mobilisation in Ulster – dovetailed conveniently with one of the foremost concerns of the increasingly influential evangelical lobby.29 It has been argued that evangelicalism was important to Ulster Presbyterians because it provided a comforting substitute for a lack of national belonging: a sort of psychological crutch.30 In fact, one effect of evangelicalism – particularly pronounced in America – was a heightened belief that God acts through nations as well as individuals.31 The fusion of an empirical, evangelical form of British nationalism and a ‘contrary and characteristically Gallic or “Hellenising” tradition’ was captured nowhere more strongly than in this instance.32 Another building block in the unionist case – also expounded by Emerson Tennent, among others – was the claim that commercial progress, industrialisation, and the expansion of international trade had transformed the question of national independence among Europe’s smaller states. In a social and statistical history of Belgium (from its secession from union with Holland in 1830), he argued that the future of Europe would be commercial

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unification and the removal of borders and barriers, rather than further fragmentation. To the west of the River Rhine, he painted a picture of the ‘numerous little industrious states and principalities of western Germany, each ambitious of acquiring manufacturing power and each possessing it to a certain extent; but each unable, till lately, to succeed or prosper, owing to the narrowness of its individual bounds’. Recognising their relative individual weakness, these small states ‘levelled every intervening barrier and threw their united territories into the one grand area’. By contrast, on the east of the Rhine, ‘we had, ten years ago, Belgium and Holland enjoying the union which Germany has but lately attained, and reaping all the advantages which it was possible to derive from it.’ Secession had left ‘Holland a shattered and decaying trunk, and Belgium a reed shaken by the wind, and both, in all probability, likely one day to fall before the ambition of France or some other Continental neighbour’.33 Rather than expressing any specific concerns about Britain’s view of the Low Countries as a strategic barrier on the continent, this was a comment on the commercial and geo-political viability of small, independent states. Admittedly, the rationalist-economic case for the Union was increasingly coloured by the perspective of the commercial bourgeoisie whose voice was predominant in Belfast and the surrounding area. As nationalist critics pointed out, this obsession with industrial production was not so relevant for the rest of Irishmen. ‘Does any one of the circumstances’, asked one reviewer of Emerson’s book, ‘which existed in her case [Belgium], making it her interest to maintain her union, operate with us? Have we a great manufacturing system upheld and encouraged by every means which ingenuity can devise; an extensive market to supply with our productions, which the dissolution of an existing Union can lose to us?’34 By contrast, in the Tory Quarterly Review, the Irish writer John Wilson Croker agreed with Emerson Tennent’s point about the vulnerability of an independent Belgium to the ambitions of France and Prussia. However, because Emerson was MP for the ‘emporium’ of the linen trade in Ireland (Belfast), Croker (a defender of the agricultural interest and a protectionist) believed that the work had suffered through an obsession with the flax trade of Belgium.35 Even those who shared a proUnion position could come to conflicting conclusions when analysing the same international developments.

∗ Our parliament should try to realise the ideal of the British Constitution . . . Nations are improved in proportion as they are under improved institutions. The British is the best form of government, and therefore worthy to be improved to the utmost. The nations of the Continent now groaning under military despotism, and tired of Republican institutions, will be looking to Great Britain for a model

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form of Government. How important they should see our institutions exhibited in their best forms.36 Rev. William Brown, The Philosophy of Intimidation (1856) In the 1850s and 1860s, unionist political consciousness was increasingly shaped by a comparison of Britain with other continental states. However, as different interpretations emerged as to what made Britain distinct from other European powers, so the fissiparous nature of unionism came to the fore. In the first instance, the fact that Britain had remained largely unaffected by the upheavals of 1848 – notwithstanding the rather muted revolt of the Irish Confederacy and the peaking of the Chartist movement in that year – bolstered those who emphasised the superiority of the British model of government.37 Thus, the seizure of power by Napoleon III in 1851 was taken as an example of ‘Oriental-like subserviency’ at the heart of a country which was the most ‘enlightened’ in Europe after Britain: ‘Standing armies; centralisation; bureaucracy; Epicureanism, and egotism, in the highest classes; socialism among the artisans; apathy and ignorance in the cultivators of the soil’.38 As Parry has argued in the case of mainstream English liberal patriotism, such exceptionalism was placed, first and foremost, on constitutionalist grounds.39 ‘Britain grows her constitution’, asserted the Northern Whig in this spirit, it ‘waters, prunes, engrafts, but lets it stand and grow’, whereas the Abbé Sieyes ‘used to throw off three before breakfast’.40 For conservative unionists, instability on the Continent also confirmed a Burkean belief in the exceptional nature of British constitutional development. For Joseph Napier, Belfast-educated MP and Chancellor of Dublin University and a prominent Burkist, Europe’s troubles underlined his faith ‘that noblest edifice ever reared on earth, which stands amid the storm which rocks all Europe to its centre’.41 ‘It is the boast of those who live under English laws’, agreed the Belfast News-Letter in 1861, perhaps a little myopically, ‘that there is no wrong without its remedy – no grievance which may not be practically abated or removed’: ‘We contrast our moral freedom with the cramped and crippled condition of men in Continental States.’42 ‘Look around upon the nations of the earth’, asserted Napier’s close friend James Whiteside MP in the mid-1860s. France was ‘swept by revolution’, Italy, ‘torn by civil war’, and America ‘deluged with blood’, while ‘the free and glorious monarchy of England proudly rests in security and peace upon that which is the sure foundation of strength, the affections of a free people.’43 As the moderate conservative Ulster Magazine, observed, even radicals such as J. A. Roebuck had ‘borne testimony to an important fact, that England is better governed than any other country in the world; better than France, with its imperial despotism – better than America, with its six millions of slaves, although the Declaration of Independence states that all men are free’.44 Unionists therefore expressed pride in ‘knowing that we are the subjects of a kingdom whose ships are on every sea, whose influences are extending to

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every land, whose advice is asked on all the various momentous subjects that are continually arising’. Alongside this, argued Lord Lurgan, a Liberal peer, went ‘a certain responsibility when we are asked by other countries how best to promote the contentment, and consequently, the prosperity of our subjects’.45 Notably, the anti-interventionist strain common among significant portions of the British dissenting community was much less prevalent in Ulster Presbyterian political culture, suggesting that the assertion of British values was more important for those who sometimes felt that they were on the fringes of the national community.46 Even the severe difficulties encountered during the Crimean War did not destroy the conviction that Britain had a role to play in the spread of constitutional values and as a check against autocracy. ‘We have not the power to go forth to redress the wrongs of nations’, noted the Belfast Daily Mercury, but: ‘We can, and will give our sympathies, and, at fitting times, our aid, to those threatened to be oppressed; and if we can shake off the barbarous and ambitious pressure of Russia, we shall have done much to discourage despotism in Europe.’47 Notably, in urging support for the forces of ‘civilization’ on the continent, unionists – of different hues – were eager to draw a clear distinction between the struggles of continental patriots and those of Irish nationalists. For that reason, the cause of Italian unification – the keynote foreign policy issue of the 1850s and 1860s – proved particularly attractive for unionists across the political spectrum. Italian patriotism was regarded as a different species than Irish nationalism. In the opinion of the Presbyterian Thomas Croskery, writing in The Edinburgh Review: ‘Continental patriots are animated by wider sympathies and antipathies; and however wild their enthusiasm and deplorable their blunders, they set before them a loftier purpose and worship a higher ideal’, whereas Fenians were men ‘of mean education and a narrow mind, whose ambition is restrained by no principle, whose measures are guided by no reflection’.48 Indeed, there was a certain synergy here with the views of Mazzini, who had expressed scepticism about the vitality of the Irish nationalist case; his view was that national movements only deserved to be included in the community of nations if they aspired to pursuit of a specific ‘mission’ for the progress of humanity in general.49 For all its historical faults in the governance of Ireland, Italian patriots and unionists shared the belief that this was a role that the British nation was better equipped to fulfil on the international stage. Significantly, the writings of Cavour were also recycled by unionists in the 1880s in support of the view that the Union held forth a steady, if sometimes frustrating and slow, path to progress in Ireland.50

∗ Ultimately, however, even on the extra-Irish terrain of international affairs, debates about the future of Europe also revealed growing tensions within

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unionism. And if Italy was the central obsession of the unionist press, it was also a minefield with regards to its implications for internal unionist politics. Before the crisis of ‘Papal Aggression’ in the early 1850s, when the prominent Unitarian and liberal unionist Rev. Henry Montgomery had identified Pope Pius IX as a possible ‘regenerator of the nations of Europe’ – because of his professed support for Italian unification – it was greeted with horror by evangelicals.51 Particularly in the case of Italy, the simple reality was that the confessional dimension to Irish politics was an irreducible facet of the debate. Freedom, argued the Presbyterian evangelical and Conservative party activist William McComb, ‘has been making progress, for Garibaldi has been busily at work . . . the Pope was almost dead with terror; he knew that his own subjects, whom he shamefully misgoverned and oppressed, were sighing for deliverance from his despotism’. Those Irish Catholics who had supported him ‘may now see that the head of their church, whom they, perhaps, deemed invincible as well as infallible is but a silly man, the friend of tyrants and the foe of freedom’.52 Crucially, for many Orangemen and ultra Protestants, opening up new horizons in foreign affairs entailed a threat to revealed religion in Britain, rather than being a source of self-congratulation. Thus, links (often tenuous) were increasingly drawn between external threats and internal developments in British politics. Fear of ‘paganism and idolatry’ in China and Turkey – both of which were becoming increasingly important fixtures on British national consciousness – were mentioned in the same breath as Puseyism and Papal interference in Britain.53 There was an apocalyptic, premillenarian tone to some of these concerns. In a pamphlet which appeared in Belfast in 1854, the Book of Revelations was used in an analysis of the international situation to serve notice of a ‘coming struggle’ among the European nations. Interestingly, the author was undecided as to whether the ten horns of the beast were the ten kingdoms of Europe or the ‘ten Popish bishops lately set up in England’ (under Papal decree in 1850). Typically, however, the sermon was mainly directed at the perceived complacency of those within the British polity, the ‘leaks’ that had appeared in the Protestant constitution and the ‘backslidings and transgressions’ since the Reformation.54 In this analysis, it was not Burke and the genesis of organic political institutions which constituted British exceptionalism within Europe but the free dissemination of the Bible. ‘Look at Spain, look at Portugal, look at my Italy’, declared Father Gavazzi (a Protestant convert, former military chaplain of Pius IX, and an exile from Rome), speaking to an enthusiastic evangelical crowd in Belfast in 1852: What are they? Nothing. And what is France? Less than nothing. What would England be without your Bible? . . . . But I speak in Belfast. Ha! Thank your Bible, oh people of Belfast, for your commerce, for your

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industry, for your science, for your arts, and for your civil and religious liberties.55 In the wake of the Gavazzi visit, the Belfast Catholic newspaper, The Ulsterman, addressed the Protestants of Ireland, warning them against ‘the adventurers’ who ‘inflame your prejudices and passions’ by ‘exciting the religious discourse that has long been to Ireland a deadly blight’.56 Once again, confessional loyalties were impossible to avoid. Followers of Mazzini, warned the voice of Ulster Catholic opinion, ‘must expect no mercy from us – they have proclaimed their own lawless creed – and pronounced their own doom . . . courtesy of words and phrases must not be expended on men who have set themselves in deadly antagonism to all we hold dear’.57 What is more, there was a potent purism in the ultra Protestant prescriptions for British foreign policy which precipitated a further fracturing of unionist politics. ‘We don’t hear a word of effort being made to get restrictions taken off free Protestant preaching in France’, complained the Orange leader and novelist William Johnston, despite his support for the Crimean War, ‘lest the Emperor’s Protestant soldiers would grow weary of fighting the Russians’.58 More significantly, this sense of urgency among ultra Protestants and Orangemen also manifested itself in an increasingly radical attitude to domestic politics, which challenged the complacency and self-confidence of existing elites. ‘We are told that the advent of the Conservatives to power alone can save the country from a revolution’, observed Johnston in the first issue of his Downshire Protestant on 6 July 1855. ‘We believe’, instead, ‘that the danger exists to the empire not from the men without property, but from the men without Protestantism’. ‘Protestantism, as a national policy’ was his demand, as ‘without this, we care not which party hold the reins of state’. ‘Get rid of the Protestant element’, he continued, ‘and we might as well be governed by an Austrian or French Government.’59 To the horror of the Conservative party hierarchy in Ulster, who depended upon their support, it was for this reason that many Orangemen expressed a preference for Lord Palmerston in this period, largely due to the ‘Protestant’ and ‘manly’ flavour of his foreign policy. ‘Fighting tyrannical people’, declared the Downshire Protestant in 1861, ‘has the support of our excellent Government’.60 For moderate unionists – both conservative and liberal – Britain’s unique achievement was to steer a moderate path between republicanism and despotism, through moderate constitutional reform. For that reason most mainstream liberal and conservative unionists preferred to identify themselves with Count Cavour and Victor Emmanuel as the moderate constitutional saviours of Italy. In 1860, for example, the bourgeois Ulster Magazine conducted an interview with Felix Orsini, the Italian patriot who had failed in his attempt to assassinate Louis Napoleon in January 1858; the journal’s editorial commentary on the interview expressed delight that, in

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its (somewhat ill-informed) view, the leaders of Italian nationalism had advanced beyond republicanism to become ‘invincible advocates of a constitutional monarchy’.61 For Orangemen and ultra Protestants however, whiggish complacency and nebulous notions of ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’ failed to acknowledged the existential threat faced by Britain, internally as well as externally. ‘When [Lord] Macaulay, and some others who do not go to Mass, talk of the ground lost by Protestantism and regained by the Church of Rome’, wrote William Johnston, ‘they would do well to remember that the civil and religious liberty they are so fond of praising would never have been gained by such “Do nothings” as they.’62 Thus, the Orange heroes of Italy were Garibaldi and, above all, Giuseppe Mazzini, the anti-authoritarian republican scourge of the Papacy, who achieved a cult following among ‘Oliver Cromwell’s spiritual and intellectual heirs’.63

∗ This chapter has attempted to illustrate the centrality of foreign political events to the shaping of Ulster unionism in the nineteenth century. From this we can conclude that a conscious and active engagement with the ‘outside world’ accounted for a significant portion of a political creed which is sometimes regarded as introspective and beholden to historical determinism or religious fundamentalism. Moreover, the assumption that continental analogies were more likely to be the preserve of Irish nationalists rests on a limited understanding of how events in Europe appeared to contemporaries. In fact, a more detailed engagement with local responses to international affairs reveals an inversion of some of the more enduring assumptions about that Ulster unionism – particularly the idea that it was ‘a hegemonic framework of shared political, social and cultural assumptions’.64 On the one hand, the chapter has identified the continued existence of a civic/liberal tradition in Presbyterian political culture which aspired to a universalist constitutionalism and believed that Britain should play an interventionist role on the world stage. No less significant, however, the chapter has also shown how an alternative interpretation of foreign affairs could give credence to a more populist form of Protestant loyalism, which challenged the perceived complacency of the unionist elite and foresaw a pre-millenarian struggle. In offering a more sophisticated understanding of the preoccupations of Orange and ultra Protestant politicians and the press, it has not been the intention to overturn what we already know about this type of politics – such as its basis in class divisions and anti-Catholicism. However, it is nonetheless apparent that such Protestant populism – just like civic British nationalism – was shaped more by the wider European context than is often presumed.

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Notes 1. Ulster Magazine (1860) I, no. 4, 255. 2. L. Colley (1992) Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 8. For favourable citations of Colley, see T. Bartlett (2001) ‘Britishness, Irishness and the Act of Union’, in D. Keogh and K. Whelan (eds) Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 243–258; and S. Farrell (2000) Sectarian Violence and Political Culture in Ulster, 1784–1886 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky), p. 40. For recent challenges to Colley’s exclusion of Ireland on these grounds, see J. Ridden (2004) ‘Britishness as an imperial and diasporic identity’, in P. Gray (ed.) Victoria’s Ireland? Irishness and Britishness, 1837–1901 (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 88–105; A. Blackstock (2007) Loyalism in Ireland, 1789–1829 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press). 3. J. Bew (2009) The Glory of Being Britons: Civic Unionism in Nineteenth-Century Belfast (Dublin: Irish Academic Press). 4. E. F. Biagini (2008) ‘Liberty and nationalism in Ireland, 1798–1922’, Historical Journal, LI, 3, 793–809. 5. J. Todd (1993) ‘Unionist political thought, 1920–72’, in G. Boyce, R. Eccleshall and V. Geoghegan (eds) Political Thought in Ireland since the Seventeenth Century (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 190–211. 6. M. Taylor (1995) The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 7. H. Patterson (1980) Class Conflict and Sectarianism: The Protestant Working Class and the Belfast Labour Movement, 1868–1920 (Belfast: Blackstaff Press); J. Aiken McClelland (1990) William Johnston of Ballykilbeg (Lurgan: Ulster Society Publications). 8. See Bew, The Glory of being Britons, Chapters 5 and 6. 9. Exceptions include: N. Mansergh (1974 edn) The Irish Question, 1840–1921: A Commentary on Anglo-Irish Relations and on Social and Political Forces in Ireland in the Age of Reform and Revolution (London: Faber); R. V. Comerford (1985) The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics and Society, 1848–82 (Dublin and Atlantic Highland, New Jersey: Wolfhound Press); P. Hionidis (2004) ‘Fenian rebels and Cretan insurgents, 1866–1869: unlawful subjects or ‘lovers of freedom’?’ in P. Gray (ed.) Victoria’s Ireland? Irishness and Britishness, 1837–1901 (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 106–115. 10. P. W. Schroeder (1994) The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848, 1996 edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. vii. 11. M. Elliott (1982) Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and France (New Haven and London: Yale University Press); S. Small (2001) ‘The twisted roots of Irish patriotism: Anglo-Irish political thought in the late eighteenth century’, EireIreland, XXXV, 187–216; N. J. Curtin (1998) The United Irishmen, Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin, 1791–1798 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); K. Whelan (1996) The Tree of Liberty: Radicalism, Catholicism and the construction of Irish Liberty, 1760–1830 (Cork: Cork University Press). 12. S. J. Connolly (1989) ‘Mass politics and sectarian conflict, 1823–30’, in W. E. Vaughan (ed.) A New History of Ireland, Vol. I, 1801–70 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 74–106; F. O’Ferrall (1986) ‘Daniel O’Connell and Henry Cooke: the conflict of civil and religious liberty in modern Ireland’, The Irish Review, I, 20–37.

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13. See W. Bruce and H. Joy (2005), Belfast Politics: Thoughts on the British Constitution, J. Bew (ed.) [first published 1794] 3rd edn (Dublin: University College Dublin Press). 14. Castlereagh to ‘My Dearest Doctor’ Haliday, 27 February 1792, Public Record Office Northern Ireland (PRONI), Castlereagh Papers, D/3030/37. 15. See B. Simms (2003) ‘Continental analogies with 1798: Revolution or counterrevolution’, in T. Bartlett, D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan (eds) 1798: A Bicentenary Perspective (Dublin: Four Courts Press), pp. 577–595. 16. (1803) Letters of a Man of Ulster, Inscribed (By Desire of the Author), To The Inhabitants of the Province of Ulster (Dublin), pp. iii–v, 1–5. 17. Northern Whig, 26 May 1865. 18. William Drummond (1806) The Battle of Trafalgar: An Heroic Poem Read to the Literary Society of Belfast (Belfast). 19. K. Jeffrey (ed.) (1996) An Irish Empire? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press). 20. Ulster Monthly Magazine, I, 3 (March, 1860), 165–167. 21. J. L. McCracken (1993) New Light at the Cape of Good Hope: William Porter, Father of Cape Liberalism (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation). 22. J. E. Reilly (1899) Some Recollections of Hugh McCall, Lisburn [‘for private circulation only’] (available in Linen Hall Library, Belfast), p. 11. 23. Northern Whig, 8 January 1824. 24. P. Mandler (2000), ‘ “Race” and “nation” in mid-Victorian thought’, in S. Collini, R. Whatmore, B. Young (eds) History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History, 1750–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 223–244. 25. F. Rosen (1992) Bentham, Byron and Greece: Constitutionalism, Nationalism and Early Liberal Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 26. Interestingly, Emerson Tennent is mentioned in G. J. Bass’s (2008) Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), p. 124. 27. 24 April 1834, Hansard, XXII, 1313; Speech of J. Emerson Tennent, Esq. MP, against the Repeal of the Union (London, 1834), p. 41. This evoked George III’s declaration that he ‘gloried in the name of Briton’, quoted in J. G. A. Pocock (1979) ‘The limits and divisions of British history’, Studies in Public History, 31, 1–21. 28. Mandler, ‘ “Race” and “nation” in mid-Victorian thought’. 29. See letter from Rev. Dr John Edgar [evangelical Presbyterian minister] to Robert James Tennent [Reform candidate for Belfast], 19 October 1832, PRONI, Tennent Papers, D/1748/G/180/1. See also N. Rogers (2000) Equiano: Anti-Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Belfast (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation). 30. D. W. Miller (1968) ‘Presbyterianism and “Modernisation” in Ulster’, Past and Present, 80, 66–90. 31. R. Cawardine (1982) ‘The Know-nothing party, the protestant evangelical community and American national identity’, in S. Mews (ed.) Religion and National Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 449–463. 32. G. Newman (1975) ‘Anti-French propaganda and British liberal nationalism in the early nineteenth century: Suggestions toward a general interpretation’, Victorian Studies, XVIII, 4, 385–418. 33. James Emerson Tennent (1841) Belgium, 2 vols (London), I, pp. 172–173. 34. Michael Joseph Barry (1845) ‘Ireland, as she was, as she is, and as she shall be’, in Repeal Prize Essays: Essays on the Repeal of the Union (Dublin: Printed and published for the National Repeal Association of Ireland), pp. 91–109.

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35. John Wilson Croker (1841), ‘Tennent’s Belgium’, The Quarterly Review, LXVII, CXXXV, 1–20. 36. Rev. William Brown (1856) The Philosophy of Intimidation: Or, Historical Sketches in the Elective Franchise, Its Defects and Remedies (Belfast: Shepherd & Aitchinson), p. 174. Rev. Brown was a Presbyterian land reformer. 37. B. Porter (1984) ‘ “Bureau and barrack”: Early victorian attitudes towards the continent’, Victorian Studies, XXVII, 407–433. 38. Northern Whig, 8 January 1852; J. P. Parry (2001) ‘The impact of Napoleon III on British politics, 1851–1880’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Series, XI, 147–175. 39. J. P. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 40. Northern Whig, 17 January 1852. 41. Alex Charles Ewald (ed.) (1892) The Life and Letters of Right Hon. Sir Joseph Napier, Bart, revised edn (London: Cassell &Co.), pp. 32–34. 42. Belfast News Letter, 16 March 1861. 43. James Whiteside (1865) ‘Cleanliness: Prudence: Industry’, Lectures Delivered before the Dublin Young Men’s Association in connexion with the United Church of England and Ireland: During the Year 1864 (Dublin), pp. 45–102. 44. Ulster Magazine, I, no. 1, 11–12. 45. Belfast News Letter, 10 February 1869. 46. N. W. Summerton (1978) ‘Dissenting attitudes to foreign relations, peace and war, 1840–1890’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XXVIII, 2, 151–178. 47. Belfast Daily Mercury, 8 June 1854. 48. Thomas Croskery (April, 1868) ‘The Irish abroad’, The Edinburgh Review, CXXVII, 502–537. 49. Mansergh, The Irish Question, 1840–1921, pp. 79–89, 95–102; D. Mack Smith (1994) Mazzini (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), pp. 23, 156–157; C. A. Bayly and E. F. Biagini (2008) Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalization of Democratic Nationalism, 1830–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 50. Philip H. Bagenal (September, 1882) ‘Count Cavour on Ireland’, The Nineteenth Century, XII, 361–380. 51. ‘A Middleman’ (1851) Dr Montgomery and the Pope: or the Credulous and the Creedless (Belfast), p. 3. 52. (1861) McComb’s Presbyterian Almanack, and Christian Remembrancer for 1861 (Belfast), pp. 3–4, 60–62, 65; P. Maume (ed.) (2004) The Repealer Repulsed (Dublin: University College Dublin Press). 53. Rev. William Urwick (1854) China: Two Lectures Delivered Before the Young Men’s Christian Association, Dublin and Belfast (Dublin). 54. (1854) The Great Northern Bear Let Loose, With His Pointers Turned Toward the South; Or the Present Aspect of the Nations, With Their Past Acts and Future Prospects Considered: Together With Notice of ‘The Coming Struggle’ (Belfast). 55. (1852) The Orations of Father Gavazzi, delivered in Belfast on the 3rd, 4th and 5th November 1852 (Belfast), pp. 9–11, 44–46. 56. The Ulsterman, 17 November 1852. 57. The Ulsterman, 20 November 1852. 58. Downshire Protestant, 30 November 1855. 59. Downshire Protestant, 6 July 1855. 60. Downshire Protstant, 16 March 1851. 61. Ulster Magazine, I, no. 6, 465–472.

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62. Downshire Protestant, 6 July 1855. 63. Downshire Protestant, 4 January 1861. See also, E. F. Biagini (2008) ‘Mazzini and anti-clericalism: The english exile’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 152, 145–166. 64. K. A. Miller (2004) ‘Belfast’s First Bomb, 28 February 1816: Class Conflict and the Origins of Ulster unionist Hegemony’, Eire-Ireland, XXXIX, 1–2, 262–280.

10 The Enduring Importance of Foreign Policy Dominance in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Politics Adrian Brettle

The importance of foreign policy in domestic politics in the 1850s is illustrated by the fact that every government fell in this decade on an issue of foreign policy. In 1852, Lord John Russell’s departed over the militia issue; later that year, the 14th Earl of Derby’s government lost power due to a war-scare wrecked budget; the 4th Earl of Aberdeen’s coalition collapsed in early 1855 over the Crimean war; the 3rd Viscount Palmerston’s first government was censured in 1857, as a result of its Chinese policy, and finally departed the following year as a result of Orsini’s attempted assassination of Napoleon III; the last, Derby’s second government, was forced out in 1859 over Italy. The one government that survived; Palmerston’s second, 1859– 1865, administration came closest to defeat over foreign affairs. It was at its most vulnerable over foreign crises; in 1860, over Italy, and later in 1864, due to Schleswig-Holstein. This primacy of foreign policy was the result of the push of external happenings in the late 1840s and 1850s. These outside events were colonial instability, tumult in the United States, the genesis of an imperial vision following the Indian Mutiny,1 a naval arms race and, pre-eminently caused by the Crimean war, the end of the Concert system established after 1815. These cumulative occurrences have been described as part of a ‘mid-nineteenth century world crisis.’2 However, there was also a primacy of domestic politics, in which foreign policy was used to secure party and personal advantage. This latter tactic was seen in Palmerston’s dominance over the Whig Party.3 At the same time, foreign policy enabled the opposition Conservative Party to achieve a degree of coherence after the traumatic experience of 1846. Foreign policy became the basis of their challenge to the ascendant Whig-led governments. The two competing political groupings were able to draw on two distinct foreign policy traditions. Also, if the Conservative Party felt it was unable to conduct a stable foreign policy, due to its weak minority status, then foreign policy also provided a pretext for abstention from power. This reasoning suited 154

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the Conservatives’ opponents: the conduct of foreign policy, in this time of sustained international crisis, inevitably could only be entrusted to the majority party. Finally, as there was a degree of political convergence on domestic questions, foreign policy was vital to maintain party identity. This chapter argues that events abroad were used by politicians, both to preserve the party system and secure advantage within it. The recent historiography has tended to study one party or significant figure in isolation.4 The predominance of the Whig-led coalitions has led historians to dwell on explaining that ascendancy, as foreign policy was either grafted on to Liberal patriotic principles, or as a weapon deployed by the Whigs to contain Radicals.5 Furthermore, especially when writing a synthesis of the period, historians have tended to consider that a consensus existed on foreign policy between the parties.6 Meanwhile the minority Conservatives, emerging from their comparative neglect, have started to receive studies of their own.7 But this excellent scholarship does not show how foreign policy was central to the workings of the two party system and how it drove the domestic policy choices the respective party leaderships made. There is, therefore, a need for a balanced approach between the parties so as to refresh the high political synthesis with new scholarship on the Whigs and Conservatives. The chapter will, first, consider the alternative foreign policy views inherited by the politicians in the 1840s. It will then examine how events provided the context to render foreign policy so important. Finally, focusing on the historically neglected Conservatives, the chapter will assess how politicians were able to use foreign policy and in so doing, both gave their parties identity and fended off claims of opponents. There were two competing foreign policy ideologies: (1) Whig and (2) Conservative. Whilst an ideology alone cannot explain an action, it can account for the choices politicians felt they faced. The Whig view, especially that of Palmeston, was the need for eternal vigilance in the protection of the hardwon liberties of the British people.8 Given the Reform Bill and Corn Law repeal and consequent pride in Britain’s constitutional and political achievements, it was Palmerston’s contention that domestic enemies were, to an extent, quelled. The main threat now came from abroad. He combated this by a projection of broad church Protestant religious, moral and commercial interests around the world, with an assertion of a masculine national honour. So Palmerston was able to demonstrate that the House of Commons ‘has now in its keeping not only the interests, property and the lives of many of its countrymen but that it has also in its keeping the honour, welfare and reputation . . . of this great empire.’9 The policy was not just rhetoric; it also fulfilled practical purposes. Palmerston made his case on two grounds: first, that foreign policy had to rest on public approval in order to impress foreign allies, or enemies, otherwise underwhelmed by Britain’s fiscally constrained military forces.10 This contention had the helpful corollary that Palmerston both subscribed to

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the Whig belief in the need for popular government and laid claim to the Canningite foreign policy tradition. Second, his political rivals had to tolerate him in office because of his ensuing popularity in the country and the reflective strength this gave Britain abroad. Hence the resulting ‘necessity of having [Palmerston] in the [British] government were it even only to satisfy the French government.’11 But to combat this, the Conservatives also had a foreign policy ideology. Conservative foreign policy had to be conducted above parties and factions, as Britain would only be respected as a power if she possessed a consistent posture abroad that reflected domestic harmony. Ironically, as it so contrasted with the Whig vision of threats, this guiding principle also became a partisan weapon. So, like Palmerston, the Conservatives also claimed adherence to a foreign policy tradition; that of Castlereagh. Historians now promote arguments for continuity in Conservative foreign policy. As part of this debate, the role of Sir Robert Peel as founder of the Conservative Party has been recently resurrected.12 Derbyite foreign policy did link with Peel’s. In combination with policy on the Colonies, United States and India, Conservative foreign policy stressed the ‘Blue Water’ global role of Britain. The other component of the Conservative foreign policy were the need to act in concert with the principles of the European balance of power, specifically restoration at least of ad hoc meetings of emissaries to simulate conference diplomacy and the maintenance of a strong navy. This policy also interlocked with a competence argument: only a well-informed government, in regular touch with its continental counterparts, would be able to conduct a skilled foreign policy. The main prop of the balance of power was the maintenance of the entente cordiale with France. Both Disraeli and Derby wished to continue Peel’s strategy of maintaining close relations with France, and felt they were better at so doing than Palmerston.13 The emergence of Louis Napoleon made little difference, with Disraeli’s bid for commercial arrangements and Malmesbury’s recognition of the Imperial title promptly in 1852.14 Disraeli and Malmesbury were both personally close to the now Napoleon III, as Disraeli wrote to his secretary and sometime envoy to the Emperor, Earle, adding ‘I have no jealousy of the external movement of France.’15 Disraeli was later critical of Russell’s complaint about the French annexation of Savoy. It is difficult to reconcile such an independent foreign policy with Disraeli’s status as Palmerston’s political inheritor.16 Disraeli apparently struggled to reconcile his party loyalty to Derby with his personal faith in Palmerston.17 Disraeli’s letters certainly litter with references to his party’s ignorance of foreign affairs18 ; but it suited his own House of Commons primacy, and the stereotype of his party from the viewpoint of opponents, that the Conservative party was made up of insular, country gentlemen who would be dangerous abroad. Palmerston was, indeed, the best conservative

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Prime Minister available, but only domestically.19 Far from Disraeli being silent or overruled on foreign affairs, his role as Leader of the House both meant collaboration with Derby and Malmesbury and that he took the lead on foreign affairs in the Commons.20 As well as these distinct traditions and beliefs of the Whigs and Conservatives, vital to the centrality of foreign policy was the context in which these ideas were played out. There was a new perceived strategic vulnerability of Britain, toward France, which arose in 1845 due to marine technology. Palmerston told the Commons that the Channel was ‘no longer a barrier’ and now merely ‘a river passable by a steam bridge.’21 After 1846 topics such as militia, volunteering and national defence returned to the political agenda.22 The Duke of Wellington, within Peel’s cabinet, had echoed Palmerston, and articulated that the advent of steam eroded the Royal navy’s supremacy.23 Each French naval advance induced a scare; such as the 1850 launch of the screw-propelled ship Napoleon and in 1858, La Gloire.24 This latter demonstration coincided with a Royal visit to see the new naval base at Cherbourg, accompanied by the then Foreign Secretary, Malmesbury, and over one hundred MPs.25 Overall, this development was reflected in the peacetime increase in military expenditure; from £15 million per annum in the 1840s to £27 million in the 1860s. Numbers of military personnel rose from 147,000 in 1830 to 347,000 in 1860 with only, and significantly, France, seeing a comparable percentage increase. The ‘proportion of government spending devoted to defence was higher in 1861–1865 than in any other nineteenth century peacetime quinquennium.’26 International events cut both ways; at first, the suppression of the 1848 Revolutions gave great impetus to the Whig cry of the overseas reactionary threat to British liberties. But, from the mid-1850s onwards, circumstances slowly began, conversely, to be helpful to the Conservatives and awkward for the Whigs. The breaking up of the unity of the ‘conservative Courts’, as a result of the Crimean War, began the sluggish process of undermining the liberal crusade against united absolutism favoured by Palmerston. At the same time, it gradually decoupled the Conservatives from association with both conservative and Catholic Austria, which had such unpopular repercussions for the 1858–1859 government. By the time of the Schleswig Holstein question in 1864, the feebleness of Whig foreign policy was exposed. The manly, popular, Protestant policies they had, up to this point, espoused were no longer available. In the Schleswig Holstein debate, the bankruptcy of Palmerston’s foreign policy was demonstrated by his citing Gladstone’s budgets as the cornerstone of his government’s achievements.27 Gladstone noted in his diary that ‘this debate ought to be an epoch in foreign policy.’28 Foreign affairs provided ample scope for politicians to cut poses. The earlier period had suited Palmerstonian manipulation best. But to the bitter end, he argued that British representative government had to be protected

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from abroad, both defensively by the increase in expenditure and offensively by projection of British values overseas.29 This primacy of foreign affairs meant that his leadership was progressively preferred to either Russell or the Peelites. The critical moment was Palmerston’s succession to the premiership on the fall of the Aberdeen Government in early 1855. In explaining his own failure to form an administration, the Conservative leader Derby spoke to the House of Lords of the ‘universal impression in favour’ of Palmerston which meant that he was responding, in effect, to the ‘voice of the country.’ Moreover, Derby added, Palmerston appeared ‘to have enjoyed a peculiar exception from the censure’, incurred by his Peelite and Whig colleagues, over the conduct of the Crimean War.30 To Queen Victoria, Derby was even more direct, the ‘whole country cried out for Lord Palmerston as the only man fit for carrying the war with success.’31 By contrast, the Conservatives were often seen as victims of circumstance. Conservative attempts at government were stymied by their minority status, which meant weakness, both at home and abroad. Any room for manoeuvre was limited by the need to fund defence expenditure. Perhaps, this impulse was derived from undue Conservative ‘naval vigour’ and caving into demands for ‘panicky’ increases in military costs. Although, as their priority was imperial security, increased fleet budgets were inevitable.32 Derby wrote to the Queen that war between Austria and France in Italy demonstrated ‘conclusively the absolute necessity of building up our naval force.’33 For their Whig opponents, however, this was a case of Conservatives having to compensate for their weakness by unnecessary defence expenditure, resulting in needless increases in taxation. So it was the Conservatives who were more susceptible both to demands for domestic reform and to attempts to purchase popularity by bad economics, especially unfunded tax cuts. Either the Conservatives had to compensate for weakness by additional disbursements on the navy and hence increase taxation, or else indulge in reckless flirtation with radicals in order to broaden their base in the Commons. This clear interaction meant that bad foreign policy led to bad domestic policy. Therefore both Whigs and Conservatives also saw that the language of reform and popular politics was fought in the international arena. Disraeli, for example, argued that the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, which brought down Palmerston’s first government, was ‘no longer a question of the relations between . . . . France and England . . . it is solely confined to the responsibility which the government of England has incurred to those who represent the people of England in this House.’34 Palmerston, in the amendment on the Queen’s speech in June 1859, argued that, if the Conservative Ministers had shown themselves ‘unequal to the management of the domestic legislation of this country, I say they have shown themselves much more unequal to the management of our foreign relations.’35

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Such allegations of poor domestic policy resulting from foreign policy would be reinforced if naval spending, for example, came at the expense of budgetary prudence. This conflict was apparent from the earlier desperation of Disraeli, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to balance the books in his first budget. The flawed budget resulted in the defeat of the 1852 government; Disraeli’s greatest handicap was that he was prevented from basing his calculations on a commercial treaty with France, as he had wished. Due to fears of Napoleon’s military ambitions, the Court and Derby forced Disraeli to allow for increases in defence expenditures of £230,000 and Disraeli felt wretched at having been ‘called upon to change all my dispositions.’36 This incident was also evidence of the crown’s influence, which had possibly revived during this period of balanced parties and foreign affairs focus.37 But, as Ghosh argues, to see Disraeli as somehow thwarted, misses the overall Conservative policy objective. The primary purpose of a Conservative government was to safeguard the Empire with a strong navy. Disraeli’s budget of 1852 and its planned counterpart of 1859 were subsidiary to this goal, as opposed to being an embryonic financial policy. As Ghosh puts it, ‘expenditure depended on policy.’38 Low taxation in order to preserve domestic harmony was the Conservative domestic policy, so their foreign policy was consistently pacific, although the legacy of the Crimean War, between the Conservative governments, had disrupted international cooperation. That change, despite the same policy, was stark; the government achieved successful reconciliation with Austria and collaborated with Russia over the protection of Belgium from French aggression.39 By contrast in 1858–1859, they failed to avert the Franco-Austrian War. Derby’s unsuccessful strategy, in that administration, was to use the Queen as a means of communication with both the French40 and Austrian Emperors.41 He and Malmesbury also sought Russian support, which, considering they were smarting from the Crimean defeat and had colluded with France, suggested a ruthless rationality. Derby had insisted that, under the Conservatives, the British ‘have no right, as a nation, to entertain particular prejudices . . . .’42 This Russian policy was not wholly unsuccessful, as Malmesbury informed the Queen, as Prince Gortchakov entirely agreed with his views on localising the war once it had started.43 Conservative diplomatic style presented a direct contrast to Palmerston and Russell’s despatches. Earlier efforts to solve the Italian crisis were supplemented by the mission of Lord Cowley, the ambassador to France, to Vienna, as a demonstration of the ‘spontaneous good offices’ of Derby’s government ‘instructed with a highly confidential, but wholly unofficial mission . . . .’44 Such secret diplomacy was an anathema to Whig principles. After the approach to the two monarchs, Malmesbury proceeded with steps to set up a Congress; that ultimate expression of a true Conservative foreign policy.45 This was, in the end, thwarted by the intransigence of both powers,

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as Derby had to ruefully admit that ‘every effort to preserve the peace has been exhausted.’46 Palmerston later remarked that, even if the methods used were wrong, ‘the principle on which they acted was undoubtedly right and proper.’47 Palmerston and Russell blamed the outbreak of war on the government’s closeness to Austria and consequent neglect, bordering on alienation, of France which led ministers to misread those powers’ intentions.48 Conservative maintenance of the status quo could easily be castigated as proAustrian,49 as that was the power which, through its presence in Italy, Balkans, and Germany, was the guarantor of the Vienna settlement by the containment of French, Russian, and Prussian ambitions, respectively. Derby told the Lords at the outset of his first administration that he would pursue peace ‘by adhering with strict fidelity to the spirit and letter of the obligations imposed upon us by treaty’.50 In 1859, Malmesbury would concede an ‘infringement’ of 1815 ‘but no further’, and ‘we should not be prepared to sanction any change of the present territorial distribution of Europe.’51 However, the Conservatives also benefited from foreign policy, in opposition, by stimulating unity in a fractious party after the rupture of 1846. Then the Conservative Party had to fight for its survival, as Lady John Russell wrote on ‘what an unhappy time being a real Tory must be, at least in England, battling so vainly against time and tide, and doomed to see the idols of his worship crumbled to dust one after another.’52 In response, Conservatives deployed foreign policy to enable differentiation. For the Conservatives had to find a substitute for the ‘extreme’ policy of reintroduction of Protection and win back ‘respectable’ opinion, especially that of the Peelites during the years of the Russell government.53 Furthermore, by stressing a pre-Peel continuity in Conservative foreign policy back to 1815,54 the party leadership wished to demythologise the cause of the Corn Laws split.55 Moreover, it offered opportunities to wound, but not kill, the government at a time when its leader felt the Conservatives were not ready to enter office.56 Derby sensed his followers’ shortcomings and preferred to stay in opposition.57 This opinion persisted into the 1850s. At that critical juncture in January 1855, when he declined to form a government during the Crimean War, Derby bluntly told the Queen that he still had ‘no men capable of governing the House of Commons.’58 Earlier the problems were even more extensive, as in February 1851 when he explained his failure to the Lords, arguing his party ‘though it no doubt comprises men of talent and intellect, yet contains within itself, I will not say no single individual, but hardly more than one individual of political experience and versed in political business.’59 Conservative minority status and perceived lack of talent interacted to generate a disinclination to form an administration. Any resulting weak government would discredit conservative policies, both foreign and domestic, and thereby strengthen radical opponents.

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The January 1855 crisis showed the two parties adopting contrasting justifications, for factionalism would lead to a manifestation of British weakness abroad in a time of war. As Malmesbury told the Lords during the debate on Palmerston’s new administration, ‘we have extended to the nations of Europe . . . a government divided against itself.’ The Marquis of Lansdowne concurred and then added that ‘the principle of representative government was now undergoing an ordeal [when] we ought to be sharing the world the advantages.’60 This exchange is instructive of the need, from a Conservative perspective, to demonstrate British strength and from a Whig viewpoint, to exhibit values. These dual considerations were why 1850s governments fell on foreign policy. General political disunity was part of the collapse of the party system as a whole.61 However, as an opposition, the Conservative Party, unlike its opponents, lacked patronage to keep itself together; therefore the divisions, if allowed to fester, could be more serious. Even when in office, differences abounded, as Sir James Graham wrote to Russell in 1852, ‘Derby’s dependencies on doubtfuls is a miserable existence.’62 When this short-lived administration fell, according to Prince Albert, it was Derby’s ‘determination . . . to undertake the task . . . of keeping together a powerful party’ and, in order to do this, Derby had to demonstrate that the Conservatives had not ‘quitted office on light grounds, after the sacrifices of opinion [on Protection] they had brought in order to support him.’63 Hence his ‘cross’64 or ‘intemperate’65 speech in the House of Lords, when Derby argued that he was confounded by the coming together of Aberdeen and individuals, such as Palmerston and Russell, against whose foreign policy Aberdeen had ‘so often, so ably, and so eloquently, inveighed.’66 The Conservatives and Peelites did attack the Whig foreign policy. Their main charge was against pointless, disruptive, and naive interference, exacerbated by the failure to control ‘the men on the spot’ who were so often, allegedly, hand-picked by Palmerston over the course of his lengthy tenure of the Foreign Office. This theme was developed by Derby in his Don Pacifico speech of 1850;67 Peel combined it with another common conservative position stressing the irony that you cannot advance the cause of liberty by dictating to other nations.68 Later in 1857, both charges became the key factor in forcing Palmerston to call an election when, over China, the government was held responsible for the behaviour of its agents.69 Earlier that year at a crisis meeting, the Conservative Party agreed that foreign policy would be a useful rallying point;70 necessary because, at the same time, Palmerston was able to boast to the Queen of the Conservatives’ evident disunity.71 Events abroad were used by the Conservatives to support their agenda at home. In his ‘defiantly aristocratic’72 Speech, declared when parliament reassembled in February 1852, Derby presented foreign revolution and despotism as a salutary warning of what can happen when the landowning

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class was undermined. This domestic need highlighted the priority of isolating the radicals. Sometimes the Conservatives supported the Whigs against their radical wing. Especially in the late 1840s, Derby, then Lord Stanley, followed Peel’s earlier practice;73 the Conservatives were likewise concerned as to Russell’s vulnerability to radical pressure and, in addition, any premature fall of his government could lead to the return of Peel.74 Moreover, Stanley thought, along with his opponents, that the premature experiment of a protectionist government could lead to a radical revival.75 When radical pressure, now in the guise of Gladstone, later re-emerged, both Derby and Disraeli, in 1860 and 1861, conditionally offered Palmerston ‘substantial support’; in the eventuality that Gladstone were to ‘propose a democratic budget.’76 In 1860, Disraeli also wrote to the Minister of Saxony that ‘our cause is to keep a strong watch over Palmerston and Russell and force them to pursue our foreign policy. For the present we are more useful and powerful in opposition than on the ministerial bench.’77 This assertion demonstrated the paramount need for a firm domestic base in order to carry out a foreign policy. It showed the prevalence of domestic convergence in policy between Whig and Conservative thinking. Finally, Conservative support for Whig domestic policies could also act as a restraint on foreign adventurism particularly when Russell, as opposed to the more conciliatory Clarendon, was Palmerston’s foreign secretary. Governments collapsed in the 1850s due to foreign policy crises. Consequently, a primacy of foreign policy case can be made for the period. Taking the two decades between the repeal of the Corn Laws and the death of Palmerston as a whole, it was a time of tremendous international turbulence that coincided with the domestic disintegration of the British party system. There was a period of political uncertainty, continuing into the early 1860s, with poor party identification and no clear majorities. This framework gave opportunities for either the crown or minorities to exert disproportionate influence, which heightened the perceived need for increased vigilance against enemies both at home and abroad. The leaderships of each main grouping that emerged had serious motives on pushing foreign policy as a priority. For Derby, foreign policy provided the means to appeal to respectable opinion otherwise repelled both by the insurgent origins of his party and the protectionist platform on which it was originally based. In his act of party creation, Derby was assisted by the controversial foreign policy displayed by Palmerston. Consequently, a sub-conscious interaction between the two politicians and their followers developed. Palmerston’s own agenda was to push forward his own bid for leadership. He was unsympathetic to further Reform; however, he also had a Whig belief in the need for public approval of government. To solve this problem, foreign policy provided the means to practice Whig popular government without any radical-enhancing Reform.

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This promising interplay, though, needed the agency of two underlying ‘forces’. It was both a period of economic growth and an era of change internationally. Economic growth, in hindsight, sapped the potency of the radical cause for the moment. More importantly, at the time, were the international changes that arose from the 1848 Revolutions. The immediate change was the emergence of the unpredictable Napoleon III; his ambitions and the central role of France in any British foreign policy calculations would render foreign policy, in any event, more prominent than in the days of King Louis Philippe and Peel’s government. But it was combined also with the departure of Chancellor Metternich. Austria, after his overthrow, ceased to act as the practitioner of ‘deft anonymity by which Metternich had deflected crises.’78 Instead, perhaps shaken by experience of their own 1848 Revolution, the Austrian leaders then embarked on a policy more akin to acting in their ‘national interest’; thereby first disrupting and then ending, the Vienna Settlement, to the fury of Lord Derby.79 In the short-run, Austrian conduct, in particular, enabled Palmerston to capitalise on anti absolutist, anti-Catholic sentiment and supersede both Russell and the Peelites. The Austrian manoeuvres permitted the Crimean War, and her further blundering allowed the Italian Crisis which, in turn enabled the apotheosis of Whig foreign policy in the Italian ‘liberation.’ British politicians, for domestic motives, sought to finesse these events to both preserve party identity and deflect reform. This circumstance enabled foreign policy to assume an unprecedented role in parliamentary debate in general and in government conflict in particular.80 However, from 1862, it was also increasingly apparent that a liberal crusade for liberty in Europe and the ability to brand the Conservative alternative as absolutist was beginning to unravel. Emergent ‘Bismarkian’ power politics took the place of legitimacy. As the Polish crisis of 1863 and Schleswig Holstein in 1864 demonstrated, the ability to carry on a policy for conservative ends by radical means had become impossible.

Notes 1. As demonstrated by the resulting India Bill, which Disraeli could describe as ‘a wise and well digested measure, ripe with the experience of the last 5 months of discussion; but it is only the antechamber of an Imperial palace.’ (1908), Disraeli to the Queen, 24 May 1858, A. Benson, Viscount Esher (eds) (1908) Letters of Queen Victoria: a Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861 [hereafter Letters of Queen Victoria] (London: John Murray), III, p. 215. Dr William Mulligan, Dr J. P. Parry and Professor Brendan Simms commented helpfully on an early draft of this paper. I have also benefited from conversations with Dr David Brown and Dr Geoffrey Hicks. 2. C. Bayly (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell), p. 168.

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3. For the purposes of labelling the Russell and Palmerston Governments (1846– 1852; 1855–1858; 1859–1865) I will term them ‘Whig’ after their leaders. 4. D. Brown (2002) Palmerston and the Politics of Foreign Policy, 1846–1855 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 216; A. Hawkins (2007) The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby: Ascent, 1799–1852 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 5. J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism. English liberalism, National Identity, and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 6. N. Gash (1979) Aristocracy and the People: Britain, 1815–1865 (London: Edward Arnold). 7. G. Hicks (2007) Peace, War, and the Conservative Party (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 218. 8. B. Bailyn (1967) The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 22–54. 9. 3 March 1857, Hansard, vol. CXLIV, p. 1833. 10. J. Parry (1993) The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (London: Yale University Press), pp. 186–191. 11. Queen Victoria, Memorandum, 30 January 1855 (1908), Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 80. 12. D. Hurd (2007) Robert Peel. A Biography (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson), p. 390. 13. Hicks, Peace, War, p. 55; J. Parry (2001), ‘The impact of Napoleon III on British politics, 1851–1880’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Series, XI, 147– 175. 14. Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, p. 316; 2 December 1852, Letters of Queen Victoria, II, p. 492. 15. Hicks, Peace, War, p. 33; 20 December 1858, Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. VI (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), p. 295. 16. R. Blake (1966) Disraeli (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode), p. 335; M. Bentley (1999 edn) Politics Without Democracy, 1815–1914. Perception and Preoccupation in British Government (Malden MA: Blackwell), p. 224. 17. Brown, Palmerston, p. 216. 18. Disraeli to Lady Londonderry, 30 December 1849, Benjamin Disraeli Letters (Toronto: University of Toronto Press) vol. IV, p. 281. 19. Parry, Liberal Government, p. 178. 20. Blake, Disraeli, p. 750; As Disraeli wrote to Sir William Joliffe, ‘the Leader of the House always represents the Foreign Office,’ 24 February 1858, Letters of Disraeli, vol. VI, p. 128. 21. Parry, Patriotism, p. 170. 22. Boyd Hilton (2006), A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? England, 1783–1846 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 565. 23. Hurd, Peel, p. 285. 24. Parry, Patriotism, p. 205. 25. Ibid., p. 225. 26. Ibid., p. 224. 27. 8 July 1864, Hansard, CLXXVI, p. 1283. 28. J. Morley (1903) The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (London: Macmillan), I, p. 120. 29. 8 July 1864, Hansard, CLXXVI, p. 1272. 30. 8 February 1855, Hansard, CXXXVI, p. 1330.

Adrian Brettle 165 31. Queen Victoria, Memorandum, 30 January 1855, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 80. 32. Parry, Patriotism, pp. 209, 227. 33. 1 May 1859, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 330. 34. 19 February 1858, Hansard, CXLVIII, p. 1833. 35. 7 June 1859, Hansard., CLIV, p. 172. 36. R. Stewart (1971) The Politics of Protection: Lord Derby and the Protectionist Party 1841–1852 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 207–208. 37. Bentley, Politics Without Democracy, pp. 147–148. 38. P. Ghosh (1984) ‘Disraelian conservatism: A financial approach’, English Historical Review, IC, 283–284. 39. Hicks, Peace, War, p. 75. 40. Derby to the Queen, 3 February 1859, Letters of Queen Victoria III, p. 315. 41. Derby to the Queen, 21 February 1859, ibid., p. 321. 42. 27 February 1852, Hansard, CXIX, p. 893. 43. 20 May 1859, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 334. 44. Derby to the Queen, 21 February 1859, ibid., p. 321. 45. The Queen to Lord Malmesbury, 22 March 1859, ibid., p. 326. 46. Derby to the Queen, 27 April 1859, ibid., p. 329. 47. Palmerston to the Queen, 23 August 1859, ibid., p. 363. 48. 7, 10 June 1859, Hansard, CXLIV, pp. 172, 376. 49. Derby to the Queen, 2 June 1859, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 334. 50. Hicks, Peace, War, pp. 70–71. 51. Ibid., p. 207. 52. Stewart, Politics of Protection, p. 216. 53. Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, p. 385. 54. 4 July 1864, Hansard, CLXXVI, p. 354. 55. Bentley, Politics Without Democracy, pp. 128–129. 56. Stewart, Politics of Protection, p. 167. 57. Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, p. 308. 58. Memorandum, 30 January 1855, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 80. 59. Lord Stanley, 28 February 1851, quoted in Stewart, Politics of Protection, p. 178. 60. 8 February 1855, Hansard, CXXXVI, p. 1358. 61. Parry, Patriotism, p. 220. 62. 25 July 1852, in G. P. Gooch (ed.) (1925) The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, 1840–1878 (London: Longmans), II, p. 105. 63. Prince Albert, Memorandum, 27 December 1852, Letters of Queen Victoria, II, p. 425. 64. Blake, Disraeli, p. 347. 65. Prince Albert, Memorandum, 22 December 1852, Letters of Queen Victoria, II, p. 421. 66. 27 December 1852, Hansard, CXXIII, p. 1738. 67. Lord Stanley to Disraeli, 22 June 1850, Letters of Disraeli, III, p. 337. 68. Gash, Peel, p. 656. 69. W. C. Costin (1937), Great Britain and China, 1833–1869 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press), p. 219. 70. Hicks, Peace, War, p. 165. 71. Palmerston to the Queen, 13 January 1857, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 226. 72. Hicks, Peace, War, p. 57.

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73. After the 1837 election, Peel several times divided with the Government, in order both to save it from its radicals and also to marginalise his own ultras. 74. Hawkins, Forgotten Prime Minister, pp. 382, 406. 75. Stewart, Politics of Protection, p. 120. 76. Palmerston to the Queen, 27 January 1861, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 334. 77. Disraeli to Count Vitzthum, 17 January 1860, cited in W. F Monypenny, G. E. Buckle (1968 edn), The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (New York: Russell & Russell), p. 317. 78. H. Kissinger (1994) Diplomacy (London: Simon & Schuster), p. 131. 79. Derby to the Queen, 27 April 1859, Letters of Queen Victoria, III, p. 329. 80. Parry, Patriotism, p. 240.

11 Radicalism, Free Trade, and Foreign Policy in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain Anthony Howe

At first sight few events in British history appear so determined by domestic considerations as the gradual introduction of policies of free trade, culminating in the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, itself the outcome of a long struggle between the Anti-Corn Law League and the aristocracy, between Whig and Tory, and not least between Liberal Tory and Protectionist Tory. Such policies have normally been seen as the logical counterpart to Britain’s primacy in industrialisation, determined by the need to export manufactured goods, to feed a growing non-rural population, and to make some concession towards the ascendant power of the ‘cotton lords’.1 Britain’s adoption of free trade appears therefore unpromising terrain in which to demonstrate the primacy of considerations of foreign policy, and seems to conform far more to the view expressed (albeit in a different context) by Churchill, that principles which are affirmed by a nation in domestic politics ‘have always governed, and will always govern, the character and conduct of external affairs’.2 On the other hand, few domestic political issues have had such global ramifications as the adoption of free trade, and it would be unwise on such a genuinely international issue to rule out the importance of foreign policy considerations in domestic decision-making. Adam Smith himself, for example, was quite aware of the geo-political implications of free trade, noting ‘Were all nations to follow the liberal system of free exportation and free importation, the different states into which a great continent was divided, would so far resemble the different provinces of a great empire.’3 Smith’s followers, including Pitt the Younger, were also ready to commend liberal commercial treaties not simply on grounds of maximising wealth but as fostering peace between nations. Typically, William Eden commended the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty of 1786 in the hope that ‘this new Connection of Interests between two great Neighbouring Nations may not only promote their mutual Prosperity & Harmony but may tend 167

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to consolidate & preserve the general Peace of Mankind.’4 This became a standard part of Enlightenment thinking in which ‘jealousy of trade’, the zero-sum approach of mercantilism, would give way to the douceur of commerce, promoting peace between nations. In like vein, among liberal theorists in the mid-nineteenth century, it became commonplace to urge that closer economic ties encouraged peace, while tariffs, bounties, and cartels envenomed international relations; most famously, if misguidedly, Angell was to argue that the interdependence fostered by capitalism made war economically irrational.5 Despite two world wars, the belief that trade fostered friendship between states became the basis of post-war economic planning in the 1940s, and remains an important part of the case for free trade and globalisation in the contemporary world.6 It is therefore in this perspective that this chapter seeks to establish the extent to which Britain’s mid-century adoption and promotion of free trade was influenced not so much by the desire to remedy ‘Condition of England’ by providing cheap bread and increased employment but by considerations of power, peace, and foreign policy. Such considerations fall into two distinct camps. For among those who might be classed as ‘realists’, it has been argued that Britain’s policymakers, typified by the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, sought through the adoption of free trade to assuage growing continental doubts about the selfinterested policies of ‘Perfidious Albion’, and that free trade was part of a strategy of retaining and reshaping British ‘hegemony’ within the world system. However, a different ‘idealist’ perspective dominated the thinking of extra-parliamentary Radicals, above all, that of Richard Cobden, who led the campaign against the Corn Laws but who more positively sought to remake the world order in ways which both contributed to peace and prosperity but also would make domestic reform within Britain more achievable.7 Arguably, for Cobden, the ‘international man’ in the making, free trade was the means to his utopian goal of universal peace, while for Peel, free trade was, as Hilton has argued, simply the best way to protect Britain, the ‘wounded giant’ from the emerging challenge of American and German economic competition.8 Nevertheless, in both ‘idealist’ and ‘realist’ perspectives, contrary to Churchill’s apothegm, the ‘character and conduct of external affairs’ became a key determinant of the principles which were to govern domestic politics. How far we may ask was Peel’s own thinking on the repeal of the Corn Laws influenced by foreign policy considerations?9 Two such concerns were uppermost in the early 1840s, the economic emergence of the Prussian-led Zollverein and the perennial issue of the Canadian–United States border. Firstly, the economic rise of Germany in the form of the ‘Prussian-League’ had worried Palmerston in the 1830s and remained a fear for the Conservatives, particularly if it were to be accompanied by rising external tariffs (that is to say a trade-diverting rather than trade-creating customs union); British attempts to encourage a more liberal Zollverein tariff in the early

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1840s had failed, as had earlier negotiations opened with France.10 On the other hand, encouraging steps towards trade liberalisation had been taken in lesser states such as Naples where the ‘last of the Bourbons’ was delighted to hear that he had been held up as a model of liberal policy by Peel in the House of Commons.11 Against this background, it seemed paramount to Peel that Britain needed to open her own markets in order not only to ensure a plentiful supply of grain in the long-term but also to encourage agrarian specialisation in Germany, forestalling her own industrialisation, and maintaining Britain’s industrial leadership. Hence Friedrich List’s influential critique of free trade as simply a disguise for British interests, and the argument among ‘hegemonic stability’ theorists of international relations that repeal was determined by the needs of Britain within the international system.12 Secondly, an extensive series of commercial negotiations in the early 1840s had proved largely abortive, entailing much frustrating but unproductive diplomatic spadework which particularly incensed the young Gladstone recruited by Peel to the Board of Trade at this time. This experience seems to have galvanised their support for the daringly novel approach to free trade by its unilateral adoption by Britain, but with some expectation that this would provide a model and stimulus for other nations. Hence the critique of repeal articulated by older Tories including Gladstone’s father, that free trade was a rash and dangerous experiment which threatened Britain as a Great Power.13 On the other hand, within the hegemonic framework, it has also been suggested that the Peelite course (in fact, first set out by Huskisson in the 1820s) of economic openness and restraint in military expenditure, rather than the Quadruple Alliance, was the better way for Britain to ensure her own external security.14 This also fully squared with the transition from the ‘fiscal-military’ to the ‘laissez-faire’ state, the smaller but stronger state.15 The chief expectation that such a policy might succeed, however, came not from Naples but from the United States. Britain had been engaged in long negotiations over the North American frontier, which after generations were showing signs of success, with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842 but with the Oregon boundary still unresolved in 1845. Interlinked with this issue was the future course of the United States as an economic power. Here it is clear that the Foreign Secretary Aberdeen was increasingly won over to the free-trade perspective that peace between the United States and Britain should be based on economic interdependence; not only this but in 1845–1846 the United States seemed ready to liberalise its own tariff in response to repeal of the Corn Laws, an illustration of the ‘second face’ of hegemony.16 However American access to the British market entailed a further crucial change in relation to Canada, for in 1843 Peel’s government had given Canadian corn preference in the British market, a policy quite consistent with past Huskissonite tradition, supported by the Colonial Secretary Stanley. But such imperial preference was soon redundant, for it was totally inconsistent with unilateral free trade. This sudden reversal contributed not

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a little to Stanley’s own decision to reject repeal and stand out for protection and preference.17 This reversal in British imperial policy goes largely unnoticed in Peel’s biographies and accounts of repeal, but in a mind as logical and dogmatic as that of Peel repeal of the Corn Laws entailed a prior decision to abandon a structure of imperial regulation which had existed since the seventeenth century in favour of an unprecedented system of unilateral free trade. Implicit too in repeal was not only the dismantling of imperial preference but also the dismantling of the Navigation Acts, which had long protected British shipping.18 The decision to repeal the Corn Laws therefore entailed a new model of British power based on unilateral free trade, economic interdependence, and the reduction of military expenditure. Such a vision easily won Radical assent, for it would in turn undermine the harmful Whig-Palmerstonian interventionist policy, which threatened the balance of power abroad as well as fiscal equilibrium at home. Nevertheless, even if Peel’s thinking, at moments of intensity, acquired a Cobdenite tint,19 its roots, as Hilton has argued, lay in a framework of nationalist, physiocratic ideas, with his conclusions fully fledged before Cobden’s ideas were in the ascendancy among journalists and publicists in the 1840s. Peel’s actions in the 1840s reflected a long-formed mindset dominated by fears of European and American competition. Peel’s adoption of repeal in so far as it was conditioned by external factors was for defensive reasons, to ensure the survival of economic leadership of the ‘wounded giant’.20 Nevertheless, whatever their origin, there is no doubt that Peel’s critics at least identified his ideas with the radicalism of Cobden and the Manchester ‘confederacy’. This was particularly the case for Disraeli whose Life of Lord George Bentinck, published in 1851, had as its leitmotif Peel’s subservience to the ideas of Manchester. Likewise, Peel’s speeches in defence of his policy between 1846 and his death in 1850 make clear his readiness to extend his free-trade principles beyond those of the Huskissonites of the 1820s typified by Sir John Gladstone, in ways which very much identified them with the emerging Cobdenite world-view, emphasising the benefits of free trade in terms of peace, prosperity, imperial re-organisation, and the interdependence of nations. Not only did Peel provide a crucial and far more enthusiastic support than did Palmerston for repealing the Navigation Acts, but he also pointed out ruthlessly the desirability of abandoning past principles of colonial policy, urging economy in expenditure, and mutual reductions in military power across Europe, and rejected entirely the Protectionist critique that free imports could not cut hostile tariffs.21 While admittedly the grounds of Peel’s public defence of his policies may well have deviated from his private reasons for embarking on them, in the ‘public mind’, Peel was seen to endorse the ‘liberal’ content of free trade.22 Even if he was deluding himself, Cobden believed ‘He [Peel] has become fanatical in his devotion to our principles. We can scarcely feel too strongly the obligation we are under to him; for without his help we could not have

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obtained a full measure of justice in 1846, or have kept it now.’23 Even so the primary determinant of Peel’s actions after 1846 was less dogmatic support for Cobden than fear of the reversal of his policies through the return of a Protectionist ministry: as he wrote to Graham, ‘I am disposed to think that Palmerston and his foreign policy are less to be dreaded than Stanley and a new Corn Law.’24 In harnessing Peel to ‘our principles’ Cobden had particularly in mind the moral support Peel offered to Cobden’s attempts to reduce government expenditure, especially on armaments, as Cobden campaigned strongly for a return to 1835 levels of expenditure. By 1848, the ‘struggle against armaments’ had become for Cobden ‘the real free trade battle’25 and helps reveal the extent to which Cobden, the politician most associated with the campaign against the Corn Laws on domestic grounds of excessive prices, limited exports opportunities, and aristocratic injustice to the ‘people’, had in fact been first drawn into opposition to the Corn Laws as a result of his Radical views on foreign policy, expressed in his first published writings, the tracts England, Ireland, and America in 1835 and Russia in 1836.26 These were based on an extreme distrust of Palmerstonian interventionist diplomacy and on Cobden’s attempt to demythologise the balance of power as a tool by which the governing classes misled the British people, while enabling the aristocracy to sustain its own power within the army, foreign office, civil service, and empire. Discussion of the Corn Laws came only as an afterthought in England, Ireland, and America, in which Cobden was primarily concerned with Russophobia and the Eastern Question, arguing in favour of non-intervention (‘no foreign politics’), urging that Britain’s future should be determined by the needs of her commercial people, who stood ready to displace the aristocracy; in particular he saw no danger to Britain in the expansion of Russia at the expense of the Ottoman empire, which he saw as backward, anti-commercial, and corrupt. A foreign policy based on interventionism abroad was for Cobden synonymous with a large standing army, an oppressive national debt, heavy taxation, and the persistence of colonies; the Corn Laws in this perspective were themselves merely a by-product of systemic aristocratic domination whose roots lay in the successful pursuit of world power by Britain’s aristocracy since the seventeenth century. But without an aggressive and expensive foreign policy, the case for the Corn Laws themselves was much reduced. Cobden, like Peel, was also aware of the incentive the Corn Laws provided for early industrialisation abroad, and he strongly believed that their re-imposition in 1815 had restrained Britain’s economic growth while promoting that of America, Germany, and others. Cobden’s participation in the anti-Corn Law movement followed immediately on a tour of Europe which had underlined the extent of industrial competition Britain was likely to face, especially from the Zollverein, whose potential had also been brought before the Manchester mercantile community by the commercial diplomat Bowring.27 Cobden,

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the anti-Corn Law crusader, set out not simply to win ‘cheap bread’ but to reverse the distortions to the British polity which stemmed from the engrained supremacy of foreign policy in the shaping of early Victorian Britain. In promoting repeal of the Corn Laws, and emerging at the head of the Anti-Corn Law League, Cobden, unlike many who joined the League for reasons of profits, and class pride, was arguably driven primarily by his vision of an alternative foreign policy, seeking in particular to reverse ‘the Colonial policy of Europe, the chief source of wars for the last 150 years’, as he wrote to Ashworth.28 But as well as the abandonment of colonies, the ‘Cobdenite’ project envisaged the removal of all tariff barriers between nations and the rapid reduction of armaments expenditure. This vision led him into increasingly close contact with the peace movement, and there is no doubt that repeal was welcomed by a distinct minority of its middle-class supporters as a step towards universal peace.29 In addition, the propaganda of the League contained its own foreign policy, emphasising, for example, the possibilities of peaceful exchange between nations, including opening up the American grain market.30 Following the repeal of the Corn Laws, it was in order to propagate this vision that Cobden undertook his own form of ideological diplomacy, in an extended tour of Europe designed to promote not simply the economic benefits of free markets but their benefits in the interests of liberal state-building in Italy, and more generally in encouraging states to promote prosperity rather than warfare and armaments.31 Cobden himself moved seamlessly from the campaign against the Corn Laws to become the foremost peace activist in Europe, campaigning not only in Britain but participating prominently in the international peace movement.32 The primacy of foreign policy among his concerns became obvious on his return from Europe in 1847 when he urged resistance to the growing French invasion scare. Resuming the direction of his arguments in the 1830s, Cobden now concentrated his political vision on the degree to which Palmerstonian foreign policy continued to frustrate the reconstruction of the British state in the direction that free trade had pointed, towards low tariffs, low expenditure on arms, and non-intervention abroad, the small ‘Manchesterian state’, which still commends itself to some theorists of globalisation.33 The obstacle to the success of such a vision, however, lay, at least in Cobden’s eyes, in the primacy of his own bête noire, Palmerston.34 Contrary to the aspirations of Radicals and Peelites, the reassertion of Palmerstonian foreign policy after 1846 emptied out the Radical content of free trade in terms of foreign policy and simply appropriated its idioms as part of a reinforcement of Britain’s international position. Hence in Cobden’s eyes, not only the Don Pacifico affair in 1850 but the series of war/invasion scares from 1846 to 1860 were the means by which the interests of the aristocracy were embedded in popular xenophobia, and by which the foreign policy concerns of the elite were allowed to

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dominate the domestic agenda to the exclusion of radical reform. It now became a fixed point in Cobden’s thinking that Britain had been responsible for the wars of 1793–1815, wars of intervention against democracy and liberty, and emblematic of the use of foreign policy by the British aristocracy to reinforce its power at home. The primacy of Palmerstonian policy entailed for Cobden the continued exploitation of war scares to justify armaments expenditure (and aristocratic sinecures), continued use of the Royal Navy against the slave trade in South America, the readiness to embrace imperial adventurism abroad, especially that of Sir James Brooke in Borneo, and most worryingly, the continued expansion of British power in India under Dalhousie.35 It was in this context that Cobden the Radical saw some merits in the restraint implied by a ‘Country’ foreign policy which he briefly detected in Lord Aberdeen in 1853, while he was also ready to join the Conservatives in their critique of Britain’s India policy. Ironically, however, Cobden’s ‘Radical’ foreign policy did not commend itself to the large number of traditionally minded Radicals who responded enthusiastically to Palmerston’s and Russell’s politics of patriotism, the defence of British liberties against threats such as those of ‘Napoleon the Little’ and the Papacy.36 This fracturing of the forces of radicalism was made plain by 1852, leaving Cobden an isolated figure with only a small group (15–25) of reliable supporters in Parliament. The Whig manipulation of foreign policy between 1846 and 1852 had, in Cobden’s eyes, successfully vitiated the potential benefits of repeal in 1846 in terms of both international relations and domestic reform, while the Crimean War served only to consolidate the ascendancy of Palmerston.37 That ascendancy itself served to differentiate two understandings of ‘free trade’ itself, especially in the context of the expansion of British trade in the Far East. For Palmerston, and for officials at the periphery such as Bowring, free trade meant simply the opening of markets and the ‘duty’ of Britain to ensure that such markets were kept open and secure, even at the cost of military intervention; trade was itself part of Britain’s providential mission in the world, and its civilising effects were to be defended against pirates, obstructive ‘foreign officials’, and misguided native rulers.38 Yet for Cobden, it was a contradiction in terms to pursue ‘free’ trade by means of force, for his understanding of ‘free’ implied the growth of trade willingly undertaken as part of a mutual civilising process; this differed essentially from ‘free’ merely in the sense of ‘open’, even by force of arms. This tension was made most apparent in the case of the well-known ‘Arrow’ incident of 1857, when Cobden’s opposition to Palmerstonian intervention led not only to his electoral defeat (and that of the wider ‘Manchester School’) but also to the forfeiture of much support in the country as the erstwhile supporters of the Anti-Corn Law League endorsed the Palmernstonian combination of free imports at home and the forced extension of trade abroad.39 Interestingly, it was in order in part to deflect commercial attention from the East

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that Cobdenite free traders were keen to refocus attention on what were seen as the far superior economic, and less morally damaging, possibilities of European trade, above all, that with France. The potential ramifications of free trade for Britain’s position in Europe were at times glimpsed before and after the Crimean War,40 but it was only in the context of a further anti-French war scare in 1859–1860 that the resumption of Anglo-French commercial negotiations which had stuttered and stalled since the 1830s opened up the opportunity to exploit the potential of free trade in not only rebuilding Anglo-French trade but also reconstructing Europe as a common market interlinked by commercial treaties, conceived more broadly in liberal vocabulary as peace bonds between nations.41 The Anglo-French Commercial Treaty successfully negotiated by Cobden and Chevalier in 1860 paved the way for a series of interlocking treaties negotiated by France and Britain on a most-favoured nation basis which, however mistakenly, were conceived as enhancing not only prosperity but peace in Europe. The ‘forward school’ in foreign policy now looked forward to the coming of customs congresses as alternatives to diplomatic ones, and such a future would have permitted the ruthless cutting of government expenditure, the removal of the tax burdens on the British people, and arguably the whole set of reforms that Cobden had envisaged in the 1830s in terms of a small central state and the primacy of entrepreneurial values within British political culture.42 Taken to its fullest extent (although only after Cobden’s death in 1865) this became identified with the idea of ‘Little England’, interlinking free trade, non-intervention, and opposition to the extension of the British Empire in contradistinction to those, including some erstwhile Cobdenites like Sir Edward Watkin, who favoured free imports, and extension of the empire but opposed further commercial treaties.43 Nevertheless, the opportunity for negotiating the 1860 treaty arose less from any desire to reshape the British polity or to recreate Europe as a customs union than for more traditional goals. In some ways the 1860 treaty resumed the logic of repeal44 and now completed the free trade edifice but in ways which benefited Britain and reinforced its dominance of Europe by means of this ‘entente commerciale’.45 Hence the growing neo-Listian suspicion in Germany voiced by a new generation of historical economists that free trade was ‘the garb of a philanthropic cosmopolitanism’ designed to ‘cloak the special interests of England’, the means by which she hindered the rise of European powers up the ladder of civilisation.46 However, we need also to recall that the treaty was negotiated under Palmerston’s premiership, that it came at a time of growing tension between Britain and France in Europe, especially over Italy and that in the eyes of Russell and others arguably its main merits were in defusing Anglo-French tension.47 Cobden himself believed its primary recommendation was not economic but in securing peace between England and France, the effect ‘it would produce in the present most unsatisfactory & dangerous relations of the two Countries.

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I know of nothing which would be so calculated to allay excitement & calm suspicion, both in England & in Germany, as a bold measure of Commercial reform emanating from the French Emperor.’48 At the same time Cobden hoped through the treaty to inject renewed impetus into liberal policies of economy and reform, redirecting the ‘almost Tory’ course of Palmerston’s government. The problem for the Radical vision of free trade was however that the 1860 treaty was not considered by the majority of the Liberal government as the first step towards the reconstruction of Europe. The treaty was followed by a series of commercial treaties and by the 1864 Select Committee on Foreign Trade, part of a brief attempt to put trade at the centre of diplomacy;49 the far-sighted Sir Louis Mallet even promoted the idea of a customs congress to decide the tariff laws of Europe and enshrine them in its ‘Public Law’.50 But in 1865 Radical ideas on the primacy of trade were sidelined by the creation of the subordinate Commercial Department within the Foreign Office while the outbreak of Austro-Prussian War in 1866 rapidly disabused the commercial optimists of their wilder pacific ambitions. Even so, the promotion of commercial treaties as part of Britain’s world mission was still advanced as a goal of diplomacy, and Britain was keen to renew the Anglo-French Treaty in 1872–1873. It was in this context that the Radicals’ ‘Little England’ project engaged public attention, and, in the view of The Times, enjoyed broad public support, at least in its opposition to the extension of empire.51 But even under the Liberal government of 1868–1874, the Radicals were disappointed by Gladstone’s reluctance to endorse their schemes, for example, for a new Anglo-German Commercial Treaty, while on the Liberals’ return to office in 1880, Gladstone, it seemed, hankered after the simplicity of the 1840s unilateralism, and sought to free Britain from the toils of commercial diplomacy.52 The idea of the European customs union survived in the Foreign Office and had interestingly had resurfaced under the Conservatives in the 1870s,53 but the economics of free trade as an imperative in British foreign policy was increasingly to fall victim to the revival of the Eastern Question and the ‘swing to the East’ signalled by intervention in Egypt in 1882. In this context, the former leading free-trade diplomat Mallet was to argue that Britain, if it were to remain a competitive economy, enjoying freedom and civilisation, needed to avoid at all costs wars of expansion, ‘a kind of fatality which is driving this country, like other historical empires to its ruin’. He saw Britain faced with the stark choice ‘Cobden & Internationalism vs Realpolitik & Imperialism’.54 By 1882 with intervention in Egypt and the failure to renew the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty, the future seemed clearly one in which Britain would pursue an active imperial policy, whatever its costs, as the Cobdenites saw them, in terms of material, moral, and political progress. In terms of free trade diplomacy, success now came mostly at the periphery, Montenegro (1882), Korea (1883), and Spain and Greece (1886).

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The Gladstonian turn in foreign policy therefore put clear limits on the degree to which Britain would seek to exercise its ‘free trade hegemony’ in order to maximise its gains to trade by the threat of retaliation, while the growing fiscal needs of the imperial British state pre-empted the Radical cutting-down of the state which the free traders sought through their budgetary policy, including the free breakfast table and the reduction of wine and other duties. Such a policy, they believed, would help sustain the network of commercial treaties developed in the 1860s, and reduce the revenue-raising capacity of the tariffs which were by the 1880s widely resorted to in order to boost the military plans of the Great Powers of Europe. Yet, however much Gladstone might lament the connection between militarism and protection in later nineteenth-century Europe, he believed it was beyond the capacity of the British state to break the chains of continental protection and wrest the initiative from its architects, Bismarck, Méline, and Luzzatti. Likewise, even Lord Salisbury was unready to see Britain as any more than a spectator as Europe entered ‘an age of a war of tariffs’.55 Hence, even within the later Cabinets of Gladstone the Cobdenite view of free trade and non-intervention as the basis of foreign policy only ever gained minority support, too easily written off as that of a now despised ‘Little England’ and ‘peace at any price’ philosophy.56 The wider ramifications of British world power ruled out further ‘dangerous’ Cobdenite experiments, while the primacy of Palmerstonian ‘interventionism’, Disraelian ‘adventurism’, and the Gladstonian pursuit of ‘morality in foreign policy’ put clear limits on the reduction of government expenditure to which Peelites and Radicals had looked forward. By the 1890s when the term ‘Little England’ was most in vogue, it was above all a term of opprobrium, ‘the idle talk of a dwindling remnant of an obsolete school of Radicals’,57 with its exemplars Gladstone, Harcourt, Morley, and Labouchère swimming against the imperial tide ridden by Chamberlain, Rosebery, and Rhodes. While therefore, the Radical pursuit of free trade stalled, it remains true that ‘free trade’ in the more general sense of the pursuit of open markets remained central to British foreign policy before 1914 and beyond. This had important implications both for the conduct of foreign policy and for the nature of the British state. Firstly, with regard to foreign policy, the primacy of free trade meant that while other countries in Europe were able to use the threat of retaliation to negotiate commercial treaties, Britain’s free-trade selfdenying ordinance removed the ‘big revolver’ from her commercial armoury. British policymakers remained wholly resistant to a world view in which states acted as if trade were a zero-sum game between rival nations and groups of producers. Secondly, it meant that the British state by and large did not step in to help her traders by way of bounties, subsidies, and favourable transport rates, all considered distortions of the benefits of free exchange. Thirdly, it meant that British markets remained open equally to all countries, such that Britain was seen to provide a public good for the world. As

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Eyre Crowe was to put it in his famous secret memorandum of 1907, ‘in proportion as England champions the principle of the largest measure of general freedom of commerce, she undoubtedly strengthens her hold on the interested friendship of other nations, at least to the extent of making them feel less apprehensive of naval supremacy in the hands of a free trade England than they would in the face of a predominant protectionist Power.’58 In the domestic sphere, the persistence of ‘free trade’ as a key component of British foreign policy, albeit in an attenuated form in Cobdenite eyes, retained important implications. Firstly, as Trentmann has recently stressed, Britain was par excellence the ‘Free Trade Nation’. This meant that by and large, public opinion and civil society supported a world view in which tariffs were linked to militarism and war, whereas free trade was naturally aligned with peaceful cooperation, consumer welfare, and the interdependence of nations.59 Secondly, the implications of free trade in the international sphere ruled out alternative prescriptions for the British state, above all, it ruled out, for all its strength and elaboration in public discourse, the idea of ‘Greater Britain’ for which ‘Fair Traders’ strove repeatedly from the 1870s to the 1900s.60 However much imperial federationists sought the active reconstruction of the empire, the notion of an imperial Zollverein remained outside the possibilities of Britain’s free-trade political tradition. On the one hand, ‘free trade’, therefore, unlike other leading nineteenthcentury issues such as taxation or social policy, was inherently Janus-faced as a policy, relating both to domestic and international spheres. In the benchmark ‘event’ in the introduction of free trade in Britain, the repeal of the Corn Laws, foreign policy concerns were arguably far more important than often acknowledged, providing at least the permissive basis for repeal. But thereafter, it is also the case that Britain’s international position prescribed very tight limits within which the wider expectations of the Radical free traders were able to influence domestic policy, while those who had prioritised the foreign policy of free trade were by the 1870s were reduced to the position of doom-mongers, berating Gladstone for ‘the entire ruin of our international policy’, and in some case already looking to the United States to begin a more beneficial exercise of economic hegemony. On the other hand, ‘free trade’, the pursuit of open markets, had become part and parcel of the substance of British foreign policy, a goal from which it was rarely to diverge in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Notes 1. C. Schonhardt-Bailey (2006) From the Corn Laws to Free Trade (Cambridge, MA, London: MIT 2006). 2. Memorandum on devolution, 24 February 1911, cited H. J. Hanham (1969) (ed.) The Nineteenth-Century Constitution, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 131. 3. Wealth of Nations (London, 1904), II, p. 131.

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4. To Robert Liston, 27 Sept. 1786, cited G. Bannerman and C. Schonhardt-Bailey (2008) (eds) The Advent of Free Trade, 1776–1846 (London: Pickering & Chatto), p. 56. 5. E. Silberner (1946) The Problem of War in nineteenth-century Economic Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press); F. H. Hinsley (1963) Power and the Pursuit of Peace (London: Cambridge); D. Long and P. Wilson (1995) (eds) Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 6. E. F. Penrose (1953) Economic Planning for the Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press); D. Irwin (2000) Free Trade under Fire (Princeton: Princeton University Press). 7. P. Cain (1979) ‘Capitalism, war, and internationalism in the thought of Richard Cobden’, British Journal of International Studies, V, 229–247. 8. B. Hilton (2006) A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People: England, 1783–1846 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 543–558. 9. For the thinking of his followers, the most thorough recent explanation allows little if any scope for considerations of foreign policy, Schonhardt-Bailey, From the Corn Laws to Free Trade. 10. Bannerman and Schonhardt-Bailey, Advent, I, 237–280; N. M. Gordon (1969) ‘Britain and the Zollverein iron duties, 1842–5’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., XXII, 75–87; J. R. Davis (1997) Britain and the German Zollverein, 1848–66 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); D. Todd (2008) L’Identité Économique de la France: Libre-Échange et Protectionnisme, 1814–1851 (Paris: B. Grasset), pp. 183–201. 11. Richard to Frederick Cobden, 25 March 1847, A. Howe (ed.) (2007) The Letters of Richard Cobden. 1815–1847 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), I, p. 472. 12. F. List (1844) The National System of Political Economy (1st Eng. ed. London, 1885); J. L. Austin, ‘List on the principles of German customs-union: dangers of British industry and commerce’, Edinburgh Review (July 1842), 515–556; P. O’Brien and A. Clesse (2002) Two Hegemonies (Aldershot: Ashgate). 13. A. Howe (1997) Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 1, 11. 14. R. E. Pahre (1997) ‘British hegemony and the repeal of the corn laws’ in C. Schonhardt-Bailey (ed.) The Rise of Free Trade (London: Routledge), IV, pp. 481–502. 15. P. Harling and P. Mandler (1993) ‘From “fiscal-military” state to laissez-faire state’, 1760–1850, Journal of British Studies, XXXII, 44–70. 16. S. C. James and D. A. Lake (1989) ‘The second face of hegemony: Britain’s repeal of the corn laws and America’s Walker tariff of 1846’, International Organization, XLIII, 1–30; F. Merk (1967) The Oregon Question (Cambridge MA: Belknap), pp. 317–318. 17. A. Hawkins (2007) The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby, Ascent, 1799–1851 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 18. S. Palmer (1990) Politics, Shipping, and the Repeal of the Navigation Laws (Manchester: Manchester University Press). 19. See Peel’s address to the citizens of Elbing (then in West Prussia), 1846, cited Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England, p. 11. 20. A Mad, Bad & Dangerous People?, pp. 555–558. 21. e. g. Hansard 3rd series, IC c. 664 (9 June 1848); c. 1363 (29 June 1848). 22. D. Read (1987) Peel and the Victorians (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 255–259. 23. To Ashworth, 10 July 1849, BL, Add. MS 43653, fos. 121–123.

Anthony Howe 179 24. 3 April 1850, C. S. Parker (1891–1899) Sir Robert Peel (3 vols, London: John Murray), III, p. 536. Interestingly, A. J. P. Taylor (1957; 1985) believed that ‘Peel and the Peelites became the strictest adherents of Cobden’, The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792–1939 (London: Penguin), p. 55. 25. Cobden to G. Wilson, 17 January 1848, Wilson Papers, Manchester Central Library. 26. Introduction, Letters of Richard Cobden, xxxvi–xxxix. 27. Letters, pp. 137–146; J. R. Davis (ed.) (2007) Richard Cobden’s German Diaries (Munich: K. G. Saur). 28. 12 April 1842, Letters, p. 267. 29. A. Tyrrell (1978) ‘Making the millennium: the mid-nineteenth century peace movement’, Historical Journal, XXI, 75–95. 30. R. F. Spall, Jr. (1988) ‘Free trade, foreign relations, and the Anti-Corn Law League’. International History Review, X, 405–432; S. J. Morgan (2009) ‘The Anti-Corn Law League and British Anti-Slavery in transatlantic perspective, 1838–1846’, Historical Journal, LII, 87–107. 31. M. Taylor (ed.) (1993) The European Diaries of Richard Cobden, 1846–1849 (Aldershot: Ashgate); Letters, pp. 453–494. 32. M. Ceadel (1996) The Origins of War Prevention (Oxford: Oxford University Press); idem (2006) ‘Cobden and Peace’ in A. Howe and S. Morgan (eds) Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 189–207; D. Nicholls (1991) ‘Richard Cobden and the International Peace Congress Movement, 1848–1853’, Journal of British Studies XXX, 351–76; L. J. Carter (1970) ‘The Development of Cobden’s Thought on International Relations, particularly with reference to his role in the mid-nineteenth-century Peace Movement’ (University of Cambridge PhD. thesis). 33. P. Hammarlund (2005) Liberal internationalism and the decline of the state: the thought of Richard Cobden, David Mitrany, and Kenichi Ohmae (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); A. Howe (2007) ‘Free trade and global order: the rise and fall of a victorian vision’ in D. Bell (ed.) Victorian Visions of Global Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 26–46. 34. A. Howe (2007) ‘Two faces of British power: Cobden versus Palmerston’ in D. Brown and M. Taylor (eds) Palmerston Essays (2 vols, Southampton: Hartley Institute), II, pp. 168–192. 35. A. Howe (ed.) The Letters of Richard Cobden. Vol. 2. 1848–1853 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 36. M. Taylor (1994) The Decline of Radicalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press); J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); see too J. Bew’s chapter in this volume for the support of Ulster Presbyterians for Palmerston’s ‘manly’, ‘Protestant’ interventionist foreign policy. 37. D. Brown (2002) Palmerston and the politics of foreign policy, 1846–55 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). 38. D. Todd (2008) ‘John Bowring and the global dissemination of free trade’, Historical Journal, LI, 373–397. 39. Taylor, Decline of Radicalism, pp. 269–279; V. A. C. Gatrell (1972) ‘The Commercial Middle Class in Manchester, c. 1820–1857’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge). 40. For example the suggestion that the peace of Paris in 1856 should include a declaration in favour of free trade in food and raw materials, Howe, Free trade, 102.

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41. A. L. Dunham (1930) The Anglo-French treaty of commerce of 1860 and the progress of the industrial revolution in France (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Publications); Howe, Free trade and Liberal England, 92–105; P. T. Marsh 1999) Bargaining on Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press); J. V. C. Nye (2007) War, Wine, and Taxes (Princeton: Princeton University Press). 42. G. Searle (1993) Entrepreneurial Politics in mid-Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 43. R. Gott, ‘Little Englanders’, and E. H. H. Green and M. Taylor (1989) ‘Further thoughts on little England’ in R. Samuel (ed.) Patriotism Volume 1 History and Politics (London: Routledge), pp. 90–102, 103–109, both neglect the period 1865–1876. 44. Nye, iconoclastically, considers ‘the 1860s the true starting point for British free trade in the nineteenth century’, War, Wine, and Taxes, p.104. 45. G. Metzler (1997) Großbritannien: Weltmacht in Europa. Britische Handelspolitik im Wandel des europäischen Staatensystems 1856–1871 (Berlin: Akademie). 46. C. J. Fuchs (1905: orig. German 1893) The Trade Policy of Great Britain and her Colonies since 1860 (London: Macmillan), p. 18. 47. See especially A. A. Iliasu (1971) ‘The Cobden-Chevalier commercial treaty of 1860’, Historical Journal, XXIV, 67–98. 48. Cobden to Russell, 23 December 1859, BL, Add. MS 38080, fos. 124–127. 49. See especially, J. W. T. Gaston (1982) ‘Trade and the late Victorian Foreign Office’, International History Review, IV, 317–338; Howe, Free trade, 105. 50. Memorandum, ‘Commercial treaty with Austria’ (1866) printed in G. Bannerman, A. Howe (2008) (eds) The Consolidation of Free Trade, 1847–1878 (Vol. 2, Battles over Free Trade, 1776–2006 ed. M. Duckenfield), pp. 196–206. 51. Times (6 November 1872), 9d. 52. D. Winch (2009) Wealth and Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 181–182; Howe, Free trade, pp. 175–185; Marsh, Bargaining on Europe, pp. 124–147. 53. J. W. T. Gaston (1987) ‘The free trade diplomacy debate and the Victorian European Common Market’, Canadian Journal of History, XXII, 59–82. 54. Howe, Free trade, pp. 173–174. 55. Times (19 May 1892), 10b. 56. M. Ceadel (2006) ‘Gladstone and a liberal theory of international relations’ in P. Ghosh, L. Goldman, Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 74–94. 57. Times (1 March 1894), 9c. 58. K. Bourne (1970) The Foreign Policy of Victorian Britain, 1830–1902 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 482. 59. F. Trentmann (2008) Free Trade Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 60. Howe, Free trade, pp. 213–222; D. Bell (2007) The Idea of Greater Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

12 Gladstone and the Primacy of Foreign Policy William Mulligan

At first glance the association of Gladstone’s Liberal party and the primacy of foreign policy appear far-fetched. His governments were best known for their domestic political preoccupations, notably Ireland, finance, and political reform. The legislative achievements of his first government were among the greatest of the nineteenth century, while the divisions between Whigs and Radicals dominated the second government. In opposition, they criticised Disraeli’s government for diverting attention from domestic affairs by an aggressive foreign policy. His principles of foreign policy, set out in the Midlothian campaign, eschewed power politics in favour of the multilateral, rules-based system, the Concert of Europe, the promotion of freedom, the consolidation of the empire by economy at home and just legislation in the colonies, and the preservation of peace.1 The rejection of power politics was designed to reduce expenditure and allow more devotion to the Liberals’ domestic political aims. The collapse of his third government during the Home Rule crisis of 1886 and the subsequent split in the party seem to have underlined the primacy of domestic politics in the history of Gladstonian Liberalism. A rich historiography has examined the rise and fall of the Liberal party between the Reform Act of 1867 and the Home Rule crisis of 1886 within the framework of domestic political and social change. Historians of high politics such as John Vincent argue that Liberal politics can be understood as the interplay of an elite, seeking power and position. Principles were taken up to serve personal ambition and the content of policy was largely irrelevant. The split over Home Rule was rooted in the contest for office. Others have concentrated on the social bases of Liberal support. Taking a long-term perspective, the emergence of the working class made the Liberal position untenable. While the ultimate demise of the Liberal party did not take place until after the First World War and the electoral reforms of 1918, the Conservatives and Liberals were already divided on social lines by the 1885 election. The changing role of the state and the expectations of the electorate for further social legislation, instead of political reform, made Gladstone’s brand 181

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of liberalism increasingly irrelevant. The expansion of the state and vastly increased expenditure were promoted by New Liberals, who had broken with the tenets of mid-nineteenth-century Liberalism. The diversity of the Liberal party has been scrutinised. On this reading, the Liberal party was a coalition of interests, made up of the Celtic fringe, ‘faddists’, Radicals, Whigs, and Liberals. It proved difficult to make this coalition coherent. Choosing one issue, which was emblematic of wider Liberal concerns, helped to give unity to the disparate party. Yet these single issues – franchise reform or Home Rule, for example – also strained and ultimately split the party. Finally, accounts have located Gladstone’s Liberal party in the radical nineteenth-century principles of peace, retrenchment, and reform.2 Nonetheless, foreign policy intruded constantly onto the agenda of Liberal politics. From the late 1860s to the mid-1880s, Liberal governments had to deal with German unification, the revival of Russian power in central Asia and Europe, the consolidation of the United States in the western hemisphere, and the intensification of imperial competition between the Great Powers. In spite of his declaration during the Midlothian campaign, Gladstone’s second government ended up occupying Egypt, fighting in the Sudan, disentangling itself from Afghanistan and South Africa, and meeting the Russian challenge in central Asia. In opposition, Liberal politics was dominated not only by questions of foreign policy, notably the Eastern crisis, but also by criticisms of the Conservative government’s policy in Afghanistan and South Africa. Not only did foreign policy issues dominate the political agenda, but the character of foreign policy changed after 1870. Power politics and the assertion of national interest were vindicated by Prussia’s victory over France in 1870–1871. The Liberal Cobdenite alternative of free trade, which had promised to replace military rivalries between the Great Powers, with commercial interaction, had received a major blow. Gladstone therefore had to come to terms with an international environment that had become increasingly unfavourable for the promotion of his views of foreign policy. There have been numerous studies of foreign policy in the era of Gladstone and Disraeli, many of which pay little attention to the interaction of foreign and domestic politics.3 These assume that foreign policy was dictated largely by the exigencies of the international system, with little concern for domestic political repercussions. A second group develop the opposite argument, namely that foreign policy was shaped largely by domestic political considerations, such as electoral advantage or domestic economic interests.4 In recent years, historians have paid more attention to the central place of foreign affairs in domestic political debate. Miles Taylor points to the importance of European politics in the Radical politics after 1848.5 Eugenio Biagini has examined the intellectual antecedents of imperialism in the 1880s.6 Jon Parry has written the most sustained account of Liberalism and foreign policy in the nineteenth century. He never ascribes

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any primacy to foreign policy, examining instead the interweaving of foreign and domestic policy. In particular, he shows how Gladstone’s first two governments ran into difficulties in the foreign policy arena and how Home Rule, which destroyed his third government, was part of a debate about imperial power.7 Foreign policy shaped the history of Gladstonian liberalism between the 1860s and the 1880s. Gladstone favoured a primacy of domestic politics, which would benefit his party and coincided with his political inclinations. ‘You think generally, and I think’, he declared in his Third Midlothian speech, ‘that your domestic affairs are quite enough to call to your attention. . . . Unfortunately instead of being never heard of [foreign affairs] are always heard of, and you hear of almost nothing else; and I can’t promise you, gentlemen, that you will be relieved from this everlasting din, because the consequences of unwise meddling with foreign affairs are consequences that will for some time necessarily continue to trouble you, and they will find their way to your pockets in the shape of increased taxation.’8 Gladstone never succeeded in softening the din; instead, it overwhelmed his governments. Four hypotheses require analysis. First, foreign policy was largely made in response to the pressures of the international system, with a view to preserving British interests. Domestic considerations were secondary, although statesmen needed to justify their foreign policies to a domestic political audience. Second, foreign policy was regarded as the most important area of government. It was a preoccupation, dominating cabinet, parliament, and the public sphere. Third, major areas of domestic political debate were shaped by foreign policy concerns, notably finance, Ireland, constitutional reform, and party politics. Finally, Gladstonian Liberalism found it difficult to adjust to the international environment after 1870. The attacks on his foreign policy record, often associated with his failure to save Gordon at Khartoum, had much deeper roots in Britain’s policy in the Franco-Prussian war. It is significant that foreign policy concerns threw his first two governments into disarray, that Home Rule, seen as an imperial issue, split the Liberal party, and that he resigned as Prime Minister for the final in 1894 over naval estimates.

∗ Gladstone’s foreign policy was the product of the structures of and events in the international system, the application of his principles, and cabinet debate. The making of foreign policy was much less influenced by public opinion and party advantage, as Swartz has suggested, nor was it the product of gentlemanly capitalism, as Cain and Hopkins have argued, especially in relation to the occupation of Egypt.9 It is difficult to find instances where public concerns influenced a certain course of action. To the extent that there was manipulation of public opinion, it came after the government had

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made a decision. A whole series of events and crises testify to the unpopularity of Gladstone’s foreign policy. In the early 1870s, public opinion considered British policy during the Franco-Prussian War and the Russian revocation of the Black Sea clauses weak. The concessions made to the United States during the negotiations and arbitration of the Alabama dispute were condemned.10 The initial popularity of the occupation of Egypt was soon followed by attacks on the government’s dithering, culminating in the disastrous and failed rescue of Gordon in Khartoum. Gladstone’s foreign policy was generally reactive. He had no ambitions to expand the empire or to play an active role in the European balance of power. ‘I am one of those’, he told Ripon, the Viceroy in India, ‘who think that to the actual, as distinguished from the reputed strength of the Empire, India adds nothing’.11 If anything he wanted to reduce Britain’s commitment overseas, drawing back from the guarantee Disraeli’s government had given the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor. He was more interested in policy processes than aims as his interest in international law, arbitration, the Concert of Europe, and free trade testified. In 1870, he was prepared to concede Russian demands over the Black Sea as long as the decision was ratified by an international conference. The maintenance of the Concert of Europe, in order to implement the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, exercised his Foreign Secretary, Granville, throughout 1880 and 1881. Process could mitigate international rivalries, sustain peace, and spread civilisation in an orderly manner. Taming the international system was also a condition of continued domestic reform. His principles of foreign policy were subordinated to domestic politics. On the domestic scene, franchise reform and low expenditure would anchor foreign policy in the virtue of the people, promoting peace and commercial development. Gladstone’s foreign policy stood in a radical tradition, which stretched back to the late eighteenth century and whose major achievement was the dismantling of the fiscal-military state in the first half of the nineteenth century.12 The successes of this tradition had depended on the international structures and rules established in 1814 and 1815, British global hegemony, and the discrediting of war as an instrument of Great Power rivalry.13 These conditions had been eroded, especially after 1848, but it was only in 1870s that it affected British domestic politics.

∗ The primacy of foreign policy presupposes that it is the major preoccupation of a political system, outweighing other subjects in importance and shunting domestic political concerns from the centre stage. If foreign policy concerns make only ephemeral appearances on the political agenda, leaving little trace once the immediate crisis or issue has been resolved, then it plays at most a marginal role in shaping domestic politics. Foreign policy was a major preoccupation of political elites in mid-Victorian Britain. A perusal of

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diaries, kept by leading figures in Liberal governments, such as Hamilton, Kimberley, Dilke, and Ripon shows the space which they devoted to foreign and imperial policy. Admittedly they occupied posts, which had significant foreign policy duties, but even out of government, they retained a close interest in foreign affairs. On the other hand, the diary of John Trelawney, the backbench Liberal MP, was generally dominated by domestic issues.14 Foreign policy occupied a prominent position in electoral addresses. They were amongst the first issues voters would see. In assessing electoral results, contemporaries paid close attention to foreign policy concerns. Although the Edinburgh Review approved of some aspects of Gladstone’s foreign policy, it concluded that the country had voted against the ‘foreign policy of the Manchester school’ in 1874.15 Collections of speeches by backbench MPs also give prominent place to foreign affairs. These included orations to their constituents when parliament was out of session, suggesting that ordinary voters and party activists were interested in the major issues of Great Power politics.16 Domestic affairs could be overwhelmed by foreign policy debate. The thorny subject of education was marginalised by the Franco-Prussian war and its consequences. Derby told Halifax in December 1870 that military organisation ‘is all the country cares about’. Halifax relayed this to Gladstone: ‘Everybody I see is intent on army matters.’17 During the Eastern Crisis, the Conservative Home Secretary, Richard Cross, complained to Derby: ‘naturally enough, so much of our time has been taken up with Foreign Affairs that the House of Commons troubles sometimes are in danger of being passed over.’18 Referring to the County Government Bill, Brand noted, in February 1878, that ‘the H[ouse] is comparatively indifferent about domestic questions, its attention being fixed on Eastern affairs.’19 Hamer’s biography of Morley and Marsh’s of Chamberlain show how two radical politicians, whose initial preoccupations were with political and social reform, turned their minds towards foreign and imperial policy in the late 1870s and early 1880s, due in large part to the Eastern crisis and the occupation of Egypt.20 Foreign policy was seen as the highest arena, in which a statesman could operate. It remained the primary concern of governments because of the potential repercussions on domestic politics and national security. Radical Liberals were aware that mistakes in foreign policy could be costly and difficult to rectify. When Charles Dilke entered the cabinet in December 1882, his fellow radical, George Otto Trevelyan wrote to him: ‘your familiarity with foreign affairs will at once enable you to enter into what is, I suppose, much the most interesting province of cabinet work. The views of what is really the enormous majority of the party will now be strongly enough represented to make us pretty sure of not having a catastrophe of the only description which is fatal; for the secession of Forster and the Duke of Argyll prove that we can survive a catastrophe of the other sort.’21 Samuel Laing, also a radical,

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writing on franchise reform, argued that foreign policy ‘is by far the most important element of practical statesmanship. It makes Budgets, regulates finance and taxation, and involves, at every turn, questions of national security and prosperity. In home politics, if we make a mistake we find it out and correct it; if we reject reforms one year, we pass them the next. But mistakes in foreign policy rarely admit of corrections and often involve evils reaching into the future.’22

∗ Laing’s contention that foreign policy concerns formed budgets is a classic statement of the primacy of foreign policy. Domestic politics were, to some extent, shaped by foreign policy concerns. Of course, major areas of domestic policy were largely divorced from foreign policy in this period, such as the Contagious Diseases Act, education, and religious policy. But important areas of domestic policy were influenced by foreign policy considerations in ways, which have been ignored or underestimated by historians of British domestic political history. Franchise reform, political economy, and Ireland were three of the most important issues facing the Liberal party under Gladstone. The Liberals were closely associated with constitutional reform and economy, or retrenchment, while Gladstone’s Irish policy had united the party in 1868. Moreover disputes over the substance of foreign policy divided the Liberals and Conservatives, and indeed affected the internal balance of power within the parties. The widening of the franchise was at the fore of political debate in the 1860s and 1880s, as the stability of the constitution depended on its ability to accommodate social change. The debate about reform was primarily about the virtue, or lack of it, within the working classes. The vote was a privilege to be earned, rather than a natural right. In the view of some Liberals, sections of the working class had earned that privilege, though others, most notoriously Robert Lowe, disagreed. The manoeuvring over the various reform bills introduced in 1866 and 1867 centred on setting the franchise. Parties also sought electoral advantage from the new arrangements. Advocates of a wider franchise were aware that the voter was responsible not only for domestic policy, but also for foreign policy. Ted Bromund has alluded to the imperial concerns of members of the Proportional Representation Society, who feared the 1884 Reform Act would divide the nation into classes and weaken the empire.23 Reformers had to respond to the kind of argument put forward by Sir Stafford Northcote in 1884 that ‘much depends on composition of parliament, even beyond these Islands. . . . to govern a great Empire like this by a purely popular vote is a difficult matter and requires great care. How England has grown more Imperial and less imperialistic than other nations. Due to the constitution.’24 Foreign policy was traditionally the preserve of the nobility. As Bagehot put it: ‘Nations touch

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at their summits.’ He deployed the conventional argument that aristocrats knew more about foreign states and were less afflicted by ‘the territorial sectarianism which calls itself patriotism’. Yet in the same section, he also noted that the ‘British Empire is a miscellaneous aggregate, and each bit of the aggregate brings its business to the House of Commons. It is India one day and Jamaica the next, then again China and then Schleswig-Holstein.’25 A wider franchise might make foreign policy subject to popular politics. Reformers turned the question of foreign policy to their advantage, criticising the ‘unmanly’ policy of the 1860s and arguing that the people had a truer sense of the national interest than the upper classes, whose direction of foreign policy was dictated by their own sectional aims. The weakness of foreign policy in the 1860s and the disaster of the Crimean war the previous decade were recruited as arguments in favour of reform. In a collection of essays supporting reform in 1867, most authors dealt with the foreign policy dimension. ‘History . . . records the same testimony for the warning alike of conquering races and governing classes’, wrote George Brodrick, a liberal intellectual. ‘It is not degeneracy, moral or physical, that directly causes the fall of empires and the decay of institutions, but the consequent failure of that insight into the present and that foresight into the future which inspired their original founders. If the stability of our own Constitution has been the marvel of modern times, it is chiefly because it has grown with the growth, strengthened with the strength and expanded with the expansive energies of the English people.’ Imperial strength required a wider franchise.26 R. H. Hutton argued that the ‘artisan class’ was the only one in Britain, which could judge impartially the national interest, not only of Britain, but also of other states.27 Leslie Stephen attacked landowners for being ‘distinctly opposed to all the great causes which have lately attracted the sympathy of European intelligence’.28 The widening of the electorate did not necessarily act as a restraint on foreign policy. For a start, foreign policy remained firmly in the hands of the executive. But popular sentiment was not opposed to an expansionist policy and never reined in the exuberance of government, as reformers expected. By September 1884, Kimberley lamented that the ‘jingo spirit . . . is taking hold of our party as well as the Tories.’29 Finance was considered another means of anchoring foreign policy in the peaceful waters of domestic control. The progressive reduction of debt and military and naval expenditure was a feature of the nineteenth-century state. Economy became an end in itself for Gladstone. He pinned his political reputation on it, to the extent that he took over as Chancellor from Robert Lowe in 1873 and retained the post in his 1880 government. ‘Finance’, noted Edward Hamilton on 24 April 1880, ‘is to be given a foremost place in the programme of the new ministry’.30 Gladstone’s condemnation of Disraeli’s foreign policy had successfully linked irresponsible imperialism with rising expenditure and reduced prosperity.31 While Disraeli favoured lower

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taxation, policy dictated expenditure, whereas Gladstone sought to reverse the relationship, as it provided a useful discipline on government. However the trend of lower defence expenditure had already come to an end in the 1870s with supplementary budgets in 1870 and 1878 to deal with crises arising out of the Franco-Prussian War and the Eastern crisis. Defence expenditure continued to rise throughout the 1880s due to the occupation of Egypt and the consequent campaign in the Sudan. At the end of the decade, the Naval Defence Act established the two power standard, aimed at France and Russia. Gladstone was unable to rein in defence expenditure. Foreign policy was not restrained by economy; instead, it began to upset the balance of the Victorian fiscal state. As Northcote told Disraeli in January 1879: ‘What I can venture to do in finance must depend on what our prospects are abroad.’32 Gladstone devoted much of his efforts to restraining military expenditure, despite the fact that it rose more slowly than civil expenditure (Tables 12.1 and Tables 12.2). John Bright criticised the increased military expenditure in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war as a ‘blunder of a dangerous if not fatal character’.33 Even in the years of plenty, when the budget showed a surplus Table 12.1

Expenditure in millions, 1865–1890

Year

Total

Debt

Army

Navy

Civil

1865 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1890

67.1 75.5 67.1 67.8 69.9 68.8 74.6 73 74.7 75.7 79.6 82.8 81.5 80.6 83.3 87.1 85.4 88.5 92.2 90.6

26.4 26.6 27.1 26.8 26.8 26.8 26.7 27.1 27.2 27.4 27.6 28 28.1 29.2 29.4 29.5 29.1 29 23.5 24.5

15 15.5 12.1 12.1 14.7 13.8 13.5 14 14.2 14.5 14.3 16.9 15 14.7 15.7 15.1 16.1 18.6 17 17.4

10.9 11.4 9.4 9 9.5 9.3 10.1 10.5 10.8 11 10.8 11.8 10.2 10.5 10.6 10.3 10.7 11.4 12.7 15.3

10.2 12 11 12 12.2 11.8 12.7 13.6 14.8 14.9 15.6 16.6 16.9 17.4 18 18.9 18.7 19 19.2 19.3

Army expenditure rose 43 per cent from 1870–1890 Naval expenditure rose 38.5 per cent from 1870–1890 Civil expenditure rose 75 per cent from 1870–1890

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Table 12.2 Army, naval, and civil expenditure as % of total government expenditure Year

Army

Naval

Civil

1870 1890

18 19

14 17

16 21

in the early 1870s, the concern over military expenditure was striking. ‘The army and navy expenditure’, Welby wrote to Gladstone, ‘give at first sight the impression that the expenditure is excessive’.34 With his government in tatters in early 1874, Gladstone pinned his hopes on the abolition of income tax. Cardwell’s military policy stood in the way of Gladstone’s ‘economy’. The twain could not be reconciled, precipitating the calling of a general election.35 On his return to government in 1880, Gladstone tried to disentangle himself from the previous government’s policies in South Africa and Afghanistan, partly as a means of reducing spending. In September 1881, Welby argued that the ‘heavy’ expenditure of the early part of the year was due to the conflict in the Transvaal: ‘We may hope to have seen the worst of it.’36 But unfortunately events kept getting in the way. In 1882, the British occupation of Egypt led to massive outlays. ‘I am rather alarmed’, Welby wrote, ‘at the rate at which expenditure is progressing, and I cannot say that my fears are removed by the explanations of the War Office and Admiralty’.37 In 1883, the Chancellor, Hugh Childers, blamed the wars of the Conservative government as well as the Liberal one for the increased budget.38 Gladstone’s desire for economy led to foreign policy vacillation, deepened the rifts within the cabinet, and was doomed by the persistence and intensification of great power rivalry. He opposed plans to rescue Gordon on the basis of cost, before giving way in the face of Lord Hartington’s threat to resign. ‘The public are perfectly ignorant’, wrote Kimberley, ‘of the pertinacity with which he opposes all plans for our military or naval power. He is really the sole obstacle & I admire his financial consistency; but his objection to expenditure of all kinds are carried to an extent, mischievous to the public interest.’39 Imperial and defence spending led to a ‘severe row’ in January 1884.40 Of course, rows between the Treasury and spending departments could be read as a sign of a healthy bureaucratic balance. Yet in Gladstone’s governments it resulted from a more fundamental disagreement over the relationship between finance and foreign policy. Gladstone fought a losing battle to subordinate foreign policy to economy, admitting, in 1883, that the public was less interested in economy than it had been in 1870.41 Since the formation of his first government, Ireland had an important place on the British political agenda. In 1886, Ireland and the Home Rule bill split the Liberals. The debate gained much of its purchase from its relationship to concerns about empire, which far outweighed the fate of

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the Ulster Protestant minority or the issue of national autonomy.42 Liberals who broke with Gladstone couched their argument in strategic and imperial terms. They feared that Ireland, in the words of Goschen, would become ‘a separate nation planted on our flanks’. Arthur Elliott considered particularism and Home Rule to be against the spirit of the age, which required larger territorial units.43 Albert Venn Dicey, one of the leading liberal intellectuals to break with Gladstone, argued that ‘the whole tendency of modern civilization flows towards the creation of great States; national unity is, so to speak, the watchword of the age; this is scarcely a reason for breaking up the United Kingdom.’44 Members of Gladstone’s cabinet devoted considerable effort to rebutting the charge that Home Rule meant imperial disintegration and a further decline of Britain’s Great Power status. Maintaining foreign and defence policy in London secured the empire, while reducing the time devoted to Irish affairs would allow more concentration on imperial concerns.45 ‘The true spirit of empire lies in this’, Rosebery claimed, ‘that every part of it should be contented and ruled so far as may be by its own representatives, consistent with that imperial unity, which is as dear to us as any of our opponents’.46 Gladstone claimed that Home Rule would strengthen the empire ‘on the basis of mutual benefit and hearty loyalty’.47 By shifting the debate on to the imperial terrain, opponents of Home Rule weakened Gladstone. It confirmed the feeling that Gladstone could not be trusted with the empire and foreign policy. No other vibrant great power was ceding territory or autonomy to its regions. Many of those who broke with Gladstone over Home Rule had attacked his foreign policy either from within or outside the cabinet. For instance, Hartington and Chamberlain, so often opposed on domestic political issues, had pushed for a more assertive policy in Egypt and Sudan. John Morley supported Home Rule and opposed the occupation of Egypt. The relationship between divisions on Home Rule and foreign policy was, of course, not cast iron. Kimberley and Rosebery had doubts about Gladstone’s handling of foreign policy issues, but stayed within his cabinet. Older radical Liberals, such as Peter Rylands and John Bright, had opposed the government over the occupation of Egypt and now opposed Home Rule. Nonetheless, Lubenow’s study of voting patterns in the House of Commons in 1886 shows a close correlation between opinions on Home Rule and foreign policy. The explanation for this lies in the fact that they were seen as two sides of the same coin.48 The sharpening of party conflict after the Second Reform Act, historians have argued, was the result of a broader electorate and the development of party organisation. Policy differences were also an important element in the clash of parties. While domestic issues, particularly Radical hobby horses such as education and franchise reform, were contentious, foreign policy differences were central to party conflict. Of course, there were elements in both parties who shared broadly similar views on foreign policy, such as Hartington, Rosebery, Salisbury, and Derby, who migrated from the Conservatives

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to the Liberals before becoming a Liberal Unionist. But they were overshadowed, as sharp lines were drawn between the parties over a succession of issues, from the fall-out of the Franco-Prussian war through the Eastern crisis and imperial wars of the late 1870s to the disarray of British policy in the 1880s, reflected in Egypt and the Sudan. The personalisation of foreign policy debates in the rivalry of Disraeli and Gladstone hardened the positions of the parties. Electoral repercussions were a consideration, but in general party leaders took their public stance on the basis of their reading of the national interest. The chronology of party conflict bears out the significance of foreign policy. The Conservatives began to attack the Liberal government in a sustained fashion for the first time during the Franco-Prussian war. After the Liberals left office, party politics were calm for almost 2 years, until rows over the purchase of the Suez Canal Company shares and slavery policy in late 1875. Although these rows died down by the spring of 1876, the Bulgarian atrocities agitation fuelled antagonism. In 1877, when Chamberlain launched the National Liberal Federation, Gladstone gave the key speech on the Eastern crisis. His criticisms of Disraeli’s foreign policy provided an ideological cloak for Liberal party organisation. In the early 1880s, as the Conservatives licked their wounds, the Liberals’ divisions on Ireland and Egypt were increasingly evident. When the Conservatives returned to more aggressive opposition in 1883 and 1884, franchise reform was an important catalyst, but it was part of a wider attack on Gladstone’s neglect of the national interest, or as Salisbury put it, his role in the disintegration of the country: ‘The dangers we have to fear may roughly be summed up in the single word – disintegration. It is the end to which we are being driven, alike by the defective working of our political machinery, and by the public temper of the time. It menaces us in the most subtle and in the most glaring forms – in the loss of large branches and links of our Empire, and in the slow estrangement of the classes which make up the nation to whom the Empire belongs.’49 This line of attack was increasingly effective, especially after Home Rule combined the twin nightmares of internal disintegration and imperial dismemberment. Gladstone’s handling of foreign policy had not inspired confidence in either his colleagues or the country at large since the 1870 war, a critical failing given its importance in domestic debate. J. M. Ludlow wrote of the ‘Liberal cabinet as having practically foundered in the continental storm’.50 ‘I am more than ever convinced’, noted Kimberley after the debacle over the Alabama arbitration, ‘that Gladstone cannot safely guide the foreign relations of this country. With great difficulty the majority of the Cabinet have hitherto controlled him, but our course and above all our tone in foreign questions has been very unsatisfactory. . . . there is a deep feeling of distrust of the government as regards foreign affairs; and even when we are right, we manage to leave an impression of vacillation and trucking.’51 Brand praised Gladstone’s speech, following the bombardment of Alexandria: ‘I cease to

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have misgivings as to his efficiency as a Minister directing a war.’52 But this implied previous doubts and they were revived over the next few years, as the Liberal government lurched from one crisis to another in Egypt. Foreign policy disputes eroded the cohesion of the Liberal party, notably during the Eastern crisis when most of the front bench considered Gladstone’s opposition dangerously ‘blind to the disastrous effects’ of his outspoken criticism of Disraeli’s policy.53 The same could be said of the Conservatives, given the resignations of Derby and Carnarvon in 1878. That foreign policy issues provoked resignations or threats of resignation, the ultima ratio of a minister, is striking. John Bright resigned twice, over British policy during the Franco-Prussian War and the occupation of Egypt. Before the latter, Hartington told Granville that the government ‘is in more imminent danger of being broken up than it has ever been’, as he and others urged action against Arabi, even without international backing.54 Although the invasion of Egypt was popular in the short-term, especially after the rapid victory at Tel el-Kebir, party leaders recognised that it sowed the seeds of potential division between the Radicals and the rest of the party.55 International isolation, the imbroglio of Sudan, and the preservation of imperial security pulled the threads of party cohesion apart.

∗ Foreign policy was largely shaped independently of domestic political considerations, it was the major preoccupation of political elites, and it had an impact on important areas of domestic politics. This raises the issue of whether the decline of Gladstonian Liberalism had roots in the changing international system after 1870. At the heart of Gladstone’s liberalism were peace, retrenchment, and reform, the watchwords of British radicals from the late eighteenth century. They argued that the wars pursued by Britain benefitted the aristocratic elite. Reforming the system meant preventing war and restraining the ability of the state to conduct an aggressive foreign policy. Two means of doing so were to widen the franchise, incorporating voters who were instinctively opposed to war and to reduce income and expenditure, which might be wasted on war. The subordination of foreign to domestic policy was a Radical ambition. In practice, this was never fully achieved. However, the decades of peace after 1815, which were dependent on the equilibrium achieved in Vienna and the restraint of other states, equally nervous about the consequences of an aggressive foreign policy, provided the space, within which the reduction of state expenditure and reform could take place.56 The international bases of reform were undermined in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions and the Crimean War. Great Power military conflict was renewed, but after the disappointment of the Crimean War, Britain stood aside from geopolitical shifts on the continent, due to a perception that Britain’s global interests would be unaffected and that her

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military weakness would not allow her to have a significant role. The war of 1870 exposed the idea that European and global politics could be divided into neatly separated spheres, as Russia and the United States were the beneficiaries of British concessions in the wake of the collapse of French power. In short, peace and retrenchment had been on borrowed time since 1848. After 1870, a more assertive national policy was in vogue. Although military conflict between the mass conscript armies of the Great Powers was redundant after 1870, rivalries moved onto a global scale. The empire reinforced Britain’s influence in Europe, but it also required defence and increased expenditure. Gladstone tried to rein in expenses and succeeded in making some savings and increasing efficiency. But in general, his policy of economy was at odds with the prevailing concerns of imperial assertion. By the mid-1880s, economy had been consigned to history. Reform continued, at least in terms of widening the franchise. But the new electorate was not necessarily as devoted to peace as Gladstone and older radicals had assumed. The defence of empire was exciting and foreign policy became an important electoral concern. Another central reform issue, the stabilisation of Ireland, became bound up with foreign policy. In an era of expanding Great Powers, the concession of Home Rule to Ireland seemed to indicate British decline. The strengthening of empire would preserve Britain’s global pre-eminence or at least enable her to compete with the future world powers, the United States, Russia, and possibly Germany. While federation appeared a good means of tying the settler colonies to Britain, in Ireland’s case, it signalled a loosening of the imperial bond. The decline of the Liberal party, both in its Gladstonian and early twentieth-century incarnation has often been ascribed to structural changes in society and economy, which left it exposed to class politics, polarised between the Conservative and Labour parties. Nineteenth-century liberalism was never a purely domestic project, either in Britain or elsewhere. Liberals engaged with foreign affairs because they recognised the relationship between the domestic and international system. Gladstone was unable to resolve this relationship, at least in a politically viable manner. Liberalism, however, did have the intellectual resources to renew itself, both in domestic and foreign policy as the achievements of the Liberal government after 1906 demonstrated. Yet however much they venerated the Grand Old Man, they had departed from his concerns and that departure owed much to the pressures of the international system.

Notes 1. W. E. Gladstone (1971) in M. Foot (ed.) Midlothian speeches, 1879 (Leicester: Leicester University Press), pp. 114–129. 2. A. Cooke and J. Vincent (1974) The Governing Passion. Cabinet Government and Party Politics in Britain, 1885–6 (Brighton: Harvester); E. Biagini (1992) Liberty,

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3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Gladstone and the Primacy of Foreign Policy Retrenchment, and Reform. Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); T. Jenkins (1996) Parliament, Party, and Politics in Victorian Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press). W. N. Medlicott (1956) Bismarck, Gladstone, and the Concert of Europe (London: Athlone Press); R. Millman (1979) Britain and the Eastern Question, 1875–8 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). M. Swartz (1985) The Politics of British Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone (London: Palgrave Macmillan). M. Taylor (1995) The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 190–191. E. Biagini (2006) ‘Radicalism and liberty’, in P. Mandler (ed.) Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 101, 113–123. J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism. English Liberalism, National Identity, and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–10, 276–277, 373–386. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches, p. 114. Swartz, Politics of Foreign Policy, p. 5, 25–38; P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins (1992) British Imperialism. Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914 (London: Longman). Parry, Patriotism, pp. 282–290. Gladstone to Ripon, 24 November 1881, BL, Add MS 43515, fo. 5. P. Harling (2001) The Modern British State. An Historical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity), pp. 71–77. P. Schroeder (1994) The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Winfried Baumgart (1999) Europäisches Konzert und nationale Bewegung. Internationale Beziehungen, 1830–1878 (Paderborn: Schöningh). T. A. Jenkins (ed.) (1994) The Parliamentary Diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1868–1873 (London: Royal Historical Society). ‘The past and future of the Whig party’, Edinburgh Review, April 1874, p. 562; G. Brodrick (1879) Political Studies (London: Kegan Paul), p. 205. G. Rylands (ed.) (1899) Correspondence and Speeches of Mr Peter Rylands MP, 2 vols (Manchester: Heywood); E. Rowland Jones (ed.) (1885) The Life and Speeches of Joseph Cowen M.P. (London: Sampson Low). Halifax to Gladstone, 23 December 1870, 8 January 1871, BL, Add MS 44185, fos. 177, 123–124. Cross to Derby, 23 October 1877, Liverpool Record Office, Derby papers, 920 Der (15), 16/2/5. Diary entry, 18 February 1878, Brand diary, House of Commons Archive, BRA/2/8. P. T. Marsh (1994) Joseph Chamberlain. Entrepreneur in Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press); D. A. Hamer (1968) John Morley. Liberal Intellectual in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon). Trevelyan to Dilke, 26 December 1882, BL, Add MS 43895, fos. 61–62. S. Laing (1884) Rational Radicalism (London: Chapman & Hall), reprinted from Fortnightly Review, p. 8. T. Bromund (2001) ‘Uniting the whole people: proportional representation in Great Britain, 1884–5, reconsidered’, Historical Research, LXXIV, 77–94. Notes, BL, Add MS 50060, fo. 4; J. D. Mayne (1884) The Coming Reform (London: Chapman & Hall), p. 3. Walter Bagehot (1974 [1867]) In Norman St-John Stevas (ed.) The English Constitution (London: Dennis Dobson), pp. 275–287.

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26. G. Brodrick (1867) ‘The utilitarian argument against reform as stated by Mr Lowe’, in Essays on Reform (London), p. 25. 27. R. H. Hutton (1867) ‘The political character of the working class’, in ibid., pp. 33–37. 28. L. Stephen (1867) ‘On the choice of representatives by popular constituencies’, in ibid., p. 87. 29. Kimberley to Ripon, 24 September 1884, in J. Powell (ed.) (1996) Liberal by Principle. The Politics of John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley, 1843–1902 (London: Historians’ Press), p. 171; Seymour to Gladstone, 11 June 1884, BL, Add MS 44299, fos. 289–296. 30. D. W. R. Bahlman (1971) The Diary of Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, 1880–1885 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), I, p. 2. 31. Gladstone to Rosebery, 14 November 1879, NLS, MS 10022, fos. 33–34; Gladstone, Midlothian speeches. 32. Northcote to Disraeli, 9 January 1879, BL, Add MS 50018, fos. 129–130. 33. Bright to Granville, 29 May 1871, TNA, Granville papers, PRO 30/29/52. 34. Welby to Gladstone, 7 March 1874, BL, Add MS 44338, fos. 43–46. 35. Granville to Cardwell, 11 January 1874, TNA, Granville papers, PRO 30/29/28, fos. 48–49. 36. Welby to Gladstone, 21 September 1881, BL, Add MS 44338, fo. 124. 37. Welby to Gladstone, 9 September 1882, ibid., fos. 220–221. 38. H. Childers, The Budget, speech, 5 April 1883, reprinted by Liberal Central Association. 39. A. Hawkins and J. Powell (1997) The Journal of John Wodehouse, First Earl of Kimberley, 1862–1902 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 350. 40. Diary entry, 24 January 1884, BL, Add MS 43925, fo. 79. 41. W. E. Gladstone, National Expenditure, reprinted by Liberal Central Association, from House of Commons speech, 6 April 1883, p. 4. 42. Home Rule. A Reprint from The Times of Recent Articles and Letters (1886) 2 vols (London: G. E. Wright). 43. A. Elliott (1911) The Life of George Joachim Goschen, 1831–1907 (London: Longmans), II, pp. 48, 68. 44. A. V. Dicey (1886) England’s Case Against Home Rule (London: John Murray), p. 66. 45. Gladstone to Hartington, 17 December 1885, BL, Add MS 43891, fos. 101–104; Kimberley to Grant Duff, 9 April 1886, Liberal by Principle, pp. 184–185. 46. Rosebery to Munro-Ferguson, 4 May 1886, NLS, MS 10017, fo. 23. 47. W. E. Gladstone, Address to the Electors of Midlothian, 1 May 1886, pp. 7–8. 48. W. C. Lubenow (1988) Parliamentary Politics and the Home Rule Crisis: The British House of Commons in 1886 (Oxford: Clarendon). 49. Lord Salisbury, ‘Disintegration’, in Quarterly Review, October 1883, reprinted in P. Smith (ed.) (1972) Lord Salisbury on Politics. A Selection from His Articles in the Quarterly Review (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 342. 50. J. M. Ludlow, ‘The Reconstitution of England’, Contemporary Review, March 1871, p. 506. 51. Diary entry, 20 June 1872, 7 January 1885, Journal of Wodehouse, pp. 269, 351. 52. Diary entry, House of Commons, BRA/2/12. 53. Diary entry, 28 April 1877, Journal of Wodehouse, p. 301; Hartington to Granville, 26 November 1876, TNA, PRO 30/29/22A/2; R. Shannon (1963) Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation, 1876 (London: Thomas Nelson).

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54. Hartington to Granville, 20 June 1882, TNA, PRO 30/29/132; Dilke’s diary entries, 15, 17 June 1882, BL, Add MS 43925, fo. 1. 55. Chamberlain to Dilke, 19 October 1882, BL, Add MS 43885, fo. 259; Kimberley to Ripon, January 1883, Liberal by Principle, p. 161. 56. P. Harling and P. Mandler (1993) ‘From “Fiscal-Military” state to laissez faire state’, Journal of British Studies, XXXII, 66–70.

13 Imagined Spaces: Nation, State, and Territory in the British Colonial Empire, 1860–1914 Duncan Bell

The old colonial system is gone. But in its place no clear and reasoned system has been adopted. The wrong theory is given up, but what is the right theory? There is only one alternative. If the colonies are not, in the old phrase, possessions of England, then they must be part of England; and we must adopt this view in earnest. J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures (1883) During the late Victorian age, and deep into the twentieth century, a fierce debate raged among members of the British political and intellectual elite over the future of the empire.1 Could it be adapted to new economic, social, and political circumstances? What form should it take? Fear about the future was generated by concern over both the domestic consequences of democratic reform and about Britain’s precarious geopolitical position. Britain’s status as a global power was at stake. Democratic reforms, first in 1867 and then more radically in 1884, reshaped the political landscape. Large numbers of the (male) population were enfranchised, while socialism became an ever more popular and vocal force. For many advocates of empire, these developments were dangerous as the mass public was thought to harbour anti-imperial sentiments. The problem was reinforced by various geopolitical trends, and above all the rise of three main competitor states. First, post-unification Germany was well on the way to becoming the dominant power on the continent, and it appeared keen to flex its muscles on the global stage. Second, Russia was seen as a major threat to the British Empire in India, and thus to British power globally. And finally, the post-civil war dynamism of the United States challenged British economic dominance. It also emerged as a formidable geopolitical competitor as it embarked on its own foreign imperial adventures in the 1890s. Finally, to make matters worse, during the closing decades of the century Britain suffered a prolonged 197

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and severe economic depression.2 The country seemed to be weakening at the very moment when its hegemonic position was being challenged. The dynamics between ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ were mutually reinforcing; they signalled a vicious circle, a precipitate decline. What could be done? One of the main answers proposed to address the crisis of imperial confidence was to unite Britain with its scattered settler colonies. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and parts of South Africa could be fused together into a vast political-economic unit, straddling the planet. The movement advocating Greater Britain, as this behemoth was often called, appealed to people across the political spectrum, though they defended it for different reasons. Its supporters ranged from Tory peers, through liberal ‘public moralists’ to assorted socialist leaders, including H. M. Hyndman and Keir Hardie.3 All of them believed that it was essential, for Britain and the wider world, that the colonial empire prosper in an international system defined increasingly by huge omnicompetent political units. Yet they diverged over the ends this unity was supposed to produce, as well as over the means through which to bring about those ends. For radicals, always in the minority, colonial unity would help simultaneously to democratise Britain and the international system as a whole. It would constitute part of a progressive multi-lateral institutional order.4 In the early years of the twentieth century, following the war in South Africa, and against the backdrop of Chamberlain’s tariff reform campaign, radical support for this vision quickly receded, leaving the field dominated (although not exhausted) by conservative intellectuals and politicians.5 The dominant view, however, was that Greater Britain provided a way of securing British power while dampening the threat posed by radicalism. Through a process of systematic emigration, the disruptive, degenerative potential of democracy would be neutralised as ‘excess’ population was channelled from Britain (and in particular from its overcrowded and festering cities) into the huge open spaces of the colonies.6 This movement, it was argued, would simultaneously defuse the dangers of urban radicalism while populating the colonies with individuals who, as a result of a transformation in their natural and cultural environments, would be transmuted into rugged imperial patriots, citizen-subjects of the most powerful polity on earth.7 Do the debates over the future of the colonial empire provide evidence for the primacy of foreign policy thesis? Much here depends on what the thesis is understood to posit, and this is often unclear.8 In this chapter, I address a related issue, exploring how fin de siècle British imperialist intellectuals reworked one of the key assumptions underpinning most versions of the primacy of foreign policy thesis. This is the idea that it is possible to identify – either ontologically or analytically – a strict distinction between the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’. I focus on two related issues: the imagined globalisation of domestic politics and the emergence of ideas about the existence of a planetary public. In the minds of many imperialists, the boundaries

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between the domestic and the foreign were fluid and changeable. In short, they argued for an account of the ‘domestic’ – or Innenpolitik – as a space that stretched across the face of the earth, encompassing the vast settler colonies. This was often characterised in terms of a global British nation-state – a political-cultural whole, bound by a strong sense of identity and belonging – and it implied a novel conception of a ‘translocal’ public sphere. Thus Julius Vogel, a leading New Zealand politician, objected to the view that the colonies were ‘foreign’ territories; they were instead, he argued in 1877, ‘part of a mighty nation’.9 The advocates of Greater Britain sought to collapse the neat distinction between domestic and colonial, home and abroad, while simultaneously emphasising the important differences between the settler colonies and the rest of the empire. I am not suggesting that this novel line of argument led in any straightforward way to a transformation of government policy. Rather, I focus on how and why a group of well-placed individuals located at the heart of the imperial metrople sought to shift attitudes, to transform political consciousness, in order to redirect public policy. They were what contemporary theorists of international politics call ‘norm-entrepreneurs’.10 Through argument and political mobilisation, they were seeking to alter the terms of the debate and to institute a new vision of global political order.

∗ For most Victorian imperialists the primacy of foreign policy was an object of desire rather than a description of political reality. The idea that foreign (or imperial) policy dominated British political discourse or government activity would have struck them as bizarre. While British society and politics was partially constituted through the imperial encounter, most advocates of empire thought that foreign and imperial affairs failed to register sufficiently in British elite consciousness, let alone the wider public. It was a commonplace lament during the period that domestic affairs, however trivial, took priority in all but the most momentous times in national history. Wars, such as the South African War, could occasionally stir the populace from its myopic slumber, at least if they were intoxicating or exotic enough, but little else did. Whether accurate or not, it was routinely argued that both the public and the political elite downplayed or ignored the importance of international affairs in general, and imperial affairs in particular.11 There was little new in this sense of alienation. In a speech in Westminster in 1833, Thomas Babbington Macaulay complained that: A broken head in Cold Bath Fields produces a greater sensation among us than three pitched battles in India. A few weeks ago we had to decide on a claim brought by an individual against the revenues of India. If it had been an English question the walls would scarcely have held the members

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who would have flocked to the division. It was an Indian question; and we could scarcely, by dint of supplication, make a House.12 His sense of frustration is palpable, and it was widely shared. Imperialists argued that their compatriots typically failed to grasp the precarious nature of British global power, or the roles and responsibilities associated with the possession of empire. Their writings and speeches were peppered with complaints about the failure of imperial interests and ambitions to register sufficiently with either the government or the people. John Stuart Mill was expressing a common grievance when in 1859 he bemoaned the ‘indifference to foreign affairs’ displayed by the public, and when a decade later he castigated the ‘indifference of official people in England about retaining the colonies’.13 Another variation on the theme of indifference concerned the lack of vision displayed by British politicians. In a discussion of George Cornewall Lewis’s ideas about the Suez canal, for example, Walter Bagehot contended that, ‘[t]hose who wish that the foreign affairs of England should be managed according to a far-seeing and elaborate policy will not like such voluntary short-sightedness; but the English people themselves rather like to have the national course fixed by evident, palpable, and temporary circumstances.’14 The British political class, he implied, exhibited a distinct lack of leadership and foresight in foreign and imperial affairs, this absence mirroring the apathy of the people. While the charge of indifference was thought to apply to nearly all aspects of imperial and foreign affairs, it was often argued that the colonial empire suffered the most of all. In an essay published in 1870 the historian J. A. Froude set out the familiar indictment, grumbling that the public was ‘alienated’ from the settler colonies.15 Indifference, it was argued, was leavened with ignorance, a lack of awareness about the nature and value of the empire. Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Royal Colonial Society in 1869 the Marquis of Normanby, an eminent colonial governor, argued that ‘[n]o person who takes an interest in colonial matters can help being struck with the extra-ordinary ignorance that exists in this country in regard to colonial matters.’ At the same meeting, Baillie Cochrane, a Tory M.P. and one of the original leaders of the ‘Young England’ movement, lamented the ‘indifference’ prevalent among the members of the public and the political class.16 Writing in the Quarterly Review in 1870, John Martineau crystallised the frustration of many imperialists when he lambasted the ‘carelessness and indifference with which the English Parliament, reflecting truly the apathy of the public, has treated the magnificent inheritance of our Colonial Empire’.17 Imperial advocates tended to construct the situation as a crisis. They deployed the language of emergency to demonstrate the urgency of the problem, to insist on its immediacy and magnitude.18 Theirs was an imagined cartography of fear and foreboding. This emotive idiom made possible

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the claim that sweeping political change was imperative, that without it the empire, and British power itself, would dissolve. British imperialists had always been haunted by a sense of potential failure, of the fragility of dominance.19 The spectre of Rome hovered over their warnings; the trope of imperial decline and fall was etched into Victorian political consciousness. During the second half of the century, this apprehension of crisis intensified. The Sepoy Rebellion (1857) unsettled many Britons, who were simultaneously astonished at the lack of gratitude displayed by their imperial subjects and transfixed by the brutality of the revenge, the ‘war of no pity’, waged against the rebels.20 The Governor Eyre controversy, focusing on the violent repression of an uprising in Jamaica in 1865, generated a similar set of responses.21 Beset by unrest, populated by millions of potential insurgents, yet essential to British greatness, the empire came to be seen as an arena of perpetual conflict and confrontation. Arguably, from the late 1850s onwards, the British Empire was figured, by many imperialists, as a space of permanent crisis.22 The British colonial empire was both part of the problem and one possible solution to it. The modality of crisis varied between the different forms of imperial connection: for the colonial empire the main fear was not about violence or insurgency, moral corruption or strategic overstretch, but rather about secession, the dissolution of the political bond. Yet if the government acted swiftly and surely to unify the empire, to treat the colonists as full citizen-subjects of a single polity, the colonies would be integrated into a permanent structure of British dominance impervious to the crises afflicting the rest of the empire. There were various ways to address the crisis, to overcome the indifference. The most practical was to mobilise on behalf of an alternative vision of the empire, and during this period numerous pressure groups and campaigning organisations, including the Imperial Federation League (IFL), were established.23 They lobbied hard for the importance of the colonial empire. The politics of knowledge assumed a starring role: indifference to empire, it was often argued, was generated and perpetuated by a lack of relevant information. Schools and universities were failing to equip their students, all future imperial subjects, with an adequate appreciation of the past and present glories of the British Empire. This was one of the main complaints levelled at the British educational system in J. R. Seeley’s best-selling book The Expansion of England.24 It is not a coincidence that the IFL, and cognate organisations, exerted considerable energy in supporting speaker tours, public lectures, and the production and dissemination of educational materials. It was vital, they thought, to shape the public mind, preferably from a young age. The fact that this was thought necessary bears witness to the sense of indifference perceived by the proponents of empire. The Marquis of Lorne, liberal politician, Queen Victoria’s son-in-law and future GovernorGeneral of Canada, argued in a speech to the Royal Geographical Society in 1886 that ‘knowledge and sympathy are essential to the consolidation of the

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empire.’25 This was a commonplace. W. T. Stead, one of the pioneers of the new journalism, went so far as to propose that Seeley be placed in charge of a college dedicated to teaching the glories of the British nation.26 In short, the production of colonial knowledge was an integral element of the project to create a Greater British century. The advocates of Greater Britain claimed some success in reshaping public views of the character and importance of the colonial empire, if not in fully redirecting British policy. But the feeling of indifference lingered. The historian C. P. Lucas, for example, commented in 1890 that while there had been a ‘change in tone and feeling towards the colonies and dependencies’ over the course of the previous decade, a ‘spirit of indifference’ was still pervasive.27 Moreover, the expanding scope of the demos brought forth a new set of worries. The radical thinker Leonard Hobhouse, a leading new liberal and qualified supporter of imperial federation, picked out one of the main concerns, borne of a sense of frustration with the rise of the mass media. The public, he worried, remained poorly informed, with the press acting as a bar to widespread interest in or knowledge about public affairs. Fed an impoverished intellectual diet, they were interested only in reading about battles and sport. ‘In truth, there is not, and cannot at present be, any such thing as an effective popular control of foreign policy. The average man gives little time and much less thought to politics.’28 This message resonated across the political spectrum.

∗ One of the most intriguing elements of the debate over the future of the British Empire was the way in which the imaginative scope of both ‘the people’ and ‘the public’ was reconfigured.29 I am using the idea of ‘the people’ to refer to the extensive set of individuals within a particular polity who are conceived of as bound together by – and thus in some sense as unified through – a range of common characteristics (most commonly ‘race’ or ‘nationality’ or some combination of the two). As such, ‘the people’ is not co-extensive with the totality of individuals falling under the jurisdiction of a particular system of governance, for many of those individuals, including resident aliens, fall outside of the recognised boundaries of community. (Indians, for example, were not regarded as a constitutive element of the British people). But neither is the people co-extensive with ‘the public’; the latter is a subset of the former. The public, as I am employing the term, refers to the set of the people accorded political significance within a particular polity. They are construed as belonging to a distinct and privileged group with at least a notional role in the governance of the polity. This conception is closely linked to the set of the enfranchised, but it is not necessarily reducible to it. During the Victorian era both the size of the public, and the importance accorded to it, expanded considerably. During the

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twentieth century, with the extension of the franchise to include (nearly) all adult men and women, this gap narrowed further, though the two categories are still far from identical.30 One of the most prominent ways in which imperialists in the late nineteenth century attempted to address the ‘crisis’ was by arguing that the very terms in which the trope of indifference was articulated were flawed. The future of the colonial empire was not, they argued, chiefly a problem of foreign or imperial policy; it was instead a problem of domestic British politics. This argument required a significant cognitive shift, the willingness and ability to recognise that the distant and scattered colonies (and colonists) were an integral part of the British polity. As Seeley argued, once this work of imagination was complete, ‘Canada and Australia would be to us as Kent and Cornwall.’31 Even the most common appellation for the unity of the United Kingdom with its settler colonies – Greater Britain – served to signal the seamless continuity between the ‘mother country’ and the colonial diaspora. This represented, then, an argument for the globalisation of domestic politics: the Anglo-Saxon population(s) of the British settler colonies constituted one unified ‘people’, spread across several non-contiguous geographical spaces. This argument was premised on a reorientation in the perception of time and space.32 The links between political identity, territory, and the nation were, it was claimed, challenged fundamentally by new technologies. In particular, the development of transoceanic steam ships and (above all) the construction of a network of telegraph cables had a profound effect on the political imagination.33 The cables, boasted Rudyard Kipling, ‘killed their father Time’.34 This represented a powerful form of techno-utopianism. Routinely exaggerating the capabilities of the new technology, imperial commentators celebrated the ‘annihilation’ of time and space, arguing that this meant that the physical limits to political association had been transcended. Repudiating a long-standing argument about the impossibility of creating strong and enduring political institutions and identities across oceanic distances, advocates of colonial unity argued that a new era had dawned, an era in which nature, previously viewed as immutable, was capable of being reshaped by the powers of human technical ingenuity. Frederick Young, one of the most prolific imperial unionists, wrote that the ‘marvellous and mysterious help of telegraphy’ had ‘worked a veritable revolution in the affairs of the world’.35 W. E. Forster, an influential liberal politician and one-time president of the IFL, argued in a speech in Edinburgh in 1875 that ‘science has brought together the ends of the earth, and made it possible for a nation to have oceans roll between its provinces.’36 He later stated that The inventions of science have overcome the great difficulties of time and space which were thought to make separation almost a necessity, and we now feel that we can look forward, not to the isolated independence of

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England’s children, but to their being united to one another with the mother-country, in a permanent family union.37 This radical shift in the plasticity of nature translated into a moment of political opportunity. The unification of the colonial empire was now both possible and necessary. According to F. P. de Labillière, an ardent proponent of the federal vision, ‘[t]he prospect of a Federal Empire, which five-andtwenty years ago appeared very remote, and which 50 years since seemed almost a chimera, now assumes a pressing and tangible shape.’38 ‘It may be said’, wrote the radical Australian barrister John Edward Jenkins, that at ‘no very distant date steam communication with Australia will be so frequent, regular, and rapid, and the telegraph system so enlarged and cheap, that no practical difficulty would impede the working of a representative federal government.’39 The shift in perceptions of time and space was a necessary though not sufficient condition for the elaboration of arguments contending that it was feasible to create a globe-spanning political institution underpinned by a powerful sense of cultural identity. The debate was divided over the character of this identity, however. The vision of the globe-spanning British ‘people’ assumed two main forms. One insisted that the key binding principle – the social ontological foundation – of the people was race. They were, above all, Anglo-Saxon or members of the ‘English race’. As was typical in nineteenth-century Britain, usage of the term race was highly imprecise, but the definition usually focused on a combination of cultural markers – historical memories, language, shared values, habitus – circumscribed by ‘whiteness’.40 This view was compatible with (but did not entail) an argument that the populations of the individual colonies were themselves being transformed into new nationalities. The other account accepted the centrality of race, but emphasised the idea of a singular nationality: the (relevant) population of Greater Britain was the British nation writ global. Both conceptions sanctioned extensive exclusion. The indigenous populations of the settler colonies, and the vast majority of the people that Britain ruled over in the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, fell outside the scope of either account of the people. (Class and gender exclusion was more pronounced in accounts of the public). But none of these boundaries was fixed permanently: political contestation over the scope of both the public and the people constituted two of the main axes of British and imperial politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For some imperial thinkers, the colonies were in the process of forming new nations, or had even done so already. This process of differentiation from the originary British nation was regarded as a consequence of the radically different physical environments, social structures, economic systems, and nascent cultural traditions in which the colonists were enmeshed. Recognition of the increasing power of colonial nationality could lead in several directions. It could give strength to the view that the colonies should

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be allowed to separate, even that this was now inevitable, and that the future of Greater Britain lay (at most) in a moral community of the Anglo-Saxon race. This was the view of Goldwin Smith, a prominent radical historian who was regarded as an enemy by many imperialists.41 It was also canvassed by the politician Charles Dilke, who had popularised the term ‘Greater Britain’. Dilke defended an environmental conception of national character, where physical and social conditions, in dynamic combination, shaped the personality of individuals and collectives alike: Canadians and Americans, despite their (as he saw it) common racial origins, were very different in ‘type’. But they were anchored in the same foundations, in a ‘Saxondom’ that incorporated both the United States and Greater Britain: ‘That which raises us above the provincialism of citizenship of little England is our citizenship of the greater “Saxondom” which includes all that is best and wisest in the world.’42 But the belief in the growing strength of colonial ‘nationalism’ was more commonly used to motivate urgent calls to confront this dangerous process. Crisis loomed if no action was taken. The most common view among late Victorian imperial thinkers was that the population of Greater Britain comprised a single nationality. Seeley argued for the ‘general proposition’ that ‘Greater Britain is homogenous in nationality.’43 De Labillière, hoping for ‘the permanent political unity of our race’, asserted that the ‘spirit of national unity has been one of the most beneficent influences in the enlightened progress of modern times. It has made Italy; it has made Germany . . . National magnetism, with the power of a loadstone [sic] is drawing together Great and Greater Britain in closer indissoluble union.’44 The historian Hugh Egerton talked of the ‘common nationhood’ binding together the peoples of Greater Britain, while a pamphlet produced for the I.F.L. argued that federation was ‘a means of securing the continued Union of our nation throughout the world’.45 The nation, in this sense, acted as a form of social cement connecting the scattered elements of the empire, and allowing it to be represented both as a natural outgrowth of England and as a cohesive whole. In the Edwardian era, a multi-national commonwealth vision began to eclipse the Seeleyan global nation-state, in recognition of the burgeoning colonial demands for national autonomy. In other words, while the notion of a global polity never disappeared, it was increasingly de-coupled from the idea of a singular global nation.46 This had not been absent from earlier debates, although it was not dominant. For example, Lord Rosebery argued in a speech delivered in Adelaide in January 1884 that Australia could no longer be seen as a colony, but was ‘a nation not in aspiration or in the future, but in performance and fact’. The empire, he maintained, should be regarded as ‘a commonwealth of nations’.47 It was this account which became increasingly popular over time, not least because it mirrored the views of the political elites in the colonies. In 1905 W. F. Monypenny, a prominent journalist with The Times, conceived of the empire as a ‘world

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state’ that ‘transcends nationality’ while simultaneously allowing the flourishing of separate nationalities within it. By escaping the clutches of both a petty-minded ‘national exclusiveness’ and a grim centralised ‘Caesarian despotism’ it pointed the way to a new form of political order, a truly ‘cosmopolitan ideal’.48 The idea of an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth was, meanwhile, central to the Round Table movement, because, as Lionel Curtis wrote in 1916, ‘Canadians, Australians, and South Africans each think of themselves as nations distinct from the people of the British Isles, just as the British think of themselves as a nation distinct from the citizens of the United States.’ They had acquired, that is, a ‘national consciousness of their own’.49 Both the nation-centric and the race-centric accounts, however, embodied an argument about the global singularity of ‘the people’.

∗ The extension of the scope of the people went hand in hand with an expansion of the compass of the public, of those individuals regarded collectively as politically significant. During the nineteenth-century the size and shape of the public shifted along two dimensions: (1) horizontal and (2) vertical. The vertical dimension refers to the degree of formal political inclusion of a given public. This has been the focus of a very large body of scholarship; it is, indeed, the story of the development of democracy in the United Kingdom (and also of the parallel but uneven development of democracy in the individual colonies). Horizontal extension, on the other hand, refers to the spatial extent of a given pubic – the degree to which it is linked to particular configurations of territory. This topic has received far less scholarly attention. Yet the arguments promulgating the unification of the British colonial empire embodied a claim – sometimes made explicit, often not – about the existence (or potentiality) of an ocean-transcending public. This was a significant moment in the history of modern global consciousness, an early step on the road to the idea of a global public sphere. At the peak of the globalisation boom in the 1990s the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai argued that the contemporary nation-state – conceived of as ‘a compact and isomorphic organisation of territory, ethnos, and governmental apparatus’ – was undergoing a profound crisis; it was in ‘serious trouble’.50 In particular, political loyalties and territorial sovereignty were being wrenched apart as individuals increasingly came to identify with – and feel a sense of belonging to – communities and groups that transcended, indeed challenged, the nation-state. While states remained territorial entities, political identities were often unconstrained by formal boundaries, escaping the relentless topological imperatives of modern politics. ‘Translocal’ affiliations – affiliations, that is, to imagined communities that burst the territorially circumscribed foundations of political identity – assumed a pivotal role. ‘The most important feature of these emergent cartographies is

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that they do not appear to require horizontally arranged, contiguous, and mutually exclusive claims to territory.’51 While Appadurai maintained that tranlocalism could assume many forms, he drew a sharp distinction between two main categories. In the first, the imagined spaces are separate from, and come into conflict with, existing state configurations. An example would be the Sikh idea of Khalistan or the Islamic ummah.52 In the second, the idea is to rework existing configurations by extending the reach and power of one community over others. Appadurai’s example is the German neo-fascist view that the Aryan peoples should be united into a single political community, thus expanding the scope of the German state. Appadurai leaves open the question about whether such dynamics existed in the past. Here we can offer a response which gives some historical flesh to his theoretical account, while employing that account to help shed light on the dynamics of late Victorian intellectual life. First, translocal dynamics have formed a central part of the history of modernity, not least through the globalising agencies of empire.53 Yet, second, we also witness a significant shift within the politics of modernity, a shift which signals an important moment in the history of global consciousness. This shift was catalysed by the transformation in the perception of time and space discussed above. As the world appeared to shrink (and as time appeared to contract) so it became possible to argue – however unrealistically – that a strong sense of affiliation and belonging could be felt with individuals scattered throughout the world. Adam Smith once referred to British colonists living in North America as ‘strangers’.54 In the last three decades of the century this common (and commonsensical) understanding was overturned: distance no longer entailed alienation. Communal identification need not be rooted in or constrained by geography. This was not a novelty of the post-1989 world; it is not unique to contemporary forms of globalisation. It was instead a product of the nineteenth-century communications revolution, and it spawned a major rethinking of the nature of political association, territory, and space. It was as a result of these developments that many of the proponents of colonial unity in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain can be seen as imagining a form of globe-spanning translocal politics. However, whereas many of the examples explored by Appadurai are ‘counterhegemonic’ – seeking to challenge the established power structures and sources of authority55 – the attempted reworking of British racial-national consciousness in the Victorian age was a hegemonic project, an effort to establish and prolong the dominance of an empire through novel articulations of political identity. Yet that project does not fit into either of the two categories identified by Appadurai. The imperial unionists were neither seeking to create a space outside of or in opposition to the existing state, and nor were they chiefly focused on extending the scope of British nationality by conquering other established states. Instead, they sought to extend the scope of the British polity to encompass, on equal terms, colonial spaces which had previously

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been regarded as subordinate, dependent communities. It was for this reason that many of the supporters of colonial unity did not regard the colonies as part of the empire – a term which connoted hierarchy and difference – but instead as part of the British state.56 This imaginative projection involved a double process of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation.57 The British polity was no longer to be conceived of as a small group of islands lying off the north-west coast of continental Europe (deterritorialisation). Instead it was to be seen as encompassing a vast range of territories in North America, the Pacific, and Southern Africa (reterritorialisation). This new space was a form of global state. In envisioning a translocal cartography, the idea of the public itself was refashioned. This was a direct challenge to conventional understandings of the scope of the public sphere, which had seen it as falling within, and indeed constrained by, the territorial boundaries of the United Kingdom. The conventional view was compatible with the claim that the colonies had their own emergent publics, but these were nevertheless regarded as separate from, and inferior and subordinate to, that of Britain. This was the standard position adopted until the last three decades of the nineteenth century. John Stuart Mill, a defender of the value of the colonial empire, articulated it clearly in the Considerations on Representative Government (1861), arguing that one of the key reasons why a federation of the colonies would fail to satisfy the ‘rational principles of government’ was that the colonists were ‘not part of the same public’ as the British people.58 A basic harmony of both interests and sympathies was absent. The alternative vision – the vision that found expression in the debates over Greater Britain – was of a singular, translocal public sphere, encompassing the publics of the United Kingdom and the settler communities. This allowed the most ambitious imperial unionists to outline plans for the creation of representative institutions, a federal constitution, even a new imperial senate, that would bind the various publics together in a new political order. This polity was to be the home of a novel form of imperial citizenship.59 The public sphere, circumscribed by race, had been stretched over the face of the earth.

∗ During the late Victorian and Edwardian years numerous imperial commentators sought to re-imagine the British state, nation, and empire. In seeking to challenge the purported indifference of their compatriots, in attempting to respond to the perceived threats posed by both domestic and geopolitical developments, and in light of the cognitive transformations wrought by new communications technologies, many of them argued for novel understanding of territory, borders, and political identity. This prominent group sought to globalise domestic politics by arguing that a vast polity, grounded in the single people and containing a single, albeit differentiated, public sphere,

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could already be discerned, but was in danger of being lost if urgent political action was not taken to secure and strengthen it. Such a failure, they warned, would hasten the decline and fall of the British Empire. Their arguments implied a refashioning of the boundaries between local and global, domestic and foreign, and nation and empire. The views that they professed, hubristic, conceited, and deeply naïve, echoed powerfully down the years, and can be seen again today in the growing interest in the so-called ‘Anglosphere,’ the globe-spanning body of the heirs of the British colonial diaspora. The main difference now, of course, is that the internal balance of power has shifted firmly across the Atlantic, with Washington DC assuming the mantle of imperial metropolis.60 The echo can be heard too, albeit more indirectly, in the arguments propagating a league or concert of democracies. As Tony Smith observes, these visions often embody ‘a claim to cultural superiority and an encouragement to belligerent behaviour’ that represent ‘an update of race theory’.61 They are the latest incarnation of a long-standing set of arguments about the duties of certain powerful states to spread, by force if necessary, the enlightened benefits of civilisation to the benighted, ‘barbaric’ corners of the earth. We would do well to ignore their dangerous clarion call.

Acnowledgements I would like to thank Brendan Simms and William Mulligan for the invitation to speak at the conference at which a version of this chapter was first presented, and to Casper Sylvest and Sarah Fine for their helpful comments on the topic.

Notes 1. Parts of this chapter draw on material published in D. Bell (2007) The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press). 2. For good general accounts of British society and politics at the time, see T. Hoppen (1998) The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846–1886 (Oxford: Oxford University Press) and G. R. Searle (2005) A New England? Peace and War, 1886–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 3. On socialist support for imperial federation, see especially G. Claeys (forthcoming) Imperial Agnostics: British Critics of Empire, 1850–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), ch. 3. Hyndman was leader of the Social Democratic Federation and a booster of Marx, while Hardie was a founder of the Labour Party. See also, D. Bell (2009) ‘Democracy and empire: Hobson, Hobhouse, and the crisis of liberalism’ in I. Hall and L. Hill (eds) British International Thought from Hobbes to Namier (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). 4. D. Bell and C. Sylvest (2006) ‘International society in victorian political thought: T. H. Green, Herbert Spencer, and Henry Sidgwick,’ Modern Intellectual History, III,

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6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

Imagined Spaces 1–32; and Sylvest (2009) British International Thought, 1880–1930: Making Progress? (Manchester: Manchester University Press). D. Gorman (2006) Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of Belonging (Manchester: Manchester University Press); and P. J. Cain (1996) ‘The economic philosophy of constructive imperialism’ in C. Navari (ed.) British Politics and the Spirit of the Age: Political Concepts in Action (Keele: Keele University Press), pp. 41–65. On the general fear of degeneration, see D. Pick (1989) Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c.1848–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. Burrow (2000) The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914 (London: Yale University Press). See also, D. Bell (2009) ‘Republican imperialism: J. A. Froude and the virtue of empire’, History of Political Thought, XXX, 166–191. Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain, ch. 2. Moreover, even in the most precise formulations of the thesis, it is rarely clear what evidence would count as confirming it. Is it the existence of widespread popular or elite interest in foreign affairs (and if so, how can we rank this interest in relation to other concerns)? Is it government behaviour/decision-making (after all, this is not necessarily connected to public political discourses)? Or is it a combination of all of them (and if so, which are necessary and sufficient conditions)? For a general discussion of the thesis, see B. Simms (2003) ‘The return of the primacy of foreign policy’, German History, XXI, 275–291, and also C. Sylvest, in this volume. J. Vogel (1877) ‘Greater or Lesser Britain’ The Nineteenth-Century, I, 813; idem (1878) ‘The British empire’, The Nineteenth Century, III, 617. M. Finnemore and K. Sikkink (1998) ‘International norm dynamics and political change’, International Organization, LII, 887–917; see also the discussion of ‘innovating ideologists’ in Q. Skinner (2002) Visions of Politics, Vol. 1: Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), esp. chs. 7, 8 & 10. There is considerable debate over the extent to which empire did register among the public and elites (and of what might follow from this). See, for example, M. Bentley (1999) Politics Without Democracy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. xviii, 182; P. J. Durrans (1974) ‘The house of commons and the British empire, 1868–1880’, Canadian Journal of History, IX, 19–45; B. Porter (2004) The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press); C. Hall (2002) Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (Cambridge: Polity). Macaulay, ‘Speech on the renewal of the East India company charter’ (10 July 1833), reprinted in Macaulay (1898–1906) The Complete Works (London: Longman’s, Green), XI, 558. Cold Bath Fields was a notorious prison in London. Mill, ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’ [1859] in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (1963–91) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), XXI, p. 117; and Mill, letter to Henry Samuel Chapman, 14 January 1870, Collected Works, XVIII, p. 1685. W. Bagehot (1863), ‘Sir George Cornewall Lewis’ in Biographical Studies, 2nd. edn, Richard Holt (ed.) (1889) (London: Longman’s, Green, & Co), 212–213. Froude (1870), ‘England and her colonies,’ Fraser’s Magazine, I, 4–5; L. J. Trotter (1870), ‘British India under the crown,’ Contemporary Review, XV, 113–132. Both men were responding to Lord Bury’s ‘Inaugural Speech’ [March 15, 1869], reprinted in the Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, I (1869–1870), 51–62. George Phipps, Marquis of Normanby, had served as Governor of Nova Scotia

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20. 21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

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in the 1840s; during the 1870s and 1880s he was Governor of Queensland, New Zealand, and Victoria. [John Martineau] (1870), ‘New Zealand and our colonial empire’, Quarterly Review, 128, 135. See, e.g., A. Macfie (1871–1872) ‘On the crisis of the empire: Imperial Federation’, Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, III, 2–12. P. Brendon (2007) The Decline and Fall of the British Empire: 1781–1997 (London: Jonathan Cape); J. Darwin (1986) ‘The fear of falling: British political and imperial decline since 1900,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XXXVI, 27–45; D. Bell (2006) ‘From ancient to modern in victorian imperial thought’, Historical Journal, IL, 1–25. C. Herbert (2007) War of No Pity: The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma (Princeton: Princeton University Press). R. W. Kostal (2006) A Jurisprudence of Power: Victorian Empire and the Rule of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press); K. Mantena (2007) ‘The crisis of liberal imperialism’, in D. Bell (ed.) Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 89–113. See, R. Koselleck (2006) ‘Crisis’, Journal of the History of Ideas, LXVII, 357–400. ‘Applied to history, “crisis”, since 1780, has become an expression of a new sense of time which both indicated and intensified the end of an epoch. Perceptions of such epochal change can be measured by the increased use of crisis. But the concept remains as multi-layered and ambiguous as the emotions attached to it. Conceptualised as chronic, “crisis” can also indicate a state of greater or lesser permanence, as in a longer or shorter transition towards something better or worse or towards something altogether different. “Crisis” can announce a recurring event, as in economics, or become an existential term of analysis, as in psychology and theology. All these possible uses can be applied to history itself’ (357). And all of these ‘uses’ of crisis can be found in British imperial discourse. A. Thompson (2002) Imperial Britain: The Empire in British Politics, c.1880–1932 (London: Longman). Seeley (1883) The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures (London: Macmillan); Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain, ch. 6. In an obituary H. A. L. Fisher commented: ‘I question whether any historical work has exercised so great an influence over the general political thinking of a nation.’ H. A. L. Fisher (1896) ‘Sir John Seeley’, Fortnightly Review, LX, 193. Lorne (1886) ‘The annual address on the progress of geography, 1885–1886’, Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, VIII, 420; F. Driver (1999) Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration in the Age of Empire (Oxford: Blackwell). Stead (1925) In Frederick Whyte (ed.) The Life of W. T. Stead (London: J. Cape), II, pp. 209–210. C. P. Lucas (1891) ‘Introduction’ to George Cornewall Lewis, An Essay on the Government of Dependencies (Oxford: Clarendon), xxxviii and lviii. Hobhouse (1973 [1904]) Democracy and Reaction, ed. P. F. Clarke (Brighton: Harvester), 144–145. I do not follow nineteenth-century usage, where there was no settled meaning for either the ‘people’ or ‘public’. Boyd Hilton (2006) argues that the idea of a public, as we would understand it, did not really exist before 1850: A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England, 1783–1846 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 310–311. I use the concepts as analytical categories to help make some sense of a confused

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30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

42. 43.

44.

45.

46. 47.

Imagined Spaces debate. For a general discussion, see M. Canovan (2005) The People (Cambridge: Polity). On the philosophical issues involved, see A. Abizadeh (2010) ‘Citizenship, immigration, and boundaries’ in D. Bell (ed.) Ethics and World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Seeley, The Expansion of England, 63. Leo Amery (1905) ‘Imperial defence and national policy’ in C. S. Goldman (ed.) The Empire and the Century, A Series of Essays on Imperial Problems and Possibilities (London: John Murray), p. 182. Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain, ch. 3; S. Kern (2003) The Culture of Time and Space, 1880–1918 (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press); N. Daly (2004) Literature, Technology, and Modernity, 1860–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); W. Schivelbusch (1986) The Railway Journey: The Industrialization and Perception of Time and Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press). The Atlantic was straddled in 1866 (after an abortive attempt in 1858). Cables reached Australia in 1872, New Zealand in 1876, and South Africa in 1879. Kipling (1932 [1896]) ‘Deep-Sea Cables’ in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse, 1885–1932 (London: Hodder & Stoughton), p. 173. Young (1876–1877) Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, VIII, 118–119. Forster, ‘Our colonial empire’, The Times, 6 November 1875, p. 9; F. P. de Labillière (1893) ‘British federalism: Its rise and progress’, Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, XXIV, 110. Forster (1884) Imperial Federation: Report of the Conference held July 29, 1884, at the Westminster Palace Hotel (London: Cassell), p. 27. Labillière (1894) ‘Some concluding suggestions’ in Labillière (ed.) Federal Britain, or, Unity and Federation of the Empire (London: S. Low, Marston), p. 12. Jenkins (1871) ‘An imperial confederation’, Contemporary Review, XVII, 78. Peter Mandler (2000) ‘ “Race” and “Nation” in mid-victorian thought’ in S. Collini, R. Whatmore, B. Young (eds) History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History, 1750–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 224–245; H. S. Jones (2006) ‘The idea of the nation in victorian political thought’, European Journal of Political Theory, V, 12–21. Smith (1863) The Empire, A Series of Letters Published in ‘The Daily News,’ 1862, 1863 (London: J. Henry and J. Parker); Smith (1894 [1893]) ‘The empire’ in his Essays on Questions of the Day, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan), pp. 141–195. On Smith, see Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain, ch. 7. Dilke (1868) Greater Britain, A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866 and 1867 (London: Macmillan), II, pp. 150, 156. Seeley, The Expansion of England, 49; Seeley (1886) ‘Introduction’ to Her Majesty’s Colonies, A Series of Original Papers Issued under the Authority of the Royal Commission, Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886 (London: William Clowes and Sons), pp. xxiv–v. De Labillière, Federal Britain, 35–171; S. Wilson (1885) ‘A Scheme for Imperial Federation’, Nineteenth-Century, XVII, 590; and Young (1885) An Address on Imperial Federation, at Cambridge, June 4, 1885 (London: Edward Stanford), p. 23. Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, 477; and ‘What is Imperial Federation?’ (1890), Minute Book of the General Committee of the Executive Committee of the I.F.L., BL, Add MS, 62779, p. 256. See also the discussion in Gorman, Imperial Citizenship. Speech in Adelaide, 18 January 1884, G. Bennett (1962) The Concept of Empire, 2nd edn (London: Adam and Charles Black), p. 283; Forster (1885) ‘Imperial

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50.

51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

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Federation’, The Nineteenth Century, XVII, 201; D. Cole (1971) ‘The problem of ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Imperialism’ in British Settlement Colonies’, Journal of British Studies, X, 160–182. Monypenny, ‘The imperial ideal’ in Goldman (ed.) The Empire and the Century, pp. 23, 27. Curtis (1916) The Problem of Commonwealth (London: Macmillan), p. 68; J. Kendle (1975) The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Appadurai (1996) ‘Sovereignty without territoriality: Notes for a postnational geography’ in P. Yaeger (ed.) The Geography of Identity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), 40–59; Appadurai (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press); P. Mandeville (1999) ‘Territory and translocality: Discrepant idioms of political identity’, Millennium, XXVIII, 653–667. Appadurai, ‘Sovereignty without territoriality,’ p. 51. ibid., p. 55. A. G. Hopkins (ed.) (2002) Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico) and T. Barkawi (2006) Globalization and War (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield); J. G. Ruggie (1993) ‘Territoriality and beyond: Problematizing modernity in international relations’, International Organization, XLVII, 139–174; F. Kratochwil (1986) ‘Of systems, boundaries and territoriality: An inquiry into the formation of the state system’, World Politics, XXXIX, 27–52. Smith (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. W. B. Todd (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 622. Appadurai cites (51n) P. Gilroy (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press). D. Bell, ‘The Victorian idea of a global state’, in Bell (ed.) Victorian Visions of Global Order, pp. 159–186. See Appadurai, ‘Sovereignty without territoriality,’ p. 54. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, Collected Works, XIX, p. 564; D. Bell (2010) ‘John Stuart Mill on colonies,’ Political Theory, XXXVIII, 1–31. Gorman, Imperial Citizenship; L. Thompson (2007) A Wider Patriotism: Alfred Milner and the British Empire (London: Pickering & Chatto). J. C. Bennett (2004) The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Rowman and Littlefield); Bennett (2007) The Third Anglosphere Century: The English-speaking World in an Era of Transition (Washington: Heritage Foundation); R. Conquest and A. Roberts, among others, have been pushing a similar idea in recent years: Conquest (2000) Reflections on a Ravaged Century (London: John Murray), 267–281; Roberts (2006) A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson); S. Vucetic (2009) ‘The anglosphere as global governance’, unpublished ms., University of Cambridge. Gordon Brown recently employed the term: ‘Enlarging the anglosphere,’ Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2008. Smith (2007) A Pact with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of America’s Promise (London: Routledge), p. 108.

14 British Liberal Historians and the Primacy of Internationalism Casper Sylvest

Important concepts in our political vocabulary are often attractive because of the indeterminacy or ambiguity with which they are riddled. ‘Globalisation’ or ‘terrorism’ are obvious contemporary examples, but numerous analytical categories suffer a similar plight. What, for example, constitutes ‘appeasement’ and is the practice always contemptible? To this class of concepts we must also add the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy. It is generally agreed that Das Primat der Aussenpolitik is a German idea, but both the doctrine’s source and precise meaning are unclear: is it a descriptive statement that holds foreign policy to take precedence in the conduct of practical politics (or as a variant of this that a state’s foreign relations are more significant in explaining history than internal factors) or is it a prescriptive demand for subordinating domestic (and by extension ethical) considerations to security demands arising from the international position of the state? In this chapter, the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy is read normatively – as the political expression of the German historical school embodying Machiavellian and expansionistic tendencies – which in turn allows us to focus our attention on the character of British liberal internationalism, the ideas against which this ideology gained its identity and the extent to which the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy played a facilitating but essentially negative role in the liberal imagination. British liberal historians rarely used the phrase ‘primacy of foreign policy’ but, as we shall see, their view of a particular strand of German historical writing overlaps with a prescriptive reading of the doctrine. The nineteenth century witnessed both the ascendance of nationalism as a political force and a modernisation of historical writing that relied less on myth and more on fact and purportedly scientific methods. These two developments might appear incongruous or antithetical, but as even a casual glance at nineteenth-century historical writing reveals, they were deeply intertwined. The blinkers worn by many historians in the second half of the century left difficult questions about the scientific nature of their work and its relationship to their love of country unexamined. Indeed, it is no 214

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coincidence that the nineteenth century is often heralded as the golden age of national history writing.1 The so-called Prussian school of history self-consciously wrote with a view to nursing the Prussian-led German nation-state. Drawing sporadically on the methodology of Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), this historical ‘Borussianism’ reached its apex with Heinrich von Treitschke’s (1834–1896) fervid support for Germany’s great-power ambitions, with the prestige and place in the sun this entailed.2 For British liberal historians, the Borussian ideology of state power and expansionism was anathema, and by virtue of his apparent influence on German political culture and nationalism they found in Treitschke an antagonist that could create unity and sharpen the profile of their liberal internationalist ideology. The mutual perceptions of British and German historians are part of a larger transnational cultural and political exchange in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.3 Beginning in the eighteenth century many Germans used Britain as a template that could supply some concrete evidence for their aspirations. In this positive view of Britain, anti-French foreign policy and a domestic order characterised by liberty, stability, and constitutionalism were held up as elements in a model polity that was, moreover, inhabited by fellow Protestants of Teutonic (i.e. German) origin.4 The racial connection was also noted in England, in particular by E.A. Freeman, and fitted nicely with the English admiration for German culture and science, including the study of history. Germany was often seen as the cultural leader of Europe, and around the turn of the century this position was strengthened by the impression of an efficient and powerful, if insufficiently liberal, German state. With the increasing political antagonism between the two countries beginning in the era of nationalism and Weltpolitik and culminating in the First World War, the general tone of Anglo-German relations became more anxious, although cultural transfers and mutual admiration persisted in a variety of forms.5 A simple narrative of harmony turning to rivalry is undoubtedly too simplistic. In Anglo-German relations admiration, hostility, perplexity, and fascination were often mixed up. For example, it is no coincidence that the movement for national efficiency in British politics often looked, full of apprehension, to Germany for inspiration. Similarly, liberals pleading for understanding and conciliation were often the most critical of the Kaiserreich. From the German perspective, Britain’s status as a model to be emulated gradually evaporated after unification, and when the Prussian-led German state shifted its attention from inward consolidation to outward expansion new-found confidence fuelled envy rather than admiration. Racial and religious ties were increasingly severed – the British version of Protestantism was now described as aggressive Puritanism, and Anglo-Saxon came to be seen as the opposite of everything German.6 Moreover, political analyses habitually denigrated British foreign policy

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and imperialism as cynical and self-interested. Historians in both countries were central voices in such debates. Although it is impossible to deal with the breadth and depth of Anglo-German relations in toto here, the analysis of how British liberal historians came to view German historians, and Treitschke in particular, needs to be set against the wider background of the development of Anglo-German relations at the time. The chapter is structured as follows: in the next (second) part, I identify a liberal internationalist strand of the British historical tradition and briefly discuss its main tenets. The third part presents a brief sketch of those aspects of the German historical tradition that challenged a group of British historians and their liberal internationalism. The fourth part shows how a German ideology of power politics linked to the notion of the primacy of foreign policy came to play an important, indirect role in British liberal thought about international politics, particularly through the reception and interpretation of Treitschke. The final part turns briefly to the First World War, which witnessed the culmination of British historians’ criticism of their German counterparts and their complicity in fostering a debased political theory, before suggesting that most liberals came during the war to subscribe to a distinctively internationalist version of the primacy of foreign policy.

∗ During the second half of the nineteenth century British historical writings flourished. It is hard to generalise about the British study of history at a time when professionalisation was still in its inception. Below, I shall concentrate on a group of liberal historians that subscribed to a set of beliefs about international politics that can helpfully be described as internationalist. Although they did not write openly about the uninterrupted progress of British liberty and government from the seventeenth century or time immemorial (an exceptionalist trope predominant in the writings of Macaulay and Oxford historians), they were Whig historians in the (broad) sense that they practised a form of embryology that derived its point from ‘present concerns’.7 The group included, but was not limited to, historians like Lord Acton (1834–1902), James Bryce (1838–1922), and John Morley (1838–1923) together with a younger generation represented by James Headlam (1863–1929) and G.P. Gooch (1873–1968). These figures were all, directly or indirectly, embroiled in liberal politics as MPs, ministers, unofficial advisers, and ideological agents. Apart from their different roles in liberal politics, they represented a variety of liberal opinion, reflecting the amorphous and malleable character of Victorian liberalism. Nevertheless, their writings demonstrate at least one overlapping concern, namely the defence and spread of liberal internationalism understood as a concern with achieving progress, order, and justice in international politics.8 This

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meant that much of their output was underwritten by an eschatology of intellectual, moral, and political progress which would, in the longer term, issue in the reconciliation of nationalism and internationalism and a public morality in international affairs.9 Against this background, it is hardly surprising that nationalism (or the principle of nationality as it was mostly referred to) became a central theme for liberals in the second half of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, it was often assumed that the general development of modern politics almost naturally gave way to larger political units that were, in the main, organised along the principle of nationality. The sources of this view were theoretical as well as empirical: John Stuart Mill had argued that representative government to be successful largely had to coincide with nationality and Herbert Spencer – the great synthesiser of nineteenth-century thought – foreshadowed the evolution from smaller militant societies based on narrow patriotism towards larger industrial societies characterised by an ethics of altruism. Debates about Italian and German unification, which liberals generally supported, apparently confirmed such views: as part of the general progress of the world, nationalism and peaceful international relations went hand in hand. On the other hand, this positive view of the principle of nationality was generally accompanied by anxiety. Mill repeatedly warned against vulgar nationalism and although Spencer naturalised the large, industrial nationstate, he had little time for narrow nationalism or patriotism. And as the example of Germany was soon to demonstrate, the practical effects of nationalism did not always favour a liberal internationalist agenda. Although most liberals supported the principle of nationality, both supporters and opponents recognised the potential positive effects of a properly implemented principle of nationality and the horrors of a homogenising nationalism. The apparently conflicting attitudes of James Bryce and Lord Acton to the question of nationality demonstrate the presence of these concerns and the different weight they could be accorded in liberal arguments.10 Essentially, the concept of nationality was bifurcated in late-nineteenthcentury liberal thought. British historians generally displayed a sentimental attachment to England (or Britain).11 Good, often English, forms of nationalism were compatible with internationalism abroad and liberality at home, while a chauvinistic and narrow-minded nationalism working against liberal objectives were anathema. Critical discussion of the development of German nationalism and German historical writings was common already before Anglo-German relations became unmistakeably strained at the turn of the century. Indeed, what brought together liberal internationalists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the fight against an unholy alliance of autocracy, vulgar nationalism, and Realpolitik – a combination they found especially prevalent in Bismarckian and Wilhelmine Germany.

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∗ German historians played a significant role in turning nationalism from the requirement into the spectre of liberal internationalism. How this came about can be gathered by reading the primacy of foreign policy as a politoethical doctrine that developed from within the German historical tradition. Ranke, whose source-criticism and ideal of uncovering ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ has secured his fame among historians, is commonly held up as the instigator of the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy. But Ranke never used the exact phrase. In the best available analysis of the doctrine, Ernst-Otto Czempiel found that there are interesting ambivalences with respect to its descriptive and prescriptive elements.12 It was from this vagueness that the association between German historians and Realpolitik arose. Ranke was not a nationalist or an imperialist in any straightforward sense. His writings convey the expression of the sage rather than a homo politicus. Yet Ranke was not apolitical. His idealism provided a defence of the natural order of society, encompassing monarchical government and a strong church. In international politics, the manifestation of this divinely instituted order was the European states system and its innate balance of power that allowed for the expression of the individual spirit of great powers. To some extent this conservative defence of the existing order diminished Ranke’s popularity among kleindeutsch historians bent on enhancing a unified Germany’s position in the world. The Prussian school of history could endorse Ranke’s methods and his broad conception of the state as guided by its own spirit and striving for power in international affairs, but Johann Gustav Droysen, Heinrich von Sybel, and Treitschke were frustrated by Ranke’s extravagant neutrality and bloodless objectivity in politics.13 With a good dose of Prussian nationalism, however, Rankean history could avert defending the status quo and provide a beacon for the future. At the turn of the century, it was possible for a self-declared neo-Rankean like Max Lenz to pay lip-service to Ranke’s historical method while trying to extend the analysis of ‘The Great Powers’ to the age of Weltpolitik.14 There were, then, links between the origins of the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy in Ranke and the more overtly nationalist strands of German history from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Ranke’s idealism (and partly his ‘method’) was open to appropriation by a romantic blend of history-writing and nationalism, which embraced a vigorous and expansionistic reading of the primacy of foreign policy doctrine. Even after the Reich had taken over from Prussia as the main reference of German historians, the mix was a mainstay of German historical writing that extended to later neo-Rankeans like Marcks and Hintze.15 Politically, this conception of history was explosive. Georg Iggers has noted how German historicism easily leads to an ‘ethical theory of the doctrine of the state’, which turns

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‘the striving for power in amoral terms’ into an overriding objective.16 British liberal historians writing in the late nineteenth century came to associate this understanding of the state and its external relations with one German historian in particular: Heinrich von Treitschke. It has been argued that Treitschke ‘in his books and articles and lectures . . . revealed himself to be for war, for expansion, for political conservatism at home, for anti-semitism, for national glory, for colonies and for a large navy’.17 This verdict certainly lacks some of the finer nuances that emerge from the best biographical treatments,18 but it nicely captures how Treitschke’s message was interpreted by contemporary British historians. Treitschke was, despite his merits as a writer, seen as threatening their doctrine. He was doubly offensive because he had deserted his early liberalism en route to emerging as the foremost ideological detractor of liberal internationalism. This Saxon, who fervently agitated for a Prussian-led German Einheitsstaat, slowly became the arch-symbol of a German Weltanschauung associated with autocracy, militarism, and an anti-internationalist form of nationalism. Broader liberal views of Germany reinforced this development. Although Germany was both admired and a model to be emulated, at least since 1870– 1871 there had been increasing liberal uneasiness with the new state’s style of government. German unity was generally viewed in a positive light indicating a potential for the development of a civilised (English-style) polity, but Prussia and its semi-feudal elite was a constant worry.19 Admiration of Bismarck’s political manoeuvring did not in the long run overshadow liberal disquiet with Prussianism. The contours of ideological conflict appeared increasingly sharper: fanatical nationalism bent on achieving greatness and a place in the sun confronted a bona fide liberal internationalism aimed at bestowing upon international politics the characteristics of the British domestic political experience, including order, progress, public morality, and the rule of law. Initially, British historians tried to steer clear of seeing these doctrines as expressing two different national political cultures, but this conclusion became especially alluring as the Anglo-German antagonism reached its climax. It is hardly surprising that British historians of liberal internationalist inclinations should find in Heinrich von Treitschke a favourite target. Friedrich Meinecke later argued that ‘the whole German intellectual movement concerning power-policy of the late nineteenth century was concentrated in Treitschke’, and in Britain Treitschke was believed to be the most influential German historian even after his death.20 A powerful pen incapable of producing qualifications or nuances and a close association with and support for the Machtstaat and cunning Realpolitik made Treitschke the favourite intellectual scoundrel of liberal internationalists. Evidence abounds: Treitschke famously argued that ‘the State is power, precisely in order to assert itself as against other equally independent powers.’ The state, he polemically

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stressed, was ‘not an academy of arts’ and he had little time for the moralising doctrine of liberals that portrayed the state ‘as if it were a good little boy, who should be washed, and brushed, and sent to school, who should have his ears pulled to keep him obedient; he, on his side, is expected to be grateful and good, and God knows how much else.’ Moralists had to recognise that ‘the State is not to be judged by the standards which apply to individuals, but by those which are set for it by its own nature and ultimate aims.’ From these views, it followed logically that ‘international agreements which limit the power of a State are not absolute, but voluntary self-restrictions’. Treitschke then added injury to insult by glorifying war as ‘both justifiable and moral’ and arguing that ‘the ideal of perpetual peace is not only impossible but immoral as well.’21 While these views were perhaps attractive for a young flourishing nation, they found no favour among British liberal internationalists. By denying the effectiveness and desirability of an international public morality, by attacking British policy and exposing shallow ‘Manchesterism’, and by clinging on to a form of power politics embodying a normative and expansionist reading of the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy, Treitschke’s views were almost designed to infuriate British liberals. His legendary lectures on Politics were only translated in 1916, but from the late-nineteenth-century British historians read Treitschke in German, sat in on his lectures in Berlin, or obtained knowledge of his doctrines and influence by other means.

∗ Of the British historians considered here, Lord Acton possessed the deepest knowledge of German historians and historiogaphy.22 A prodigious reader educated in Munich under the auspices of the learned church historian Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, no one was better placed than Lord Acton to pass judgement on German schools of history. But his analysis was, as everything else in Acton’s historical writings, shot through with a moralism informed by his liberal Catholicism: arguments from necessity were unacceptable; all moral and political questions should be judged by the aid of a universal ethical code; the liberal (internationalist) had to be on the side of justice and freedom and could never be an unquestionably loyal citizen of the state. The moralistic Olympian owed his allegiance to the commonwealth of man. Acton admired Ranke and considered him both a master and an instructor. But he was uncomfortable with the relativism that, partly at least, followed from Ranke’s methodology. Acton downplayed the novelty of the purported Rankean revolution and stressed how enmeshment in sources (and their critique) could lead to an interpretation of historical actions that were so thick with context that it left no room for individual responsibility or historical judgement.23 In essence, it was this warning that Acton developed into a

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more sustained critique in his erudite essay on ‘German Schools of History’ published in the inaugural issue of the English Historical Review (1886). Here relativism, the ‘mobility of the moral code’ in time and space, was the main target. Acton did not hold Ranke singularly responsible for this development. Ironically, he followed Droysen and Treitschke and detected in Ranke a serene indifference amounting to a moral sanctuary. But while Droysen and Treitschke had launched their critique of Ranke in order to stress how a particular political viewpoint (that of a Prussian-led German nation-state) was needed, Acton’s purpose was very different in that he sought a universal, moral viewpoint from where to pass judgement. Unsurprisingly, Acton was even more critical of Sybel, Droysen, and Treitschke’s conception of history than of Ranke’s moral sanctuary. Their problem was not only that of the partisan, although their entanglement into ‘the web of national greatness’ set them apart from the Actonian understanding of history.24 Worse, their simplistic triumphalism turned them into immoral apologetics of the existing state of affairs, however crooked and immoral its origins. It was an ugly evolutionism holding that ‘what lives permanently in the light and strive of civilisation, lives rightfully, that whatever perishes has earned its fate.’25 This critique helps explain Acton’s uneasiness with fellow liberal historians in Britain like E.A. Freeman and James Bryce, who were to varying degrees under the spell of ‘Teutomania’, stressing ‘sluggish organic continuities and racial destinies, institutions and forms whose seeds grew from the Teutonic forests’.26 When, in 1891, Acton wrote the introduction to a new edition of Machiavelli’s The Prince, he used the notion of success as an amoral yardstick to prove that the Florentines’ legacy was alive and well, particularly in German thought. It was connected to Treitschke’s understanding of the state as power and in his wish to move from ‘der Politik der Bekenntniss zu der Politik der That’. Acton described historical triumphalism, the justice of success, as ‘the nursling of the nineteenth century’.27 These fundamental disagreements about the nature and purpose of history were augmented by the political differences between Acton’s liberalism and Treitschke’s ‘unitarian’ nationalism. For Acton, federation and pluralism was of the essence; they were signposts of a liberal future. For Treitschke, on the other hand, the Einheitsstaat was the only viable solution. In their views of history, ethics, and politics, Acton and Treitschke stood poles apart, a fact that was recognised by the younger generation of British liberal historians inspired by Acton.28 More sustained, but essentially similar analyses pitting the dignity, profundity, and disinterested nature of English historical writing against the propagandistic nationalism of Treitschke were advanced by younger scholars like Headlam and Gooch. Headlam (or Headlam-Morley as he became in 1918) was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, and went on to become professor of Greek and ancient history at Queens College, London. His interests soon veered in more contemporary directions,

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however. Headlam was particularly interested in international politics and public knowledge about international affairs. During and after the First World War, he was an analyst at the Foreign Office, and after the Paris Peace Conferences he obtained the sui generis position of historical advisor to the Foreign Office. Headlam’s liberal internationalism was gradually flavoured by the outlook of his employer, as his defence of British foreign policy and particularly the role of Sir Edward Grey before the First World War testify.29 After studies in Berlin in the early 1890s, when he sat in on Treitschke’s lectures, and his marriage to Else Sonntag, a German, in 1893, Headlam had taken a strong interest in modern Germany. The chief product of this interest was a biography of Bismarck published at the turn of the century, but in 1897, shortly after Treitschke’s death, he reviewed the life and work of the doyen of German history in The English Historical Review.30 To Headlam, there was little doubt that the historical profession had lost an incredibly powerful writer. In most other respects, however, his assessment of Treitschke’s merits was critical. To begin with, Treitschke was less a historian than a politician, and an inept one at that: his views, often incomprehensible, were held too violently and pursued by the most tactically inept means. Worse, his historical mind was too contaminated by political passion. Elegantly turning Treitschke’s habit of attributing ‘the peculiarities of individuals to moral qualities inherent in the race from which they spring’ against himself, Headlam aired his own prejudices and delivered a blow against unsound history: although Treitschke was more Prussian than the Prussians, his ‘Sclavonic’ blood and Saxon origins revealed itself in his ‘want of intellectual control’ and ‘intensity of passions’. These ‘barbaric qualities’ sat uneasily with ‘that mental power, that fundamental honesty of character, the accuracy and diligence which tell of his Teutonic blood’.31 One consequence of this disposition was that opinion came before learning. Fielding Macaulayesque rhetoric alongside violently held prejudices in the manner of E.A. Freeman was an unhappy combination – particularly for a German that belittled England and veered from essential liberal values. Headlam’s critique of Treitschke was, however, most powerful in the area of international politics. Dogmatism with no room for impartiality coupled with fervent patriotism and an acceptance, if not a glorification, of war was an altogether uncomfortable mix and pointed to meanness and malignity. It had issued in legendary diatribes against England and English policy – something that clearly irritated Headlam – but was perhaps best illustrated in a short remark of Treitschke’s on Frederick the Great: ‘He was all his life accused of treacherous cunning, because he never allowed his right of self-decision to be taken away by a treaty or an alliance.’ Headlam’s indignant reply revealed his internationalist colours: Does he mean by this to lay it down as a maxim that no great statesman will be bound by treaties when they have ceased to be convenient. No,

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he has not Machiavelli’s daring logic; he does not grant to other states the privileges he demands for Prussia, and he thereby (as repeatedly as in all his books) violates the only safe principles of international morality, that each man shall apply to his own country the same principles that he uses in criticising the conduct of other states, and shall allow to others the same latitude he claims for himself.32 Like Headlam, Gooch married a German (Sophie, a Saxon), attended Treitschke’s lectures while studying in Berlin, and took a strong interest in German politics, history, and intellectual life.33 His interpretation of Treitschke issued in similar conclusions. In his most famous and lasting work, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (1913), Gooch devoted several chapters to dissecting the German historical tradition including the contributions of Niebuhr, Savigny, Ranke, and the Prussian School. Gooch held Ranke, a man ‘wholly free from national rancour’, to be ‘greatest historical writer of modern times’.34 He was alive to Ranke’s philosophically idealist notion of the individuality of states, but he also realised how, to the detriment of historical scholarship, this understanding of the state had been reconciled with the nationalist ambitions of the Prussian school of history. ‘While Ranke was the most objective, Treitschke was the most subjective of German historians.’35 Gooch admired Treitschke’s skills as a writer, but he had no time for narrow-minded nationalism and chauvinism. The problem went beyond the technical requirements of historical scholarship. Gooch always held up impartial historical scholarship as the ideal of the profession, although he often failed to meet this criterion himself. The disagreement was, rather, political. Gooch’s liberal internationalism was a persistent trademark of his writings, and already in an early essay on ‘Imperialism’, he had associated the anti-internationalist doctrine that morality does not apply beyond the state – a favourite target of his – with Treitschke. Against this immoral doctrine, the young historian provided an almost ideal-typical sketch of internationalist ideology, which included arguments against expansionism and the cardinal point that private and public morality stood on the same footing.36 In sum, there was well before the outbreak of war in 1914 a fairly hostile opinion among British liberal historians towards the power politics of nationalism and expansionism associated with Treitschke. Germanophilia, chiefly in the realms of science and culture, also meant that milder voices were heard. For example, the Manchester historian A.W. Ward, who began his education in Leipzig and became responsible for the review of German books in the English Historical Review, offered a balanced and fairly detached review of Treitschke’s life when a volume of his letters was published in 1913.37 Nevertheless, the extent to which Treitschke had become a Prügelknabe of British liberal internationalist historians already before the Great War is demonstrated by John Morley’s Notes on Politics and History

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(1913). Before publishing the book, which was based on an expanded version of lectures delivered to the University of Manchester in 1912, Morley consulted Gooch.38 The two were not always in agreement: Morley did not welcome Gooch’s flirtation with new liberalism, whereas Gooch during his short spell in Parliament had been a persistent backbench-critic of aspects of Morley’s policies at the India Office. Yet in international politics little separated the two. In his legendary biographies of Cobden and Gladstone, Morley had contributed to the creation of a glorious tradition of liberal internationalist thinking. Always fond of hypostatising a great battle of ideas between a true liberal internationalism and the falsehoods of power politics, Morley had contrasted Cobden’s sincerity with Machiavellian calculation and described Gladstone and Bismarck as ‘the genius of popular right, and free government, and settled law of nations . . . [and] the genius of force and reason of state and blood and iron’.39 In 1913, Morley found himself in an age of militarisation and nationalism, which resulted in a ‘practical declension of what has been called allegiance to humanity’. The intellectual enemies had new faces and that they were German unsettled Morley, whose longstanding Germanophilia was based on the assumption that progress in Germany would make it more British.40 This complacency was dispelled by General von Bernhardi and a ‘sinister school of political historians’, spearheaded by Treitschke, who insisted that ‘the event is its own justification. Force and Right are one.’ Morley chided Treitischke’s lectures on politics and their ‘sanguinary sophistries’. This might have been old wine in new bottles, but that did not make the doctrine any less dangerous: ‘The Italian Machiavel of the fifteenth century is applauded by a German Machiavel of the nineteenth [Treitschke], for disclosing and impressing the mighty fundamental that “The State is Force” ’.41

∗ In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, problems of war and disorder in international politics played a crucial role in the liberal imagination. These problems were partly intellectual; they could be fought at the level of ideas. Obviously, in 1914 the problem of war took on a new urgency and came to be seen as ‘an intellectual problem as well as a social phenomenon requiring analysis and explanation’.42 But, for many liberal intellectuals, including the historians discussed above, the causes of war and the prospects for peace had long been an important concern. But if they had already identified in Treitschke the prophet of chauvinistic German nationalism and a worship of state and power leading to cynical Realpolitik abroad, it is also clear that this critique became widespread and propagandistic (if not outright hysterical), following the outbreak of war in August 1914.43

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The increased interest in Treitschke was symbolised in H.W.C. Davis’ The Political Thought of Heinrich von Treitschke (1914), but this book stands out for its sober tone and fairly muted critique.44 Davis also contributed to a notorious book published by Oxford historians entitled Why We Are at War, a volume that contained a chapter on ‘The New German Theory of the State’ and a conclusion indicting German thought more broadly.45 In all likelihood these chapters were written not by Davis but by his colleague Ernest Barker, who soon after put out a pamphlet entitled Nietzsche and Treitschke: The Worship of Power in Modern Germany (1914). The gist of Barker’s dissection of German thought was that it contained the seeds of glorification of war, worship of power, and raison d’état – in direct opposition to the (British) doctrine of the rule of law. Treitschke’s influence was mainly detected in the external politics of Germany: worship of power and a view of the state as the highest good, turned self-preservation of the state and its power into an imperative.46 Other liberal historians with internationalist credentials and a longstanding attachment to Germany and German culture contributed to this critique. In the early stages of the war, James Bryce was reluctant to indict Germany in this vein. Surely, the country had declined since Bryce visited Heidelberg in the early 1860s, but in a letter to H.A.L. Fisher in October 1914 he questioned whether the German people were ‘pervaded by the TreitschkeBernhardi system of doctrines, or had adopted the principle that State necessity justifies everything, breach of faith, the destruction of the innocent, etc.’47 Bryce’s work for the committee investigating alleged German atrocities in Belgium (on which Fisher also served) changed his mind. The German state was found guilty, and the explanation was mainly sought in Prussian militarist ideology. During the war, Bryce came ever closer to indicting not only the German intelligentsia for its Treitschkean doctrine of power but also the German people for their responsiveness to such retrograde views.48 G.P. Gooch is another example of this attitude. He surveyed ‘the curve of German political thought’ that reached its pinnacle with Treitschke, ‘the Bismarck of the chair’. The idolatry of the state radiating from the pages of the Prussian historian reached ‘its logical issue in the elevation of force to the sovereign principle in national life and international relations’. Again we see how it was the power-political implications of the German doctrine that was singled out for criticism, as it offered a convenient contrast to the liberal self-image of Britain as an honourable great power working for peace and respecting international law.49 Perhaps the best illustration of the ideological force that the name of Treitschke acquired during the war is provided by the liberal journalist William Harbutt Dawson (1860–1948) who was a leading admirer of Germany in the pre-war years (as he was in the inter-war years extending into the Nazi era). Dawson had studied under Treitschke in Berlin in the 1880s, and he twice married German women. Asked to write the

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introduction to the first volume of the translation of History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century in 1914, Dawson condoned rather than condemned Treitschke’s faults as a historian. And in 1915, he confessed himself so unredeemed that ‘were I required to throw stones at Heinrich von Treitschke, I should wish my stones to be pebbles, and when I had thrown them I should want to run away.’50 Dawson was, however, increasingly at war with himself over Treitschke, and in 1919, when the seventh and final volume of Treitschke’s History appeared, his verdict as well as the tone had changed. Perhaps more than any other man Treitschke is responsible for the excessive egoism, the self-glorification, boastfulness, and inflated estimate of itself which have been the bane of the German nation ever since 1871, and never so much as during the last twenty years, during which a generation nurtured on Treitschke’s dangerous doctrines, promulgated as university teacher, publicist, and historian has grown up and come into influence and power . . . .51 By now, Dawson was but one mild voice in a big chorus of liberal intellectuals that counted, to take just a few examples, the liberal historians Ramsay Muir52 and Herbert Fisher,53 the young historian and economist Arthur Greenwood,54 and the liberal social philosopher L.T. Hobhouse.55 All liberal internationalists, they had come to see Treitschke – often in a close contest with Nietzsche and the incomparable General Bernhardi, whose work was translated into English in 1912 – as the foremost instigator of German power politics.56 In this way, the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy played a negative, yet important, role in liberal international thought. Read normatively as a product of the German historical tradition, the doctrine points to the power political and expansionist tendencies that British liberal historians identified in the writings of their German colleagues and their foremost representative (in a British context), Treitschke. The exaggerated relativism of German historiography posed a danger to the universality of liberal ideals. More importantly, its idealistic conception of the state coupled with an unhealthy nationalism and a worship of power and war could only have negative implications for the development of an international morality conducive to peace. The ideas of Treitschke became a focal point of internationalist critique because it offered a doctrine against which liberal internationalist ideas gained both ideological currency and coherence. As the war wore on, however, this criticism of the ideological enemies of liberal internationalism gave way to a more sustained and fundamental analysis of the problems of international politics. Like other internationalists, liberal historians were forced to admit that in a sense international politics should be accorded primacy in a reorganised post-First World War world. As I have argued elsewhere, the war accelerated a shift in internationalist ideology towards institutionally safeguarding progress, order, and

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justice in international affairs.57 In fact, liberal internationalists came to subscribe to a mild, metamorphosed version of the doctrine of the primacy of foreign policy. Traditionally, liberals had expected the solution of international problems to come from social evolution in various forms, of which the moral development of humans and civilised nations were among the most important. To a great extent, it was this identification of mankind’s progressive potential in the right circumstances that had fuelled critique of the symbols of internationalism’s ideological detractors, from the warlike aristocracy at home to Realpolitik abroad. In the midst of war, internationalist soul-searching increasingly pointed to the understanding that it was the anarchy among states that made international politics a domain of force and power. As Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, a classicist at Cambridge, put it in 1916, ‘it is as true of an aggregation of states as of an aggregation of individuals that, whatever moral sentiments may prevail, if there is no common law and no common force the best intentions will be defeated by lack of confidence and security.’58 It was this line of argument that led almost every liberal internationalist to support, in one way or another, the establishment of an international organisation to preserve peace. The basis of such arguments was the recognition that the world would only come right once the international problem was solved. Liberals could no longer expect peace to arise from the moral development of mankind, from the power of free trade or exemplary conduct, or from the application of the principle of nationality. As liberal internationalists turned to institutions they acknowledged that the domain of international politics should indeed be accorded primacy, but in a way compatible with their internationalist ideology. The anarchical nature of international politics with its law of the jungle presented an urgent threat to the existence of civilisation in a modern, interdependent world. Only by structurally reforming and reorganising international politics would their liberal ideals stand a chance of realisation.

Acknowledgements I thank Duncan Bell, William Mulligan, Rens van Munster, Jeppe Nevers, Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, Klaus Petersen, and Brendan Simms for comments on earlier versions.

Notes 1. S. Berger, M. Donovan and K. Passmore (eds) (1999) Writing National Histories: Western Europe since 1800 (London: Routledge). 2. In the space available here, I cannot do full justice to Borussianism or the federal tradition in modern German political history. For a recent discussion, see A. Green (2003) ‘The federal alternative? A new view of modern German history’, Historical Journal, XLVI, 187–202.

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3. P. Kennedy (1980) The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1869–1914 (London: Allen & Unwin); B. Stuchtey and P. Wende (eds) (2000) British and German Historiography, 1750–1950: Traditions, Perceptions and Transfers (Oxford: Oxford University Press); D. Geppert, R. Gerwarth (eds) (2008) Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian Britain: Essays on Cultural Affinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 4. C.E. McClelland (1971) The German Historians and England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 5. G.R. Searle (2004) A New England? Peace and War 1886–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 517–519. 6. McClelland, The German Historians, epilogue. 7. J. Burrow (1981) A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 294. 8. D. Bell, C. Sylvest (2006) ‘International society in victorian political thought: T.H. Green, Herbert Spencer and Henry Sidgwick’, Modern Intellectual History, III, 207–238. 9. C. Sylvest (2009) British Liberal Internationalism, 1880–1930: Making Progress? (Manchester: Manchester University Press). 10. J. Bryce (1910 [1864]), The Holy Roman Empire (London: Macmillan); C. Sylvest (2009) ‘James Bryce and the two faces of nationalism’, in I. Hall and L. Hill (eds) British International Thought from Hobbes to Namier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 161–179; Acton (1985–1988 [1862]) ‘Nationality’, in J. Rufus Fears (ed.) Selected Writings of Lord Acton, 3 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund) [hereafter SW], I, pp. 409–433, at p. 424; T. Lang (2002) ‘Lord Acton and “the insanity of nationality” ’, Journal of the History of Ideas, LXIII, 129–149. 11. P. Mandler (2002) History and National Life (London: Profile Books). 12. E.-O. Czempiel (1973) ‘Der Primat der auswärtigen Politik’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, IV, 266–287 and the introduction to this volume. L. von Ranke, ‘The great powers’ [1833] and ‘A dialogue on politics’ [1836], reprinted in G.G. Iggers and K. von Moltke (eds) (1973) The Theory and Practice of History. Leopold von Ranke (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973), pp. 65–101 and 102–130; F. Meinicke (1998 [1957]) Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d’État and its Place in Modern History, trans. D. Scott (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers), pp. 377–408; R. Ashcraft (1987) ‘German historicism and the history of political theory’, History of Political Thought, VIII, 289–324. 13. U. Muhlack (1993) ‘Ranke und die politische Schule der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft im 19. Jahrhundert. Zum Verhältnis von Geschichte und Politik’, Comparativ, VI, 92–113; G.G. Iggers (1983 [1968]) The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press). 14. C.E. McClelland (1974) ‘Berlin historians and German politics’, in W. Laqueur and G.L. Mosse (eds) Historians in Politics (London: Sage), pp. 191–221. 15. See Czempiel, ‘Der Primat der auswärtigen Politik’; F. Gilbert (1975) ‘Introduction’, in The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 3–30, esp. p. 11. 16. Iggers, The German Conception of History, p. 9. 17. P.M. Kennedy (1974) ‘The decline of nationalistic history in the west, 1900–1970’, in Laquer and Mosse, Historians in Politics, pp. 329–352, at p. 331. 18. See A. Dorpalen (1973 [1957]) Heinrich von Treitschke (Port Washington: Kennikat Press); U. Langer, Heinrich von Treitschke: Politische Biographie eines deutschen Nationalisten (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1998).

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19. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, chs. 4, 6. 20. Meinecke, Machiavellism, p. 396; P. Winzen (1981) ‘Treitschke’s influence on the rise of imperialist and anti-British nationalism in Germany’, in P. Kennedy and A. Nicholls (eds) Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914 (London: Macmillan), pp. 154–170. 21. The quotations are from H. von Treitschke (1916) Politics, 2 vols, trans. B. Dugdale and T. de Bille (London: Constable,), I, pp. 19, 24, 65, 99 and II, pp. 588, 599. On the character of these lectures and their reliability (they were collated by using student notes), see Dorpalen, Heinrich von Treitschke, pp. 228–240 and Langer, Heinrich von Treitschke, pp. 386–387. 22. O. Chadwick (1998) Acton and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); G. Himmelfarb (1952) Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul); H. Tulloch (1988) Acton (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson). 23. Acton, ‘Ranke’ (1867), in SW, II, pp. 165–172, esp. p. 169. See also K. Petander (1955) Lord Acton och hans kritik af Leopold von Ranke (Stockholm: Lindbergs). 24. Acton, ‘German schools of history’ [1886] in SW, II, pp. 325–364, at p. 352. 25. Acton, ‘German schools of history’, p. 356; Iggers, German Historicism, ch. 5. 26. H. Tulloch (2000) ‘Lord Acton and German historiography’, in Stuchtey and Wende, British and German Historiography, pp. 159–172, at p. 169. On Teutomania, see P. Mandler (2006) The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. 86–100. 27. Acton, ‘Introduction to Burd’s edition of Il Principe by Machiavelli’ [1891] in SW, II, pp. 479–495, at pp. 485, 487. The phrase is best translated as a move from the politics of mere rhetoric to the politics of action or, more controversially, violence. 28. See e.g. H.A.L. Fisher (1920 [1911]), ‘Lord Acton’s historical work’, Studies in History and Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 86–112. 29. G. Martel (1998) ‘The prehistory of appeasement: Headlam-Morley, the peace settlement and revisionism’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, IX, 242–265; A. Sharp (1998) ‘James Headlam-Morley: Creating international history’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, IX, 266–283. 30. J.W. Headlam (1899) Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire (London: Putnam). 31. J.W. Headlam (1897) ‘Heinrich von Treitschke’, English Historical Review, XII, 730. 32. Headlam, ‘Heinrich von Treitschke’, pp. 743–744. See also J.W. Headlam (1916) ‘Foreword’, in Prince von Bülow (ed.), Imperial Germany, trans. M.A. Lewenz new and revised ed., (London: Cassell), pp. vii–xxxiv. 33. G.P. Gooch (1958) Under Six Reigns (London: Longmans), p. 33. See also F. Eyck (1982) G.P. Gooch: A Study in History and Politics (London: Macmillan). 34. G.P. Gooch (1913) History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 95, 102. 35. Gooch, History and Historians, p. 153. 36. G.P. Gooch (1901) ‘Imperialism’, in Gooch (ed.) The Heart of Empire. Discussions of Problems of Modern City Life in England. With an Essay on Imperialism (London: T. Fisher Unwin), pp. 308–397, esp. pp. 312, 331–341. 37. A.W. Ward (1914) Review of Heinrich von Treitschke’s Briefe, English Historical Review, XXIX, 591–593; P. Wende (2000) ‘Views and reviews. Mutual perceptions of British and German historians in the late nineteenth century’, in Stuchtey, Wende (eds) British and German Historiography, pp. 173–189, esp. p. 176.

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38. Eyck, G.P. Gooch, p. 287. 39. J. Morley (1906 [1879]) The Life of Richard Cobden, 13th edn (London: T. Fisher Unwin), e.g. p. 939 and Morley (1903) The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (3 vols, London: Macmillan & Co), II, p. 322. 40. D.A. Hamer (1968) John Morley: Liberal Intellectual in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 365–368. 41. J. Morley (1913) Notes on Politics and History: A University Address (London: Macmillan), pp. 66, 93. 42. S. Wallace (1988) War and the Image of Germany: British Academics 1914–1918 (Edinburgh: Donald), pp. 11–12. 43. Wallace, War and the Image of Germany, particularly ch. 3; G. Robb (2004) British Culture and the First World War (London: Palgrave Macmillan), ch. 4. That academics and intellectuals put their efforts into defending the righteousness of the national cause was obviously not only a British phenomenon: O. Hintze, F. Meinecke, H. Oncken, and H. Schumacher (1915) (eds) Deutschland und der Weltkrieg (Leipzig: Teubner); H. Pogge von Strandmann (2000) ‘The role of British and German historians in mobilizing public opinion in 1914’, in Stuchtey and Wende, British and German Historiography, pp. 335–371; McClelland, The German Historians and England, ch. 10; Klaus Schwabe (1961) ‘Zur politischen Haltung der deutschen Professoren im Ersten Weltkrieg’, Historische Zeitschrift, CXCI, 601–634. 44. H.W.C. Davis (1914) The Political Thought of Heinrich von Treitschke (London: Constable). 45. Why We Are at War: Great Britain’s Case, by Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914). 46. E. Barker (1914) Nietzsche and Treitschke: The Worship of Power in Modern Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 18, 20, Barker (1928 [1914]) Political Thought in England 1848 to 1914, 2nd edn (London: Thornton Butterworth), p. 239; J. Stapleton (1994) Englishness and the Study of Politics: The Social and Political Thought of Ernest Barker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), ch. 4. 47. Bryce to H.A.L. Fisher, October 1914, quoted in J.T. Seaman Jr (2006) Citizen of the World: The Life of James Bryce (London: Tauris), p. 211. 48. See J. Bryce (1918) Essays and Addresses in Wartime (London: Macmillan); Sylvest, ‘James Bryce and the two faces of nationalism’. 49. G.P. Gooch (1915) ‘German theories of the state’, Contemporary Review, CVII, 743–753. 50. W.H. Dawson (1915) ‘Some personal memories of Treitschke’, Nineteenth Century, p. 158, quoted in S. Berger (2001) ‘William Harbutt Dawson: The career and politics of an historian of Germany’, English Historical Review, CXVI, 89. 51. W.H. Dawson (1915–1919) ‘Introduction’, in Treitschke’s History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, trans. E. & C. Paul, 7 vols (New York: McBride, Nast & Co), VII, pp. v–xii, at p. x. Cf. vol. I, pp. v–xii. 52. R. Muir (1914) Britain’s Case against Germany: An Examination of the Historical Background of the German action in 1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 66–71. 53. H.A.L. Fisher, ‘Modern german historians’, in Fisher, Studies in History and Politics, pp. 112–128. 54. A. Greenwood (1915) ‘The nature of nationality’, The Political Quarterly, no. 5 (1915), 82–100. 55. L.T. Hobhouse (1915) The World in Conflict (London: T. Fisher Unwin), pp. 55–56, 100.

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56. F. von Bernhardi (1912) Germany and the Next War, trans. A.H. Powles (London: Arnold); J. Joll (1973) ‘The English, Friedrich Nietzsche and the First World War’, in I. Geiss and B.J. Wendt (eds) Deutschland und der Weltpolitik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Düsseldorf: Bertelsmann), pp. 287–305. 57. For a fuller analysis, see Sylvest, British Liberal Internationalism. 58. G. Lowes Dickinson (1916) The European Anarchy (London: Allen & Unwin), p. 10.

15 ‘Chief of All Offices’: High Politics, Finance, and Foreign Policy, 1865–1914 T.G. Otte

To argue the case for a Rankean ‘primacy of foreign policy’ in British politics at the end of the long nineteenth century seems, at best, counter-intuitive. At worst, it smacks of a certain Teutonic rigidity, ill-suited to such a laissezfaire entity as the Victorian and Edwardian state or the protean nature and fluidity of Britain’s external relations. It has been tempting, therefore, for historians to shelter behind the observations on the subject by one foreign secretary of the period. ‘[T]he true reason’ of British foreign policy, Sir Edward Grey observed after the Great War, ‘is not to be found in far-sighted views or large conceptions or great schemes’ attributed to it by historians.1 Not infrequently indeed, historians of the long nineteenth century have tended to treat international politics as an unwelcome intrusion of extraneous matters in the affairs of the nation.2 They have been seen an élite preoccupation,3 or else as a stimulant for the development of British national or party political identities.4 In general, historians have found it easier to emphasise the party-political, and somewhat formulaic, antithesis between, say, Disraeli’s espousal of the cause of Empire with all its Crystal Palace glitter and the moral fervour of Gladstonian ‘Little Englanderism’. Alternatively, it seemed safer to make bland assertions of continuity in foreign policy, without offering too much analysis. Indeed, when contemplating the concept of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ it would be tempting to quote the comment of a later twentieth-century British diplomat on Henry Kissinger’s search for a grand design as ‘the sort of idea that is apt to make the British wince’5 , and terminate all further discussion. But this will not quite do. Even so, a degree of scepticism is called for when examining the concept of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ in relation of nineteenth-century Britain. Not the least reason for such scepticism is rooted in the somewhat ambiguous nature of the concept as developed in Leopold von Ranke’s seminal essay on the ‘Great Powers’. As one recent scholar has demonstrated, this, perhaps 232

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the most influential of all Rankean writings, allows for interpretations that stress, both, the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ and that of domestic affairs.6

∗ The subject of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ can be approached from different angles. The constitutional arrangements of mid-Victorian Britain and the institutional underpinnings of foreign policy offer a convenient route into it. The Foreign Secretary, in the somewhat inelegant words of one midVictorian constitutional writer was ‘the official organ and adviser of the Crown in its intercourse with foreign powers.’7 Foreign affairs were part of the Royal prerogative. This has a number of implications for an examination of the primacy problem. Most importantly, the monarchs of the period played a role in foreign policy, though one that reflected their different personalities and interests as well as those of their foreign secretaries. For Queen Victoria, foreign affairs were to no small extent family affairs. Unsurprisingly, she concentrated her attention on the relations with the various courts that were part of her extended family network.8 She also took a keen interest in senior diplomatic appointments. No fewer than three successive ambassadors at Berlin, for instance, were moved there at her instigation.9 Edward VII’s role in foreign affairs was more informal and intermittent but no less influential. Like his mother, he showed a strong interest in the careers of certain of his ‘pets’ amongst the senior diplomats. And here Royal favour was not infrequently bestowed on a personal whim, much to the benefit of such different men as Sir Charles Hardinge or Sir J. Rennell Rodd.10 Unlike his mother, Edward saw himself as a form of ‘salon diplomatist’. His grasp of details was never of the surest kind, and he preferred the atmospherics of international politics, for better or for worse. Even so, the King-Emperor’s role in diplomacy was more conspicuous than compelling.11 George V, wisely, took a more sensible view of his own limitations, constitutional and otherwise, and refrained from any overt interference in foreign policy.12 Prime ministers and foreign secretaries had to humour the monarch. Disraeli, for all his ornate flattery of his Sovereign, had frequently cause to be alarmed at the often bellicose and jingoistic pronouncements of the ‘The Great Lady’, who was more Beaconsfieldian than the Prime Minister himself.13 At the same time, he appreciated her usefulness in his dealings with the Earl of Derby, his inert Foreign Secretary, during the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878.14 The Marquis of Salisbury might well have chafed at having to deal with uncouth German Royals, but he knew better than to oppose the Queen. Indeed, he learnt to appreciate the monarch’s extensive experience of European diplomacy. Eventually, he valued her observations rather like those of ‘an intelligent country gentleman’s wife . . . discuss[ing] . . . her

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country neighbours’.15 Lansdowne, his successor, had the more onerous task of restricting the King’s forays into diplomacy. Lansdowne had a low opinion of the monarch’s intelligence and grasp of detail. Far worse was the mutual, scarcely concealed, and barely containable antipathy between the King and his Imperial nephew at Berlin. This had the potential of causing Anglo-German ructions: ‘The Royal “pies” ’, as Lansdowne complained, ‘are very indigestible and we shall have another row.’16 Yet, because foreign affairs were part of the Royal prerogative, they were also relatively insulated from other influences. This was reflected in the Cabinet-internal hierarchy: ‘The Foreign Office is usually considered . . . to be the chief of all offices’, as the Earl of Rosebery observed on being offered its seals for the first time.17 The small number of politicians who held that office underlined the exclusivity of foreign affairs. In the period between Palmerston’s death and August 1914 there were only nine foreign secretaries; of these, Salisbury held the office four times, while Clarendon, Derby, and Rosebery had two terms each at the Foreign Office. By comparison, there were 13 Secretaries of State for India, and 15 Chancellors of the Exchequer. The rotation of ministerial personnel in the two service departments was even more frequent. The War Office changed hands 22 times between 19 different Secretaries of State, and the Admiralty 18 times, with 15 different men taking the helm as First Lord. In theory, ultimate decision-making power was vested in the Cabinet; in practice, it did little more than rubber-stamp decisions made earlier by the Foreign Secretary, usually in consultation with the premier. For the most part, ministers ‘know and care nothing about foreign affairs’, as the Earl of Kimberley noted shortly before his own translation to the Foreign Office.18 Nor were the members of the last Gladstone administration especially egregious in their failure to appreciate the significance of foreign affairs. Sir Walter Long, one of the rising stars on the Tory side in the Balfour government, for example, never studied the papers relating to the 1904 Anglo-French entente which had been circulated among the Cabinet ministers.19 True, there were Cabinet crises triggered by foreign policy disputes. The clashes between Rosebery and his chancellor, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, were indubitably fuelled by the former’s unwanted succession to the premiership and the latter’s thus thwarted ambition to move to No. 10 Downing Street himself. But they also reflected deeply rooted ideological differences between the ‘Liberal Imperialist’ Prime Minister and Harcourt, the torchbearer of Gladstonianism. These differences offered ‘a huge opportunity to Mr Behemoth [Harcourt]’ to cause difficulties for his rival,20 and so hampered Rosebery and Kimberley in their efforts to steer British diplomacy through that concatenation of crises that convulsed international politics in the middle of the 1890s.21 The check administered to Salisbury by his cabinet colleagues during the Armenian crisis in 1895–1896 or in 1900 at the time of the ‘double

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(Boer-Boxer) crisis’ reflected growing unease about the country’s perceived international isolation. But the dispute also contained within it the seeds of the malaise of Edwardian conservatism.22 The rows between ‘economists’ and ‘navalists’ in the CampbellBannerman and Asquith administrations were ignited by divisions over foreign policy. In turn, they accentuated the fissures within contemporary liberalism, and so placed certain constraints on Grey and the Foreign Office.23 However, these were exceptions. For the most part, ministers were content to leave the Foreign Secretary well alone. In July 1914, the Cabinet could not ‘see far ahead in the political mist’ rising over Ulster, and ‘toiled around the muddy byways of Fermanagh and Tyrone’ until the AustroHungarian ultimatum alerted the ministers to the danger of a far greater conflict.24 Just as the Foreign Secretary occupied an elevated position within the Cabinet, so the Foreign Office played the key role in Britain’s external relations broadly defined. The Office acted as the nerve-centre of foreign policy, even if some of the nerve-cells were only loosely connected to other parts of the political apparatus. Until the creation of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) in 1902, there was nothing resembling a systematic central policy-coordinating mechanism. There was no uniform, let alone monolithic, structure. Rather, like the Empire itself, imperial defence rested on ‘a bundle of relationships’.25 Cooperation with the two service departments and the Colonial and India Offices tended to be ad hoc, usually in reaction to emerging crises.26 In the absence of proper policy coordination, the Foreign Office frequently set the parameters of imperial policy, and often dictated its details as well. Nor did this change significantly after the creation of the CID. When Grey impressed upon the Dominion premiers ‘that the Foreign Policy of the Empire should be a common policy’, he also reasserted his department’s primacy in imperial policy-making in Whitehall.27 Constitutionally, Grey’s stance was entirely appropriate. The CID has frequently been portrayed as the nucleus of the War Cabinet or, indeed, the Ministry of Defence. No doubt, there was a strong continuity in personnel, most notably in the influential figure of the committee’s second secretary, Capt. Maurice Hankey.28 But the CID had rather different functions. Although its precise role was never settled by statutory or other means, it remained a strictly advisory body; it never assumed executive functions. The committee, as Haldane observed in 1911, ‘never touches policy. It ascertains facts and supplies technical information.’29 The later transformation of the CID, under Hankey’s stewardship, into the Cabinet Secretariat was forced by the exigencies of global war, but it was only marginally related to the ‘primacy of foreign policy’. Relations with the Colonial Office were relatively close, and there was also some exchange of personnel; those with the India Office were more complex. In part this reflected the anomalous position of the latter department,

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which was ‘a miniature government in itself’30 ; and partly, it reflected the different orientations of the ‘official mind’ of the two departments. Nevertheless, Foreign Office influence tended to be paramount in the affairs of Central Asia and the security glacis around India, as the attempts to arrive at an Asiatic modus vivendi with St. Petersburg in the mid-1870s or the 1907 convention demonstrated.31 If the field of foreign policy was relatively shielded from external influences, it was not hermetically sealed. Much attention, of course, has been given to the ‘Trouble-makers’ and their antics. Yet, their activities were significant principally in their own ideological context.32 Their impact on foreign affairs was mercifully limited. If anything, Foreign Secretaries were driven by parliamentary, and sometimes electoral, concerns rather than the activities of extra-parliamentary movements. No doubt, the changing domestic political landscape following the 1867 and 1884 extensions of the franchise affected foreign policy-making. The ‘swing of the pendulum at home’ could now no longer be ignored, as Salisbury, no friend of ‘democracy’, reflected wearily in the late 1890s: ‘It may be taken for an axiom that no foreign policy can succeed unless it can be completed within one beat of the pendulum.’33 In practice, neither the swing of the pendulum nor its impact on Britain’s external relations was uniform or unambiguous. In the aftermath of the Second Reform Bill, the desire of the rising industrial middle classes for greater budgetary stringency to some extent reined in the Whig aristocracy’s greater appreciation of Europe’s significance for Britain’s national interest. And the middle-class mood of apprehension in the 1860s and 1870s did not lend itself to a decided foreign policy. Robert Bulwer-Lytton, the later Earl Lytton and Viceroy of India, regretted that it has become practically impossible for any English Cab[ine]t . . . to pledge the country privately or publicly to any definite line of action, or inaction, . . . . Palmerston arranged it somehow or other, but conditions of things at home are a great deal altered since his days.34 The ‘atrocitarian’ agitation during the Great Eastern Crisis reflected the increased importance of middle class, especially Nonconformist, sentiments. In the public outcry over the Bulgarian and assorted other Balkan massacres this force reached its high-water mark.35 Thereafter, the tide receded, only occasionally to surge forward again, as it did during the Armenian atrocities campaign in the mid-1890s or, later still, during E.D. Morel’s Congo reform agitation.36 These activities were undoubtedly irritants for senior diplomats, but they did not influence policy. On the contrary, Beaconsfieldism and the idea of Empire established expectations of a different kind. Calls for ‘a policy befitting Great and Greater Britain, and . . . a statesman who will carry it out’ were now more frequently heard than calls for retrenchment and

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non-interference.37 Yet, whilst public opinion was undoubtedly capable of generating political pressure, it rarely influenced political decision-making directly. This was no one-way street. Even so, the constant interaction between the domestic and external spheres of politics established certain parameters for foreign policy decision-making.38 Parliamentary calculations tended to play a more significant role. Thus, Randolph Churchill’s struggle with Salisbury for the Tory leadership in the mid-1880s also had a foreign policy aspect to it. The former’s advocacy of a more accommodating policy towards Russia affected the day-to-day running of foreign affairs. It forced Salisbury to cancel A. Condie Stephen’s appointment to Sofia, because Churchill objected to the selection of such a strongly anti-Russian diplomat for this potential Anglo-Russian flashpoint.39 Something like this occurred in reverse in the early 1890s, when Rosebery pushed his reluctant Cabinet colleagues into agreeing to the annexation of the Uganda territory. Asserting his influence over foreign and imperial policy was also means of weakening the Radical section within the party; it was an attempt to roll back the frontiers of the 1891 Newcastle Programme, that receptacle of every fringe fad of Liberalism since the Home Rule split.40 The foreign policy clashes around the turn of the century between Salisbury and a growing number of his ministers reflected the hairline fractures within contemporary Conservatism that foreshadowed the party’s profound crisis in later years.41 Grey’s difficulties with the Radicals on the Liberal backbenches had the potential to cause awkward moments in the House of Commons. His and Asquith’s attempts to placate their internal critics occasionally complicated foreign affairs. During the Commons debate on the naval question in March 1911, for instance, Grey had deprecated ‘this tremendous expenditure on and rivalry of armaments . . . [which] must in the long run break civilisation down.’ Meant as a sop to economising Radicals, it had the unfortunate consequence of convincing the authorities in Berlin that mounting financial pressures were about to force Britain to ease her efforts in the AngloGerman naval race, so complicating Grey’s scheme for a naval agreement between the two countries.42 But there were no substantive concessions to backbench dissidents. Their preference for unadulterated and unconditional non-interference in European affairs, Grey asserted in November 1911, was ‘a negation of policy’. Its pursuit ‘would result in the other nations of Europe, either by choice or by necessity, being brought into the orbit of a single diplomacy from which we should be excluded’.43 True, Grey had to accept a kind of informal foreign policy directorate for a while after 1911. But admitting the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, into this directorate had the pleasing side-effect of tying the potential leader of Radical dissent to Asquith’s and Grey’s chariot. This not only helped to neutralise the threat of ‘Little Englanderism’; it also helped to convert Lloyd George to Grey’s policy.44

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∗ In so far as the financial and commercial dimension of foreign affairs was concerned, there was a strong instinctive preference for free-trade arrangements. This reflected the prevailing mid-Victorian orthodoxy concerning the universally beneficent effect of free trade. There were a few converts to Joseph Chamberlain’s tariff reform crusade in the diplomatic service: ‘In regards to Trade one cannot help remembering that one was told that its benefits were so manifest that in time all foreign nations would willingly follow our example . . . . The exact opposite has been the case . . . , which gives cause for reflection (a little tardily).’45 Yet, these were the views of a minority. For the most part, diplomats remained wedded to the free-trade and fiscal orthodoxy.46 Free trade was considered to have a stabilising function. It was noted, for instance, that France’s turning away from the free-trade arrangements, originally negotiated in the 1860s, contributed to the souring in Anglo-French relations in the 1890s.47 Relations with Germany entered a more difficult phase after Bismarck’s 1879 conversion to protectionism. Of course, in both cases there were other political factors at work as well, but there was an economic dimension to them.48 Historians have debated at length the extent to which Britain’s financial and economic position was weakening from the late 1890s onwards.49 Though largely incidental to the subject of the ‘primacy of foreign policy’, it nevertheless has some bearing on it. Britain’s financial difficulties, in so far as defence and foreign policy were concerned, were not so much a reflection of an ‘objective’ weakening of British power. Rather they were caused by established fiscal policy-making practices. The prevailing orthodoxy, carefully watched over by ‘the Gladstonian garrison at the Treasury’,50 prescribed sound finance and limited and balanced budgets. Britain’s system of governance, moreover, was designed to reinforce orthodox fiscal conservatism. In turn, this engendered caution in foreign policy. Fiscal constraints and Peelite–Gladstonian fiscal orthodoxy did not allow for a Palmerstonian policy of bluff and bluster.51 The Chancellors of this period mostly acted comfortably within the confines thus set. Of course, there were exceptions. Faced with falling revenue, George Joachim Goschen effectively raided the Sinking Fund by reducing the annual amount set aside for the reduction of the National Debt in his 1887 budget.52 The expenditure hike caused by the Second Boer War exacerbated the problems of Britain’s falling revenue base. The root problem, however, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, noted, was not so much the cost of the conflict, but rather ‘what may be called our ordinary expenditure’.53 The established fiscal orthodoxy prescribed increased, largely indirect, taxation as the preferred means of defraying the costs of war-related expenditure. Even so, military and naval operations during the long nineteenth century were financed in equal measure by additional taxation and

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borrowing.54 Indeed, during the Boer War, Hicks Beach presented the somewhat unedifying spectacle of a chancellor scrambling about for additional revenue in an ‘endeavour to put our financial system on a broader basis’.55 No doubt, the chancellors of the 1890s broke with the Pitt–Peel–Gladstone tradition of simplifying and consolidating the nation’s tax structure. Nevertheless, Britain’s finances were in rude health, a circumstance underlined by the fact that the public loans used, in part, to finance the South African conflict were nine times oversubscribed.56 Financial strength was deployed also for foreign policy purposes. This was not so much a question of foreign loans, though these played a significant role in British diplomacy in China, South America and, albeit to a lesser extent, in Persia.57 The country’s financial strength furnished the necessary underpinning of Britain’s naval power. The naval armaments efforts stipulated by the 1889 Naval Defence Act or the 1894/5 Spencer Programme involved substantial financial commitments. But the money was found. Indeed, in 1904, British naval expenditure ‘exceed[ed] by over 26 per cent that of France, Germany, and Russia combined’.58 The Naval Defence Act was a cornerstone of British grand strategy, and as such was suggestive of the primacy accorded to the requirements of foreign policy. The act not only laid down an ambitious naval construction scheme to be completed by the spring of 1894 – 10 capital ships, 42 cruisers of varying types, and 18 gunboats – in order to maintain a sufficient margin of superiority over France and Russia, and to reduce Britain’s dependence on German diplomatic support. It also used innovative financial tools for funding the programme, in part financing it by issuing money out of the Consolidated Fund.59 Above all, in committing successive parliaments to substantial armaments expenditure over a 5-year period, it also marked an important deviation from established constitutional practice. The country’s ‘Credit and its Navy . . . [were] the two main pillars on which the strength of this country rests’, as the Earl of Selborne, the First Lord of the Admiralty, stressed in 1901.60 Neither then, nor later, during the disputes between the ‘navalist’ and ‘economist’ camps in the pre-war Liberal administrations, for all the heat and bitterness these generated, was naval supremacy ever at issue. A strong navy, after all, was a vital prop for ‘the exigencies of British world-wide policy’.61 Indeed, the various compromises over the Navy estimates, hammered out in Cabinet, in essence, satisfied Admiralty demands. As Grey admitted, the arrangements left the opponents of a ‘big navy’ with ‘the shadow & McK[enna, the First Lord of the Admiralty] had walked off with the substance.’62 What was at issue in these internal disputes was not naval supremacy, but the proportion of the overall budget considered appropriate for arms expenditure.63 The main feature of these disputes, then, was not Britain’s financial or economic weakness, but the inability or unwillingness of the political class to break the mould of orthodox finance by tapping into the existing

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wealth. As Austen Chamberlain, Chancellor during the final 2 years of Balfour’s ill-starred administration, emphasised at the end of 1903, ‘[o]ur defensive strength rests upon financial not less than on our military and naval resources, and . . . in the present condition of our finances it would be . . . impossible to finance a great war.’64 But this was financial strength, as defined by Peelite–Gladstonian orthodoxy. The stresses on, and tensions within, the existing balanced fiscal system notwithstanding, on the eve of the Great War, the system as such and its intellectual underpinnings remained intact. And it is here, perhaps, that one encounters the limits of any ‘primacy of foreign policy’. Indeed, one might well speculate that, had it been politically possible to break the mould of orthodox finance and expend significantly larger sums on naval armament, Imperial Germany might well have been more effectively deterred, and, crucially, much earlier, from persisting in her misguided naval challenge. This leads one to the somewhat perverse conclusion that Britain’s fiscal prudence was a contributing factor to the mounting uncertainties of Great Power relations before 1914.

∗ Any attempt to understand British foreign policy in the long nineteenth century is complicated by the fact that the end of this period is marked by the outbreak of the Great War. This circumstance has skewed the historiography of British diplomacy. The ‘1914 teleology’ and later twentieth-century developments have tended to reinforce assumptions of a ‘continental commitment’ and a preoccupation with Germany. It has created an extreme caricature of some of the pressing concerns in the years before 1914, and projected them backwards into the nineteenth century.65 This is not the place to offer a ‘ball-by-ball’ commentary of pre-war British foreign policy. It will suffice here to indicate its general outlines. British policy pursued three, broadly defined interests. First, it aimed at securing the two strategic blocs, the European-Atlantic and Anglo-Indian ones, that together constituted the British Empire. This included securing the vital sea and land-lines of communication between the British Isles and overseas territories. Earl Cairns, Disraeli’s Lord Chancellor and eminence grise in his final administration, sketched the wider strategic landscape in which British foreign policy operated following the acquisition of the majority of the Suez Canal shares: It is now the Canal & India; there is no such thing to us now as India alone. [. . .] [T]here is a large territory between peace & war, i.e. negotiations, compromise etc.; & in the wide territory we shall now be armed with a leverage as we never have had before.

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Then, if our rights have to be maintained, of course, they must be maintained, in the last resource by war. [. . .] But in the former condition it must have been to destroy or take possession of the property of others; now it will be war to defend our property.66 In substance, Cairns’s sketch remained valid until the outbreak of the Great War, indeed beyond it into the twentieth century. Second, from the 1860s onwards, there was a strong preference for global free-trade arrangements as internationally stabilising, commercially beneficial and as key to preserving the City of London’s status as the centre of global finance.67 Finally, whenever practicable, British policy sought the peaceful settlement of conflicts of interests by accommodating rival Powers. Admitting and satisfying grievances, through rational negotiation and concessions of non-vital British interests, were preferable to the risks, costs, and disruptions a military conflict would cause.68 The apparent dichotomy in much of the extant literature between ‘continental commitment’ and ‘isolation’ is artificial, and certainly distorting. In essence, British foreign policy during this period is best described as limited, preferably non-military intervention, in certain circumstances and under certain clearly defined conditions. There were obvious nuances in emphasis, but successive premiers and foreign secretaries adhered to this line. Thus, Gladstone and Granville declined a tentative Austro-Hungarian alliance offer by reasserting the ‘policy of successive Governments . . . to avoid prospective understandings to meet contingencies which seldom occur in the way which has been anticipated’.69 Disraeli, by contrast, was anxious to play an active role in continental affairs during the ‘War-in-Sight’ crisis in 1875 or in the subsequent crisis in the Near East – and, no doubt, he was spurred in by Bismarck’s earlier jibe ‘that he lost 5 years of his political life by the foolish belief that England was still a great power’.70 Yet, although he went to considerable lengths in his efforts to forge closer ties with Austria-Hungary in anticipation of a possible war with Russia in 1877–1878, in peace-time, in 1879, he declined to entertain the scheme of an alliance Bismarck had dangled before his eyes.71 Salisbury accepted the necessity of a degree of entanglement in the German chancellor’s web of alliances in the second half of the 1880s, here in the shape of the Mediterranean entente with Germany’s Triple Alliance partners. But this policy was influenced by Britain’s Egyptian predicament and the strained relations with Russia. The 1887 arrangement with Rome and Vienna ‘was as close as the Parliamentary character of our institutions will permit’ and necessary to reduce the ‘fearful risk, and cost’ of Britain’s current isolation.72 Salisbury nevertheless took care to reduce any dependence on Germany. Drummond-Wolff’s mission to Constantinople, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, was an indication of Salisbury’s desire to limit German leverage

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over Britain. The 1889 Naval Defence Act, strengthening Britain’s position at sea towards France and Russia, had the same object in view.73 In foreign policy terms, there was little to be gained, and much to be lost, as both Salisbury and Rosebery understood, by formalising Britain’s current leaning towards Germany and the Triple Alliance.74 There was a greater degree of formalisation involved in the 1904 colonial entente with France and the 1907 convention with Russia. However, this was not the intended outcome; it was the result of shifts in the wider constellation between the Great Powers. Here, the global diplomatic, military, and naval impact of Russia’s defeat in the Far East in 1905 cannot be overestimated. For as long as Russia was weak, the continental European equilibrium remained disturbed. In turn, this magnified perceptions of French weakness and potential German aggression. However, the British foreign policy élite understood that this was a temporary phenomenon.75 In some respects, Grey’s presiding over the London Balkans conference in 1913 marked the apogee of British influence on the continent. It also seemed to vindicate the policy of the ententes, with its limited diplomatic support for France and, though to a lesser degree, for Russia, especially so in light of strong indications of a détente with Germany in the last year-and-a-half before the summer of 1914.76

∗ In reviewing the period from Palmerston’s death until the outbreak of the Great War, it would be difficult to sustain the argument of a ‘primacy of foreign policy’ in the sense of a strict subordination of all fields of politics and society to the demands of foreign affairs. Britain’s favourable geographical location, her continued financial and naval strength, and her subsequently strong position in the constellation of the Great Powers did not generate the kind of external pressure necessary to effect such subordination.77 At the same time, members of Britain’s political and official class shared a sense of a hierarchy of concerns; and this hierarchy was dominated by the requirements of Britain’s external relations. Contemporary constitutional norms, established political practices and the given institutional framework of late-nineteenth-century British politics buttressed a kind of ‘primacy of foreign policy’. The financial and naval underpinnings of British power helped to reinforce it. As John Locke wrote two centuries earlier: ‘what is to be done in reference to Foreigners [i.e. in foreign affairs], depending much upon their actions, and the variation of designs and interests, must be left in great part to the Prudence of those who have this Power committed to them, to be managed by the best of their Skill, for the advantage of the Commonwealth.’78 At the same time, Victorian financial orthodoxy maintained certain fiscal parameters which set limits to the ‘primacy of foreign policy’. Political

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dissent, to some extent, placed further constraints on it. But here, as in so much else, the First World War was to break that mould.

Notes 1. Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1925) Twenty-Five Years, 1892–1916 (2 vols, New York: Hodder & Stoughton) I, p. 6. 2. K.T. Hoppen (1998) The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846–1886 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); G.R. Searle’s magisterial sequel (2004) A New England: Peace and War, 1886–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), though more appreciative of the significance of foreign policy, implicitly favours domestic developments. 3. H.C.G. Matthew (1973) The Liberal Imperialists: The Ideas and Politics of a PostGladstonian Elite (Oxford: Oxford University Press); M. Bentley (1984) Politics without Democracy, 1815–1914: Perceptions and Preoccupation in British Government (London: Fontana). Curiously, in the latter’s study of Salisbury, one of the preeminent foreign secretaries of the period, foreign policy is dismissed as irrelevant, idem (2001) Lord Salisbury’s World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 264–265. 4. J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 5. N. Henderson (1987) Channels and Tunnels: Reflections on Britain and Abroad (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), p. 78. 6. U. Muhlack (1995) ‘Nachwort’, in idem (ed.) Leopold von Ranke: Die grossen Mächte/Politisches Gespräch (Frankfurt), pp. 113–143; B. Simms (2003) ‘The return of the primacy of foreign policy’, German History XXI, 275–287. 7. H.D. Traill (1881) Central Government (London, 1881), pp. 78–80; G.H. LeMay (1979) The Victorian Constitution (London: Duckworth), p. 23. 8. R.A. Jones (1983) The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914 (Gerrards Cross: Smythe), pp. 40–45; F. Hardie (1935) The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, 1861– 1901 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 142–182. A modern assessment of the role of the Crown in Victoria’s reign remains an urgent desideratum. 9. Queen Victoria to Russell, 8 August 1864, in G.E. Buckle (ed.) (1926) The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd series, 1862–1878 (3 vols, London: John Murray) I, p. 243 [hereafter LQV]; Granville to Queen Victoria, 14 November 1870, and vice versa, 16 June 1871, ibid. II, pp. 84–85 and 135–136. 10. Welby to de Bunsen, 1 December 1904, De Bunsen Mss, Bodleian Library Oxford, box 15; Paget to Satow (private), 22 August 1898, Satow Mss, The National Archives (Public Record Office) [hereafter TNA (PRO), PRO 30/33/5/5; B.C. Busch (1980) Hardinge of Penshurst: A Study in the Old Diplomacy (Hamden, CT: Archon Books), pp. 32–35. 11. Sheffield to Lyons, 4 January 1880, Lyons Mss, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, box 199; Cartwright to Ponsonby, 6 November 1912, Cartwright Mss, Northamptonshire Record Office, Northampton, C(A) 45; P. Magnus (1964) King Edward the Seventh (London: Penguin), pp. 308–315 and 387–388; F. Hardie (1970) The Political Influence of the British Monarchy, 1868–1952 (New York: Batsford), pp. 100–108; S. Heffer (1998) Power and Place: The Political Consequences of Edward VII (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), pp. 105–107. 12. K. Rose (1983) King George V (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), pp. 164–166. 13. Corry to Derby, n.d. [9 May 1875], Disraeli Mss, Bodl., dep. Hughenden 112/2.

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14. Cairns to Disraeli (confidential), 1 October 1877, ibid., dep. Hughenden 91/3; Queen Victoria to Disraeli, 13 November 1877, LQV (2) ii, 573–574. For some insights into Dizzy’s ‘low politics’, see J. Charmley (1999) Splendid Isolation?: Britain and the Balance of Power, 1874–1914 (London: Hodder & Stoughton), pp. 95–112; B.G.R. Grosvenor (2009) Lord Derby and the Politics of Foreign Policy during the Great Eastern Crisis, 1875–8’(PhD thesis, University of East Anglia), passim. 15. Lady G. Cecil (1921–1932) Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (4 vols, London: Hodder & Stoughton) III, pp. 184–185. 16. Lansdowne to Lascelles (private), 25 September 1905, Lascelles Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 800/12. 17. Rosebery to Gladstone (private), 2 February 1886, Gladstone Mss, British Library, London [hereafter BL], Add Mss 44289. 18. Kimberley to Ripon (private), 6 November 1893, Ripon Mss, BL, Add Mss 43526. 19. This author discovered the papers in their original, then still sealed, envelope among the Long Mss, Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge. 20. Morley diary, 18 June 1894, Morley Mss, Bodl., uncatalogued. 21. Rosebery to Kimberley (confidential), 6 April 1895, Kimberley Mss, National Library of Scotland [hereafter NLS], MS 10243; P. Stansky (1964) Ambitions and Strategies: The Struggle for the Leadership of the Liberal Party in the 1890s (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 124–125; T.G. Otte (2007) The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894–1905 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 57–59. 22. T.G. Otte (2000) ‘A question of leadership: Lord Salisbury, the unionist cabinet and foreign policy-making’, Contemporary British History XIV, 1–26. 23. Chirol to Hardinge (private), 15 February 1912 and 10 April 1913, Hardinge Mss, Cambridge University Library [hereafter CUL], vols. 92 and 93; B.K. Murray (1990) ‘Lloyd George, the Navy Estimates, and the Inclusion of Rating Relief in the 1914 Budget’, Welsh Historical Review XV, 58–78; K. Neilson and T.G. Otte (2009) The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854–1946 (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 143–147. 24. Quotes from Haldane to mother, 25 July 1914, Haldane Mss, NLS, MS 5991; and W.S. Churchill (1932 edn) The World Crisis, 1911–1918 (London:), p. 109; also P. Jalland and J. Stubbs (1981) ‘The Irish question after the outbreak of war in 1914: Some unfinished business’, English Historical Review XCVI, 778–780. 25. G. Martin’s characterisation of the Empire in general is equally apt for the policy apparatus, idem (1972) ‘Was there a British Empire’, Historical Journal XV, 563; J.P. Mackintosh (1962) ‘The role of the Committee of Imperial Defence before 1914’, English Historical Review, LXXVII, 490–503. 26. T.G. Otte (2008) ‘The Foreign Office and Defence of Empire, 1856–1914’, in G. Kennedy (ed.) Imperial Defence: The Old World Order, 1856–1956 (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 14–17. 27. CID Minutes of 111th meeting, 26 May 1911, Cabinet Papers [hereafter CAB], TNA (PRO), CAB 2/2/2. 28. S. Roskill (1970–1974) Hankey: Man of Secrets (3 vols, London: Collins) I, pp. 334–336; J.F. Naylor (1984) A Man and an Institution: Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Custody of Cabinet Secrecy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 29. Haldane to Spender, 30 October 1911, Haldane Mss, NLS, MS 5909; see also Asquith’s later comment that the committee ‘was not intended to supplant the

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32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

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Departments, still less the Cabinet. [ . . . ] [N]o large question of policy was settled by [it]’ (1923) The Genesis of the War (London: Cassell), pp. 113–114. Lord G. Hamilton (1917) Parliamentary Reminiscences and Reflections, 1868 to 1885 (London: Murray), pp. 68–69. Granville to Halifax (private), 27 December 1873, Granville Mss, TNA (PRO), PRO 30/29/64; for the 1907 negotiations see K. Neilson (1995) Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy towards Russia, 1894–1917 (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 271–288; F. Kazamzadeh (1968) Russia and Britain in the Persian Gulf, 1864–1914 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), pp. 472–479. M. Ceadel’s recent magisterial study (2002) Semi-Detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); P. Laity (2001) The British Peace Movement, 1870–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon). Salisbury to Curzon, 23 December 1897, Curzon Mss, British Library Oriental and India Office Collection, London, Mss. Eur. F. 112/1B; T.G. Otte (2002) ‘ “Floating downstream”?: Lord Salisbury and British Foreign Policy, 1878–1902’, in idem (ed.) The Makers of British Foreign Policy (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 99–100. Bulwer-Lytton to Russell (private), 31 January 1872, Ampthill Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 918/58. For the middle class mood see E.J. Feuchtwanger (1968) Disraeli, Democracy, and the Tory Party: Conservative Leadership and Organization after the Second Reform Bill (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 29–30. The extant literature on the subject of public opinion and foreign policy is vast and varied. For the most part, it is based on the assumption that public opinion exercised a direct influence. Exemplary, M. Swartz (1985) The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone (London: Macmillan), pp. 5–6; for a more nuanced approach see W. Mulligan (2008) ‘Mobs and diplomats: The Alabama affair and British diplomacy, 1865– 1872’, in M. Mösslang and T. Riotte (eds) The Diplomats’ World: A Cultural History of Diplomacy, 1815–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 105–132. R.T. Shannon (1963) Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation 1876 (London: Thomas Nelson), remains the locus classicus; D.W. Bebbington (1982) The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914 (London: Allen & Unwin), P.T. Marsh (ed.) (1979) The Conscience of the Victorian State (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP). Phipps to de Bunsen (private), 5 December 1904, De Bunsen Mss, Bodl., box 14; E.D. Morel (1909) Great Britain and the Congo: The Pillage of the Congo Basin, with an Introduction by Sir A. Conan Doyle (London: Smith, Elder & Co). H.S. Hallet (1898) ‘The partition of China’, Nineteenth Century XLIII, 164; C.C. Eldridge (1973) England’s Mission: The Imperial Idea in the Age of Disraeli and Gladstone (London: Macmillan), pp. 246–247; D. Bell (2007) The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). The subject still awaits its full treatment; for a discussion of some of this, see T.G. Otte (2006) ‘ “Avenge England’s dishonour”: By-elections, Parliament, and the Politics of Foreign Policy in 1898’, English Historical Review CXXI, 385–428. Stephen to Lascelles (private), 9 March 1887, Lascelles Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 800/6. Matthew, Liberal Imperialists, pp. 90–101. Otte, ‘Question of leadership’, 1–26. Parliamentary Debates, 5th series xxii (13 March 1911), cols. 1977–1991 [hereafter PD]; for the event, see T.G. Otte (2010) ‘Grey ambassadors: The Dreadnought and British Foreign Policy’, in A.D. Lambert (ed.) The Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age (Aldershot: Ashgate).

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43. PD (5) xxxii (27 November 1911), col. 60. The speech was only a qualified success: ‘He was cheered heartily by the Tories throughout his speech. The Liberals listened for the most part in silence’, Dillon [MP (Irish Nat.), Mayo East, 1885–1918] to Browne [Professor of Persian, Cambridge], 28 November 1911, in author’s possession. 44. A.C. Murray diary, 7 January 1912, Elibank Mss, NLS, MS 8814; Grey to Lloyd George (private), 5 September 1911, Lloyd George Mss, House of Lords Record Office [hereafter HLRO], C/4/14; M.G. Fry (1977) Lloyd George and Foreign Policy: The Education of a Statesman, 1890–1916 (Montreal and London: McGill), pp. 131–181. 45. Malet to brother, 29 May 1903, Malet Mss, Somerset Record Office, Taunton, DD/MAL/488. 46. Lindley to Stirling-Maxwell [MP (Cons.), Glasgow College Division, 1895–1906], 7 January 1904, and Scott to Stirling-Maxwell, 24 January 1906, Stirling-Maxwell Mss, Glasgow City Archives, Mitchell Library, T-PM 122/1/19 and 22. 47. Kennedy to Fergusson, 20 December 1886, Fergusson Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 800/26; P.T. Marsh (2002) ‘The end of the Anglo-French commercial alliance, 1860–1894’, in P. Chassaigne and M.L. Dockrill (eds) Anglo-French Relations, 1898–1998: From Fashoda to Jospin (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 34–43. 48. Lister to Russell (private), 28 April 1879, Ampthill Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 918/49; K. Urbach (1999) Bismarck’s Favourite Englishman: Lord Odo Russell’s Mission to Berlin (London: I.B. Tauris), pp. 197–198. 49. A. Friedberg (1987) The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press); P.M. Kennedy (1989), The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict, 1500–2000 (London: Fontana), pp. 290–299. 50. Salisbury to Chamberlain (private), 13 December 1896, Chamberlain Mss, Birmingham University Library [hereafter BUL], JC 5/67/56. Salisbury was not alone in holding such views. His erstwhile rival Randolph Churchill similarly regarded the Treasury as ‘a lot of d – d Gladstonians’, H.G. Hutchinson (ed.) (1922) The Private Diary of Sir Algernon West (London: John Murray), pp. 4–5. 51. H.C.G. Matthew (1979) ‘Disraeli, gladstone, and the politics of mid-victorian budgets’, Historical Journal, XXII, 615–643; T.G. Otte (2004) ‘Old diplomacy: Reflections on the foreign office before 1914’, in G. Johnson (ed.) The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge), pp. 32–33. 52. B. Mallet (1913) British Budgets, 1887–8 to 1912–13 (London: Macmillan), pp. 1–8. Goschen redeemed the situation with his 1888 conversion of the National Debt, see memo. Goschen, ‘National debt conversion’, 28 February 1888, CAB 37/21/4; A.E. Elliot (1911) The Life of George Joachim Goschen, First Viscount Goschen, 1831–1907 (2 vols, London: Longmans) II, pp. 137–184. 53. Mallet, Budgets, 168; memo. Hicks Beach, ‘Aged poor’, 18 November 1899, CAB 37/51/89. 54. Memo. Bradbury [Permanent Secretary, Treasury], ‘The financing of naval and military operations, 1793–1886’, 12 February 1900, Treasury Papers [hereafter T], TNA (PRO), T 170/31. 55. Hicks Beach, 1901 budget speech as quoted in Lady V. Hicks Beach (1932) Life of Sir Michael Hicks Beach (Earl St. Aldwyn) (2 vols, London: Macmillan) II, p. 138. 56. S.S. Gladstone [Director, Bank of England] to Hicks Beach, 12 March 1900, and Hamilton to Hicks Beach, 5 July 1900, TNA (PRO), T 168/87 and /48; also T.G. Otte

T.G. Otte

57.

58. 59.

60.

61. 62.

63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71.

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(2006) ‘Black Michael’: Sir Michael Hicks Beach and the Problems of Late Victorian Conservatism (Tunbridge Wells: Conservative History Group), 17. Hicks Beach to Salisbury (confidential), 26 December 1897, St. Aldwyn Mss, Gloucestershire Record Office, Gloucester, PCC/34; E.W. Edwards (1987) British Diplomacy and Finance in China, 1895–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon), pp. 21–22; D.C.M. Platt (1968) Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon). Min. Chamberlain, 18 January 1904, Chamberlain Mss, BUL, AC 17/2/18; Selborne to Chamberlain, 30 September 1903, ibid., AC 44/4/5. Memo. Hamilton, ‘Special programme for new construction’, 1 November 1888, TNA (PRO), CAB 37/22/30; Goschen to Salisbury, 19 and 22 December 1889, Salisbury Mss, Hatfield House, 3M/E/Goschen; Naval Defence Act, 1889 (52 Vict., cap. 8); A.J. Marder (1964) The Anatomy of Sea Power: A History of British Naval Power in the Pre-Dreadnought Era (London: Cass), pp. 126–129; T.J. Spinner (1973) George Joachim Goschen: The Transformation of a Victorian Liberal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 141–143. Memo. Selborne, ‘The navy estimates and the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s memorandum on the growth of expenditure’, 16 November 1901, TNA (PRO), CAB 37/59/118. Foreign Office memo., ‘Foreign office views of the redistribution of the navy’, 24 July 1907, TNA (PRO), CAB 37/89/74. Lloyd George to Haldane, 27 February 1909, Lloyd George Mss, HLRO, C/4/17/1. McKenna saw matters differently, McKenna to Asquith, 4 March 1909, McKenna Mss, Churchill College Archive Centre [hereafter CCAC], MCKN 3/17. Lloyd George to Asquith, 2 February 1909, Lloyd George Mss, HLRO, C/6/11/2; memo. Lloyd George, January 1914, Asquith Mss, Bodl., MS Asquith 25; B.B. Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George, land, the budget, and social reform’, American Historical Review, LXXXI, 1058–1066; K. Neilson (1991) ‘ “Greatly exaggerated”: The myth of the decline of Great Britain before 1914’, International History Review, XIII, 695–725. Memo. Chamberlain, ‘The financial situation’, 7 December 1903, Chamberlain Mss, BUL, AC 17/2/17; instructive also G.C. Peden (2007) Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Otte, China Question, pp. 5–6. Cairns to Disraeli (confidential), 29 January 1876, Disraeli Mss, Bodl., Dep. Hughenden 91/3. Hardinge to Goschen (private), 20 April 1909, Hardinge Mss, CUL, vol. 17; P.T. Marsh (1999) Bargaining on Europe: Britain and the First Common Market, 1860–1892 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), pp. 1–7. P.M. Kennedy (1976) ‘The tradition of appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865–1939’, British Journal of International Studies, II, 196. Granville to Buchanan (no. 13, confidential), 16 January 1872, TNA (PRO), FO 120/492. Memo. Morier, 1 April 1874, as quoted in [V.] Rosslyn Wemyss, Memoirs and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Morier, G.C.B., from 1826 to 1876 (2 vols, London: Edward Arnold) II, p. 330. Mema. Corry, 22 January 1878, and Disraeli, 27 September 1879, Disraeli Mss, Bodl., Dep. Hughenden 69/1 and 69/2; R. Blake (1967) Disraeli (London: St Martin’s Press), pp. 676–679.

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72. Salisbury to Queen Victoria, 10 February 1887, TNA (PRO), CAB 41/20/31; C.J. Lowe (1965) Salisbury and the Mediterranean, 1886–1896 (London: Routledge), pp. 16–17. 73. Salisbury to Baring (private), 25 February 1887, Cromer Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 601/7; M.P. Hornik (1940) ‘The special mission of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff to Constantinople, 1885–7’, English Historical Review, LV, 616–617; Otte, ‘ “Floating downstream” ’, 111–612. 74. Memo. Rosebery, 31 January 1894, Rosebery Mss, NLS, MS 10135; G. Martel (1980) ‘Documenting the great game: “World policy” and the turbulent frontier’, International History Review II, 288–308. 75. Memo. Clarke, ‘The Afghanistan problem’, 20 March 1905, TNA (PRO), CAB 38/8/26; Spring-Rice to Lansdowne (private), 6 August 1905, Lansdowne Mss, TNA (PRO), FO 800/116; T.G. Otte (2007) ‘The fragmenting of the Old World Order: Britain, the great powers and the war’, in R. Kowner (ed.) The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 100–102; K. Neilson (2002) ‘ “Control the whirlwind”: Sir Edward Grey as foreign secretary, 1906– 1916’, in Otte (ed.) Makers of the Foreign Policy, pp. 129–131. For a slightly different view see W. Mulligan (2008) ‘From case to narrative: The marquess of Lansdowne, Sir Edward Grey and the threat from Germany, 1900–1906’, International History Review XXX, 273–302. 76. Goschen to Rodd, 1 February 1913, Rennell of Rodd Mss, Bodl., box 15; Eisendecher to Harcourt, 13 March 1914, Harcourt Mss, Bodl., MS Harcourt dep. 443; M. Ekstein (1971) ‘Sir Edward Grey and imperial Germany in 1914’, Journal of Contemporary History, VI, 121–131. 77. Those with theoretical inclinations may find in this confirmation of Otto Hintze’s analysis of the interaction of external pressures and constitutional arrangements, ‘Wesen and Wandel des modernen Staates’, in idem, G. Oestreich (ed.) Gesammelte Abhandlungen, 3 vols (Göttingen, 1962–1967) I, pp. 470–496. 78. ‘The second treatise of government’, idem, P. Laslett (ed.) Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, repr. 1988), ch. XII, § 147, 366.

16 The 1910 Elections and the Primacy of Foreign Policy Phillips Payson O’Brien

In 2005, during the General Election campaign, the phrase ‘dog-whistle’ politics first entered the lexicon of British debate. Associated with the Australian political consultant and Conservative Party adviser Lynton Crosby, the phrase stood for a type of red-meat political campaign, one geared towards stirring the more atavistic and basic urges of the ‘true-blue’ Conservative voter. By stressing such core issues as opposition to immigration and the desire to resist further European integration, the tactic was meant to be not so much an election winning strategy as it was an exercise in political damage control. By motivating the party’s core to turn out enthusiastically, at the expected cost of alienating some uncommitted swing voters, it hoped to reduce, but certainly not overturn, Labour’s massive majority. Testing the success of such a strategy is not terribly straightforward. Going into the 2005 election the Labour has a majority of 247 seats over the Conservatives (160 seats over all the other parties combined). The Conservative Party campaign team was not popular, with the party’s leader, Michael Howard, unable to project an appealing persona. Under such circumstances the dog-whistle campaign produced an overall Conservative gain of 33 seats, though the Labour still maintained its overall majority by 66. One of the most interesting aspects of this type of Conservative campaign in 2005 was its focus on the external. Whether it was the threat to British sovereignty from Europe, or the threat to British jobs from immigrants, the Conservative campaign was an attempt to use the outside world to attack a sitting government whose domestic policies had considerable support. As such this campaign bears some resemblance to the General Elections of 1910. The year 1910 was one of the most exciting, intense, and ultimately enervating years in British political history. Framed by two General Election campaigns, 1910 also saw the death of a much-loved and engorged monarch as well as fraught negotiations to avert a constitutional crisis. Its great debate went to the very heart of the British constitution – whether the hereditary House of Lords should play a significant role in the vetoing of legislation. As such the 1910 elections have usually been seen in terms of British domestic 249

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politics and society, whether or not the kingdom was going to proceed down the road to a universal democracy, or whether the lottery of sperm should play a powerful role in the governing of society. Since George Dangerfield’s The Strange Death of Liberal England, still one of the most engaging works of British political history, the usual focus of political historians has been on this issue.1 This is hardly surprising. The debate over the House of Lords and its ability to veto a finance bill involved some of the greatest and most compelling figures in British political history. From David Lloyd George and his famous Limehouse Address to Arthur Balfour and his unfortunately nicknamed Conservative poodle-peers in the House of Lords, the political debate over the future of the British constitution involved issues of great substance and great theatre. Anyone interested in the story of the 1910 campaigns must start with Neil Blewett’s authoritative study of both. His book, The Peers, the Parties, and the People: The British General Elections of 1910 chronicles the events of 1910 from the ground up.2 Through his work we have gained an understanding of which parts of the United Kingdom stayed Liberal, which switched back to the Conservatives, and which, ominously for the comfortable Edwardian two party system, were moving towards Labour. Other historians in their excellent works on the politics of the period have looked at the elections from more particular angles, though almost always from a domestic perspective. George Bernstein and David Brooks have paid particular attention to the political impact of House of Lords debate to the Liberal Party.3 David Dutton discusses the issue of the tariff in Unionist campaigning, whilst Ian Packer highlights the role of land reform.4 Dutton’s discussion of the tariff reform is interesting because he implies that for most Conservatives it was a revenue-raising issue – a way of increasing government funds that was not nearly as radical as Lloyd George’s People’s Budget.5 Stuart Ball demonstrates how a Conservative party tried to exploit foreign policy, in the form of the tariff, against the Liberals, only to have their message swamped by domestic concerns, particularly the House of Lords.6 On the other hand, historians interested in foreign policy usually don’t put great effort in studying its relationship with political campaigns. Frans Coetzee is one of the few who discusses the role of strategic issues in Conservative politics, and mentions the Navy League in 1910 campaigning, but generally sees the tariff as more important.7 Yet, if there is any group that misses out the connection between naval issues and party politics more than any others, it is naval historians themselves. Those most interested in the Royal Navy in this period hardly lift their eyes from the technical advances of range finders and intrigues within the Admiralty to realise political campaigning went on at all. Arthur Marder, the dean of historians of the Royal Navy in this period is particularly guilty of such a blinkered perspective. He succeeds in discussing such sensitive subjects as the failure of Anglo-German naval negotiations in late 1909 and British naval estimates disputes in early

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1910 without a single mention that they were taking place in the midst of the greatest election campaign in British history.8 This disconnection is jarring. The 1910 elections were held in the shadow of the greatest naval crisis of the pre-war period. In 1909 the Liberal government was almost broken by a dispute over naval appropriations. This crisis was the result of a dispute over the proper analysis of intelligence on German naval intentions.9 Reports reached the British government in late 1908 that the Germans were beginning the construction of new dreadnought battleships, the most powerful type of ship then in existence, ahead of schedule. The British Cabinet then split into two factions in deciding how to respond. The ‘Economists’ led by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George and enthusiastically squired by the new President of the Board of Trade, Winston Churchill, argued against too great an increase in British naval building. Desirous of restraining all military and naval spending so that more could be spent on their social policies, in particular plans for old-age pensions. Lloyd George was already forming in his mind plans for a dramatic ‘People’s Budget’ which would begin pension programmes on the back of land taxation aimed at the large landowner. As such he and his allies such as Lord Morley were at first determined to keep the British dreadnought building programme at its original level of 4 ships. The more Germanophobic wing of the cabinet, led by the Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna, argued for a dramatic acceleration to first six and then eight battleships. To them, and others such as Lord Crewe and Richard Haldane, the German threat was real and growing. Signs that the Germans might have laid down battleships early was not, as the Germans claimed, done to alleviate unemployment in German shipyards; it was part of a nefarious, secretive Hun plot to seize naval supremacy from the British. As such they would accept no compromise – the Royal Navy had to be enlarged rapidly. With the two camps lunging at each others throats, and resignation threats filling the air, the fight reached a fever pitch in January and February 1909. At that time the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, decisively sided with the big navy camp in the plan for eight dreadnoughts. When the debates over the direction of British naval policy became public knowledge, it seemed a godsend for the Conservative Party (which liked to refer to itself as the Unionist party at the time). Jingoist slogans such as ‘We want 8 and we won’t wait echoed in music halls and theatres. Arthur Balfour, the leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, made great play over supposed Liberal vacillation in the face of German challenge. Had the issue ended there, the naval crisis might not have played a great role in the 1910 elections. Yet the person most responsible for keeping the issue alive was none other than Lloyd George himself. Having seemingly received a cabinet drubbing in early 1909, the Welsh Wizard decided to turn the defeat given to him by his colleagues into a victory over the Conservatives.

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In what seemed to be a strategic masterstroke, he welded the needs of the navy together with his plans for a People’s Budget into a hammer with which to bash Conservative skulls. This he did most famously in his electrifying and astonishing Limehouse Address, delivered in East London on 30 July 1909.10 The most important political address presented in the United Kingdom between Gladstone and the Second World War, Limehouse threatened to wipe away some of the safe middle-class assumptions that had defined British politics. Lloyd George’s ultimate aim was to make the case for new taxes on the landed wealthy, and this he did using his most powerful weapon, mockery. He ridiculed the Conservatives as a party by savaging the ‘Dukes’ whom Lloyd George painted as epitomes of a miserly, misanthropic upper-class dining on its cakes and champagne whilst the poor and elderly cried out for only the most basic amount support. And yet, his attack on the Conservatives was not solely reserved for their miserliness in the face of the poor. One of his most powerful tools of mockery was the navy. Right from the first paragraph of his speech Lloyd George spoke of the need for extra taxation to fund all eight dreadnoughts in 1909, the four extra of which would cost a whopping £8 million. ‘We started our four Dreadnoughts. They cost eight millions of money. We promised them four more. They cost another eight millions. Somebody has got to pay; and then these gentlemen say: Perfectly true; somebody has got to pay but we would rather that somebody were somebody else. We started building; we wanted money to pay for the building; so we sent the hat round. We sent it round amongst the workmen and winders of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the weavers of High Peak and the Scotsmen of Dumfries who, like all their countrymen, know the value of money. They all dropped in their coppers. We went round Belgravia; and there has been such a howl ever since that it has completely deafened us.’11 Lloyd George’s inflammatory rhetoric both shocked and hardened Conservative politicians. Whether or not compromise was capable on a funding bill before this address, afterwards Conservative peers in the House of Lords seemed determined to block Lloyd George’s bill – repercussions be damned. Lloyd George certainly did not help things when he delivered a further swingeing attack on the Lords 3 months later in Newcastle. Once again he tried to paint the Conservatives as being hypocritical on naval policy, with devastating affect. ‘A fully equipped Duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and Dukes are just as great a terror, and they last longer.’12 For a while it seemed that the Liberals had made the issue of foreign policy and security their own. As Paul Readman’s perceptive research has shown, the Liberal Party worked very hard in these years to portray itself as patriotic and imperialist.13 Only a few months after the Asquith government had almost split apart on this issue of naval policy, the erstwhile ‘economist’ Chancellor of the Exchequer was throwing devastating punches against the Conservative party, and goading it into behaving exactly in the way that he wanted. His policy reached its climax on 30 November, when the House of


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Lords rejected the People’s Budget by a massive vote of 350 to 75, setting in motion the electoral process that would see two General Elections in less than a year. As said before, the usual way that historians have presented these elections is as a titanic contest over the constitutional role of the House of Lords – and not to spoil a good story but in the main they are right. A detailed study of the elections shows that most of the addresses given, and most of the articles written about in newspapers, were concerned with these constitutional issues. In some cases they were twice as likely to appear as issues of foreign policy such as the navy and the tariff (if this can be thought of as an issue of foreign policy). This is particularly true of the second election, campaigning for which occurred from late November into December 1910. This second election can only be seen as a referendum on the House of Lords. Coming after the Lords had once again rejected Lloyd George’s spending plans, discussion of the constitution predominated. Newspaper articles were overwhelmingly concerned with the constitutional questions, as were candidate addresses. The lopsided nature of the issues discussed is reflected in the relative brevity of the contest, and the absolute exhaustion of many of the combatants. Having spent more than a year relentlessly pounding each other, both the Conservatives and Liberals seemed to sleepwalk through the latter campaign, mouthing old platitudes. There were many reports that the second campaign was a lacklustre and depressing affair. It was also the case that hardly anyone expected the second campaign to change anything materially from the first – a finding that was clearly borne out when the second election produced the smallest number of seat changes in any British election ever. The final results of the December 1910 vote showed that only four seats changed hands out of 670. The Conservatives lost one seat, the Liberals three, whilst the Irish Nationalists and Labour gained two seats each.14 If the December 1910 election is rightly seen as a referendum on the role of the House of Lords, the earlier election presents a different, and far more interesting, story. The January 1910 election was the longest and most expensive in British history to that time. It also witnessed the most strenuous efforts of some of the giants of early twentieth-century British politics including Lloyd George, Asquith, Churchill, and Grey for the Liberals, and Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Curzon, and Andrew Bonar-Law for the Conservatives. It also saw great swings in mood and expectation, with the Liberals feeling extremely confident to begin with before the Conservatives mounted a brutal fight-back. The unofficial start of the campaign was 10 December. On that day Balfour released his first official campaign address whilst Asquith delivered a major address at the Albert Hall. At first it seems that Lloyd George’s strategy of trying to turn the Liberals into the pro-Navy policy had paid off in spades. Balfour in a rather tepid and legalistic piece hardly mentioned naval policy at

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all. He dwelt almost entirely on the question of the House of Lords and then the tariff, only mentioning the Navy in the second to last paragraph. Even then he only mentioned it to say that he had nothing concrete to say. ‘In this address I am compelled to restrict myself to broad constitutional issues and certain great great social and financial problems. I am thus perforce constrained to be silent about the Navy, but this is of the less importance, as I have spoken more than once in the City upon this great theme.’15 Asquith took a completely different strategy and made Liberal naval policy a keystone of his speech. He brought up national defence in the first paragraph of his address, and spoke of the need to maintain British naval supremacy in the second.16 From them on for the next few weeks, the Prime Minister seemed eager to engage the Conservatives on the question of naval policy. In a major address in Liverpool on 22 December, Asquith mocked Conservative attacks of the Liberal naval policy, rousing great cheers from the Liberal partisans in the crowd. ‘Let me say once and for all – and I speak with full deliberation and after a careful and prolonged inquiry – that the navy today is able to maintain not only this year, but in the years that lie before us, our supremacy at sea, and, should the necessity arise – which God forbid – to guard the integrity of our shores, the protection of our commerce, the inviolability of our Empire (loud cheers).’17 Other major Liberals seemed just as assertive. Though Lloyd George, interestingly, seems to have played a less prominent role in the early stages of the campaign, other cabinet members such as Winston Churchill, Reginald McKenna, and Edward Grey made naval policy a major part of their speeches.18 When Grey formally opened his campaign at his constituency at Berwick on Tweed, he concluded his address with a direct and somewhat pedantic comparison of Liberal and Conservative policies towards the fleet. ‘A year ago all the Conservative newspapers were clamouring that the government should promise to begin the building of six new dreadnoughts in the year 1909, and they met that by saying that in the spring of the year they would give orders at once for four, and if it was necessary later on in the year they would give orders, not for two more, making six, but for four more, making eight. (Cheers.) That was what the Government had actually done. (More Cheers.)’19 If Grey was less than sure that his Northumberland constituents could do basic arithmetic, he seemed convinced that the Liberals were holding a winning hand with the campaign as a whole and the navy in particular. In fact, Liberal addresses in general had an optimistic and self-confident tone, reflecting the fact that they believed that were destined for a clear victory. In comparison, the Conservative campaign throughout December seemed disjointed. Both Balfour and Joseph Chamberlain were ill for much of the month, and unable to exercise control over the Conservative message, to say nothing of hitting the campaign trail themselves. In their absence different, less-accomplished figures arose to lead the fight – though they seemed


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to have no consistency of message. Austen Chamberlain deputised for his father, and spent most of his time extolling the virtues of tariff reform. This Chamberlain family crusade still sat somewhat uneasily within the Conservative party, creating both enthusiasm and apathy in almost equal measure. It was an issue that had backfired spectacularly on the party in 1905, and there was reluctance in some quarters against giving the issue such predominance again. The monomaniacal nature of the election struggle also seemed to diminish the Conservative campaign. For instance, on 29 December in a major address issued by Joseph Chamberlain to his constituents in Birmingham on the merits of tariff reform, the navy was not mentioned once.20 Yet the problem remained as to the other issues that the Conservative campaign should embrace. Some of the other options were ghastly, probably delusional. For instance, we have that sensitive judge of democratic opinion, George Nathaniel Curzon. Curzon took advantage of Balfour’s absence to educate the British populace about the merits of the hereditary system. In his election addresses, he spoke of the undoubted wisdom and sagacity of the wealthy peer.21 Had the Conservative campaign continued along such destructive lines, the party might have gone down to a more decisive defeat. In late December and early January it seemed to some Liberals that the party was set for a convincing public endorsement of its policies. It was precisely at this time that the Conservatives turned to ‘dog-whistle’ politics, a more aggressive form of campaigning, based partly around British naval policy. This provided new momentum to their efforts. In a fascinating twist it seems it was very much the middle-ranking Conservative politician who took the lead in this effort. Typical of this group was David Lindsay. Though he would later be better known as the 2nd Earl Crawford, in 1910 Lindsay was a politician on the make. From 1911 to 1913, he would serve as the Conservative chief whip in the House of Commons, and therefore had an instinctive grasp of the party’s more basic instincts. Running in a coal mining section of Wigan in 1910, Lindsay knew that a Curzonian campaign based on the inherent supremacy of the hereditary noble was delusional. Depressed by the state of campaign in early January, he believed that the Liberals had gotten off far too easily.22 Conservatives such as Lindsay wanted the party to turn on the attack, to savage the Liberals as dangerous Socialists who had left the country weak and unprotected in the face of outside enemies. They were also desperate to broaden the election’s focus away from the House of Lords, and sought to redraft the campaign as one of patriotism versus radicalism. If there was someone even more committed to this shift it was the sitting Conservative chief whip, Sir Anthony Acland Hood, the MP for West Somerset. Acland Hood seems very much to have taken on the voice of the unionist conscience, and on 4 January launched one of the most brutal assaults heretofore seen on the government.23 In one grand synthesis he lumped

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naval policy, socialism, and the House of Lords, and threw it back at the ‘radical’ Liberal party. ‘The Radical government in 4 years have added greatly to the annual expenditure while they have failed to make proper provision for the supremacy of the British Navy. The question before you is how is that expenditure to be met with due regard to the best interests of the country? That question the House of Lords in the exercise of its duty has referred to the judgement of the electors. The Radical Party desire to abolish the power of the Lords to refer a question of this kind to the people. In order to gain their end the Government are making wild promises to Irish Home Rulers, to the enemies of the Church, to the Socialist Party, and to those who believe in a small Navy . . . . I stand for a united Empire, for Tariff Reform, and a strong Navy.’24 Those like Acland Hood realised they had to set the atavistic side of Conservative spirit free, to let it soar unhindered if they had any chance to stop Liberal momentum and energise their base. And their attacks had real impact, stoking the passions of the Conservative press and even the emotions of the usually crystalline Balfour, now recovered and well enough to hit the campaign trail. The Times, for one was supportive of the Conservatives but always desperate to sound reasonable. On 7 January they decided for the first time in the campaign to make naval policy the subject of their lead editorial, opening with an admission of just how important the issue had become. ‘That comments are being made upon the question of the Navy from Vienna to Toronto is a proof of how largely that subject bulks at this moment in the thoughts of the world. There can be no doubt that, as the elections draw near, it is also occupying more and more the minds of thousands of patriotic citizens at home.’ It was here that the 1909 naval crisis came back to help the Conservatives. As The Times pointed out the Navy undoubtedly had strong supporters amongst ‘moderates’ in the Liberal Party, particularly Asquith, Grey, and Haldane. However, The Times pointed more in sorrow than in anger to the ‘radical’ wing that had opposed the extra dreadnoughts in 1909, and who now could not be trusted to look after the national interest. Without naming Lloyd George (and Churchill) directly, The Times was fingering them and their naval policy as the reason the country should support the Conservative Party at the ballot box. This distinction between ‘moderates’ and ‘radicals’ was no mistake, but was part of a united Conservative attempt to appeal to their base. When Balfour re-emerged on the campaign trail with an address to the electors of Hanley, a district in the Staffordshire potteries, he seemed to revel in this more aggressive and assertive tone, directing his attacks at what he now saw to be the Liberals two great weak points, the Navy and unemployment, and particularly the former. ‘We left the present government . . . with an overwhelming strength in battleships and an ample supply of naval stores. In the 4 years that have since elapsed they have been living on these battleships and consuming these stores.’25 In reaction to these attacks other


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elements of the Conservative press, less restrained than The Times, leapt to the attack. Perhaps most overjoyed was The Scotsman. The Conservatives in Scotland were even more than in England driven by the question of Unionism over that of the House of Lords. They were also fighting a much harder fight against a strong Liberal majority, and when the new Conservative naval attacks started The Scotsman reacted almost giddily. They described Balfour after his Hanley address in almost identical terms to those that Acland Hood has used about himself. ‘He stands for a united Empire, for Tariff Reform, and a strong Navy. He is against a separate parliament for Ireland and declared that no working man in this country need have the smallest feat that tariff reform will increase the cost of living, while it will greatly increase employment.’26 Soon the entire Conservative Party seemed to be taking aim at the naval policy of the Liberal Party. On 7 January Bonar Law, speaking at Camberwell, and Lord Cawdor, speaking at Milford Haven, constructed their addresses around the Liberal’s supposed naval inadequacies.27 And the Liberals were feeling the pressure. After having boasted about Liberal naval policy to open the campaign, by 7 January Asquith felt he had to mount a stout defence of that same policy.28 For the first time in the campaign, the parties were now fighting over the issues that the Conservatives wanted to speak about, and if it was not an election-winning strategy, it was at least one that offered up hope of a much better performance for the Conservatives. To show how substantial the shift was, one need only look at the number of articles published in both The Times and The Scotsman on the Navy and the House of Lords during this period. The relative number of articles published about naval policy grew at a much higher rate than those House of Lords. Between 4 January and 20 January the number of articles with the words ‘navy’ and ‘election’ published in The Times was 36 per cent higher than that published between 10 December and 3 January, while the same figure for the House of Lords and election went up by only 7 per cent.29 In The Scotsman the shift was even more dramatic, with the numbers of articles about the navy rocketing up by 62 per cent, whilst those about the House of Lords went up by only 15 per cent.30 This is not to say that the navy decided the election – it did not. In the end, there was always more written about the House of Lords than about the Navy, and it seems in most people’s minds it remained the most important question. However, by the time votes were cast and counted in late January 1910, the House of Lords was no longer the only issue that influenced voting. Naval policy was clearly thought increasingly important, and both parties were vying to appear strong supporters of the Royal Navy. As such, it does help explain just why the election worked out the way that it did. The Unionists did a credible job in 1910 in winning back the heartlands. As Blewett has shown, the Conservatives did very well in England, particularly the areas around London.31 On the other hand, they made hardly any

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inroads in Liberal areas, suffering badly in Scotland and Wales. To The Times this was about a good a result as they could have hoped for. If the navy (and other foreign policy issues) were not enough to win the election for the Conservatives, they would help to keep the more radical members of the Liberal Party in line.32 As such the navy seems to have been a classic ‘dog-whistle’ issue in 1910. It helped motivate the Conservative base, led to a real increase in Conservative parliamentarians, but it was not an election-winning issue.

Notes 1. G. Dangerfield (1966 edn, 1935) The Strange Death of Liberal England (London: MacGibbon & Kee), p. 14. 2. N. Blewett (1972) The Peers, The Parties and The People: The British General Election of 1910 (London: Palgrave Macmillan). 3. G. Bernstein (1986) Liberalism and Liberal Politics in Edwardian England (Boston: Allen & Unwin), pp. 106–116; D. Brooks (1995) The Age of Upheaval: Edwardian Politics 1899–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 114–121. 4. D. Dutton (1992)‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’, The Unionist Party in Opposition, 1905–15 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), pp. 76–77; I. Packer (2001) Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land: The Land Issue in Party Politics 1906–1914 (Suffolk: Boydell Press), p. 49. 5. Dutton, His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, pp. 72–73. 6. S. Ball (1995) The Conservative Party and British Politics, 1902–51 (London: Longman), p. 47. 7. F. Coetzee (1990) For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemma of Popular Conservatism in Edwardian England (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 118–122. 8. A. Marder (1966) From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (London: Oxford University Press) I, pp. 175–177 & 214–215. 9. P. P. O’Brien (1998) British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policies 1900– 1936 (London: Praeger), pp. 73–98. 10. B. B. Gilbert (1987) David Lloyd George, A Political Life: The Architect of Change 1863–1912 (London: Batsford), pp. 384–385. 11. http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/item_single.php?item_id=47&item=history. 12. Gilbert, David Lloyd George, p. 387. 13. P. Readman (2001) ‘The liberal party and patriotism in early twentieth eentury Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, XII, 269. 14. The final results of the December 1910 election were (in House of Commons seats); Liberals 272, Conservative/Unionist 272, Irish Nationalists 84, Labour 42. The results for the January 1910 election had been: Liberals 275, Conservatives 273, Irish Nationalists 82, Labour 40. 15. ‘Mr Balfour’s election address’, The Times, 11 December 1909, p. 10. 16. F. W. S. Craig (ed.) (1975) British General Election Manifestos: 1900–74 (London: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 19. 17. ‘The Prime Minister and National Defence’, The Scotsman, 22 December 1909, p. 9.h. 18. ‘Sir Edward Grey at Leith’, The Times, 6 December 1909, p. 7; ‘Mr Churchill in Liverpool’, The Times, 9 December 1909, p. 7; ‘Naval security’ The Scotsman, 16 December 1909, p. 7.

Phillips Payson O’Brien 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

31. 32.

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‘Sir Edward Grey in Northumberland’, The Times, 4 January 1910, p.10. ‘Mr Chamberlain’s address’, The Times, 30 December 1909, p. 5. Blewett, General Election, pp. 115–116. J. Vincent (ed.) (1984) The Crawford Papers: The Journals of David Lindsay 1892– 1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 140. On 1 January 1910 Lindsay wrote ‘ . . . as to politics, today the outlook seems very bleak.’ ‘Mr Balfour’s Confidence’, The Times, 5 January 1910, p. 8. Ibid. Lead Editorial, The Scotsman, 5 January 1910, p. 8. Ibid., p. 9. ‘Speeches on the navy’, The Times, 8 January 1910, p. 10. ‘Mr Asquith at bath’, The Times, 7 January 1910, p. 4. Between 10 December 1909 and 3 January 1910 there were 62 articles published in The Times including the major keywords ‘navy’ and ‘election’, whilst between 4 January and 20 January there were 84 such articles. Between 10 December 1909 and 3 January 1910 there were 142 articles published in The Times including the major keywords ‘Lords’ and ‘election’, whilst between 4 January and 20 January there were 152 such articles. Between 10 December 1909 and 3 January 1910 there were 104 articles published in The Scotsman including the major keywords ‘navy’ and ‘election’, whilst between 4 January and 20 January there were 168 such articles. Between 10 December 1909 and 3 January 1910 there were 370 articles published in The Scotsman including the major keywords ‘Lords’ and ‘election’, whilst between 4 January and 20 January there were 424 such articles. Blewett, General Election, pp. 377–415. ‘Imperial policy and the elections’, The Times, 1 February 1910, p. 9.

17 Patriotism and the Politics of Foreign Policy, c. 1870–c. 1914 Paul Readman

‘The very phrase “foreign affairs” makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.’ – Benjamin Disraeli at Manchester, 3 April 18721 ‘There was . . . sometimes . . . a hazy notion as to what the entente cordiale was. He noticed that in one of their elementary schools last year a question was asked as to what the entente cordiale meant. One of the scholars replied: “If you happen to get into conversation with a French man or woman you must on no account mention Waterloo unless they ask you the way to the station of that name.” ’ – Sir William Holland MP at the National Liberal Federation Annual Conference, 1909 2 Foreign policy has often been seen as detached from the daily cares of ordinary Britons, impinging only at times of crisis such as the outbreak of war. Numerous textbooks present it as a special area of study, as if hermetically sealed off from other aspects of history, while others ignore it entirely.3 There is some justification for this treatment, not least because many diplomatic historians have asserted the separateness of foreign policy, arguing for its relative immunity from currents of public opinion, partisan feeling, and nationalistic passions. Yet this separateness can be exaggerated. There remains much merit in Paul Kennedy’s insistence that foreign politics were not insulated from domestic politics and that neither had normative ‘primacy’ over the other, the relationship being one of mutual interaction.4 This chapter argues that patriotism was crucial to the interaction between foreign and domestic politics in Britain. There are good a priori grounds for this claim. Miles Taylor’s study of political cartoons from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries has revealed how the figure of John Bull – England personified – was associated with commentary on defence policy, Britain’s relationship with Europe, and external affairs more generally.5 Yet the question of the relationship between patriotism and foreign policy has received surprisingly little attention from scholars. This is true even for 260

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historians of the Conservative party, despite the undoubted prominence of patriotic themes in Tory political argument. Throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, Conservatives and Unionists had little difficulty presenting foreign policy issues in a patriotic light, from those relatively minor in character such as the furore over Chinese policy in 1897–1898 (which saw ‘Jingo fever’ run high on the backbenches) to major crises like that over South Africa at the turn of the century or the Eastern Question in the late 1870s.6 It should not be assumed, however, that the use of patriotic language by Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in respect of foreign affairs (or indeed other matters) always redounded to their electoral benefit.7 After the Boer War of 1899–1902, Joseph Chamberlain’s efforts to persuade the British public of the merits of empire and inculcate imperial patriotism culminated in his proposing a scheme of tariff reform to strengthen the ties between motherland and colonies by means of imperial preference. Such, he insisted, was a policy ‘addressed above all to . . . patriotism’ and vital to Britain’s existence as a great power,8 but it was not one that found favour with voters, who rejected it in three successive general elections. Similarly, for all the jingoism prompted by Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s near eastern policy in the 1870s, it did not bring his party victory at the polls in 1880, with his great Liberal rival William Gladstone once more being returned to power. Yet while historians have acknowledged the vote-winning limitations of Conservative flag waving, Hugh Cunningham’s argument that the language of patriotism was firmly in the control of the political right by the later nineteenth century has remained influential. Specifically, Cunningham claimed that the key moment in the rightwards shift of this language occurred ‘in the space of few months in late 1877 and early 1878’, when Disraeli’s foreign policy and the jingoism it provoked decisively established a Conservative monopoly on patriotic sentiment.9 However, recent research has provided a corrective to this view. Nationalistic discourse remained important in Liberal and Labour political argument until at least 1914, permeating debate about the land question, for example, with radical reformers presenting smallholdings legislation in a patriotic light – as a means of effecting ‘home colonisation’ and restoring vigour to the national character.10 Now, if this is right, it seems unlikely that the sometimes disappointing electoral effects of Conservative efforts to mobilise national sentiment were a function of popular indifference to patriotism qua patriotism, as the work of some historians might suggest.11 Rather it offers the hypothesis that even in the age of high imperialism, non-Conservative languages of patriotism not only existed, but could at times exert at least as strong a pull as their Conservative counterparts. Examination of the Liberal party’s foreign policy verifies this hypothesis. As Jonathan Parry has shown, mid-Victorian Liberalism was associated with

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a robust patriotism, which manifested itself strongly in attitudes towards Europe and the conduct of external affairs. For the Liberal governments of the 1850s and 1860s, the projection of British greatness abroad involved championing a free-trade political economy against continental mercantilism, defending struggling nationalities against continental despotism and willingly shouldering the burdens of empire, shining the light of Christian civilisation into the still-persisting darkness of extra-European barbarism. In the imaginations of contemporary Britons at least, all this was supported by an ingrained anti-militarism (the Royal Navy being more congenial to a freedom-loving race than the mass standing armies of European autocracies) and by an overarching constitutionalism based on representative government, jealous of the privileges hard-won by parliament from the Crown over centuries and widely regarded as the best guarantor of the liberty that was the Englishman’s birthright.12 However deluded this vigorously patriotic perspective might have been, it exerted a powerful hold on the minds of policymakers and its grip remained strong into the 1870s and beyond. It was certainly much in evidence at the time of the Eastern Question in 1876–1878, which saw Britain back up the Ottoman Empire against Russia in the Near East. Liberals accused Disraeli of abandoning ‘English’ traditions of foreign policy dating back to Oliver Cromwell’s time.13 The premier’s support for Muslim Turkey, seen as the oppressor of Christian Bulgaria, was portrayed as ‘revolting to the consciences of Englishmen’ and antithetical to the idea of England as the home of ‘liberty and good government’.14 But the conduct as well as the objectives of Disraeli’s policy also caused alarm. For Liberals, the ‘ism’ of ‘Beaconsfieldism’ (Disraeli had become the Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876) was really its unconstitutionalism, and specifically its undermining of parliamentary authority.15 This seemed particularly evident in the sphere of foreign policy. Aside from the standard radical complaint that the premier’s secret diplomacy was un-English in not allowing parliamentary oversight of policy details,16 there was the claim – among Whigs as well as radicals – that Disraeli was using the crisis to promote alien and authoritarian modes of rule. The signing of the Anglo-Turkish Convention without consulting parliament was bad enough,17 but the earlier decision to counter the Russian threat by moving Indian troops to Malta over the Easter 1878 parliamentary recess was still worse. Radicals, Gladstonians, and Whigs united to condemn this as an unpatriotic ‘assault on the constitution’ contrary to the spirit of the 1689 Bill of Rights.18 Liberal critique of Conservative foreign policy as unconstitutional and hence unpatriotic loomed large at the general election of 1880, but died back somewhat thereafter. Gladstone’s conversion to Irish home rule in late 1885 had an important effect. Committed to the establishment of a separate parliament in Dublin, the Liberal party found it difficult to contest the language of constitutionalism with their anti-home rule Unionist opponents, now including among their number many Whigs like Lord Hartington who had

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been vociferous in condemning Beaconsfieldism in the late 1870s. It is true that some of the old constitutional arguments did persist in the claims of radicals disgusted by Sir Edward Grey’s secret diplomacy, which individuals like Arthur Ponsonby saw as the last vestige of ‘aristocratic’ government.19 But in the final analysis, this brand of patriotic constitutionalism proved relatively weak, being largely confined to the backbenches. It does not follow, however, that the polarisation of party politics around Irish home rule detached Liberal patriotism from the sphere of international affairs. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, new foreign political developments brought other varieties of Liberal patriotism to prominence. Liberal Imperialism found institutional expression in the form of Lord Rosebery’s Liberal League, the declared object of which was ‘to prove that no party has a monopoly of the larger patriotism which includes the whole Empire in its scope’.20 Counting among their number some of the most influential figures in turn-of-the-century Liberalism, including Rosebery, Grey, H. H. Asquith, and R. B. Haldane, Liberal Imperialists first made their presence felt in the later 1890s. They were particularly exercised by the Conservative government’s policy in the Far East, which had been superintended by the Marquess of Salisbury as foreign secretary (and prime minister). Salisbury’s reluctance to offer serious resistance to the seizure of Chinese ports by Russia and Germany in 1897–1898 alarmed many empire-minded Liberals, who presented it as one of a series of soi-disant ‘graceful concessions’ of imperial interests to rival powers (others being the acceptance of France’s annexation of Madagascar and Siam, for example).21 At by-elections in 1898 Liberal Imperialist candidates such as G. W. Palmer in Wokingham and C. R. Spencer in East Hertfordshire were quick to play the patriotic card, and did so with considerable success.22 Even in the Khaki election of 1900, Liberal Imperialists such as J. Colville in Lanarkshire and Lawson Walton in Leeds accused the government of ‘humbling the nation in regard to Madagascar’ and of a ‘total collapse’ in China, where a ‘decrepit, effete, and irresolute’ policy had led to the sacrifice of vital commercial and strategic interests.23 In addition to this, they sought to assert their patriotism by expressing support for the British war effort, with many describing the conflict as both just and inevitable, even if the government had not adequately prepared for it.24 A contrasting form of patriotism was offered by Liberal Little Englanders, who around the time of the Boer War in particular attacked imperialist foreign policy as guilty of conflating greatness with bigness: ‘[b]etter a “little England” than an England swollen and bloated out of recognition’, as J. L. Hammond put it. Reprising some of the themes of the 1870s, defenders of this Little England argued that Chamberlain’s aggressive policy towards the South African republics represented a repudiation of Britain’s historical self-image as champion of small nations.25 And while an explicitly constitutionalist critique was largely absent, the domestic repercussions of aggression abroad were emphasised, as they had been over the Eastern Question 30 years previously. New to such arguments, however, was an emphasis

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on what might, following Emile Durkheim, be termed ‘welfare patriotism’.26 Here, the complaint was that foreign policy adventures drew attention and resources away from the pressing material needs of ordinary Britons. As the Lib-Lab MP Thomas Burt averred in his 1900 election address, ‘To me patriotism . . . mean[s] love of country – love of one’s own country, not a desire to expropriate other peoples’. I cannot think that our whole duty to our country is fulfilled by loudly singing “Rule Britannia” and “God save the Queen” while we leave vast numbers of our populations housed in slums, and while we abandon tens of thousands of our aged, deserving poor, after they have enriched the nation by their life-long toil, to end their days in the workhouse’.27 Others such as C. P. Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian and Liberal candidate for Leigh in Lancashire, voiced similar sentiments in their appeals to voters.28 This ‘Little England’ welfare patriotism grew in strength in the Edwardian period, being associated with the development of Liberal commitment to social reforms and the rise of the fledgling Labour movement, which also presented collectivism in patriotic terms.29 In addition, the long drawn-out struggle on the veldt and the British Army’s use of ‘methods of barbarism’ like concentration camps to crush Boer resistance did much to tarnish the imperial idea, at least in its late Victorian expansionist form, allowing greater scope for the political expression of alternative patriotisms in the years before 1914.30 Arguably, indeed, very stridently imperialist patriotism had never really been particularly strong, the 1900 election result notwithstanding. Evidence for this can be found in the relatively short-lived existence of Liberal Imperialism as a coherent political force after the end of the Boer War and most tellingly, by the failure of Chamberlain’s tariff reform campaign, which united Liberals of all shades behind a triumphantly successful and vigorously patriotic defence of Free Trade.31 Historians have often described Chamberlain’s initiative as an episode in domestic politics, narrowly defined. Yet it is worth recalling that Chamberlain saw his scheme as an intervention in international affairs: ‘I am a fiscal reformer mainly because I am an imperialist’, he once remarked.32 Liberals too saw tariff reform in international terms, regarding it as having alarming foreign political implications. For a start, they claimed, Chamberlain’s proposal would weaken Britain’s status as a global power. By associating the empire with unpopular food taxation and substituting sordid fiscal arrangements for the natural bonds of affection and freely developed trading links that connected colonies to motherland, it would cause Britain to ‘lose the high place [she] held in the world and its councils’.33 More generally, it was seen as a component part of an aggressive, militaristic, and hence un-English posture of provocation directed primarily at Germany.34 While Liberals did not see economic competition as necessarily a source of AngloGerman antagonism,35 they did feel that the abolition of free trade – which tariff reform implied – would change matters considerably. For them, the

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international tensions that Chamberlain’s policy could cause (through tariff disputes, for example) would encourage expensive spending on armaments and make it more likely that Britain would be drawn into a major continental war.36 For Winston Churchill, tariff reform implied a rejection of the free trade-based internationalism that had made the nation great, offering instead a foreign policy founded on a vision of ‘the British Empire degenerate[d] into a sullen confederacy, walled off, like a medieval town, from the surrounding country, victualled for a siege, and containing within the circle of its battlements all that is necessary for war’.37 Churchill’s words had rhetorical power, but it might be objected that they were mere rhetoric. While foreign affairs certainly provided a focus for the patriotic arguments of Liberal as well as Conservative politicians, and did so throughout the period, did patriotism have any material influence on the conduct and direction of policy? This is not an easy question to answer. While assessing the impact of ideas and language on political action is always difficult, the study of foreign policy poses special problems in this regard. Private correspondence, state papers, and ambassadorial despatches are often rather quiet on questions of doctrine, ideology, or sentiment, whether related to patriotism or anything else. Usually rather restrained and formal in tone, these documents give much attention to operational and tactical issues – those emerging from the contingencies of specific crises, for instance – and far less attention to the broader intellectual bases of policy decisions. Many of these remain in the realm of what James Joll once called ‘unspoken assumptions’ and this being the case, narrowly positivistic readings of diplomatic sources are insufficient for the proper assessment of their causal purchase.38 One response to this problem is to situate the history of foreign policy in a wider political and cultural context, as Kennedy did in his study of Anglo-German rivalry in the lead-up to the First World War.39 But despite Kennedy’s work, much of the literature on diplomatic history presents phenomena like patriotism as noises off, the plaything of extra-parliamentary pressure-groups, right-wing backbenchers, retired army officers, and the like. In this interpretation, while patriotic feeling might occasionally flare up in response to policy, as in the case of the Jingoism of 1877–1878, it rarely had any discernable impact upon policymakers, who were by and large guided by rational realpolitik considerations. There are signs, however, that scholars are beginning to call this approach into question with renewed vigour. As Parry has shown, in the controversy over the Eastern Crisis, Disraeli’s public presentation of his government’s position reflected a deep-seated personal patriotism. Despite the complaints of his Liberal critics (and the subsequent claims of some historians), his was no shallow partisan appeal, no mere bid for votes.40 Conversely, moreover, the opprobrium heaped on Disraeli’s policy by Liberals did not spring from narrowly partisan considerations. Although they certainly hoped their own patriotic appeal would damage the Conservative cause, Disraeli’s opponents

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were genuinely fearful for the safety of the constitution, menaced as it appeared to be by the tendencies towards ‘personal government’ revealed in the conduct of the prime minister’s ‘Asiatic’ and un-English policy of support for Ottoman Turkey.41 Yet however genuine these private patriotic motivations were in fact, for politicians on both sides of the houses of parliament a particularly alarming feature of the debate over the Eastern Crisis was the conjunction of foreign policy with party debate. However unfairly, each side charged the other with an unscrupulous determination to make political capital from issues of vital national moment, and to do so at all costs. Conservatives accused Liberals of exploiting sentimental outrage over Bulgaria, Liberals accused Conservatives of whipping up Jingoism over the Russian threat, and both claimed their opponents’ actions placed party before country and so revealed a lack of patriotism. This unseemly mutual name-calling was based on a particular principle: in the sphere of foreign affairs, the national ought to be antonymous with the partisan. Drawing on fears that the delicate business of diplomacy might become contaminated with vulgar party passions at a time of advancing democracy, it was a principle that gained in importance as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Indeed, from the mid-1880s, it hardened into declared doctrine. As foreign secretary and prime minister, Salisbury told a Glasgow audience in 1891 that ‘the banishment of party feeling from your external affairs’ was vital to the maintenance of Britain’s ‘dominant position in the world’, and throughout his tenure actively sought to avoid adopting overly partisan foreign policy positions.42 Arthur Balfour, Salisbury’s successor as premier, took much the same line, but so too did Rosebery and his Liberal Imperialist associates, their variety of patriotism enjoining the subordination of selfish party considerations to the wider national good when it came to international affairs.43 In practice, this involved commitment to what Rosebery defined as ‘continuity in foreign administration’, any incoming foreign secretary being obliged to follow the course set by his predecessor so that other countries knew they were ‘dealing, not with a Ministry, possibly fleeting and possibly transient, but with a great, powerful, and united nation’.44 Thus Rosebery sought to follow the main lines of Salisbury’s policy when he succeeded him at the Foreign Office in 1886 and 1892.45 Grey, also a Liberal Imperialist, treated the inheritance bequeathed him by his Unionist predecessor Lord Lansdowne – the entente with France, for example – with similar respect; and indeed there was substantial agreement between the parties over the fundamentals (if not always the details) of diplomatic policy throughout the Edwardian period. Newly installed as Unionist party leader, Andrew Bonar Law even consulted Grey’s private secretary for advice in advance of his first speech on international affairs.46 But proponents of the policy of ‘continuity’ were influenced by patriotic considerations in other ways, too. Recent work on Balfour has concluded that despite his air of philosophic detachment, even he was susceptible

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to nationalistic sentiment and this influenced his views on international affairs.47 It is Grey’s foreign policy, however, that provides the most interesting case. Grey was certainly a patriotic man, but did his patriotism have a definite impact on his diplomacy? Keith Wilson has suggested that British foreign policy under the Liberal Imperialist Grey centred on ensuring the security of the empire, and India in particular. According to Wilson, this was the logic of his entente diplomacy and especially the 1907 agreement with Russia, which did much to create the conditions for war, making a crucial contribution to Germany’s sense of encirclement by rival powers.48 In this interpretation, Grey’s imperial patriotism appears to have been a major influence on his policy. However, Wilson’s emphasis on Grey’s imperialism is at best overdrawn. True, he had been a Liberal Imperialist, but stridently imperialist varieties of patriotism generally had received a damaging blow by the ultimately dispiriting experiences of the Boer War. And tellingly, imperial patriotism was insufficiently strong to influence defence policy: for all the rhetoric about the Navy being essential for imperial defence, the years after 1902 saw the Royal Navy concentrate its resources and war plans around home waters, as Phil O’Brien has shown.49 Such a reorientation of defence priorities was reflected in foreign policy. Like Lansdowne before him, Grey was far more concerned about strengthening Britain’s position in Europe than defending the empire, and it is in this light that the 1907 entente with Russia must be viewed. There seems little doubt that Grey and most of his Foreign Office staff saw Germany as the main threat to this position. The question as to the extent to which chauvinism played a part in their assessment of this threat remains a controversial one. But it would seem unwise to rule it out of account entirely. As a north-country squire who loved the English countryside and hated going abroad, Grey was not a cosmopolitan figure: Haldane thought him ‘in spirit a pure Briton’ who ‘seemed to doubt whether the Germans were genuinely good people’.50 Certainly, he was suspicious of Germany from quite early on. He opposed Chamberlain’s proposal of an Anglo-German alliance in the late 1890s and was incensed by Germany’s hostile attitude to Britain during the Boer War. By the time of the entente cordiale, his attitude was one of frank mistrust. Indeed, he was even willing to sacrifice the cherished principle of continuity in foreign policy to prevent rapprochement with Germany: ‘if any government drags us back into the German net I will oppose it openly at all costs’, he told Ronald Munro-Ferguson in August 1905.51 In these views, Grey was supported by colleagues in the Cabinet, many of whom were predisposed to see friendship with France as consonant with British national identity, quite apart from any strategic considerations. (That France was a ‘liberal’ power like Britain – and unlike authoritarian Germany – was important to Sir Henry CampbellBannerman and David Lloyd George, among others.)52 Grey’s hostility to Germany was also supported by the advice of officials at the Foreign Office,

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many of whom identified that country as the key threat to British security, the Crowe Memorandum of 1907 remaining a key text here.53 The private patriotism of elite politicians and officials should not be seen in isolation from the heady currents of popular nationalist sentiment which coursed through late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century political culture. The Second and Third Reform Acts had led politicians to believe – however erroneously – that Britain was a democracy.54 In international affairs as well as domestic politics, the belief was quite general that public opinion had considerable power to influence policy. Recognising this, individuals like Salisbury, Rosebery, Balfour, and Grey made strenuous if not always successful efforts to insulate diplomacy from the vagaries of popular sentiment, not least those of popular patriotism. Predicated on the assumption that, as Grey put it, ‘there was a magnetism between peoples which repelled or attracted and which . . . had its influence on the conduct of foreign affairs’, these efforts were designed to check the ‘gusts of storm and passion’ that might otherwise blow policy off course.55 In 1914, Balfour told the select committee on House of Commons procedure that he thought ‘neither Indian affairs nor foreign affairs’ were ‘very fitting subjects for constant discussion and debate’ as ‘[I]ndiscreet speeches . . . get reported and circulated abroad, or in India, or even at home in the provinces, and often make bad blood quite unnecessarily, and raise difficulties which might easily have been avoided.’56 As leader of the Conservative party in the 1880s and 1890s, Salisbury was particularly susceptible to buffeting by the winds of jingoistic passions, phenomena which he regarded with unconcealed distaste, and the pressure they exerted upon his foreign policy caused him much concern.57 After France blocked a proposed Anglo-Turkish convention on Egypt in 1887, Salisbury suggested to Sir William White, ambassador at Constantinople, that should French policy provoke popular hostility in Britain war between the two countries might ensue.58 Later that year, he elaborated on this point in a speech at the Guildhall, declaring that because Britain was a democratically governed country, her normatively peaceable foreign policy could be derailed by ‘gusts of passionate and often ill-informed feeling arising from great masses of population’.59 But it was in the later 1890s that Salisbury felt especially pressured by patriotic sentiment, so much so that he even expressed support for an effective system of international arbitration for diplomatic disputes as ‘an invaluable bulwark to defend the Minister from the Jingoes’.60 In 1897–1898, he faced complaints from individuals like Sir George Goldie of the Royal Niger Company that too much West African territory was being given away in negotiations with France, as well as considerable criticism over his China policy, which many of his party’s rankand-file regarded as pusillanimous in surrendering Port Arthur and Kiaochow to Russia and Germany respectively.61 Was Salisbury’s concern justified? Did the jingoes have any real impact on late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century foreign policy? In the Eastern

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Crisis, for example, while Disraeli’s policy stimulated patriotic indignation and enthusiasm among Liberals and Tories respectively, it was little influenced by either. Despite his reputation for political oratory, Disraeli was no populist.62 Indeed, his and other Conservatives’ genuine disgust at Gladstone’s exploitation of ‘coffee-house babble’ over Bulgaria stemmed from a view that extra-parliamentary ‘passion’ had no role in the direction of government policy, which ought to be guided by hard-headed – if certainly patriotic – consideration of the interests of ‘the Empire of England’.63 Here, then, popular patriotism followed elite policy, thus lending support to a Primat der Aussenpolitik interpretation of this episode. But to ascribe a normative ‘primacy’ of the foreign over the domestic is to go too far; it is more accurate to speak of a dynamic interaction between the two. If historians have sometimes failed to recognise this, it is perhaps because they have been looking for the wrong thing – for politicians being forced into certain specific courses of action by the pressure of popular clamour, examples of which are hard enough to find in the field of foreign policy. However, policy could be (negatively) constrained as well as (positively) forced: in foreign affairs, patriotism played a key role in imposing important limitations on what politicians were and were not able to do. As the politician perhaps most aware of these limitations, Salisbury found himself frustrated over a number of issues from the mid-1880s on. One of these concerned policy in the Near East, where Disraeli had bequeathed him a commitment to support Turkey and resist Russian encroachment in the region, on Constantinople in particular. Salisbury, however, was increasingly persuaded of the strategic case for altering policy away from that embodied in the 1878 Congress of Berlin settlement, but was prevented from doing so by domestic political considerations, specifically his appreciation that a pledge to protect Constantinople from Russia was a central element of the Conservative party’s platform patriotism. Thus, when in 1886 Russia was implicated in the coup against Prince Alexander of Bulgaria, Salisbury could not allow any wavering of official commitment to Constantinople. Although domestic political divisions over Irish home rule ruled out military intervention,64 Constantinople could not simply be abandoned. In October of that year, Salisbury told Lord Randolph Churchill that he believed ‘the loss of C[onstantino]ple would be the ruin of our party, and a heavy blow to the country: and therefore I am anxious to delay by all means Russia’s advance to that goal . . . . My belief is that the main strength of the Tory party both in the richer and poorer classes lies in its association with the honour of the country. It is quite true that if, in order to save that honour, we have to run into expense we shall suffer for it as a party . . . . But . . . we shall suffer as a party more – much more – if the loss of C[onstantino]ple stands on our record’.65 Around the same time, Salisbury had similar concerns over policy in Egypt, which Britain had occupied in 1882. While determined to keep France out, Salisbury felt an international agreement guaranteeing Egyptian independence was a better means of achieving this than permanent annexation by

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Britain. Yet while Britain’s continuing presence in Egypt allowed Bismarck to exploit French grievances by demanding concessions from London ‘as the price’, Salisbury complained, ‘of his refusal to join a coalition against us’,66 the prime minister felt the patriotism of the British public ruled out evacuation as an option. In February 1887, Salisbury wrote to Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, British High Commissioner in Egypt, to explain that ‘English opinion is not prepared for an evacuation of that country, still less for the abandonment of it . . . . I heartily wish we had never gone into Egypt . . . . Had we not done so, we could snap our fingers at all the world. But the national, or acquisitional feeling has been roused; it has tasted the fleshpots and will not let them go.’67 In the years after Salisbury left the Foreign Office, hostility towards Germany became an increasingly important element of popular patriotism, as is well known. However, while the anatomy of Edwardian ‘militarism’ and nationalistic scaremongering has been thoroughly dissected by historians, the relationship between patriotic anti-German feeling and foreign policy has received less attention.68 One reason for this is that it is difficult to prove the existence of a causal relationship between the two, but there is evidence to suggest that policy was constrained by extra-parliamentary patriotism. For a start, it would seem likely that British policymakers’ readings of British public opinion played an important part in ensuring that the intermittent negotiations over an Anglo-German alliance between 1889 and 1902 ultimately came to nothing. Salisbury rebuffed Bismarck’s initial proposals in 1889 on the grounds that an alliance would provoke major domestic controversy,69 while German hostility towards Britain during the Boer War put the final nail in the coffin, provoking the Conservative government to conclude that whatever the strategic issues might be, popular patriotic indignation at Germany’s stance made any binding commitment to support that country in war impossible.70 Similarly, in 1903–1904, British support for Germany’s blockade of Venezuela and plans for participation in the Berlin–Baghdad railway project were both curtailed by what Lansdowne called an ‘insensate outcry’ of ‘anti-German fever’ in the right-wing press and among jingoistic Tory backbenchers.71 Grey, Lansdowne’s successor at the Foreign Office, could afford to pay less attention to Conservative super-patriots. But his policy was also affected by extraneous patriotic influences. The Anglo-German naval rivalry, associated as it was with grandiose fleet reviews on both sides of the North Sea, did much to create a climate of antagonism between the two countries and this probably had some impact on policymakers.72 The German Fleet review of 1911 caused Churchill such consternation that he abandoned dinner party etiquette to read a newspaper report of the event in female company, commenting (when rebuked for his solecism) ‘Let them come, they can have war, if they want.’73 Even diplomats felt the patriotic sentiment whipped up by the naval race had an effect on international relations. For Sir Horace

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Rumbold, ‘We shall never be on good terms with Germany . . . as long as this fleet question exists’, while the British ambassador at Berlin reported to Grey in June 1909 that the ‘feeling aroused in Germany’ by the recent Spithead Review had ‘not failed to add some fuel to the flame’.74 Whatever Grey’s personal inclinations, then, the popular patriotism engendered by the naval race acted as another obstacle to rapprochement with Germany. It also acted to push British policy more towards the support of France, whose own political leaders were inclined to interpret British naval posturing as indicative of an intention to enter a war on their side should Germany attack.75 Grey was aware of growing public hostility towards Germany and friendliness towards France (indeed he felt the latter had done much to make the 1904 entente possible).76 From 1906 on, following the line taken by Lansdowne over the 1905 Moroccan crisis, he repeatedly insisted in his diplomatic communications that in the event of German aggression, ‘public feeling’ would prevent Britain from standing aside.77 Yet despite such assurances, the ententes Britain signed with France and Russia never became alliances, with the formal commitment to mutual support in wartime that these would imply. This seems curious, given the rising tide of popular patriotic hostility to Germany. It seems still more curious in the light of evidence that many leading policymakers – Grey included – came to see a strong strategic case for converting one or both ententes into alliances.78 To explain this conundrum, it is necessary to recognise that the patriotic pressures on Grey cut both ways. On the one hand, anti-German feeling supported closer relations with France; on the other hand, distinctively Liberal varieties of patriotism acted to discourage alliance diplomacy. Public hostility to friendship with Tsarist Russia, which radical-Liberal patriots might see as an unsuitable ally for ‘free’ England, was certainly a factor, influencing the Foreign Office’s decision to rule out strengthening the Russian entente in spring 1909, for example.79 But there was a deeper reason for the avoidance of alliances, and this was the implication they were thought to entail for national defence. Liberals and Conservatives alike were all too aware of the interconnections between defence policy and diplomacy.80 In particular, they believed that alliance diplomacy meant conscription, their reasoning being that a credible commitment to defend another continental power needed to be backed up by military rather than merely naval force.81 The problem was that for most Liberals, conscription was anathema, and its introduction would have in all likelihood split the party and caused the collapse of the government.82 Yet the Liberals’ objection to conscription was not merely that it would increase defence spending or divert attention from social reform. The problem, rather, was that it ran counter to a conception of England as a peaceable, free-trade nation, whose power rested on the defensive shield of its Navy rather than a large standing army, which they regarded as a menace to freedoms both at home and abroad. At the height

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of the Boer War, Grey himself had told a Glasgow audience that ‘he would resist conscription, because he believed the patriotism of the people of this country was based upon their liberty (Cheers).’83 In late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain, foreign policy was neither a ‘branch of internal policy’ nor a sphere of elite action insulated from the clamour of party politics. This chapter has sought to move beyond the polarities of the Primat der Innenpolitik and Primat der Aussenpolitik interpretations advanced by scholars such as Keith Wilson or Gordon Martel, to give two notable examples.84 Foreign and domestic politics were linked by bonds of mutual interdependence. Sometimes the conduct of foreign affairs influenced domestic politics; sometimes the reverse was the case. This perspective builds on Kennedy’s work, which made an excellent general case for ‘the overwhelming interconnectedness . . . between external affairs and domestic politics’ in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain.85 But it also seeks to develop a deeper understanding of this interconnectedness, by highlighting the important role played by patriotism in the relationship between the foreign and the domestic. As scholars have yet fully to appreciate, patriotic sentiment was a key determinant of the interaction between foreign and domestic politics. In the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, patriotism was a central feature of political discourse, entering partisan debate on the Church, education, the constitution, the empire, free trade, and other issues. This being the case, meanings of patriotism and the patriotic were fluid, various and contested. Pace Cunningham’s famous argument, the language of patriotism remained available to all political groups (including those socialist in character) until at least the First World War: it was not exclusively associated with the Conservative party. Thus, when foreign policy intersected with conflicting varieties of patriotism or conflicting patriotic ideals, as occurred over the Eastern Question or indeed the Boer War, it triggered vigorous party political debate. In this way, international affairs were forced out from the cool obscurity of diplomatic communication into the heat of domestic political conflict.

Notes 1. Disraeli at Manchester, 3 April 1872, in T. E. Kebbel (1882) (ed.) Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable Earl of Beaconsfield (2 vols, London: Longmans, Green), II, p. 516. 2. National Liberal Federation (1909) Annual Reports and Council Proceedings, 1877–1936 (Hassocks: Harvester microfiche), card 31 (1908–1909), p. 56. 3. See, for example, M. Pugh (2002) The Making of Modern British Politics 1867–1945, 3rd edn (Oxford: Blackwell). 4. P. M. Kennedy (1980) The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism (London: Allen & Unwin), p. 321, and passim, and P. M. Kennedy (1981) The Realities Behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980 (London: Allen & Unwin). For a recent re-assertion of this argument, see T. G. Otte (2006) ‘ “Avenge

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5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21.

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England’s Dishonour”: By-elections, Parliament and the Politics of Foreign Policy in 1898’, English Historical Review, CXXI, 385–428. M. Taylor (1992) ‘John Bull and the Iconography of Public Opinion in England, c.1712–1929’, Past and Present, CXXXIV, 93–128. A. S. T. Griffith-Boscawen (1907) Fourteen Years in Parliament (London: J. Murray), p. 135; A. Hawkins and J. Powell (1997) (eds) The Journal of John Wodehouse First Earl of Kimberley for 1862–1902 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 459; P. Readman (2001) ‘The Conservative Party, Patriotism, and British Politics: The Case of the General Election of 1900’, Journal of British Studies, XL, 107–145. H. Cunningham (1986) ‘The Conservative Party and Patriotism’, in R. Colls and P. Dodd (eds) Englishness: Politics and Culture 1880–1920 (London: Croom Helm), pp. 283–307. Chamberlain at Welbeck, Times, 5 August 1904, p. 10 and Birmingham, Times, 13 May 1904, p. 7. H. Cunningham (1981) ‘The Language of Patriotism, 1750–1914’, History Workshop Journal, XII, 22. P. Ward (1998) Red Flag and Union Jack: Englishness, Patriotism and the British Left, 1881–1924 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer); P. Readman (2001) ‘The Liberal Party and Patriotism in Early Twentieth Century Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, XII, 269–302; P. Readman (2008) Land and Nation in England: Patriotism, National Identity and the Politics of Land, 1880–1914 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer), esp. pp. 61–77, 110–60, 181–205. For a contrary view, see H. Cunningham (1969) ‘Jingoism and the Working Classes, 1877–78’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, XIX, 8; H. Cunningham (1970–1971) ‘Jingoism in 1877–78’, Victorian Studies, XIV, 429–453; R. Price (1972) An Imperial War and the British Working Class: WorkingClass Attitudes and Reactions to the Boer War 1899–1902 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); J. P. Parry (2001) ‘The Impact of Napoleon III on British Politics, 1851–1880’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., XI, 147–175. See, for example, Gladstone: Hansard, 3rd ser., CCXXXIV (7 May 1877), 437–438. W. E. Forster: Hansard, 3rd ser. CCXXX (10 July 1876), 1183, and H. Fawcett: Hansard, 3rd ser. CCXXXIV (14 May 1877), 923. ‘What we are disputing about . . . is a whole system of Government’: W. E. Gladstone (1971 [1879]) Midlothian Speeches 1879, ed. M. R. D. Foot (Leicester: Leicester University Press), p. 50. For example, E. V. H. Kenealy: Hansard, 3rd ser., CCXXX (3 July 1876), 883. Lord Hartington: Hansard, 3rd ser. CCXLII (29 July 1878), 527–549; Gladstone: Hansard, 3rd ser. CCXLII (30 July 1878), 711–712. W. Gladstone (1878) ‘Liberty in the East and West’, Nineteenth Century, III, 1162; speeches of Hartington and Sir Charles Dilke (Hansard, 3rd ser. CCXL (20 May 1878), 264–280, 293–309.) R. A. Jones (1989) Arthur Ponsonby: The Politics of Life (Bromley: Helm), pp. 67ff; see also A. J. A. Morris (1972) Radicalism against War, 1906–1914: The Advocacy of Peace and Retrenchment (London: Longman). Times, 12 May 1902, p. 12. National Liberal Federation, Annual Reports, cards 18–19 (1897–1899), 68–73: speeches of W. S. Robson and Ellis J. Griffith.

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22. Otte, ‘Avenge England’s Dishonour’, 397–398, 408–412, at 411. 23. J. Colville, Glasgow Herald, 10 October 1900, p. 5; R. Munro-Ferguson, Scotsman, 26 September 1900, p. 10; J. L. Walton, Leeds Mercury, 28 September 1900, p. 5. 24. See for example Rochfort Maguire (East Leeds), Leeds Mercury, 21 September 1900, p. 5; Brynmor Jones (Swansea Boroughs), Swansea Journal, 29 September 1900, p. 3. 25. J. L. Hammond (1900) ‘Colonial and Foreign Policy’, in F. W. Hirst, G. Murray and J. L. Hammond, Liberalism and the Empire (London: R. B. Johnson), pp. 186–187. 26. See A. Giddens (ed.) (1986) Durkheim on Politics and the State (Cambridge: Polity), p. 204. 27. British Political Party General Election Addresses: from the National Liberal Club Collection, Bristol University, 28 microfilm reels, part 1 (1892–1922), reel 2: Election Addresses, 1900, p. 190. 28. C. P. Scott: Manchester Guardian, 28 September 1900, p. 4. 29. P. Ward (1999) ‘Socialists and “True” Patriotism in Britain in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, National Identities, I, 179–194. 30. A. P. Thornton (1959) The Imperial Idea and its Enemies: A Study in British Power (London, Macmillan), pp. 109–112; A. S. Thompson (1997) ‘The Language of Imperialism and the Meanings of Empire: Imperial Discourse in British Politics, 1895–1914’, Journal of British Studies, XXXVI, 150–151. 31. Readman, ‘Liberal Party and Patriotism’, 281–288. See also F. Trentmann (2002) ‘National Identity and Consumer Politics: Free Trade and Tariff Reform’, in D. Winch and P. K. O’Brien (eds) The Political Economy of British Historical Experience 1688–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 225–237. 32. Cited in R. Quinault (1988) ‘Joseph Chamberlain: A Re-assessment’, in T. Gourvish and A. O’Day (eds) Later Victorian Britain, 1867–1900 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education), p. 88. 33. Grey at National Liberal Club, Times, 1 July 1903, p. 13; Rosebery in London, Times, 26 November 1903, p. 8; H. H. Asquith (1903) Preferential Tariffs: A Speech Delivered on May 21st, 1903 (London: Liberal Publication Department), p. 11; Churchill, Hansard, 4th ser., CXLII (8 March 1905), 812. 34. Liberals had a point here, as tariff reform was indeed seen by some of its supporters as an anti-German weapon. See Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 263–265. 35. See W. Mulligan (2008) ‘From Case to Narrative: The Marquess of Lansdowne, Sir Edward Grey, and the Threat from Germany, 1900–1906’, International History Review XXX, 292–293. 36. Speeches of Grey (Times, 24 November 1903, p. 7) and Campbell-Bannerman (Times, 6 June 1904, p. 12). 37. Churchill, Hansard, 4th ser, 142 (8 March 1905), 813. 38. J. Joll (1968) 1914: The Unspoken Assumptions: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered 25 April 1968 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson). 39. Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism. 40. J. P. Parry (2000) ‘Disraeli and England’, Historical Journal XLIII, 721–723. 41. A. Ramm (ed.) (1962) The Political Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville 1876–1886 (2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press), I, pp. 79, 85. 42. The Times, 21 May 1891, p. 10; P. T. Marsh (1978) The Discipline of Popular Government: Lord Salisbury’s Domestic Statecraft 1881–1902 (Hassocks: Harvester), pp. 130–131.

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43. J. Tomes (1997) Balfour and Foreign Policy: The Intellectual Thought of a Conservative Statesman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); H. C. G. Matthew (1973) The Liberal Imperialists: The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Elite (London: Oxford University Press), pp. 195–198. 44. The Times, 6 July 1895, p. 14. 45. T. F. G. Coates (1900) Lord Rosebery: His Life and Speeches (London: Hutchinson), II, pp. 542–543, 849; G. Martel (1986) Imperial Diplomacy: Lord Rosebery and the Failure of Foreign Policy (Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press), p. 29. 46. F. McDonagh (2007) The Conservative Party and Anglo-German Relations, 1905–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 62. 47. Tomes, Balfour and Foreign Policy, esp. pp. 34–36, 97. 48. K. Wilson (1987) ‘Grey’, in K. M. Wilson (ed.) British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Policy (London: Croom Helm), pp. 172–199; K. M. Wilson (1996) ‘The Making and Putative Implementation of a British Foreign Policy of Gesture, December 1905 to August 1914: The Anglo-French Entente Revisited’, Canadian Journal of History, XXXI, 227–255; K. M. Wilson (1985) The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), esp. pp. 74–84. 49. P. P. O’Brien (2001) ‘The Titan Refreshed: Imperial Overstretch and the British Navy before the First World War’, Past and Present, CLXXII, 154–155, 167. 50. T. P. Conwell-Evans (1932) Foreign Policy from a Back Bench, 1904–1918: A Study based on the Papers of Lord Noel Buxton (London: Oxford University Press), p. 47. 51. Matthew, Liberal Imperialists, pp. 207–209 at 209. 52. Ibid, p. 211; J. Grigg (2002) Lloyd George: The People’s Champion 1902–1911, new edn (London: Penguin), pp. 306–309. 53. G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley (1926–1928) (eds) British Documents on the Origins of the War 1898–1914 (London: HMSO), III, pp. 397–420. 54. See for example, J. Chamberlain and others (1971 [1885]) The Radical Programme, ed. D. A. Hamar (Brighton: Harvester) [London: Chapman and Hall]), p. v; J. Keir Hardie (1895) ‘The Independent Labour Party’, in A. Reid (ed.) The New Party: Described by Some of its Members (London: Hodder Brothers), p. 258; H. Samuel (1902) Liberalism: An Attempt to State the Principles and Proposals of Contemporary Liberalism in England (London: G. Richards), pp. 225–228. 55. Speech in Glasgow, Times, 29 November 1901, p. 10. 56. Cited in A. Ponsonby (1915) Democracy and Diplomacy: A Plea for Popular Control of Foreign Policy (London: Methuen), pp. 122–123. 57. D. Steele (2001) Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (London: Routledge), pp. 244, 264, 325–326, 333. 58. G. G. Cecil (1921–1932) Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (London: Hodder & Stoughton), IV, 1887–1892, p. 50. 59. Ibid, p. 80; see also speech at Glasgow, Times 21 May 1891, p. 10 for similar. 60. Hansard, 4th ser., XLV (19 January 1897), 33–34. 61. Salisbury thought Goldie ‘a great nuisance’, commenting that ‘his knowledge of foreign relations must have been acquired in a music hall’: Steele, Salisbury, pp. 325–36. 62. Parry, ‘Disraeli and England’. 63. Hansard, 3rd ser., CCXXXI (31 July 1876), 203; Hansard, 3rd ser. CCXXXI (11 August 1876), 1138–1147, at 1146; P. Smith (1996) Disraeli: A Brief Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 191; [H. Craik and W. Smith],

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64. 65.

66. 67.

68. 69. 70.

71.

72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

78.

79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

Patriotism and the Politics of Foreign Policy ‘National Interests and National Morality’, Quarterly Review, 144 (July 1877), 277–310. Salisbury to Queen Victoria, 24 January 1887; cited in Cecil, Salisbury, IV, p. 15. Cited in K. Wilson (1987) ‘Appendix: Drawing the Line at Constantinople: Salisbury’s Statements of Primat der Innenpolitik’, in Wilson, British Foreign Secretaries, pp. 202–203. Salisbury to Sir Edward Malet, 23 February 1887; Cecil, Salisbury, IV, pp. 38–42, at 40. Salisbury to Sir H. Drummond Wolff, cited in Cecil, Salisbury, IV, pp. 41–42; see also M. Bentley (2001) Lord Salisbury’s World: Conservative Environments in LateVictorian Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 247–248. Kennedy’s The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism remaining the best treatment of the subject. Ibid, pp. 196–197. J. Ramsden (2007) Don’t Mention the War: The British and the Germans since 1890 (London: Abacus), pp. 63–64; Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 246–247. See also Salisbury’s internal government memorandum of May 1901, Gooch and Temperley, British Documents, II, pp. 68–69. Tomes, Balfour, pp. 131–132; Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 255–261; G. R. Searle (2005) A New England? Peace and War, 1886–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 326. J. Rüger (2007) The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), esp. pp. 198ff. Ibid, p. 238. M. Gilbert (1973) Sir Horace Rumbold: Portrait of a Diplomat, 1869–1941 (London: Heinemann), pp. 71–72; Rüger, The Great Naval Game, p. 222. C. Andrew and P. Vallet (2004) ‘The German Threat’, in R. Mayne, D. Johnson and R. Tombs (eds) Cross-Channel Currents: 100 Years of the Entente Cordiale (London: Routledge), p. 27. Sir E. Grey (1931) Speeches on Foreign Affairs: 1904–1914 (London, G. Allen & Unwin), pp. 21–23. T. G. Otte (2003) ‘ “Almost a Law of Nature”: Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Office, and the Balance of Power in Europe, 1905–12’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, XIV, 84–86; Andrew and Vallet, ‘German Threat’, pp. 24–26. Wilson, Entente, pp. 37–41. In November 1912, Balfour told Grey that he considered the Anglo–French entente ‘totally unsatisfactory’ to contain German threat: McDonagh, Conservative Party and Anglo-German Relations, pp. 48–50; also Tomes, Balfour, p. 145. B. C. Busch (1980) Hardinge of Penshurst: A Study in the Old Diplomacy (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books), p. 151. See for example, Sir Edward Grey (1931) Speeches on Foreign Affairs 1904–1914 (London: Allen & Unwin), pp. 242–243; Steele, Salisbury, pp. 106–107. Wilson, Entente, pp. 53–54. Ibid, p. 56. Times, 29 November 1901, p. 10. Wilson, Entente; Martel, Rosebery. Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, p. 321. See also Otte, ‘Avenge England’s Dishonour’.

18 The Historiography of Inter-War Politics: Competing Conservative World Views in High Politics, 1924–1929 Richard S. Grayson

Of all the areas of inter-war political history, the way in which politicians tackled international policy is the most obvious candidate for being seen as an ideology-free zone. Struggles over trades unions, jobs, and housing were issues in which the ideologies of parties could be readily applied. Yet the delicate balances between nation states, and the general desire to maintain ‘peace’ through diplomacy and treaties have largely not been areas in which political parties are seen as having distinct approaches. That is starting to change. In 2001, my book on the Liberal Party explored that party’s policies and ideas on international policy, along with the role such ideas played in the politics of the time. It drew on party assemblies, parliamentary debates, election campaigns, and grassroots politics, to examine the presence of ideology and policy debates on international policy at all levels of the party. It concluded that concerns about international policy were part of Liberal politics throughout the party, from the leadership to the activists knocking on doors at election time.1 Likewise, Callaghan’s recent book has covered Labour and foreign policy in the inter-war period.2 However, study of the Conservative Party remains relatively untouched by such an approach. There is still a tendency to focus on the individuals at the centre of politics, in Maurice Cowling’s words, ‘on the high politics of the politicians who mattered’.3 A justifiable reason for that is that even in an era of mass democratic politics, those figures who ‘mattered’ were quite free from formal party control when it came to the exercise of power in the diplomatic realm. For example, Conservative leaders did not have to win round party factions when agreeing a treaty with France and Germany through formal meetings of the National Union as Stanley Baldwin had to do over trade policy. There was no question of such matters being within the remit of party activists and office-holders. Thus on international policy at least, Cowling 277

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justifiably claimed that the key to understanding the manoeuvrings of high politics rests in understanding ‘the minds of the politicians’. Yet Cowling has much to answer for in the way that the minds of those in high politics are understood. Flowing from his approach is a tendency to dismiss or underestimate the extent to which these politicians held competing values and visions of British international policy. Consequently, the impact of such ideas on the day-to-day manoeuvres of high politics is underestimated. Instead of seeing the quest for power as the prime motivator of politicians, we should factor in why they seek that power, and recognise the importance of values as a motivation. As Tony Blair said of politics at his final Prime Minister’s Questions, ‘If it is, on occasions, the place of low skullduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes.’4 It is argued here that there were significant divides on the ideology of international politics within high politics in the inter-war years. That is readily apparent in both the Liberal and Labour parties as is argued in the books mentioned above. However, these parties were out of office for most of the inter-war period. Consequently, if we are to take Cowlingesque high politics on its own terms, as a study of the politicians who ‘mattered’, then only a study of the ‘high’ politics of the Conservative Party can help us understand the presence of ideology in debates on international policy at the highest level of high politics. In so doing, this chapter examines the mid-to-late 1920s, when debates within the cabinet on international policy centred on the extent to which Britain should take on a European role. Before doing that, however, it is useful to assess how far ideology (especially that relating to international policy) can play a part in the study of high politics more generally, and I want to offer some personal reflections on how that has developed over the last 20 years or so. As a postgraduate student in the early 1990s, writing a doctoral thesis on Austen Chamberlain’s term of office as foreign secretary in 1924–1929, it was often uncomfortable working on what was broadly considered ‘high politics’. At the time, there was probably no more unfashionable topic than the thoughts and deeds of inter-war Conservative politicians involved in ‘foreign policy’. That was especially the case studying at the University of Oxford where the attitudes of some historians gave me the strong impression that they regarded such intellectual interests as verging on morally wrong. Central to that sense was a view that anybody working on ‘high politics’ must belong to the Cowling school and therefore see Cabinet politics as primarily about manoeuvring for influence. Yet having studied inter-war British high politics at the University of East Anglia as an undergraduate in 1987–1991, inspired by Geoffrey Searle and John Charmley, high politics was anything but ideology-free. Though of hugely contrasting beliefs both politically and intellectually, the courses run by both were full of the ideology of politics. In Geoffrey Searle’s case, interwar British politics was studied as a clash of great ideas about the role of

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the state, the place of trades unions, and fate of political liberalism. John Charmley’s special subject on Churchill certainly covered the manoeuvrings of a career full of manoeuvres, but was also closely focused on the mid-tolate Victorian ideals which influenced Churchill’s life’s work. Meanwhile, Charmley’s history-literature joint course on ‘faith and doubt’ in Victorian Britain, co-taught with Peter Mercer, left no doubt as to the huge impact of ideas on nineteenth-century politicians. Unsurprisingly, undergraduates taking these courses which dealt with the highest issues in high politics – matters such as appeasement, the rise and fall of governments, and the framing of domestic legislation – had little need for any of Cowling’s work. It appeared on the reading lists and was useful for details, but we found our inspiration elsewhere. The study of ‘high politics’ was not only possible without Cowling, but in fact required reference to far more than he could ever provide. So I started postgraduate study at Oxford in 1992 surprised to find that anyone could believe ideology, passionately debated, was not a major factor in inter-war high politics. That approach underpinned my eventual book on Austen Chamberlain which focused on the clash between European and imperialist approaches.5 Even more, it informed my book on the inter-war Liberal Party, plus my shorter studies of the Channel Tunnel project, and of Leo Amery’s attitudes to international policy. The notion that contrasting ideological approaches are at the heart of politics is especially important for debates on the primacy of foreign policy, and in particular, the type of foreign policy which might be central to politics. As much as other areas of study, foreign policy and diplomatic history can fall foul of unfair characterisations that their subject matter is more about manoeuvres than ideas. Clearly, there has to be attention to what one diplomat has said to another, and Cabinet members do seek to gain more influence than certain of their colleagues. Meanwhile, in analysing negotiations and treaties, the immediate circumstances of an agreement, and the highly personal factors involved, are clearly relevant. But that is not to say that ideas have little role in international politics. Moreover, such ideas were played out not only in the embassies and foreign ministries of the inter-war world, but also in the party politics of the 1920s and 1930s. In some cases, issues of international policy were part of the grass roots of politics, with the capacity to inspire activists, divide the country, and define a party. In other cases, ideas were at the heart of the divisions at the highest Cabinet level of politics. That makes an understanding of the ideas of international policy essential to any understanding of inter-war British politics. Yet it is on these ideas that the Cowling school is so inadequate. In a recent analysis of Cowling’s work, Robert Crowcroft seeks to resurrect much of Cowling’s approach.6 This well argued and thoughtful review article suggests that twentieth-century historians have been preoccupied with the history of the Labour Party which has made them focus on the wider social forces and ideology more than the day-to-day manoeuvres of the ‘fifty or

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sixty politicians’ whom Cowling believed ‘mattered’.7 Moreover, Crowcroft argues, ‘Too often, political historians dealing with an inherently politicised subject matter have imposed what they themselves are concerned with, i.e. ideology, onto events instead of considering what the involved politicians were actually preoccupied with.’8 There are huge problems with Cowling’s case even on its own terms. As Crowcroft points out, Cowling neglects political parties because they merely ‘appear off-stage’, and Crowcroft describes this omission as ‘the most serious difficulty for Cowling’s model of politics’.9 However, there are other serious problems with Cowling’s case. The first is a simplistic assumption that politicians are simply striving to be on top. Many are, but the question that Cowling never asks is ‘Why?’ One possible answer is because of ideology. Where politicians have an ideological approach clearly different to other parties, their desire to win is partly so that they can implement the policies associated with that ideology. Moreover, it is at least possible that differences within parties, often among very small elite groups of politicians, might well be down to differences on policy issues (even small ones) rather than simply about maximising influence. Indeed, divisions over relatively small differences might be taken to indicate the strength of feeling about ideology and policy, rather than its weakness. A further problem with Cowling’s approach is that if politics is about being on top, then all bar the 50 or 60 who matter are peculiarly deluded and irrational about their engagement in politics. Not all of those outside that elite can realistically expect to be part of it on a purely rational level. So if all they seek to do is be on top, then their involvement makes no sense at all. Can we really best understand Churchill’s position in the late 1930s as one of putting himself in a position to take over in 1940? That is what Crowcroft implies when he says that ‘Churchill struck poses about collective security, the imperative to resist aggression and the preservation of the British Empire that, by 1940, allowed him to establish himself as political visionary with a unique grasp of the true nature of the international situation.’10 Surely that claims far too much foresight on Churchill’s part. Yet Crowcroft more plausibly argues that there is a problem in some political history caused by an over-focus on Labour history, and historians’ over-attention to issues which concern them. An aspect of that is the tendency of historians to reflect the concerns of the times in which they write. From the 1960s to the 1990s the great party political divides were social and economic, rather than international. Looking back from times of dispute over inflation, trade union strife and unemployment, they would understandably be interested in how those issues were played out in the politics of inter-war Britain. More recently, that has begun to change and consequently, historians are not only more able, but also more compelled, to write about the impact of international policy on politics in the past. The rise of international affairs

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on the party political agenda began with Europe in internal Conservative party debates. As a doctoral student in 1992–1995, I was certainly influenced by the shenanigans of John Major’s Cabinet in my analysis of Austen Chamberlain’s term as foreign secretary in 1924–1929. I remember a light going on at some point in 1993 when I started to see, only a little simplistically, Austen Chamberlain as Douglas Hurd, and Leo Amery as a generic Portillo/Lilley Eurosceptic. Since that time it has been far more common for people to begin their research careers in what might be broadly termed ‘diplomatic history’ at a range of quite different institutions. This has come at a time when Britain’s relations with the wider world have become part and parcel of party politics, where once politics was more divided by economic and social questions. The unexpectedly warlike nature of the post-1997 Labour government, with wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, affected academia as academics have sought to understand the origins of party debates on related issues, and been able to point to the roots of these in the past. In particular, the divisiveness of Iraq made it more interesting for historians to look at such divisions historically. As the public has become more interested in global issues, parties have had to develop their policies, and historians and commentators have explored the historical roots of contemporary problems. Thus John Callaghan’s book mentioned earlier has been an especially timely and important perspective on how Labour has approached international issues. There is also an important historiographical factor which has affected the change: a development in the focus of studies on the British Empire, which has started to put the Empire back into Britain. Over the last 10 years, especially following the return of Hong Kong to China, which was arguably the final step in the ‘end of Empire’ process, there has been renewed interest in the impact of Empire on Britain. This has been part of wider intellectual and political debates on who and what we are as a nation. Questions of Britishness, Englishness, and the effects of devolution have played an increasing role in British politics, from the ‘Cool Britannia’ approach associated with New Labour, to Gordon Brown’s analysis of ‘British’ values. Historians and cultural commentators are now asking how far the Empire impacted on Britain, rather than the other way round. How did it affect culture, society, and politics? Very different conclusions have been reached. To take two poles of debate, Bernard Porter’s book presented the British as only ‘absentminded’ imperialists. In stark contrast, Andrew C. Thompson’s The Empire Strikes Back portrays Britain as a nation deeply influenced, to this day, by its imperial experience.11 So, even if opinions differ on the extent of influence, there is now a lively debate on the impact of Empire on the politics of the nation which has affected our understanding of political history, and I think will do so even more in the future. Such developments should affect the way in which we think of interwar foreign policy. In tackling the inter-war period, many historians tend

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to assume that imperial policy and foreign policy were separate, and that the two rarely occupied parts of the same debate. They tend to give the impression that there were people who thought about ‘foreign’ policy, and a different set of people who thought about the Empire. Perhaps the best example of that is the Oxford History of the British Empire, which makes very little reference to international policy in its broadest sense.12 This chapter builds on recent developments by addressing one period in the shaping of British inter-war international policy. From that, one key conclusion follows: that the pursuit of ideological ends in international policy, in which ‘foreign’ and ‘imperial’ policy were intertwined, has informed the machinations of politicians. Divisions in Cabinet at key moments have been between politicians of different beliefs and where they have tried to come out on top, we must at least accept that it is possible that they have been seeking influence so as to implement ideological policy positions. This gives ideological approaches to international policy a much more important place in high politics, beyond those brief periods when foreign policy has, as Cowling argued in The Impact of Hitler, been the pole on which party politics was focused.13 The period analysed is Baldwin’s government of November 1924 to June 1929. This period has been chosen partly because throughout it there were major Cabinet-level debates on Britain’s place in the world. Some of these focused on the long-term and partially abstract commitments which the United Kingdom made in the Locarno agreements. Consequently, they illuminate the differing ideological perspectives about the United Kingdom’s world role within the Baldwin Cabinet, and can help us to understand the nature of the differences between those who ‘mattered’. The key figures in foreign policy debates during this time were Austen Chamberlain and Leo Amery. It was during this government that Chamberlain became the longest serving Foreign Secretary of the inter-war years, in office for nearly 5 years. During this time he negotiated the Locarno Agreements, and played a major role in European diplomacy, primarily in steadily revising provisions of the Treaty of Versailles in order to bring Germany into a new ‘Concert of Europe’. Meanwhile, Chamberlain played an active role in the League of Nations, usually focusing on the behind-the-scenes diplomacy of ‘Geneva tea parties’ rather than the formal processes of the League. He dealt with significant crises. In contrast to the world we see in the early Poirot novels of Agatha Christie, a world of manners, calm, and elegance (apart from the murders), the mid-to-late 1920s were turbulent and eventful in international history, more so than the popular memory now tends to allow for. In particular, there was the prospect of war between Britain and Turkey in 1926, due to a dispute over Mosul in northern Iraq which had been rumbling on since the end of the Great War. In China, the civil war threatened British interests, mainly around Shanghai, and 13,000 British troops were despatched there in 1927.

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All of these crises came across Chamberlain’s desk, but more than anything else, he was determined to devote most of his attention to European diplomacy. Above all, his foreign policy was a cogent attempt to tackle the problems of inter-war Europe, especially the questions left open or unanswered by the peace treaties. Chamberlain believed that British interests depended upon a stable and secure western Europe, and that Britain was influential enough to play a major role in European diplomacy to bring this about. As he said in 1927, ‘I am much more of an “Européen” than most of my countrymen, for I have a clearer perception than they of the inextricable way in which our interests are bound up with every possibility of the European situation.’14 A very different view was taken by Leo Amery, whose career crossed paths with all three Chamberlains: as a disciple of Joseph, and an opponent of his two sons.15 Amery is primarily remembered today as a leading anti-appeaser in the 1930s, although recent work by this author has suggested that his ‘alternative’ to appeasement was rather more subtle and nuanced than the stark label of ‘anti-appeaser’ suggests.16 Yet the label persists because it was Amery who, in May 1940, stood up in Parliament and cited Cromwell to Neville Chamberlain, telling him ‘In the name of God, go.’ Amery was a complex character. At various times a journalist and a keen amateur mountaineer, he was taken to court for libel and assault (on separate occasions). Throughout his political career he was a passionate imperialist, and can be seen as the leading imperialist thinker in the Conservative Party over 40 years. His impact may have been limited by his tendency towards the obsessive on this point: a glance at his letters to Stanley Baldwin, in the Cambridge University Library archive, illustrates Amery’s ability to ramble on about the subject of tariff policy, in a way that may well have caused many on the receiving end to switch off. Yet for all that, Amery was in a key position to implement his ideas as a minister in the second Baldwin government. As Colonial Secretary from the start of the government (a role which was combined with that of the newly created Dominions Secretary from 1925), Amery sought to place the Empire at the heart of all Conservative policies, both domestic and foreign. For him, imperialism was constructive, and because it was constructive, it could deliver other policy goals, making imperial, foreign and domestic policy inseparable. Such an approach led Amery to believe that Austen Chamberlain’s focus on European stability was flawed. As he wrote to Stanley Baldwin, he despaired that ‘Austen is so preoccupied with the League and all these tiresome and trivial European issues (for in the long run they are mostly trivial for our point of view).’17 Amery believed that Britain’s best option for preventing a European war (in so far as that could be done at all by Britain) rested in building a strong Empire. He wanted little part in European diplomacy. It was not even that he felt that the Empire was a source of strength to Britain’s position in Europe, but that he felt Empire development could

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allow the United Kingdom to ignore the continent except in very narrow ways. During the First World War, Amery said that ‘We are not a part of Europe, even if the most important unit of the British community lies off the European coast. This war against a German domination in Europe was only necessary because we had failed to make ourselves sufficiently strong and united as an Empire to be able to afford to disregard the European balance.’18 This view was a continuous in his political credo, and was expressed in 1935 in The Forward View. Amery argued, ‘It is high time that someone in authority stated clearly and plainly, for all the world to understand, that we do not regard ourselves as one of the nations of Europe, have no intention of intervening in any European conflict that does not directly menace our interests, and are only anxious to leave to Europe the responsibility for settling her own affairs.’19 Amery was prepared to defend the security of the Channel coast, and was interested in trade links with Portugal and the Scandinavian countries, but little else.20 Amery’s alternative of Empire development particularly meant settlement and trade schemes which would strengthen Britain’s links with its colonies and bolster its strategic position more generally. To some extent that approach flowed directly from a somewhat voguish view of the Edwardian era, which was informed by the thinking of people such as the geographer Halford Mackinder, that in the future, the winners in geopolitics would be empires. However, Amery attended the first reading of Mackinder’s ‘Geographical Pivot of History’ in 1904 and made criticisms of Mackinder which he retained throughout his career. In particular, he believed that good communications and industrial development were sources of strength which meant that control of continental heartlands was less important than Mackinder believed them to be.21 Conflicts over these ideas were at the heart of the high politics of the second Baldwin government. With Chamberlain as Foreign Secretary, and Amery as Colonial/Dominions Secretary, the existence of two different approaches was entrenched in terms of departmental organisation. Thus competition between contrasting strategic visions took place at Cabinet level. The first opportunity for these differences to come to the fore arose very soon after the government was elected, in debates over European security. This issue was on the agenda because ever since the Treaty of Versailles, Britain had not resolved how to calm French fears of a future German attack. By 1924, there was considerable pressure on Britain to make a commitment to France, and Baldwin’s Labour predecessor, Ramsay MacDonald, had been attempting to do so through the ‘Geneva Protocol’. Chamberlain spent his first few months in office immersed in the details of previous efforts at dealing with the problem, and examining historical precedents, such as Castlereagh’s ‘Concert of Europe’ policy of the early nineteenth century. He emerged from these deliberations with a policy that was an early enunciation

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of a Conservative rationale for engagement in Europe. Chamberlain argued that: Great Britain has it in her power at this moment to bring peace to Europe. To achieve this end two things are indispensable: 1. that we should remove or allay French fears. 2. that we should bring Germany back into the concert of Europe. Both are equally vital. Neither by itself will suffice & the first is needed to allow the second.22 Throughout early 1925, in a series of Cabinet and Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) meetings, Chamberlain made this case. At its core was his belief in the need for a British guarantee of the Franco-German border, possibly bringing Germany into such a pact after a specific British guarantee to France alone. At a 19 February CID meeting, Amery argued against Chamberlain. He proposed a more limited commitment to guaranteeing the territory of Belgium and Luxembourg. He said that such a limit would be ‘always permanently justifiable in the interests of British maritime security’, that it had ‘a historical basis’, and that it could be justified to the Empire.23 Balfour, Birkenhead, Churchill, and Curzon also opposed major aspects of the pact idea, but Amery was the minister most vocally opposed to a guarantee of the Franco-German border. A few weeks later, at meetings of the Cabinet on 2 and 4 March, Amery had moved ground. Privately, in his diary entry for 4 March, he described himself as one of ‘the anti-pactites’. However, at these Cabinet meetings he was arguing for a quadrilateral pact, that is, one involving Germany at the outset.24 For Amery to take this view was curious for it involved a greater commitment than he actually seemed to want. Yet a possible explanation is found in the diary of Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary. He believed that Amery favoured a pact involving Germany ‘only because he is certain the French won’t take it’.25 In other words, Amery adopted wrecking tactics. Limiting any commitment to a European-centred foreign policy was a key aspect of Amery’s strategy in 1924–1929. In this debate, Amery won. Chamberlain was instructed to pursue a quadrilateral pact, rather than a pact with France and Belgium alone. Such an outcome can be presented as a defeat for Chamberlain, although it has been argued elsewhere at length that Chamberlain was most interested in securing some kind of pact; the timing of when Germany came in was for him a detail, and so he was not disappointed by the outcome.26 Yet Amery’s scheme backfired when Chamberlain managed to negotiate a pact at Locarno later in 1925. In particular, Britain and Italy signed up to a guarantee of the Franco-German border, agreeing to assist whichever country was attacked. This was a decisive

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victory for Chamberlain’s pro-European approach, even though it looked for a while as if Amery had gained the upper hand. The clash of beliefs was, predictably, also played out in extra-European policy. Chamberlain showed a general lack of concern about imperial interests such as colonies, trading concessions, and League of Nations mandates. It was not just that Chamberlain failed to devote any attention to them, which was understandable because these were not formally in his portfolio. More than that, when he did become involved, he tended to relegate imperial interests below European ones. An example of this can be seen in relations between Britain and Imam Yahya of Sanaa (a city in the Yemen). The Imam was a client of Italy, with whom Chamberlain was anxious to avoid conflict. However, the Admiralty feared that Italy was trying to obtain a presence in the Red Sea on the Farsan Islands. Italy already held territory on the western coast of the Red Sea, but a position nearer the eastern coast was a possible threat to Britain’s dominance in the area.27 These fears were worsened by a commercial treaty between Italy and the Yemen in November 1926. In July of that year, an interdepartmental conference had been held to discuss the general situation in the area. At this meeting the Colonial Office proposed arming the Idrisi of Asir (a province of what is now Saudi Arabia) against the Imam, and the Admiralty was adamant that it did not want Italy on the Farsan and Kamaran islands. A member of the Foreign Office’s Eastern Department, V.A.L. Mallet, supported this, saying that Britain should take a stand against Italy by sending ships to the islands.28 Chamberlain was uneasy on both points. He said, ‘I feel the strongest objection to waging a covert war with Italy – she under the Imam’s flag & we under Idrisi’s.’ Chamberlain saw in the plan a danger to Anglo-Italian relations, and asked the Foreign Office staff to develop an alternative policy. They suggested a discussion with Italy, and the Colonial Office agreed to that. Discussions were straightforward, resulting in an agreement that no European power would establish itself on the Arabian shore of the Red Sea.29 Concerns of a similar nature, but this time relating to a desire to control a source of the Blue Nile (which was of importance to Britain in Egypt), resulted in an agreement with Italy regarding Lake Tsana (or Tana) in Ethiopia in 1928.30 A similar situation can be seen in debates on the building of a BaghdadHaifa railway and oil pipeline, which came onto the Cabinet agenda in early 1929. Strictly speaking, decisions were to be made by the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC). This company consisted of directors from Britain, France, and the United States, plus representatives of the Iraqi government. However, the Colonial Office, which had overall responsibility for the administration of Iraq, wanted the route to be from Baghdad to Haifa (Palestine), rather than to Alexandretta (Syria) or Tripoli (Lebanon). That was because both of the latter were under French control. The Haifa route was also favoured by Iraq, but the French TPC directors and the French government believed, incorrectly, that Iraq only favoured Haifa because of British pressure. The

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Foreign Office argued that no pressure be put on Iraq, in case the French were angered. The Foreign Office’s fear was that any such anger would threaten good relations between the United Kingdom and France. Chamberlain was forced to take the question to Cabinet, which agreed no pressure would be used.31 Amery saw the affair as a Foreign Office ‘attempt to run away . . . at the first bark of the French poodle’.32 It was exactly that. However, the Foreign Office was wary of the damage minor matters could inflict on the carefully managed Anglo-French rapprochement which they had been developing since 1924, and which, they believed, affected far more important matters. In any event, a final decision on whether Britain would invest in the railway was adjourned until after the imminent general election.33 Like the situation around the Red Sea, such an episode led to no crisis, and no great turning-point in policy. Yet these cases are highly illustrative of the different world views in contest at Cabinet level: Amery’s desire to protect colonial interests and the United Kingdom’s imperial presence, contrasting with Chamberlain’s focus on Britain’s European role. Austen Chamberlain’s apparent timidity when it came to colonial interests, in contrast to Amery, was also seen in the way he made foreign policy, especially the role of consultation with the wider Empire. Amery was keen to develop imperial co-operation on all areas of policy and used his ministerial position to do this whenever he could. One of his core aims was to tie the Empire together more closely by drawing colonies in to foreign policy discussions, so that the British Empire could speak with one voice in international affairs. This, it should be noted, came at a time when some of the Dominions, most notably Canada, were beginning to take a more independent role in the League of Nations, so to some extent, Amery was fighting a rearguard action. In this context, Amery sought to develop a more ‘imperial’ foreign policy in consultation with the Dominions. He argued for that at the Committee of Imperial Defence meeting on 19 February 1925 which had been so central to debates on European security. As we saw earlier, the committee was discussing potential British involvement in a security pact, and Amery believed that, ‘there are many things that we as an empire can no longer do with ease . . . . We have something more difficult than the American Senate to contend with, we have a group of independent nations, and it is only by getting them round the table that we can deal with our problems.’34 Chamberlain was keen to develop policy quickly, and was not willing to be restricted in his ability to reach a European security agreement because of the need to consult with the wider Empire. Chamberlain argued that ‘in a crisis the British Empire must not be paralysed because nowhere in that Empire has anyone the right to speak or act on its behalf.’35 As a result, Amery’s proposal for Dominion consultation on a security pact was never seriously addressed. That does not mean that Chamberlain was actively against developing imperial consultation on foreign policy, but the work was left largely to Amery. Chamberlain gave it no priority whatsoever and was

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perfectly capable of functioning without it. Consequently, Chamberlain was only on the fringes of the 1926 Imperial Conference which produced the Balfour Report, in which the Dominions were declared to be ‘autonomous communities within the British Empire equal in status’.36 When, in 1927, a system of dominion consultation on foreign affairs was established, it was implemented with Chamberlain’s support, but instigated by Amery.37 Such controversies between Austen Chamberlain and Leo Amery were central to the divides of the second Baldwin government, although later, they would work more closely together prior to Chamberlain’s death in 1935 as opponents of the early stages of appeasement. Their quarrels were not just a personal duel and reflected schools of thought with the Cabinet. However, what do their quarrels over international policy between 1924 and 1929 ultimately mean for debates on the ‘primacy’ of foreign policy? They do not for a moment mean that foreign policy was the primary issue of British politics in those years. Jobs, housing, and dramatic events of the 1926 General Strike all loomed much larger, even larger than the Locarno agreements which secured Germany’s freely given assent to its borders with France and Belgium, both in politics more widely and in the Conservative Party. Even in terms of Cabinet time, far more attention was devoted to the pressing economic questions of the day, such as issues like the ‘safeguarding’ of industry, and the return to the Gold Standard. Nor should we imagine for a moment that the Conservative Party as a whole was divided into factions consisting of disciples of Leo Amery and Austen Chamberlain, although by the mid-1930s, both had attracted followers.38 However, the Amery–Chamberlain controversies do indicate that we should think about foreign policy as having an ideological dimension which reflected wider divides in the Conservative Party. As such, it means that we can connect Cabinet debates on foreign policy to a broader definition of the nature of Conservatism at this time. That allows us to develop an understanding of Conservative ideology which factors in approaches to international policy in its broadest sense. This may lead us to ask how far the divisions between and within parties have been influenced by international policy more generally. As it becomes increasingly clear that politics in the 1990s and the 2000s is divided along such lines, we may find more interesting parallels in the past than we have previously imagined. Much of twentieth-century British political history has been written in times when the crucial divisions within politics were about economic or social policy. As those divisions play less of a part in contemporary politics, and therefore influence our own mindsets less, this is a time for taking a fresh look at the primacy of international issues in party politics at the very highest level. That politicians are motivated by ideals cannot be proven, but it is at least possible that politics is a more noble cause than Cowling ever allowed, one

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in which people fight for what they believe in. In that, international policy has been of central concern for many.

Notes 1. R. S. Grayson (2001) Liberals, International Relations and Appeasement: The Liberal Party, 1919–39 (London: Frank Cass). 2. J. Callaghan (2007) The Labour Party and Foreign Policy: A History (London: Routledge). 3. M. Cowling (1971) The Impact of Labour 1920–1924: The Beginning of Modern British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 3. 4. HC Deb [Hansard], 27 June 2007 vol. CCCCLXII, part 113, col. 334. 5. R. S. Grayson (1997) Austen Chamberlain and the Commitment to Europe: British Foreign Policy, 1924–29 (London: Frank Cass). 6. R. Crowcroft (2008) ‘Maurice Cowling and the Writing of British Political History’, Contemporary British History, XXII, 279–286. 7. Cowling (1971), Impact of Labour, p. 3. 8. Crowcroft, ‘Cowling’, p. 282. 9. Ibid., pp. 284, 286. 10. Ibid., p. 284. 11. B. Porter (2004) The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press); A. S. Thompson (2005) The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century (London: Longman). 12. Wm. Roger Louis (lead editor) (1998–2001), Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 13. M. Cowling (1975) The Impact of Hitler: British Politics and British Policy, 1933–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 6. 14. The National Archives (TNA), Kew, FO 800/261/330-41: Austen Chamberlain to William Tyrrell, 19 September 1927. 15. R. S. Grayson (2006) ‘Imperialism in conservative defence and foreign policy: Leo Amery and the Chamberlains, 1903–1939’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, XXXIV, 505–527. 16. R. S. Grayson (2006) ‘Leo Amery’s imperialist alternative to appeasement in the 1930s’, Twentieth Century British History, XVII, 489–515. 17. Cambridge University Library, Baldwin Papers 115, ff. 120–123: Amery to Baldwin, 18 September 1926. 18. Churchill College, Cambridge, Amery Papers, AMEL 1/3/41: Amery to Lord Milner, 25 May 1915. 19. Leopold S. Amery (1935), The Forward View (London: Geoffrey Bles), p. 285. 20. Ibid., p. 276. 21. H. J. Mackinder (1904), ‘The geographical pivot of history’, The Geographical Journal, XXIII, 4, 421–444. 22. TNA, FO 371/10756, C 3539/3539/18: Foreign Office Central Department Memorandum, 19 March 1925. 23. TNA, CAB 24/172, CP 105(25): Minutes of 195th meeting of Committee of Imperial Defence, 13 February 1925. 24. TNA, CAB 23/49, CC 12 & 14(25): Minutes of Meetings of Cabinet, 2 & 4 March 1925. J. Barnes and D. Nicolson (1980) (eds) The Leo Amery Diaries, Volume I: 1896–1929 (London: Hutchinson), p. 399: 2 and 4 March 1925.

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25. Quoted in S. Roskill (1972) Hankey: Man of Secrets, Volume II, 1919–1931 (London: Collins), p. 396. 26. Grayson, Chamberlain and the Commitment to Europe, pp. 48–49. 27. TNA, FO 371/11447, E 4159 and 4215/2660/91: Admiralty to Foreign Office, 9 & 13 July 1926. 28. TNA, FO 371/11447, E 4631 and 4332/2660/91: Conference at Colonial Office, 16 July 1926; Mallet memorandum, 15 July 1926; Mallet and Osborne minutes, 16 July 1926; Chamberlain minute, 17 July 1926. 29. TNA, FO 371/11444, E 4253, 4360, and 4507/710/91: Chamberlain minutes, 16 & 23 July 1926; FO and CO correspondence, 26 & 30 July 1926. W. N. Medlicott and D. Dakin (eds) (1968) Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939 Series IA, Vol. II (London: HMSO), nos.459, 465, 468 and 469: Chamberlain to Clayton, 28 December 1926 & 27 Jan. 1927; Notes of meeting in Rome, 31 January 1927; Clayton to Tyrrell, 10 February 1927. 30. P. G. Edwards (1974) ‘Britain, Fascist Italy and Ethiopia, 1925–28’, European Studies Review, IV, 359–374. 31. TNA, CAB 27/367, Baghdad-Haifa Railway and Pipeline (B.H.R. (28)), 1st Minutes: 7 March 1928. FO 371/13760, E 111 and 565/62/93: Oliphant minute, 10 January 1929; Seymour minute, 10 January 1929; Envoy Extraordinary of Iraq Government (London) to Iraqi Foreign Minister, 20 Nov. 1928; Rendel minute, 1 February 1929; Seymour minute, 1 February 1929; Monteagle to Shuckburgh, 6 February 1929. TNA, CAB 24/202, CP 78 and 80(29): Tyrrell memorandum, 12 March 1929; Amery memorandum, 16 March 1929. TNA, CAB 23/60, CC 11 and 12 (29): 13 and 20 March 1929. 32. Amery Diaries, p. 592: 20 March 1929. 33. TNA, CAB 24/203, CP 134(29): Amery memorandum, 30 April 1929. CAB 23/60, CC 21(29): 9 May 1929. 34. TNA, CAB 24/172, CP 105(25): Minutes of 196th meeting of Committee of Imperial Defence, 19 February 1925. 35. TNA, FO 371/10565, W 10990/4972/50: Chamberlain minute, 20 December 1924. Cambridge University Library, Baldwin Papers 93, ff. 153–155: Chamberlain to Baldwin, 20 December 1924. 36. Cmd. 2768 (1926): Imperial Conference, 1926, Summary of Proceedings, p. 14. 37. R. F. Holland (1981) Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance 1918–1939 (London: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 83–84. 38. Grayson, ‘Imperialism in Conservative defence and foreign policy’, p. 514; Grayson, ‘Leo Amery’s Imperialist Alternative’, pp. 510–511.

19 The Primacy of Foreign Policy? Britain in the Second World War David Edgerton

Do we need a ‘primacy of foreign policy’ thesis in the study of Britain in and around the Second World War?1 It would seem that the importance of the ‘foreign’ in this period would be all too obvious. And yet, most historical writing on Britain in the Second World War has been dominated by an emphasis on the domestic and by an implicit domestic-primacy thesis. The domestic civilian aspects of war (the so-called ‘home front’) have a central place in the standard national narrative – they are seen as central to the rise of the welfare state, the great theme in the historiography of the development of state and nation. That war facilitated domestically generated progressive social change was at the core of the national and nationalistic social-democratic historiography of twentieth-century Britain. The work of conservative historians too was largely domestic, a telling case being that of Maurice Cowling. He wrote about the ‘impact of Hitler’ but not in the obvious foreign-primacy sense: his concern was with how domestic high politics made use of the existence of Hitler in domestic struggles.2 Just as striking is the literature on decline, from left and right, which was almost entirely focussed on the domestic. One can define the declinism that dominated comment on the British economy and much else besides as attempted explanations of British relative decline, which was very largely caused by the growth of other countries, by alleged domestic failures.3 Such alleged failures have also been important in the historiography of the Second World War in the years since the eclipse of social democracy. In this article I describe the centrality of a rising welfare state account of the Second World War and show, relying on earlier work, that the British state was also a warfare state, most obviously and particularly in the Second World War.4 A rising Nazi Germany and war saw a process of militarisation of the state, and thus of society, driven – it hardly bears mentioning – by events abroad. This is not to say the British warfare state was shaped exclusively by what happened abroad – its character needs a partially domestic explanation, but one which takes into account how the British elite understood its place in the world and the most effective ways of exerting military power. 291

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I go on to discuss the ways in which a profoundly national perspective, as Alan Milward pointed out long ago, came to dominate post-war accounts of the British economy and society at war.5 The imperial turn, while improving matters, has itself helped obscure British relations with Europe and therefore the full extent of the impact on Britain of the events of 1940, and of the subsequent crucial role of the United States in British affairs. By looking in detail at imports of food and oil during the war, I argue for taking seriously Britain’s particular geo-political position, in relations to friends, neutrals, and enemies, and show this requires a much less national or imperial history than we have become accustomed to, one which changes standard accounts of Britain at war.

∗ British social democratic historians have taken a remarkably rosy view of war, particularly but not only the Second World War, as a powerful motor of peaceful constitutional progress: The people’s war put us on The road to 1945, and The people’s peace.6 The positive effects of war were the central themes of decades of work on contemporary British history. The underlying argument is that the war, total war especially, unleashed modernising civilian forces, which had been held back by an entrenched liberalism. Central to the story is the rise of labour, and the creation of the ‘welfare state’. Although historians have challenged old accounts of how particular sectors benefited from the war, and in doing so cast doubt on the optimistic picture, the rising welfare state stubbornly remains the frame of reference for studies of wartime.7 Even if they don’t always use the term, though many do, ‘the triumph of social democracy’,8 or the rise of ‘benign state’ are central to accounts of Britain in and after the Second World War.9 A recent text on the British state, one which takes seriously the fiscal-military state of the eighteenth century, gives Britain a ‘Social-Service State’ between 1880 and 1939, while the period 1939–1979 is covered in a chapter on ‘Total War and Cradle-to-Grave Welfare’.10 It is hardly surprising that, for more general audiences, nationalistic and sentimental accounts of the war years continue to be published.11 The welfare state has come to define the British state as a whole even for the most ideologically discerning of historians, including José Harris and Keith Middlemas.12 The case of Keith Middlemas is especially interesting since his Politics in industrial society represented a real break with standard accounts in that it was a uniquely state-centred account of twentieth-century Britain – seeing in the deep policies of the state the origins of policies usually ascribed to civil society and its representatives. The British state created a particularly stable society between the 1920s and the 1960s – it ‘discovered how to exercise the arts of public management, extending the state’s powers to assess, educate, bargain with, appease or constrain the demands of the

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electorate’.13 Parties were, despite appearances, marginal to policy making. His view may be summarised in his argument that in the 20 years after 1940 ‘nearly all the deep objectives of the state and of most Governments since the 1920s – in economic planning, social welfare, harmony and the avoidance of crisis seem to have been achieved’.14 In order to achieve its aims, the state encroached on the interests of capital and labour, using their peak organisations to complement its strength. This state-led and sponsored ‘corporate bias’ resulted in a new system which, ‘backward looking in its aims, gradual in method, revisionistic in theory, accommodated itself to change by moving at the least speed commensurate with the interest of each governing institution’15 ; one of the results was that ‘for all the talk of managing the economy the price . . . turned out to be political compromise, industrial featherbedding and low overall growth’.16 Here Middlemas was on common ground in that he endorsed the view that the aims of the state were welfarist, and that these aims compromised industrial efficiency.17 So powerful indeed is the civilian-centred welfarist account of British warfare that it shaped the new historical sociology of war of the 1980s.18 This was based on the idea that both liberals and Marxists had great difficulty in conceptualising war,19 and that, in effect the primacy of foreign policy and the autonomy of the state needed to be recognised. Yet when it came to spelling out the historical background, these scholars relied on a conventional depiction of the civilian/British case as central to twentieth-century war. For example, Michael Mann labelled the first half of the twentieth century as a period of ‘citizen warfare’, from which citizens gained major benefits.20 Martin Shaw correctly criticises this view as Anglo-centric but argues for the centrality of the ‘military-democratic state’ in Britain in which welfarism went with a particular form of mass warfare.21 Within the historiography of twentieth-century Britain, the cultural and imperial turns have not shifted the welfarist account from centre stage, rather the contrary. A good example is James Vernon’s recent study of Britain and food from the nineteenth century to 1945, self-consciously a product of the cultural and imperial turns in British history, which also gestures towards a new material history.22 It is an interesting work, dealing with experts, empire and welfare state. It seeks to go beyond social democratic politics and social history. Yet for all reflexive examination of meaning, and its insistence on the importance of new approaches it remains rooted in the welfarist model of British historiography it otherwise criticises. According to Vernon by 1945 was that there was ‘A state that claimed the welfare of society, at home and abroad, as its primary objective.’23 The book deals with factory canteens and British restaurants, yet neglects the much more significant mass communal feeding of the armed services. The history of wartime food supply and rationing is essentially the story told by nutritionists. Abroad does not come into the story except as empire, here meaning largely India, and as British nutritionists’ plans for a world food order. Since the supply

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of food is not at issue, the very distinctive place Britain had in world food markets is not addressed.

∗ The great majority of texts on the British state, even in wartime, and even the most recent ones, have little or nothing to say even about the military.24 In A. J. P. Taylor’s English History, for example, the military do not figure, even in passing, in his account of the forces that pulled together to shape modern Britain in the Second World War.25 Very little has been written on British soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the Second World War, compared with factory workers, despite the fact that one obvious effect of the war was the conscription of millions for service in Britain as well as abroad. In fact until 1944 the great bulk of British forces were stationed on British soil. Until very recently we knew more about US forces in Britain26 in this period than about British forces.27 Yet the forces themselves were just part of the story of militarisation, of the rise of the warfare state. This term covers those parts of the state machine that ran the military and military-industrial effort. It showed deep continuities in structures and personnel, and was very different from the particular images of the welfare state that have stood for the state as a whole. This warfare state element of the state obviously dominated the whole state during the war, but in the 1940s and 1950s, contrary to the impression given by the ‘rise of the welfare state’ literature, it was not only larger than the ‘welfare state’ but had grown more since the 1930s than had the ‘welfare state’. Taking the warfare state seriously means revising the historiography of wartime industrial policy, the role of labour, public ownership, and the role of experts, all of which were based on accounts focussed on the welfare state, Keynesianism, and corporatism. The methods of intervention were not the assumed tripartite, consensual, corporatist structures, led by intellectuals of the left but rather state-led efforts dominated by businessmen, serving officers, and state servants.28 The warfare state may have required an element of social cohesion, yet it had other powerful aims, including the maintenance of its international position, and not merely for reasons of prestige. My account of the warfare state was nearly entirely national, but it did involve a very particular account of Britain’s place in the world, and the British elite’s understanding of its place in the world. By comparison with Germany, Italy, and the United States (and even to some extent Japan), Britain had a uniquely external orientation. It depended on particular relations with the rest of the world to a degree it is difficult to recapture. Its wheat fields were in Canada and the southern hemisphere; its abattoirs in Denmark, the River Plate, and Australasia; its oil refineries in the Caribbean, the Persian Gulf, and South East Asia; its forests in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic States; its iron ore in Sweden, Spain, and North Africa. Its ‘home front’, its material base, was a global one.

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I argued for the centrality of a liberal internationalist political economic understanding of the world in which Britain was threatened by nationalist and militaristic forces, either European or Japanese. These powers were typically larger than Britain in absolute terms, but they could be dealt with because Britain was richer, and could deploy more powerful forces, headed by warships and aircraft, to defeat these powerful enemies. In other words the British state elite conceived of war as one might expect of a liberal, technological, and industrial elite culture. It felt particularly threatened by its own shadow: it saw more dangers in embryonic German navies and airforces, that in the more formidable German army. This picture is different from long-held accounts which stress empire in the history of strategy, and which suggest that imperial commitments enforced by gunboats and air control distracted Britain from the continental threats, and from developing the means to deal with continental powers, which is taken to be a continentalstyle mass army. Thus, it is argued, an imperial delusion was at the centre of a British misunderstanding of the real world, and of the capabilities of high-technology forces. Instead I suggest too much attention has been given to the imperial dimensions of British strategy; that policing of the empire has been conflated with the defence of the empire. For the threat to empire was not from native peoples to be dealt with gunboats and air control, but from other large great powers, European ones and Japan. Furthermore, the Navy and the Air Force were primarily to be used against continental foes not native insurgents, and were largely designed as such.29 British strategy had a powerful and permanent continental commitment, but it took a very particular form – it was focussed not on the army, but on the navy and air force. In other words Britain had a strategy for the continent that was not the continental strategy of the post-war theorists; it saw empire as one important element in Britain globally based power to intervene in Europe.

∗ This liberal international, political economic understanding of the world, and of how to defeat enemies, was so strongly criticised after the war as to be profoundly misunderstood. On both the left and the right there arose new kinds of nationalist anti-liberalisms. The British state should have been more interventionist and economically nationalist, according to social democratic historians; the British state should have become more continental, more militaristic, less liberal internationalist and pacifist, said the conservatives. British intellectuals interpreted its wartime experience in domestic national and nationalistic terms – Britain’s capacity to wage war depended on a national re-awakening and a national productive effort. That is reflected even in the statistics of the war effort produced after the war, as well as the histories.30 In May 1945 the British Ministry of Information put out a small book called What Britain has done 1939–1945: a selection of outstanding facts

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and figures: its subject was the ‘War Effort of Britain (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)’. It has recently been re-published with a preface which points out forcefully that the contribution of the Empire and Commonwealth is hardly mentioned.31 Just as startling is the Statistical Digest of the War prepared by the Central Statistical Office and published in 1951 as part of the United Kingdom Civil Series of the official History of the Second World War.32 Only in sub-categorisations of trade did the Empire appear. Otherwise it did not exist – the figures are for Great Britain and Northern Ireland; the armed forces are the British ones (though a footnote recognises there were some foreigners in it), but the very closely allied Commonwealth forces, not to mention colonial ones, do not figure. There is no Indian Army, no Canadian Air Force, and so on. The assessments are profoundly national, reflecting poorly the reality of a war which was fought from 1942 by ‘the United Nations’, and in which the British Empire had been very prominent. The imperial contribution to the British war effort was huge, as is now recognised.33 Leaving aside the overwhelming importance of imperial troops in the war in the East, they were crucial in the European and North African theatres. The 8th Army under Bernard Montgomery had, at the second Battle of Alamein, four imperial infantry divisions, plus three British infantry and three British armoured divisions. Montgomery went on to command the 21st Army Group in France – it was made up of all the British army forces in this theatre, the British 2nd Army, and the Canadian 1st Army. The Royal Air Force in Europe was far from being a British-only force. Even Bomber Command in the United Kingdom had a very large component made up of units of the Royal Canadian Air Force, as well as a large numbers of Australians and New Zealanders, mostly in RAF units, with a small proportion in nationally labelled squadrons. These imperial forces were larger than the even more neglected European forces under British command – for example, the Polish armoured division in North West Europe, a Czech armoured Brigade and so on. For the British war effort was integrated into a global (and not merely just imperial) war effort in ways which are only now becoming properly clear. ‘Britain’ was a statistical abstraction that concealed much about its war effort. Imagine, for example, that you want to find out about the manufacture of rifles for British forces. One would look to the Statistical Digest and there find Table 122, a table giving figures summing to around 2.5 million.34 This seems a very low number even to supply the British armies raised in Britain, let alone the imperial armies too. It is less the peak strength of the British army, which was around 3 m, let alone the total imperial army. What is missing from the story is the very large overseas production. While 2.5 m rifles were manufactured within the British Isles, overseas production of British rifles for British and imperial forces was over 3 m. Australia produced just over 400,000 No. 1 rifles in Lithgow Small Arms Factory and at a

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new factory at Orange. India made and repaired nearly 700,000 No. 1s.35 The main British rifle production was to be of the No. 4 rifle, which was produced in three new factories in Britain, but it was also made at the Long Branch Arsenal outside Toronto (nearly 1 m), and in the United States by the Savage company (over 1 m).36 Another case concerns the standard wartime dry cargo ships: Britain produced around 600,000 gross tons per annum adding to around 2,700,000 gross tons for the war as a whole. However, it got well over 1,400,000 tons from the United States and Canada, though none of this foreign production is in the Statistical Digest. These ships from Canada and the United States were made to British designs. That is not to say all such cases are unknown even to the Statistical Digest. The latter records the large number of tanks supplied by the United States, and gives some data for aircraft. Thus Table 130 gives for, say 1943, total British aircraft production of 26,000. Table 135 gives arrivals into the United Kingdom from North America (which includes Canada) of 2400 for the same year, and Table 136 shows the arrivals from the United States only to British forces overseas, and empire forces, of 4,300. In short the global nature of the British forces and the armament supply system (which went much further than Lend-Lease) needs to be recaptured.

∗ The story of food in wartime Britain is well-known. It is one in which the new national policies of developing domestic agriculture and scientific rationing succeed despite the severing of supplies due to the submarine blockade. The usual story is that Britain’s huge food imports halved as a result of the war, the fall made up by domestic production.37 Here in a nutshell is the traditional story of overcoming adversity through national effort and the deployment of previously unused expertise. There is an important grain of truth in it – food supply became more domestic – but that is only one part of what is best seen as a changed international story. The extent and character in the fall in imports and the increase in domestic production is easily misunderstood. First, human food imports fell by much less than half – most of the fall in imports was the result of a huge cutback in animal feeding stuffs, no less than 7.4 million was animal feedstuffs, including that element of wheat (wheat offal) that went to animals compared with around 4 m tons of human food. Far from being rationed, most food (by calorific value) was un-rationed – flour, bread, potatoes, indeed all vegetables and fruit. What was rationed was typically expensive food, much of which was imported: meat, butter, cheese, sugar, tea. Rationing did not necessarily imply huge falls in supply. For example, contrary to the image of siege, British meat imports increased. Meat consumption decreased by roughly a quarter, because of a fall in domestic production.38 From the standard nationalistic perspective this is odd to say the least.

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The German takeover of Europe imposed a land blockade on British imports, much more significant than that of the U-boats.39 Britain became an off-shore island, supplied from the rest of the world for, contrary to the impression too easily gained from the historiography, in the 1930s British trade with continental Europe was very important indeed. Europe was a major supplier of food (mainly bacon from Denmark, and eggs from Denmark and the Netherlands), as well as key raw materials. The response to the cut-off in European food supplies in 1940 was not to increase domestic production – in fact the pig and poultry population of Britain fell. The reason was simple – these beasts needed imported, bulky, feeding stuffs. Instead Britain turned to North America, for both pig products and dried eggs. For high-value foodstuffs that did not come from Europe the story was different – they mostly continued to arrive in roughly pre-war quantities. Indeed it is a remarkable but little acknowledged fact that British supplies of meat and cheese from the River Plate and Australasia did not change very much in quantity during the war, a testament to the power and speed of British refrigerated shipping. In the case of raw materials the German takeover of Continental Europe had a drastic effect on supplies of key inputs like timber (Britain’s largest import by bulk) and iron ore. These near supplies could only be replaced by the use of much more shipping, which was not available. How to make up for the effective loss of shipping capacity, and sources of supply? One means was home production, as in the grain and timber, another was to import from elsewhere, and to import different products. Thus, just as wheat was replaced not just with domestic production by with imports of flour, and maize with increased supplies of meat, iron ore imports were replaced with steel imports, and most significantly of all, finished manufactures, notably armaments. Overall British imports fell in terms of physical bulk, but in terms of value (in real terms) they increased, if one includes, as one should, armaments. The wartime trade story is not to be understood as a British withdrawal from the world, but rather as a drastic re-arrangement of Britain’s place within it. Thus British imports shifted from near sources to the closest possible new source, North America, which also supplied credits, while the more distant southern hemisphere suppliers continued to supply at roughly pre-war rates, and did so on the basis of promises of future exports. They were forced to continue supplying even if they could not be immediately paid with exports simply because there were no other markets. The United States and Canada were willing to supply material and other supplies for no direct return. To put it very crudely, by the middle of the war Britain had a shipping constraint but no foreign exchange constraint, thanks to Lend-Lease and Canadian aid, and also to the willingness of other suppliers to export for future sterling payment.

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∗ British oil supplies illustrate the question of foreign policy very clearly. In the inter-war years Britain was the most motorised country in Europe and almost certainly the largest importer of oil in the world. British oil did not, as many assume, come mainly from the Middle East. By the late 1930s Venezuela and the Dutch West Indies was by far the largest supplier to Britain, which with the smaller neighbouring Trinidad accounted for over half of all imports.40 Britain imported very little crude oil, having few refineries in Britain itself. The great bulk of imports were of particular types of refined oil, such as motor spirit, for cars and lorries, gas-oil, fuel-oil, and aviation spirit. It might be thought this was inevitable in that Britain could not make its own petrol, whereas it could fell its own timber and grow more grain. Yet coal could be used, using a variety of processes, to make what was called synthetic petrol, as was the case in Germany. Britain had a small oil-from-coal programme with a plant in production since 1935. The problem was the cost, of both the plant and the raw material. Many tons of coal were needed to make a ton of petrol. Germany was in effect forced to pay this high cost to get petrol; Britain was not. Indeed the story of wartime oil imports illustrates just how potentially misleading the image of a blockaded Britain turning to its domestic resources is. Wartime Britain was awash with imported petrol, and other petroleum derivatives. In contrast to the imports of timber, ore, and grain, which all fell radically, liquid fuel imports doubled during the war. They doubled from a very high base since oil was with timber and food, one of the three largest pre-war imports by bulk. At the end of the war Britain was importing 20 m tons of petroleum-derived fuels into the British Isles, much more than food imports. The consumption of the British Empire, and of British forces, was greater still, but did not enter into this figure as it was shipped direct. Supplying say 40 m tons of oil from coal would have required at least a doubling of British coal output, and the number of miners (already over 700,000) let alone many new hydrogenation plants, mining equipment, additional transport, and so on. The foreign and domestic politics of aviation spirit tell a fascinating story of radical wartime change in policy. Where to import it from, and to what degree, was a big issue in the late 1930s. Britain sought to get it from territories (rather than firms) which it could control: this meant British colonies (notably Trinidad), and the Dutch West and East Indies. In addition it proposed to build a number of hydrogenation plants (for base oil rather than coal), in Britain and Trinidad. Left out were two very important suppliers indeed: the British-government owned Anglo-Iranian facilities at Abadan in Persia, and the United States, the world’s largest producer of oil and aviation spirit. As it happens British policy was to avoid, for geo-political reasons, the two sources which would, under different circumstances, later in the

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war become by far the most important. The changed relationship with the United States, and the tyranny of distance, meant that Britain decided to rely almost entirely on the United States, and operations in the east became dependent on Abadan. Overall, the United States achieved an extraordinary dominance producing around 20 m tons of aviation spirit a year at the end of the war; while British operations in Britain and abroad managed about 2 m tons.41 Some 4 m tons of aviation spirit came into Britain, all from the United States. Indeed by the end of the war the US and UK aviation spirit systems were one: the spirit flowing from refineries in the United States in pipelines to ports on the north-east coast, and then via tanker to western UK ports and then through more pipelines to both US and British air bases.42 Abadan became much more important than anticipated, ‘all the motive power at sea, on land an in the air throughout the ME, Indian Ocean and India was entirely dependent on the oil from Abadan’.43 In terms of aviation spirit Abadan acquired new and precious plant from the United States which was central to making this one the largest aviation-spirit producing plants in the world, making up nearly a half of total British production of 2 m tons.44 Much of its output went to the Soviet Union, itself an indication of the centrality of foreign policy. It is too simplistic to see the British dependence on US oil, and indeed some materials and many armaments, as evidence for British weakness or for the proposition that Britain, and the empire, were saved, by the United States.45 This has become a common argument in the historiography. But it is vital to recognise that still by the end of 1941 Britain was a much larger arms producer than the United States, its armed forces greater, its hold on the seas of the world much more powerful. It was still paying its way in the world. It did not need to be saved. From the announcement of Lend-Lease and especially from when it became significant, in 1942, Britain entered into a new relationship with the United States, one unthinkable in 1940. That was one of dependence in important ways, but it was also a strategic partnership of choice, which allowed a division of labour with the aim of economising on resources. It made good sense, for example, for the United States to build up a merchant fleet larger than any in the world, despite Britain’s pre-war dominance – Britain had a comparative advantage in warships. It certainly made sense to get petrol from the United States. These and related decisions about the respective roles of British and the United States had profound implications for the scale of British warlike activity. National and nationalist historians are apt to make much of the fact that Britain was supposedly the most mobilised nation of the war: the claim is made to suggest a worthy commitment, a moral choice actualised, and an argument for the effectiveness of British planning.46 That high mobilisation was not only due to a very powerful warfare state but it was also due to the fact that Britain was a rich country which could continue to import vast quantities of food and fuel and increasingly manufactured goods from the rest of the world, paid for by

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Lend-Lease or sterling balances rather than exports. Its mobilisation was a product of particular relations with the rest of the world, and its ability to reshape those relations in response to major changes. Without such support, Britain would have been more independent, but less mobilised. To make the point let us imagine what Britain would have been like if it had to rely on its own home front, if it had corresponded to the national stories it was to tell about itself. The first point is that it probably could not have existed in anything like its actual form had it been cut off. It would have been unable to feed itself, even if it had put 1 m more on the land, there would probably not have been enough land. If it had to make its own oil, it would have needed hundreds of thousands more miners.

∗ The older domestically focussed welfarist historiography of Britain at war requires replacing with one which takes seriously Britain’s war-fighting apparatus, and Britain’s very powerful and special links with the world. It is important to stress that while the role of empire has been underestimated, it is too easily overestimated. The ‘imperial turn’ carries with it the danger that it reproduces the imperialists hope that Britain’s main overseas relations should be with empire, into a historical reality that never happened. Britain was a global power, one whose trade with Europe was of fundamental importance. Hardly surprisingly the world external to it had a dramatic effect on its fortunes, forcing it to militarise from the mid-1930s, to defend its maritime supply routes, and to change its relations with many parts of the world, relations which profoundly affected how it was able to wage war. A Britain truly alone, one forced to become self-sufficient, would certainly ‘neither have made effective war nor even maintained [its] civil population’.47

Notes 1. B. Simms (2003) ‘The return of the primacy of foreign policy’, German History, XXIII, 275–291. 2. M. Cowling (1975) The Impact of Hitler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 3. This was my definition of declinism in my (1996) Science, Technology and the British Industrial Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 4. It is striking that much of this historiography sees Britain’s foreign connections, especially financial and imperial ones, as weakening the domestic economy. 4. D. Edgerton (2005) Warfare State: Britain 1920–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 5. A. Milward (1984) The Economic Effects of Two World Wars on Britain, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan). See also A. Tooze (2007) The Wages of Destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Allen Lane). 6. A. Calder (1969) The People’s War (London: Cape); P. Addison (1975) The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Cape); K. Morgan (1990) The People’s Peace: British History 1945–1989 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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7. H. Smith (ed.) (1986) War and Social Change: Britain in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press); P. Summerfield (1984) Women Workers in the Second World War: Production and Patriarchy in Conflict (London: Croom Helm) and (1998) Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives: Discourse and Subjectivity in Oral Histories of the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press); J. Harris (1990) ‘Society and the state in twentieth-century Britain’ in F. M. L. Thompson (ed.) Cambridge Social History of Britain Vol. 3 Social Agencies and Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 63–118; T. Ling (1998) The British State Since 1945: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity); L. Black et al. (2001) Consensus or Coercion: The State, The People and Social Cohesion in Post-War Britain (Cheltenham: New Clarion Press). 8. J. E. Cronin (1984) Labour and Society in Britain, 1918–1979 (London: Batsford), Chapter 7 is entitled ‘The triumph of social democracy, 1940–1948’. 9. M. Pugh (1999) State and Society: A Social and Political History of Britain, 2nd edn (London: Arnold) covers the war and post-war state under the rubric of the ‘benign’ state, and has the usual references to the welfare state and the Keynesian era. 10. P. Harling (2001) The Modern British State: An Historical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity). 11. J. Gardiner (2004) Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Hodder); M. Waller (2004) London 1945 (London: John Murray). 12. Harris, ‘Society and the state in twentieth-century Britain’, pp. 63–118. 13. K. Middlemas (1979) Politics of Industrial Society: The Experience of the British System Since 1911 (London: Deutsch), p. 18. 14. Ibid., p. 371. 15. Ibid., p. 377. 16. Ibid., p. 230. 17. Critics took him to task for the lack of evidence of a bottom-up corporatism – R. Lowe (1983) ‘Corporate bias: fact or fiction?’, SSRC Newsletter, L, 17–18; M. Distenfass (1984) ‘The politics of producers’ co-operation: the TUC-FBI-NCEO talks, 1929–1933’ in John Turner (ed.) Businessmen and Politics: Studies of Business Activity in British Politics, 1900–1945 (London: Heinemann), pp. 76–92; see my ‘State intervention in British manufacturing industry, 1931–1951: a comparative study of policy for the military aircraft and cotton textile industries’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London (1986), Chapter One; K. Middlemas (1986– 1991) Power, Competition and the State, 3 vols (London: Macmillan) develops a rather different model of corporatism to Politics of Industrial Society. 18. P. Anderson (1990) ‘A culture in contraflow-I’, New Left Review, CLXXX, 41–80. 19. M. Shaw (ed.) (1984) War, State and Society (London: Macmillan); A. Giddens (1985) The Nation State and Violence (Cambridge: Polity); R. Collins (1986) Weberian Sociological Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); C. Creighton and M. Shaw (eds) (1987) The Sociology of War and Peace (London: Macmillan); M. Shaw (1988) Dialectics of War: An Essay in the Social Theory of Total War and Peace (London: Pluto Press); M. Mann (1988) States, War and Capitalism (Oxford: Blackwell); B. D. Porter (1994) War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press); J. M. Hobson (1997) The Wealth of States: A Comparative Sociology of International Economic and Political Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 20. M. Mann, ‘The roots and contradictions of modern militarism’, in Shaw (ed.) War, State and Society. See also Giddens, Nation State and Violence for a similar account of the British case.

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21. Shaw, ‘The rise and fall of the military-democratic state’, in Creighton and Shaw, Sociology of War and Peace, pp. 143–158, and Shaw, Dialectics of War, pp. 73–100. 22. J. Vernon (2007) Hunger a Modern History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). 23. Vernon, Hunger, p. 277. 24. J. Harris, ‘Society and the state in twentieth-century Britain’; Ling, British State Since 1945 and Harling, Modern British State. 25. A. J. P. Taylor (1965) English History 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 26. D. Reynolds (1996) Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942– 1945 (London: HarperCollins) p. xxiii. For an unusual other ranks memoir, see A. Burgess (1987) Little Wilson and Big God: Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess (London: Heinemann). 27. D. French (2000) Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany 1919–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); also his (1996) ‘Colonel Blimp and the British Army: British divisional commanders in the war against Germany, 1939–1945’, English Historical Review, CXI, 1182–1201. 28. See Edgerton, Warfare State. 29. Ibid., p. 280. 30. For example, S. Broadberry and P. Howlett (1998) ‘The United Kingdom: “Victory at all costs” ’ in M. Harrison (ed.) The Economics of World War II: Six Powers in International Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 31. R. Overy (2007) Introduction to What Britain Has Done 1939–1945: A Selection of Outstanding Facts and Figures (London: Atlantic Books), pp. xiii–xiv. 32. Central Statistical Office (1951) Statistical Digest of the War (London: HMSO). 33. For example, A. Jackson (2006) The British Empire and the Second World War (London: Hambledon Continuum). 34. Central Statistical Office, Statistical Digest of the War. 35. I. Skennerton (2007) The Lee-Enfield: A Century of the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield Rifles and Carbines (Labrador, Australia: Ian Skennerton), pp. 340, 342, 367. 36. Skennerton, The Lee-Enfield, pp. 307, 310. 37. Historians report from official figures that food imports fell, according to Calder to ‘less than half their pre-war level’. A. Calder (1992) The People’s War (London: Pimlico) [First published 1969], p. 276. One recent historian claims that ‘food imports were halved from an average of 22 million tons before the war to between 10.6 and 11.5 million tons between 1942 and 1944. A combination of increased home production, conservation, regulation of distribution, and transformation of dietary patterns prevented starvation.’ I. Zweiniger-Bargielowska (2002) Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 36; J. Gardiner (2004) Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Headline), p. 144. Milward stresses the great increases in domestic production, and provides an even more dramatic picture of cuts: A. S. Milward (1977) War, Economy and Society 1939–1945 (Harmondsworth: Allen Lane), p. 253. 38. Central Statistical Office, Statistical Digest, Tables 70, 147. 39. See J. Hurstfield (1953) The Control of Raw Materials (London: HMSO); C. B. A. Behrens (1956) Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War (London: HMSO). 40. The Economist, 1 April 1939, p. 38. 41. D. J. Payton-Smith, Oil: A Study of Wartime Policy and Administration (London: HMSO, 1971), p. 384. 42. Payton-Smith, Oil. 43. A. Danchev and D. Todman (eds) (2001) War Diaries 1939–1945. Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld), entry for 3 August 1942 (added later), p. 290.

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44. R. W. Ferrier and J. H. Bamberg (1982) The History of the British Petroleum Company Volume 2, The Anglo-Iranian Years 1928–1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 246. 45. Thus one recent historian could write: ‘Between June 1940 and June 1941 Britain could stand alone only with American help’, despite noting that Britain paid for this help. R. A. C. Parker (1997) The Second World War: A Short History revised edition (Oxford, 1997), p. 57. Two leading students of British imperialism note that Britain’s ‘gentlemanly capitalists . . . like the empire they controlled, were saved from liquidation in 1940 by American aid’. P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins (2002) British Imperialism 1688–2000, 2nd edn (London: Longman), p. 620. G. Bailey (2008) ‘The Narrow Margin of Criticality: The Question of the Supply of 100-Octane Fuel in the Battle of Britain’, English Historical Review, CXXIII, pp. 394–411. 46. A recent instance is D. Marquand (2008) Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy (London: Orion), pp. 103–104. 47. H. K. Hancock and M. M. Gowing (1949) British War Economy (London: HMSO), p. 103.

20 Britain in Europe? Conservative and Labour Attitudes to European Integration since the Second World War Nicholas Crowson and James McKay

European integration has been the most consistent theme in British foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the factors that shaped the European policies of the Conservative and Labour parties, and consider the extent to which these have been subsumed by the demands of domestic statecraft. At points (the early 1960s, the early 1990s, for example), ‘Europe’ has asserted its primacy over the political agenda. It has never done so, however, as an unadulterated, neatly delineated foreign policy matter, but rather as part of a web of debates and issues, often domestic in character. This can be seen in five key features of Britain’s European statecraft since 1945. Firstly, both parties have approached ‘Europe’ ideologically, processing it according to existing political beliefs and divisions, which manifested themselves as principally economic (for Labour), and principally political (for the Conservatives). In both forms, these debates were essentially about sovereignty, centring on the purpose and primacy of the Westminster system of government. Secondly, one can detect a continued, if multifaceted, allegiance to alternative political visions, both within the geographical confines of Europe and outside. To write Britain’s European story as a narrative charting the rise of the European Union (EU) would ignore, for example, the Western European Union (WEU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), and the Council of Europe, as opportunities for different forms of European union, whether fully exploited or not. Equally, outside of Europe, other roles for Britain have often seemed compelling: leadership of the Commonwealth; alliance with the United States; or visions of Britain as a free-trader, living through entrepreneurialism and access to the open seas. A third factor, constraining the party leaderships, has been the views of the parties at large, with the grass roots and, in the 305

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case of Labour, the unions, often setting a Eurosceptic tone that demanded accommodation.1 Fourthly, there has been no durable consensus in favour of sustained European integration. Since the early 1960s, British governments have tended to be pro-European, whereas the same parties in opposition have often shown distinctly sceptical bents. This lack of consensus also characterises the media: Fleet Street support for the ‘Yes’ side in the 1975 referendum was vital, but it should be seen as the exception, not the rule. Beaverbrook’s Daily Express was a key opponent of the European Economic Community (EEC) in the early 1960s, and such views have been the norm amongst the Conservative-supporting press since at least the early 1990s. Finally, all of the factors listed above have fed into the inability of the European issue to establish itself in its own right: it has always been complicated by other arguments, inter-party and intra-party, a fact that does much to explain Britain’s long experience of loitering at the edge of the continent. For Labour, European policy has long been a statement of ideological intent. Labour’s responses to the early moves towards European integration during the late 1940s were conditioned by the belief that socialist Britain would continue to be a major, independent actor in world affairs. This was the confidence of Labourism: reformist social-democratic politics, focused upon Westminster as the centre of power (and thus committed to preserving the sovereign independence of the British parliament).2 Advocates for European integration certainly existed within the party, notably RWG Mackay and Henry Usborne, but these essentially peripheral voices were no match for that muscular patriot, Ernest Bevin. During 1947/8, Bevin ensured that the European organisational response to the Marshall Plan (ultimately the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC)) would be a subservient, intergovernmental body, rather than a driver for continental integration.3 The same attitude was taken to the Council of Europe, with integrationist dreams again blocked by the British.4 The logical culmination of this was the administration’s refusal to participate in the supranational Schuman plan, the ancestor of today’s EU. The brusqueness of the refusal was revealed by the simultaneous publication of the Labour party pamphlet, European Unity, which made clear how peripheral Europe was to Labour’s international outlook: ‘[i]n every respect except distance we in Britain are closer to our kinsmen in Australia and New Zealand on the far side of the world, than we are to Europe’.5 During the 1950s, the Labour party largely ignored the issue of European integration (with the exception of the near-schism over German rearmament). Macmillan’s turn towards the EEC in 1961, however, highlighted the fundamental split within the party: between traditionalists, who adhered to the political economy laid out in clause four of the party’s constitution, viewing public ownership and political direction of the economy as the sine qua non of socialist advance, and the revisionists, for whom clause four was a relic of the darkness before welfare capitalism, and who saw EEC entry as the

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path to economic growth, and through it, social justice.6 Not all who took part in the debate neatly conformed to these categories: leading revisionists Hugh Gaitskell and Douglas Jay both opposed EEC entry, for different reasons. Nevertheless, the traditionalist/revisionist split provides the key to party division on Europe from the 1960s up to the 1980s and beyond. Clause four provided a worldview of socialism in opposition to capitalism, and required that British governments be free to direct the economy. Revisionism, by contrast, was explicitly an accommodation with capitalism: seeing no need for government to be free to command the economy, the restrictions of EEC membership did not worry the revisionists.7 De Gaulle’s refusal to let Britain enter the EEC during the 1960s protected the party from this split, but it arose again in the 1970s. As Heath led Britain into Europe, the traditionalists pushed the party towards a Eurosceptic position the revisionists could not accept.8 Three major clashes ensued, each more damaging than the last. In October 1971, Roy Jenkins led the revisionists’ Commons revolt against opposition to EEC entry, with 63 Labour MPs voting against their party. Then the 1975 referendum campaign saw the party split between the Yes and No camps, with Jenkins campaigning publicly against traditionalist colleagues such as Tony Benn and Barbara Castle. Finally, and most seriously, Jenkins and many of his followers split off to establish the Social Democratic party (SDP) in 1981, as Labour seemed to be captured by the traditionalists, and the issue of Europe hovered constantly in the background.9 Since the mid-1980s, Labour’s European policy has lost its contentious nature, but this should not lead one to believe that it has also lost its ideological significance. Rather, the party’s (relative) pro-Europeanism forms the centrepiece of the revisionist triumph seen in the Kinnock-Blair ‘modernisation’ process, just as much as the 1995 re-writing of clause four was a key part of the defeat of traditionalism.10 As with Labour, the Conservatives did their best to ignore European unity during the 1950s. Preference, if expressed, was for inter-governmental cooperation, rather than anything associated with federalism. Many subscribed to the belief that Britain’s position suited it more to leadership from afar, rather than direct participation, whilst exploiting its imperial connections to reinforce world power status. As Britain began to seek membership of the EEC, the extent to which involvement in Europe would lead to political union (and what this meant) was central in the party’s debates. Concern has long been expressed that European plans for greater economic and monetary cooperation would fatally undermine sovereignty: activist doubts were heightened during the 1961–1963 application by the Daily Express and the Anti-Common Market League (ACML), playing the issue ‘to the full: exploiting an emotional; and deep seated feeling which is harboured by our good and solid citizens’.11 The August 1961 parliamentary debate on Macmillan’s application saw the Eurosceptics rehearsing the debates about the potential loss of sovereignty, both parliamentary and economic, that have continued

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into the twenty-first century.12 Entry in 1973, or the 1975 referendum, did little to change the rhetorical message, with the alert given fresh impetus by Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech.13 For Eurosceptics, the sense that closer unity with Europe meant fundamental changes to British constitutional arrangements encouraged a belief that Parliament could not be left as the final arbiter of decisions. Consequently, Eurosceptics, from both parties, have been willing to champion calls for a referendum on Europe. Although Conservative leaders in the first half of the century had not been afraid to support referenda calls, thereafter they have seen them as ‘alien’ constructs, not least because they feared that such popularism challenged their notions of representative parliamentary democracy. The 1974–1979 Labour government conceded a referendum on the renegotiated EEC membership terms, but as a device for managing its own internal party split, rather than as a populist cause.14 Since 1997, Labour governments have granted 36 referenda on issues as varied as establishing a Welsh Assembly and deciding whether Hartlepool should have a mayor, but appeared reluctant to concede that developments in Europe, especially over the possibility of a European Constitution, warranted such an intervention. In contrast, the Conservatives, now an avowed party of Euroscepticism and with the luxury of opposition until May 2010, has repeatedly championed the cause, buoyed by a Eurosceptic press and a belief that this would prove an electorally popular message. ‘Europe’, of course, is not a fixed construct. Although since the 1960s the term has largely referred to the EU and its organisational forerunners, Britain has long been associated with other organisations that should be, and were, considered ‘European’: defence-related organisations such as WEU and NATO; parliamentary assembly organisations like the Council of Europe; and economic organisations like the OEEC and EFTA. Historically, Britain’s concern for Europe has had a distinctly ‘western’ character, reinforced by the Cold War and membership of NATO, with the move to secure membership of the EEC from 1961 only serving to emphasis this Western versus Eastern divide. Since 1989 this narrow perception has been transcended, with Britain seeking to consolidate western liberal economic and democratic ideas in Eastern Europe. It has championed the enlargement of the EU, both to weaken the integrationist tendencies of Brussels and the Franco-German axis and to offer Britain renewed status as the arbiter of the balance of power. For at least 20 years after the end of the Second World War, however, the British debate about Europe was as much concerned with how it fitted with Britain’s world role as it was concerned with political and economic issues. Linked to this world power claim was the presence of the British Empire/Commonwealth. Decolonisation obliged discussion about how the economic and political linkages could, perhaps even ought to, be sustained, and whether Europe offered an alternative trading bloc. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the Commonwealth held a particular sway upon Conservatives but, over time, pro-Empire individuals did move towards advocacy for


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Europe, whether Leo Amery and Duncan Sandys in the 1950s or Peter Walker (a leading Eurosceptic in 1961) in the mid-1960s. Activists ranked imperial attachments high as a reason for their hostility to EEC entry, but by the mid-1960s concern was spreading that Britain had nursed ailing Commonwealth economies long enough, and that it was time to be free of them and allow Britain to benefit economically. In line with this trend, Conservative internal polling showed that by 1970 only 3 per cent thought Britain’s EEC entry would be bad for the Commonwealth.15 Others within Conservative ranks have looked to the ‘special relationship’ with America to provide the alternative. North Atlantic Free Trade (NAFTA) has often been offered as the saviour of the sceptics. Popular as an idea in the late 1960s, and again revived in 1995–2000, NAFTA has always floundered on the lukewarm response of the United States. Protagonists argued that if EFTA has been hindered by its inability to expand, and Commonwealth preference was similarly restricted because of volatility in the Asian and African markets, NAFTA was attractive because of the commonality of language, customs and laws between Britain and the United States, which meant ‘much less sovereignty would be surrendered’.16 NAFTA became a particular theme of Thatcher’s after she left office. But she went further than many of her predecessors arguing that Britain must renegotiate her relationship with the EU and if that proved unsatisfactory withdraw, which left NAFTA as the preferred outcome.17 Even for some diehard Eurosceptics this was a step too far, and threatened the Conservatives with a schism. John Major felt sufficiently secure in American disinterest in the idea to dismiss it as a ‘sugar coated turnip’.18 For Labour, the Commonwealth was always the most significant alternative model for Britain’s international future. In a partially self-serving narrative, Labour overseeing Indian independence marked the birth of the modern Commonwealth, erasing the essentially racial division between dominion and colony, and providing a model of partnership between rich and poor. This version of events has been attacked as fantastical, and can be seen as symptomatic of a tendency within the party to see Britain’s role in the world as an unambiguous ‘good thing’, a sentiment ruthlessly lampooned by Tom Nairn when he asked ‘[h]ow could [the EEC] ever offer enough scope for this Jesus among nations?’19 Nevertheless, for all the rhetorical extravagancies, the pull of the Commonwealth was genuinely felt from the 1940s to the 1970s. The example par excellence was Gaitskell’s ‘Thousand Years of History’ speech to the 1962 Labour conference, when the Commonwealth provided the basis for Britain’s continuing independence, whilst imagining that it could co-exist with EEC entry was ‘sheer nonsense’.20 On the back of his speech, the conference committed itself to ‘strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of our friends and partners in the Commonwealth’.21 However, while such a commitment was superficially impressive, it was vague on details. There was also scepticism: pro-Europeans within the party never accepted that the

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Commonwealth was a bar to entry, and in 1961, the TUC’s Economic Committee felt that detailed safeguards were ‘unnecessary’, and that ‘the political value of the Commonwealth tended to be exaggerated’.22 This scepticism over the relevance of the Commonwealth only grew during the 1960s, informed by changing trade patterns, and by the time of the Wilson application, the salience of the Commonwealth had withered. When Foreign Secretary George Brown addressed the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on the new application in April 1967, the only specific country he referenced in the Commonwealth context was New Zealand.23 When Wilson addressed the PLP on the same topic 3 weeks later, he only found time to mention New Zealand and the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement.24 During the renegotiation process in 1974–1975, the Lomé Convention secured trade concessions for 46 states, almost half of which were in the Commonwealth. However, it did not cover Asia, turning even the Labour minister who negotiated the deal against it.25 Meanwhile, the wider ‘kith and kin’ ties, so passionately defended by Gaitskell just a dozen years earlier, had shrivelled into concessions for New Zealand dairy products. In the place of the Commonwealth, those opposed to European integration struggled to articulate a compelling alternative: ideas for an ‘alternative economic strategy’ captivated the left for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, but a distinct lack of enthusiasm amongst the electorate meant there was nothing to prevent a pro-European stance becoming the centre-piece of the Kinnock-Blair ‘modernisation’ process. At the elite level, the history of Labour’s European policy can be presented as almost comically inconsistent. Aloof disinterest during the Attlee years turned into Commonwealth-inspired rejectionism from Gaitskell, while Wilson’s initial scepticism was replaced by enthusiasm in office, hostility during the Heath application, and then renewed enthusiasm once back in Downing Street from 1974. The party then reverted to Euroscepticism under Foot, before Kinnock (a one-time sceptic and future EU Commissioner) placed the party on the (moderately) pro-European path it has remained on up to the present day. Within the wider party, however, consistency has been much more marked, through a long-standing Euroscepticism, the effect of which that only started to fade during the late 1980s through a combination of internal and external factors. The wider party took little note of European integration during the 1950s, the exception being the divisive debate over the proposed European Defence Community (EDC), itself part of the wider debate over German re-armament. The weight of opinion within the grass roots was overwhelmingly opposed to the EDC and German rearmament, endorsing the Bevanite position at the national level.26 During the 1960s, there were strong and continuing concerns that EEC entry ‘would substantially prevent the creation of a Socialist Britain’.27 The strength of Eurosceptic opinion within the wider party was regularly demonstrated in conference votes in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, with hostile grassroots instincts powerfully boosted by growing scepticism within


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the trade unions. However, while this sentiment eventually bore fruit under the Foot leadership, its success was short-lived. Externally, the experience of Thatcherism, and the promotion of a ‘social Europe’ by Commission President Jacques Delors, meant that European integration increasingly came to be seen as an important guarantor of social rights, rather than a hindrance to their realisation.28 Concurrently, systemic political change had the effect of reducing the relevance of wider-party opinion within the policy-making process.29 Some have sought to portray the Conservative European debate as being one in which the debate is confined to the party elites, with the activist base merely reflecting these divisions.30 This analysis would appear to sustain the argument that the wider electorate is seemingly happy to follow the lead of its political masters; however, it overlooks the potential risks that grassroots agitation has episodically posed the established parties on matters European. The activities of the ACML in the early 1960s, and the wide spread anti-Europeanism of the 1990s, caused the Conservatives considerable discomfort. Of course, as Simon Usherwood has seen much discussion of European integration become externalised from party politics, as the parties seek to preserve the impression of party unity, and debate has been channelled away to non-governmental organisations like the European Movement and the ACML.31 Evidently, party managers from the outset feared the divisive nature of the subject and recognised that if the issue challenged official lines, it required the deployment of the party machinery to make rebuttals. Those on the receiving end might complain that Central Office was not afraid to ‘play it dirty’, but in challenging official party policy critics were failing the loyalty litmus test.32 Tactics could range from ensuring ‘observers’ were placed at meetings, or within organisations, to seeking to stifle opportunity for disseminating the critical message in party forums, to formal and informal disciplinary measures.33 Despite this, the Eurosceptics have perhaps best succeeded at mobilising a wider support base, in part due to periods of support from the press, seeking to base their appeals on wide ranging, slightly crude nationalistic and socio-economic claims, but they have failed to translate this support into a mass movement. Governments when willing to provide more ‘informed’ direction, as in 1965–1975, have tended to see the wider electorate fall into line. Crucial to assisting the Eurosceptic cause has been at the attitude of the press. This has never been singularly consistent, but the impression of a wider electoral concern for integration has coincided with periods when significant elements of the press appeared to on the side of the Eurosceptics. The Sun, The Times, and the Daily Telegraph, alongside the Daily Mail, have all opposed the single currency. The circulation of these papers was almost double that of those papers in favour and led Kenneth Clarke to lament that the ‘Conservative press is almost without exception edited by way-out Eurosceptics’.34 The Eurosceptics have been much more rigorous in courting the press since the 1990s,

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recognising that the lack of press support during the 1975 referendum was one of the enduring lessons to be learnt from the failed ‘No’ campaign.35 During the first applications, the anti-Marketeers were able to draw upon the vocal support of the Beaverbrook press empire with the Daily Express portraying itself as the epicentre of Euroscepticism. The attitude of this paper was an often-cited reason for the electorate’s hostility to the 1961 application, as one Conservative constituency agent complained ‘we are losing by default against a well-sustained and somewhat unscrupulous attack’.36 Yet, it must not be overlooked that from 1960 The Observer, The Economist, and Financial Times were all favourable to entry, and were joined from 1961 by The Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, and The Times. Europe has variously been used as a ‘test’, either of loyalty towards the party leadership or as an opportunity for dissent. At various points the leaderships have endured parliamentary rebellions, whether over the 1950 Schuman plan, or the decision to launch the 1961 EEC application, to more recent spats over the Single European Act or the Maastricht treaty. In the late 1940s/early 1950s Conservative Europeanists (Tory Strasbourgers) were significantly more advanced in their vision of Europe than either the leadership or the wider party. During this period Europe became embroiled in party’s internal debates about imperial preference and the role of the Commonwealth, challenged by organisations like Henry Page Croft’s Empire Industries Association and parliamentary groupings like the Expanding Commonwealth Group chaired by Patrick Maitland. Though the party leadership was broadly happy to allow its Europhiles to trailblaze, and thereby condition and educate the wider party and public, it did so confident that it could adopt a more moderate path without feeling that its authority would be weakened by the rebellions of the Eurosceptics. This changed by the 1990s with the debates about the Maastricht treaty and the moves towards the adoption of a single currency by the EU. The leadership of John Major found itself under attack from both sides. Pro-Europeans were wont to complain that Major’s wait and see position on the Euro was ‘betray[ing] our national interest’, whilst Eurosceptics feared that a single currency was ‘irreversible and points towards a European state’.37 Through the 1980s and 1990s many of the ministerial resignations experienced by Conservative governments were related to European affairs: Michael Heseltine and Leon Brittan (1986) over the Westland helicopter affair; Nigel Lawson (1989) over policy towards the ERM; Nicholas Ridley (1990) in comments about Germany and the EEC; Geoffrey Howe (1990) over ERM and Derek Heathcote-Amory (1996), a trend that continued once in opposition with the loss of shadow ministers.38 Likewise the party was subjected to a series of high-profile defections, either Eurosceptics jumping ship to join Goldsmith’s Referendum Party or the UK Independence Party or Europhiles leaving in exasperation at the perceived Euroscepticsm of the leadership.39 The potential for division can be seen solely from the sheer number of ‘European’ ginger groups that have


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existed since the 1960s: names such as the Bruges Group, No Turning Back, the European Movement, Fresh Starters and the European Foundation top a list that exceeds eighty. As so often proved the case with historic controversies, once in opposition the ideological debate over Europe threatened to wreak havoc. With Euroscepticism in the ascendency under the leaderships of Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, and Michael Howard, the party’s Europhiles found themselves increasingly isolated. Kenneth Clarke, the Europhile former Chancellor of the Exchequer, might have felt sufficiently confident of his position to declare in 1999 that he was in ‘broad agreement on the big issues of Europe’ with Blair’s Labour government, but others were less fortunate. The internal disciplining of party members and the party’s internal rows of the ideas for a European Rapid Reaction Force illustrated the dangers. The outcome though of three successive election defeats (1997, 2001, 2005), where the Eurosceptic message was prominently positioned, suggested that the poor support for the Conservatives indicated a weak electoral adhesion to the Eurosceptic message, but also left the party looking like a single-issue party, obsessed with Europe. As explained above, European integration was ideologically toxic for the Labour party for decades following the Macmillan application. Successive party leaders dealt with this by diverting attention away from the fundamentals of the argument, and arguing that the party should instead ‘wait and see’. Whilst this strategy did have some success in holding the party together, it was in effect yet another obstacle to developing a durable pro-European consensus. In 1962, the Labour conference adopted a motion setting out ‘essential conditions’ that would have to be met before it would support British entry into the EEC. Although broad-ranging, these were worded so vaguely (‘freedom as at present to pursue our own foreign policy’, ‘the right to plan our own economy’), that both supporters and opponents of entry could, and did, support them.40 In the early 1970s, the essentially pro-entry Harold Wilson contained Labour’s Eurosceptic drift by ensuring that the party line was not opposition to EEC entry in principle, but rather to the ‘Tory Terms’ Edward Heath had negotiated. The party therefore committed itself to the renegotiation of these terms, followed by a referendum on entry. While this sounded sceptical (and certainly did not amuse Jenkins and the revisionists), it ultimately proved to be a formula that allowed Wilson to keep Britain in the Community, against party instinct, following a largely superficial renegotiation process. ‘Wait and see’ was later revived by Gordon Brown in the late 1990s, as a way of propelling a potentially damaging decision on the single currency far beyond the political horizon.41 The closest the parties ever came to forging a durable, effective pro-European consensus was during the 1975 referendum. Roy Jenkins was president of the Yes vehicle, Britain in Europe (BiE), supported by senior Conservatives such as Edward Heath, Reggie Maudling, and Willie Whitelaw, along with Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe. The fact that party leaders Thatcher and Wilson largely

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kept away from BiE should perhaps have been a warning against optimism, but during the campaign, the impression that the centre-ground was proEuropean could only be reinforced by comparison with leading ‘No’s, Tony Benn and Enoch Powell. However, what really gave the impression of proEuropean consensus was the remarkable unanimity of the press: only the Communist Morning Star urged its readers to vote no, with the rest of Fleet Street, Liberal, Labour and Conservative, cheerleading for BiE.42 In affirming Britain’s entry the British people had presented the political establishment with the challenge of finding Britain’s place in Europe and Europe’s place in Britain. The raison d’être of any political party is to secure the reins of government. Although economics, health, education, and crime typically dominate the electorates’ mind, matters of foreign policy, and especially European policy, have played not insignificant roles in the parties’ electoral strategies, especially since the introduction in 1979 of direct elections to the European parliament. The extent to which ‘Europe’ carries saliency with the electorate is, however, debatable. Turnout in European elections has been poor. In no opinion poll since 1973 has Europe had a higher saliency than other issues like tax, law and order, and education. The danger with this is that it encourages the politician to believe that Europe is not important electorally, whilst also appearing to suggest that the voter is willing to be led by politicians on Europe. To look solely at the parties’ election manifestos to determine the saliency of ‘Europe’ as a perceived vote winner creates a rather misleading impression of its significance. Indeed one might be forgiven for presuming that little of European significance was occurring if this analysis was undertaken. In 1950, neither the Conservative nor the Labour manifestos referred to the Schuman plan or any other European supranational authority.43 Yet, as the opposition the Conservatives had used ‘Europe’ as a political mallet with which to bash the Attlee government. European advances, or the anticipation of, have not always coincided neatly with the British electoral cycle, except in 1970 (with the prospect of a third British EEC application) and in 1992 (with the implications of the Maastricht treaty). When the leaders have been tempted to emphasise Europe, it has not been without political risk. When Edward Heath made clear his pleasure to rumours that France would welcome a fresh EEC application from Britain, Wilson scored political points by accusing him of ‘rolling on his back like a spaniel’.44 Even after Heath’s success, he found himself campaigning in 1974 against a Labour party that was committed to renegotiation and a referendum, thereby portraying the idea that the matter was far from settled. The fact that less than a quarter of Conservative candidates mentioned Heath’s successes in European policy suggests that even they did not see it was a vote-winner.45 Nevertheless, although the Conservatives have sought to underplay their Europeanism at election time, it has not prevented them portraying themselves between elections as the party of Europe, at least until the 1990s, and using Europe


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as a means of demonstrating their relative unity in policy and personality terms at the expense of their Labour opponents. ‘For the Labour Party a thousand years of history books. For us the future’, boasted Rab Butler at the 1962 Llandudno party conference as he poured scorn on Hugh Gatiskell’s declared opposition to the EEC. Similar tactics were employed in the early 1980s as the Labour party in opposition divided over whether to seek EEC withdrawal. Since the 1990s, the trend has been reversed with Labour reasonably successfully papering over its European fault line and seeking to make political capital from Tory divisions.46 What it demonstrates is that whilst the chances of electoral success were either evident or possible, this was a viable tactic, but as with the debates over tariff reform in the Edwardian era and the Corn Laws of the 1840s and 1850s, once in opposition after significant electoral humiliations the debate can become bitter and factionalised. Throughout the debates about Britain’s relationship with Europe, the game of party politics has been played to the full. Politicians have felt constrained by the demands and perceived expectations of their parties and the wider electorate, and it has been felt necessary to portray European policy from the negative sense of defending British interests. Even those politicians seen as most European have been wary of appearing as supplicant to Europe: so that Macmillan’s 1961 application was prefaced in terms that talked about securing acceptable conditions for the Commonwealth, whilst Edward Heath in 1970 sought to show France that Britain would not be a pushover in the entry negotiations. For those more wary of Europe, talk of ‘red lines’ and ‘lines in the sand’ have been familiar rhetoric, whether they have come in the form of the Gaitskell’s 1962 five ‘essential conditions’, or Gordon Brown’s 1997 five economic tests if Britain was to adopt the Euro. Successive leaders have tried to use the impression of standing up to Europe to gain electoral benefit: both successfully, as with Thatcher’s demands in the early 1980s for a rebate on ‘our money’ at a time when her premiership was deeply unpopular, and rather more questionably, as with John Major’s portrayal of the Maastricht negotiations as ‘game, set and match for Britain’. The problem has been that such claims of success and unwillingness to yield have raised domestic expectations that cannot be fulfilled in the cold reality of the EU negotiation rounds. Consequently, Thatcher may have believed that in signing the 1986 Single European Act, she was bringing ‘Thatcherism to Europe’ and halting the integrationist train; in reality, her European counterparts, and especially the European Commission President Jacques Delors, saw this as the beginning of a new framework, from which in time was to spring the single currency and plans for a European constitution. The need to portray each European negotiation as a victory for national interests is symptomatic of the subversion of Europe to domestic political requirements; it has also meant that many of Britain’s European counterparts continue to view Britain as a reluctant, if not awkward, European. European integration

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has been a dominant theme in Britain’s post-war history, but has in itself been dominated by more parochial concerns.

Notes 1. Although the term Eurosceptic is a 1990s coinage, such is its familiarity that it will be used within this chapter to denote the generalised hostility to supranational European integration that has been such a feature of British politics since 1945, although in the 1940s and 50s the term ‘Anti-European’ would have been used, and from the 1960s the label Anti-Marketeer. 2. For the best dissection of Labourism, see R. Miliband (1972) Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour, 2nd edn (London: Merlin Press). 3. H. Pelling (1988) Britain and the Marshall Plan (Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp. 3, 40–41. 4. R. Broad (2001) Labour’s European Dilemmas: From Bevin to Blair (Basingstoke: Palgrave), pp. 16–17. 5. Labour party, European Unity: A Statement by the NEC of the British Labour Party, June 1950. 6. See, for example, Archives of the British Labour Party, Series 1, National Executive Committee Minutes Part 7, 1962–4, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1979: ‘The AntiSocialist Community’ RD 245; ‘Planning and the Common Market’, RD 252, Home Policy Sub-Committee 7 May 1962. See also J. McKay (2006) Labour Party attitudes to European Integration 1945–75 (unpublished PhD, University of Birmingham). 7. C. A. R. Crosland (1956) The Future of Socialism (London: Jonathan Cape), pp. 517, 520. 8. In 1971, a conference motion expressing outright opposition to entry gained 39 per cent support. By 1973, this figure had risen to 46 per cent. The wider party finally came out against membership in 1975. Labour Party Annual Conference Reports, 1971, 1973; Labour Party Special Conference Report, 1975. 9. I. Crewe and A. King (1995) SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 118. 10. R. Holden (2002) The Making of New Labour’s European Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave), pp. 1–3; T. Jones (1996) Remaking the Labour Party: From Gaitskell to Blair (London: Routledge), p. 149. 11. Conservative Party Archive [hereafter CPA]: S. R. Newman (Home Counties) to COO, 28 August 1962 CCO500/31/2, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 12. Hansard vol 645, cols. 1507–1514, 2 August 1961 (Walker-Smith). 13. Text which can be found in Thatcher Foundation archive www.margarettatcher.org. 14. Parliamentary Committee Minutes: ‘The Common Market – Towards a Decision’, 11 November 1970, Labour History Archives and Study Centre, Manchester (LHASC); T. Benn (1988) Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72 (London: Hutchinson), p. 316. 15. CPA: ORC poll, 5–9 August 1970, CCO180/13/1/2. 16. CPA: Foreign Affairs Committee, 5 December 1967 CRD3/10/16. See also CPA: ‘The Case for AFTA’ Peter Blaker, 25 April 1967, CRD3/10/10; Dodds-Parker Mss: ‘Atlantic political and economic ties’, 21 February 1967, MC:P2/7/3C/5, Magdalen College, Oxford. 17. M. Thatcher (2003) Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (London: Harper Collins), p. 183.


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18. Teddy Taylor reported Guardian, 7 September 1992; Guardian 23 April 1993, reporting Major’s speech to the Conservative Group for Europe. 19. T. Nairn (1973) The Left Against Europe? (Harmondsworth: Penguin), p. 65; D. Russell (2001) ‘ “The Jolly Old Empire”: Labour, the Commonwealth and Europe, 1945–51’ in A. May (ed.) Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe: The Commonwealth and Britain’s Applications to Join the European Communities (Basingstoke: Palgrave). 20. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1962. 21. Ibid. 22. TUC Mss: Economic Committee, 14 June 1961. Modern Records Centre, Warwick. 23. Parliamentary Labour Party [hereafter LPA] Minutes: 6 April 1967, LHASC. 24. PLP Minutes: 27 April 1967. 25. Marten Mss: ‘Renegotiation: The Commonwealth and Developing Countries’, Judith Hart, undated, Ms. Eng. hist. c. 1132, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 26. For example, the May 1954 meeting of the party’s international sub-committee received 72 resolutions explicitly opposed to rearmament, against one in favour. Archives of the British Labour Party, Series 1, National Executive Committee Minutes Part 4, 1952–5, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1979: International Sub-Committee 18 May 1954. 27. Labour Party, Resolutions for the 61st Annual Conference of the Labour Party, 1962, p. 23. 28. Broad, Labour’s European Dilemmas, pp. 175–176. 29. M. Blyth and R. Katz (2005) ‘From catch-all parties to cartelisation: The political economy of the cartel party’, West European Politics, XXVIII, 46–48. 30. Peter Morris (1996) ‘The British conservative party’ in J. Gaffney (ed.) Political Parties and the European Union (London: Routledge), p. 125. 31. Simon Usherwood (2003) ‘Opposition to the European Union in the UK: The dilemma of public opinion and party management’, Government and Opposition, XXXVII, 2, pp. 211–230. 32. Marten Mss: ‘Some thoughts on the referendum campaign’, MS. Eng. hist. c. 1131, f. 185. 33. For example, Marten Mss: ‘Some thoughts on the referendum campaign’ MS. Eng. hist. c. 1131, f. 185; CPA: Derek Walker-Smith to Peter Thomas 19 July 1971, CCO20/32/6; CPA: B.A. Cribb to CCO, 27 August 1962, ‘Common Market and Public opinion S. Eastern Area Report August 1962’ CCO500/31/2; ‘Report on ACML meeting, Cardiff’ 7 November 1962, anon, CCO500/31/4; Marten Mss: David Mudd to Neil Marten, 7 September 1971, MS.Eng.hist. c. 1139, f. 172. 34. A. Forster (2002) Euroscepticism in Contemporary British Politics (London: Routledge), p. 111; P. Stephens (1996) Politics and the Pound (London: Macmillan), p. 330, citing Today interview, BBC Radio 4, 25 April 1996. 35. Marten Mss: Sir Cyril Black to Marten, 13 June 1975, MS. Eng. hist. c. 1132, ff. 134–135. For the press during the referendum, see D. Butler and U. Kitzinger (1976) The 1975 Referendum (London: Macmillan), pp. 214–245. 36. CPA: S. Curtis to COO, 11 September 1962, CCO500/31/4. 37. The Independent letter to editor, 19 September 1996, see also 5 January 1998; The Times Norman Lamont article, 23 June 1995. 38. Ian Taylor and David Curry (October 1997); Stephen Dorrell (June 1998). 39. E.g. Lord McAlpine and George Gardiner to Referendum Party; Adrian Rogers to UKIP; Hugh Dykes, Bill Newton Dunn, Emma Nicholson to Liberal Democrats; and Peter Temple Morris and Anthony Nelson to Labour.

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40. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1962. 41. Larry Elliot and Michael White, ‘Brown puts brakes on joining EMU’, Guardian, 18 October 1997. 42. C. Seymour-Ure, ‘Press’, in Butler, Kitzinger, 1975 Referendum, p. 216. 43. Keele University political manifesto website www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man. htm accessed 23 January 2009. 44. J. Young (1993) Britain and European Unity, 1945–1992 (Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp. 90–91. 45. J. Ramsden (1996) Winds of Change (London: Longman), p. 335. 46. See, for example, Michael Cockrill, BBC2, 21 May 1995, Westminsters’s Secret Service: The Whips’ Office.

21 Foreign Policy in the Labour Party Manifestos, 1945–1997: What Primacy? Antoine Capet

‘Let Us Face the Future’, the 1945 Labour Manifesto proclaimed on its cover, a bold statement compared with the Tories’ pallid offering, Mr. Churchill’s Declaration of Policy to the Electors. But then the Conservative Manifesto’s first three chapters were entitled ‘Britain and the World’, ‘The British Empire and Commonwealth’, and ‘Defence’, indicating their priorities.1 In contrast, the first heading in Let Us Face the Future read: ‘Victory in war must be followed by a prosperous peace’ and Foreign Policy was relegated to the end: ‘A World of Progress and Peace’ was in fact the last chapter before the general conclusion entitled ‘Labour’s Call to all Progressives’. So much for the primacy of foreign policy in the manifesto, which more or less set the tone for the rest of the century, with fluctuations largely reflecting the phases of tension and détente in international relations, notably with the ‘Communist Bloc’. In 1945, of course, the Chinese Communists and the USSR were among Britain’s glorious partners in the victory against European Fascism and Japanese Militarism. The word ‘détente’ was not yet used, but in spite of tensions behind the scenes, notably at Yalta and Potsdam, the outward façade was one of grateful friendship with ‘our gallant Allies’. Nobody would have understood if Let Us Face the Future had pointed to the clouds and introduced undertones of doubt in the general rejoicing over the apparent unanimity in victory among the ‘United Nations’. Interestingly, this section began on a defensive tone, as if the Labour Party had to justify this incongruous intrusion of Foreign Affairs in its programme of welfare legislation: ‘No domestic policy, however wisely framed and courageously applied, can succeed in a world still threatened by war. Economic strife and political and military insecurity are enemies of peace. We cannot cut ourselves off from the rest of the world – and we ought not to try.’ It was of course common to see Labour adopt a defensive tone in the face of the implicit Conservative accusation that they, the Conservatives, were the natural party of Government, notably in the diplomatic field, and that 319

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Labour were mere amateurs.2 But here the Labour leadership was engaged in justifying its interest in foreign affairs before its natural supporters, suspect of being tempted by the retrenchment of Little Englanders. Thus there was a double intention when the Manifesto insisted on the party’s internationalist tradition: The British, while putting their own house in order, must play the part of brave and constructive leaders in international affairs. The British Labour Movement comes to the tasks of international organisation with one great asset: it has a common bond with the working peoples of all countries, who achieved a new dignity and influence through their long struggles against Nazi tyranny. First, it suggests that there was no incongruity in Labour devoting a lot of attention to Foreign Policy because Socialism was not about retrenchment. The Manifesto does not use the phrase ‘Proletarian Internationalism’ – but it is implicit in the reference to the ‘common bond with the working peoples of all countries’. The intended message was clear: Labour had a unique rapport with the popular Resistance and Partisans of three permanent members of the future Security Council of the United Nations, and therefore Labour was better placed than the Conservatives to build a lasting peace. The manifesto denounced the Conservative’s inability to establish such a rapport with Soviet leaders: ‘Let it not be forgotten that in the years leading up to the war the Tories were so scared of Russia that they missed the chance to establish a partnership which might well have prevented war.’ Defence and the Empire, which benefit from separate chapters in the Conservative Manifesto, were only allowed a few lines in Labour’s chapter on ‘A World of Progress and Peace’. Defence was covered in one sentence, which might have been written in 1919: ‘An internationally protected peace should make possible a known expenditure on armaments as our contribution to the protection of peace; an expenditure that should diminish as the world becomes accustomed to the prohibition of war through an effective collective security.’ And contrary to the Conservative Manifesto, Let Us Face the Future did not use the word ‘Empire’, let alone ‘Imperial ties’. Instead, it promised ‘the Labour Party will seek to promote mutual understanding and cordial co-operation between the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, the advancement of India to responsible self-government, and the planned progress of our Colonial Dependencies.’ Curiously, the last sentence of the Manifesto ‘urges all progressives’ to vote Labour not only ‘in the interests of the nation’, but also ‘of the world’. The meaning here is not clear. Was it a reference to the pre-war image of Churchill as a war-monger and Labour as party of peace? Naturally, we must forget what we now know of subsequent developments – with Ernest Bevin as enthusiastic a Cold Warrior as Churchill. What strikes us today is the

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naïveté of Labour’s optimism, with the same hopes put in the United Nations in 1945 as those put in the League of Nations in 1919. The Conservatives, for their part, proposed a policy ‘to meet all the needs of new weapons and new times’: a very cryptic phrase in May 1945 (an allusion to the possible development of the nuclear bomb?), but an obvious dampening of any hope for a policy of disarmament. With the outcome of the General Election, thanks to its 393 seats as against the Tories’ 210, Labour naturally received a clear mandate to implement its policy. But of course the unique rapport with Russian working people supposedly born of the war did not prevent the Labour Government’s joining in the Cold War on the American side. The irony of course is that Churchill made the expression ‘Cold War’ popular following his ‘Sinews of Peace’ speech at Fulton, Missouri on 5 March 1946. Churchill also largely drafted the British foreign policy agenda for years to come with his speech on the ‘three circles’ at Llandudno on 9 October 1948 before the Conservatives: As I look out upon the future of our country in the changing scene of human destiny I feel the existence of three great circles among the free nations and democracies. The first circle for us is naturally the British Commonwealth and Empire, with all that comprises. Then there is also the English-speaking world in which we, Canada and the British Dominions and the United States play so important a part. And finally there is a united Europe. These three majestic circles are co-existent and if they are linked together there is no force or combination which could overthrow them or even challenge them. Now if you think of the three interlinked circles you will see that we are the only country which has a great part in every one of them. We stand, in fact, at the very point of conjunction, and here in this island at the centre of the seaways and perhaps of airways also, we have the opportunity of joining them all together.3 The order of priorities of the 1950 Labour Manifesto, Let Us Win Through Together, was a perfect replication of that of 1945, with Foreign Affairs relegated to the last pages, immediately before the general conclusion. Still, in 1950, the section on Foreign Policy had notably grown in size. In 1945, ‘A World of Progress and Peace’ had 439 words out of a total of 4986 (8.8 per cent); in 1950 ‘One World of Peace and Plenty’ had 685 out of 4898 (just under 14 per cent). Even though one can legitimately object to a purely quantitative argument, it cannot however be dismissed too lightly – if only because we know that Foreign Policy took an increasing amount of attention on the part of the Government between 1946 and 1950.4 Though they no longer gave it pride of place as their first chapter, the Conservatives kept the title of their section on Foreign Policy, ‘Britain and the world’, with three sub-chapters respectively entitled ‘The British Empire and

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Commonwealth’, ‘Foreign Affairs’, and ‘Defence’. The introductory paragraph contained an ex post facto castigation of Labour’s claim based on ‘Proletarian Internationalism’ in 1945: The Socialist Government has failed to make good its claim at the last election that Socialism alone could reach a good understanding with Soviet Russia. ‘Left would speak to left’, they said; but in fact today East and West are separated by an Iron Curtain. Socialism abroad has been proved to be the weakest obstacle to Communism and in many countries of Eastern Europe has gone down before it. Naturally, Labour gave as good as it got, continuing to insist on the special value of socialism to international relations: ‘By applying the moral principles of Socialism to our relations with other peoples, the Labour Government has made Britain a symbol of justice and social advance’, and reminding the voters of the Conservatives’ shameful past: ‘In the days of Munich, when the Tories decided British foreign policy, the prestige of Britain sank to its lowest ebb for a century or more.’ Naturally the ploy had worked with excellent results in 1945 if one was to believe Harold Macmillan and his celebrated quip, ‘it was not Churchill who lost the 1945 election; it was the ghost of Neville Chamberlain.’5 Scott Kelly has made the point that even if the 1945 Manifesto did not really devote much attention to the ‘Guilty Men’ of the 1930s, on the hustings individual Labour candidates reminded the electorate of Munich.6 Naturally the memory of these dark years was still vivid among most members of the electorate in 1950. One major element of evolution, however, was that Labour now took Churchill’s European activism in its stride. Both parties gave the most weight to the Commonwealth (which the Conservatives persisted in calling ‘the British Empire and Commonwealth’) and both mentioned Europe and the United States, but with a totally different emphasis. The Conservatives had a whole paragraph on European policy, mostly devoted to security problems, but it began with a reference to European unification: ‘Hand in hand with France and other friendly powers we shall pursue the aim of closer unity in Europe’ – without indicating whether Britain was going to be a partner or a sponsor. And the section concluded with a reaffirmation of the special relationship: ‘Above all we seek to work in fraternal association with the United States to help by all means all countries, in Europe, Asia or elsewhere, to resist the aggression of Communism by open attack or secret penetration.’ In contrast, Labour did not even mention the United States, preferring to refer to ‘the Atlantic community’ in a clear allusion to Churchill’s three circles: ‘The Labour Government has put particular energy into strengthening the associations of the Commonwealth, the Atlantic community, and Western Europe.’ As for European unification, it was evident that Labour believed

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that Britain could only be a sponsor, in fact presenting it patronisingly as a leader and proudly contrasting little Europe with the great Commonwealth: In Europe great strides have been taken towards the creation of a new economic and political unity. No country has given more leadership to this great movement than Labour Britain. We shall continue this support and leadership in the years to come, always remembering that we are the heart of a great Commonwealth extending far beyond the boundaries of Europe. Two issues therefore stand out: in 1950, the Labour Manifesto still clung to the illusion that the ‘moral principles of Socialism’ had a great importance in world affairs, and Labour was as blind as the Conservatives on the likely evolution of the Commonwealth and the special prestige it gave to the Mother Country.7 By 1951, with the outbreak of the Korean War, it was clear that British Socialism had no ‘special relationship’ with Soviet and Chinese Communism. The slogan commonly heard in Labour circles during the 1945 General Election campaign, ‘Left understands Left – and Right doesn’t’,8 belonged to the past. Now the first section of the short Labour Manifesto (the Conservatives also produced a very short one) was devoted to Foreign Affairs, with the simple title: ‘Peace’, and beginning with the stark words: ‘Our first aim is to save the peace of the world.’ Still, Labour had not lost hope of arriving at an arrangement with the USSR: ‘We have had grievous disappointments, particularly with the Soviet Union, but we shall persevere. We do not for one moment accept the view that a third world war is inevitable.’ The ideal of 1919, reiterated with increased conviction in 1945 – that of ‘collective security’ was once again in great danger of being disproved by events, and it is arguable that Labour was only using the old feeble excuse of all warmongers when it concluded the paragraph with: ‘We arm to save the peace.’ There was no mention of Europe whatsoever, except to say that coal is more expensive on the Continent – while the Conservatives said ‘we should all continue to labour for a United Europe.’ By the 1955 election the sense of impending catastrophe was obvious, as the manifesto opened with a chilling sentence: ‘As we in Britain prepare to go to the poll, the Hydrogen Bomb looms over all mankind’, strongly reminiscent of Orwell’s famous comment in The Lion and the Unicorn, 1941: ‘As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.’9 Moreover, almost one-quarter of Forward With Labour (666 words out of 2851, 23.3 per cent) was devoted to foreign and Commonwealth affairs and defence, largely discussing ‘the North Atlantic Alliance’, thus in fact justifying inclusion in foreign policy – as did the closing sentences of the introductory paragraph: ‘We are faced with the choice between world

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co-operation and world annihilation. The time is short.’ There was no longer any mention of Europe. By another swing of the pendulum, domestic affairs seemingly regained their priority in the 1959 Manifesto, Britain Belongs to You, being treated first. On the other hand, foreign affairs now had more than a quarter of the space (1357 words out of 5045 – 26.7 per cent). More important, the final paragraph of the manifesto was devoted to the old argument that Socialism was different, that is, superior in foreign affairs. Unusually, this final paragraph concentrated on International Relations, and we know that it is often the last statement that sticks in the reader’s mind: At this historic moment a British Government with a clear policy based on the ethical principles of Socialism can exercise a decisive influence for peace. Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world still look to Britain for moral leadership and eagerly await the result of this General Election. We are confident that their hopes will be fulfilled, and that Britain will be represented at the Summit by a Labour Prime Minister. The summit in question was of course the Paris Summit of May 1960, wrecked by the U2 spy-plane affair. Hugh Gaitskell would evidently not have been more effective than Macmillan in persuading Eisenhower to apologise – Khrushchev’s precondition for starting the talks. By the time of the next general election in 1964, Gaitskell was dead, and the title of the Manifesto reflected Wilson’s insistence on modernisation: Let’s Go with Labour for the New Britain. It was divided into four parts, Part 4 being the long conclusion and Part 3 being entitled ‘A New Role for Britain’. With a total of 2463 words (out of 9732 = 25.3 per cent), ‘A New Role for Britain’ was easily the longest section ever devoted to Foreign Affairs, even though in relative terms it still was only just above a quarter of the total. It is very strongly structured, with sub-headings and sub-sub-headings which show Wilson’s priorities in 1964: A – The End of Colonialism 1. Commonwealth Immigration 2. Commonwealth Trade 3. The New War – On Want B – New Prospects for Peace 1. Relaxing Tensions 2. A New Lead at the United Nations

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C – Defence Policy 1. Our Run-down Defences 2. Tory Nuclear Pretence 3. Labour’s New Approach But then the final paragraph of the Manifesto only focused on domestic policy: ‘It is within the personal power of every man and woman with a vote to guarantee that the British again become the go-ahead people with a sense of national purpose, thriving in an expanding community where social justice is seen to prevail.’ Interestingly, the initial section on ‘Why the Tories Failed’ included an indictment of their European policy: ‘Only 18 months ago a Tory Government, driven by economic failure, lost its nerve and prepared to accept humiliating terms for entry into the European Common Market in the vain hope that closer contact with a dynamic Europe would give a new boost to our wilting economy. Since the French veto our affairs have not improved.’ This indictment continued in the section on ‘The End of Colonialism’: How little they were able to transfer their faith and enthusiasm from the old Empire to the new Commonwealth was shown when Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home both declared there was no future for Britain outside the Common Market and expressed themselves ready to accept terms of entry to the Common Market that would have excluded our Commonwealth partners, broken our special trade links with them, and forced us to treat them as third-class nations. And the Labour manifesto reiterated the priority given to the Commonwealth in its 1950 Manifesto when it saw Britain as ‘the heart of a great Commonwealth extending far beyond the boundaries of Europe’: ‘Though we shall seek to achieve closer links with our European neighbours, the Labour Party is convinced that the first responsibility of a British Government is still to the Commonwealth.’ In 1966, reminding the reader that ‘Labour created the modern Commonwealth’, the Manifesto nevertheless devoted almost as much attention to what it called ‘Better Relations in Europe’, including both Eastern Europe and the EEC. It paid lip service to EFTA, created to sap the development of the EEC: Britain is a member of the European Free Trade Association, which is a thriving organisation beneficial to us and to our partners. The Labour Government has taken the lead in promoting an approach by E.F.T.A. to the countries of the European Economic Community so that Western Europe shall not be sharply divided into two conflicting groups.

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But at the same time Labour now openly declared itself in favour of new negotiations with the EEC, thus implicitly acknowledging the failure of EFTA: ‘Labour believes that Britain, in consultation with her E.F.T.A. partners, should be ready to enter the European Economic Community, provided essential British and Commonwealth interests are safeguarded.’ The Manifesto made it clear however that Labour, unlike the Conservatives, still would only join on its own terms: ‘The Conservative record on relations between Britain and the “Six” is one of notorious and abject failure. Yet Conservatives now talk as if they could take Britain into the Common Market without any conditions or safeguards.’ The Manifesto was the longest so far, at 10,608 words. Of these 1816 were devoted to Part 6 (the last one), ‘The New Britain and the World’ (17.1 per cent): in 1966, therefore, Foreign Affairs were once again subordinate to domestic affairs in Labour’s priorities. In 1970, the section on Foreign Affairs was entitled ‘Britain in the World Community’ – it was the eighth and last chapter of the manifesto. Chapter 8 only contributed 1621 words out 11,724 words (13.8 per cent – less than the 1950 proportion, just under 14 per cent). At least in the manifesto, the importance of foreign affairs was diminishing for the benefit of domestic affairs. The title of the section, ‘Britain in the World Community’, may have been intended to suggest that Britain had more important ambitions than just belonging to a European Economic Community – world ambitions. However that may be, most of the space was devoted to détente within NATO and Overseas Development, including the Commonwealth. In three short paragraphs, the Manifesto repeated Labour’s preconditions for membership of the EEC: We have applied for membership of the European Economic Community and negotiations are due to start in a few weeks’ time. These will be pressed with determination with the purpose of joining an enlarged community provided that British and essential Commonwealth interests can be safeguarded. This year, unlike 1961–1963, Britain will be negotiating from a position of economic strength. Britain’s strength means that we shall be able to meet the challenges and realise the opportunities of joining an enlarged Community. But it means, too, that if satisfactory terms cannot be secured in the negotiations Britain will be able to stand on her own feet outside the Community. Unlike the Conservatives, a Labour Government will not be prepared to pay part of the price of entry in advance of entry and irrespective of entry by accepting the policies, on which the Conservative Party are insisting, for levies on food prices, the scrapping of our food subsidies and the introduction of the Value-Added Tax.

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In February 1974, the manifesto (Let Us Work Together – Labour’s Way Out of the Crisis) devoted a large, central section entitled ‘The Common Market’ to foreign affairs, containing 650 out of 4758 words (13.6 per cent – almost as much as all the passages on foreign affairs in the previous Manifesto) against the terms accepted by Edward Heath: ‘The Labour Party opposes British membership of the European Communities on the terms negotiated by the Conservative Government.’ This of course indicated two things: the division inside the Labour Party and the vote-catching potential which Wilson attached to this denunciation of the Conservative sell-out. The customary final chapter on foreign affairs and defence, entitled ‘Peace and Justice in a Safer World’, had 411 words, bringing the total on International Relations to 1061 (22.2 per cent). In the October 1974 Labour manifesto, Britain Will Win with Labour, there was another section entitled ‘The Common Market’, but it was now relegated to the end, just before ‘Policy for Peace – International Co-operation and Security’, and it now had only 257 words. The Manifesto tried to solve the contradiction between the sovereignty of the people and its increasingly Europeanist outlook. It declared that ‘Labour is an internationalist party and Britain is a European nation’, whilst proclaiming ‘Both the Conservatives and the Liberals have refused to endorse the rights of our people to make their own decision. Only the Labour Party is committed to the right of the men and women of this country to make this unique decision.’ Altogether Foreign Affairs only had 1014 words out of a total of 8690 (11.7 per cent) – probably a reflection of the embarrassment before the increasing division of the party over Europe and disarmament. The EEC continued to receive a lot of attention in the 1979 Manifesto, The Labour Way is the Better Way, with several sections devoted to it. Making it implicit that Labour’s 1975 Referendum had solved nothing, the last sub-heading, ‘Parliamentary Sovereignty’, provided the key anti-Europe passage: The Labour Government will legislate to ensure that British ministers are accountable to the House of Commons before making any commitment in the Council of Ministers. Enlargement of the Community will provide the opportunity for seeking changes in the Treaty of Rome, which would enable the House of Commons to strengthen its powers to amend or repeal EEC legislation. This would involve consequential amendments to the 1972 European Communities Act. Unusually, there was a chapter actually entitled ‘Foreign Policy’ – at the end, naturally, just before ‘Détente and Defence’ – which reiterated the Labour ideals in the field: ‘The Labour Party’s priority is to build a democratic socialist society in Britain and to create the conditions necessary to free the world from poverty, inequality and war.’ Altogether, Foreign Affairs

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were discussed at greater length than in October 1974, with 1634 words out of 9290 (17.6 per cent). The ‘programme of Socialist reconstruction’ proposed in what was soon dubbed ‘the longest suicide note in history’,10 the 1983 Manifesto, was indeed a long one, at a record 22,580 words. The comprehensive coverage of foreign affairs ran to 4032 words, the same percentage as in 1979 (17.9 per cent). The section was a magnificent plea for a Socialist Europe and a Socialist world – Labour’s Internationalist swan song, with hindsight. It only had scorn to pour on what it now disparagingly called again the ‘Common Market’, with a very forceful argument: ‘The next Labour government, committed to radical, socialist policies for reviving the British economy, is bound to find continued membership a most serious obstacle to the fulfilment of those policies.’ The conclusion was therefore inevitable: ‘British withdrawal from the Community is the right policy for Britain – to be completed well within the lifetime of the parliament.’ Here the notion of the primacy or otherwise of Foreign Policy acquired a new dimension, because the fundamental Labour argument was that a foreign commitment must not hamper Government freedom in domestic affairs, and Labour turned the tables on the Marketeers by pointing out that it is the Labour Party, not the pro-EEC camp, which constitutes the real Internationalists: We emphasise that our decision to bring about withdrawal in no sense represents any weakening of our commitment to internationalism and international co-operation. We are not ‘withdrawing from Europe’. We are seeking to extricate ourselves from the Treaty of Rome and other Community treaties which place political burdens on Britain. Indeed, we believe our withdrawal will allow us to pursue a more dynamic and positive international policy – one which recognises the true political and geographical spread of international problems and interests. This is the 1970 argument on ‘Britain in the World Community’ all over again, but with a twist: it is no longer based on nostalgia for ‘The Hub of the Empire’, but on what makes Labour a Socialist and therefore an Internationalist party – and as such it goes very far: so far of course that the mass of the electorate, which could not care less about Socialist Internationalism, did not – and could not – follow. The other great topic, and the one which psephologists tell us did perhaps more than any other to lose the election for Labour, was of course unilateral disarmament in nuclear weapons.11 The 1979 Manifesto adumbrated this course, arguing that it had first been mooted in 1974: ‘In 1974, we renounced any intention of moving towards the production of a new generation of nuclear weapons or a successor to the Polaris nuclear force; we reiterate our belief that this is the best course for Britain.’ But this more or less suggested

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that the Polaris system would be kept, being allowed to die a natural death in some distant future, whereas the 1983 Manifesto made it a matter of urgent policy: Labour believes in effective defence through collective security but rejects the present emphasis on nuclear weapons. Britain and her allies should have sufficient military strength to discourage external aggression and to defend themselves should they be attacked. Labour’s commitment is to establish a non-nuclear defence policy for this country. As Michael Foot bluntly put it in the Foreword, ‘What we do propose to do is to get rid of the nuclear boomerangs which offer no genuine protection to our people.’ Another swan song in the 1983 Manifesto was arguably the tribute paid to the importance of the Commonwealth: We shall continue to work for the peaceful and just settlement of disputes and the strengthening of international organisations, particularly the Commonwealth, as well as the United Nations. Labour has always attached a special significance to the Commonwealth – a unique forum of nations, cutting across ethnic, cultural and ideological barriers. We will strengthen Britain’s political and material commitment to the Commonwealth. Of course, whereas on the Continent Britain has always been seen as oscillating between ‘Europe’ and ‘America’, since the Commonwealth has never been considered as having much relevance from there, in Britain itself the hesitation is often perceived as ‘abandoning our kith and kin in the Commonwealth’ against ‘joining former enemies in Europe’. Paying tribute to the importance of the Commonwealth was therefore another, indirect message against European integration.12 With Neil Kinnock in 1987 (Britain Will Win with Labour), the commitment to unilateral disarmament in nuclear weapons was kept: ‘We say that it is time to end the nuclear pretence and to ensure a rational conventional defence policy for Britain.’ But the potential vote-losing Polaris/Trident issue was tentatively defused by promising that the money thus saved would still go to defence: So Labour will decommission the obsolescent Polaris system. We will cancel Trident and use the money saved to pay for those improvements for our army, navy and airforce which are vital for the defence of our country and to fulfil our role in NATO. We will maintain a 50-frigate and destroyer navy. We will play a full part in the development of the European Fighter Aircraft. We will invest in the best up-to-date equipment for the British Army of the Rhine.

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On ‘Europe’ – now again properly called the EEC, the tone was also far more conciliatory, and Kinnock did not seem to imply that Britain was a special case: Labour’s aim is to work constructively with our EEC partners to promote economic expansion and combat unemployment. However, we will stand up for British interests within the European Community and will seek to put an end to the abuses and scandals of the Common Agricultural Policy. We shall, like other member countries, reject EEC interference with our policy for national recovery and renewal. The section on foreign affairs and defence, entitled ‘Modern Britain in a Modern World’ and placed again at the end of the Manifesto, had 1162 words out of 9075 (12.8 per cent). These figures recall those of October 1974 – and probably reflect the same embarrassment due to the divisions in the party on these highly sensitive questions. Reading the 1987 Manifesto, we feel that Labour clearly believed that the election could only be won on its domestic agenda. The long, 12,452-word 1992 Manifesto (It’s Time To Get Britain Working Again) extended Churchill’s three circles to five – the 1368-word section (11 per cent) on foreign affairs and defence, entitled ‘Britain in a new World’, started with a short introductory paragraph stating Labour’s conception: ‘We need a new government to grasp new opportunities. A Labour government ready to exploit Britain’s unique, interlinking membership of the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the Commonwealth, the European Community and the G7.’13 Naturally, the dissolution of the Soviet bloc since the previous election made Labour’s plea in favour of disarmament far easier to accept – but the Manifesto remained silent on Trident. Its pledge to ‘retain Britain’s nuclear capability’ was ambiguous – did it mean with the Polaris set-up or with modernisation based on Trident? Labour, which in opposition joined our NATO allies in rejecting the Conservative government’s cold war nostalgia, will in government partner the United States in negotiating to reduce the world’s stocks of nuclear weapons. We shall seek to involve the four former Soviet nuclear republics, together with France and China. Until elimination of those stocks is achieved, Labour will retain Britain’s nuclear capability, with the number of warheads no greater than the present total. Likewise, there was no allusion to the recent Gulf War, only a condemnation of Conservative policy towards the Iraqi dictator: ‘The Tory government contributed to proliferation when it permitted the supply of nuclear weapons material to Saddam Hussein.’ This equivocation of course largely reflected

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Labour’s embarrassment over the involvement of British troops, as summed up by Pythian, speaking of Labour’s awkward position in 1990: However, in its long march away from the 1983 election Manifesto the Labour leadership had no option but to vote with the government if it was not to provide an easy target for the Conservative Party in the next general election, then less than two years away.14 On Europe, however, the phrasing of the Manifesto was unequivocal – arguably for the first time since 1950. The sub-section significantly entitled ‘It’s a new chance for a new Europe’ started on a tone totally unknown in previous Manifestos: ‘The Labour government will promote Britain out of the European second division into which our country has been relegated by the Tories.’ Also in the nature of a veritable U-turn was the pledge, ‘We shall play an active part in negotiations on Economic and Monetary Union.’ Europe was also presented in a favourable light in the last sub-section, on the Environment: ‘We will scrap the Tory government’s opt-out on European Community environmental protection measures and deadlines.’ It is clear that with 11 per cent of the space, and at the end of the Manifesto again, foreign affairs and defence were not given priority. But the 1992 Manifesto announced a spectacular aggiornamento in some of the policies discussed in that section: The Tories have regarded the Commonwealth as a wearisome obligation. Labour believes that this unique inter-racial and inter-hemispheric organization can play a central role in fighting racism, hunger and human rights violations. We shall play an active part in the Commonwealth and join the South Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers which the Tories have boycotted. Tony Blair’s 10-point pledge, which opened the 1997 Manifesto (New Labour Because Britain Deserves Better) – the first winning one in 23 years – included one (the last, naturally) on foreign and defence policy, but with a twist since it did not mention the Nuclear Deterrent, or NATO, still less the Commonwealth: ‘We will give Britain the leadership in Europe which Britain and Europe need.’ At 17,614 words, the New Labour Manifesto set a new record since 1983. The percentage devoted to foreign affairs and defence was fairly constant (10.4 per cent). But its 1840 words showed that Labour no longer consider this field as a minefield, and that it had overcome its worst divisions, at least sufficiently to present a credible picture of its proposed policy. The U-turn on Trident was complete and unequivocal: ‘A new Labour government will retain Trident.’ The evolution on Europe since 1983 was complete, at least

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in appearance – as indicated by the pledge already quoted, and as reiterated in detail in the text: There are only three options for Britain in Europe. The first is to come out. The second is to stay in, but on the sidelines. The third is to stay in, but in a leading role. An increasing number of Conservatives, overtly or covertly, favour the first. But withdrawal would be disastrous for Britain. It would put millions of jobs at risk. It would dry up inward investment. It would destroy our clout in international trade negotiations. It would relegate Britain from the premier division of nations. The second is exactly where we are today under the Conservatives. The BSE fiasco symbolises their failures in Europe. The third is the path a new Labour government will take. A fresh start in Europe, with the credibility to achieve reform. Still, the oldest ‘circle’ was not forgotten: The Commonwealth provides Britain with a unique network of contacts linked by history, language and legal systems. Labour is committed to giving renewed priority to the Commonwealth in our foreign relations. We will seize the opportunity to increase trade and economic co-operation and will also build alliances with our Commonwealth partners to promote reform at the UN and common action on the global environment. Paradoxically, considering how closely Tony Blair was to adhere to American policy, the United States was never mentioned in the 17,614 words – only NATO, and this only in two brief sentences. The 1997 reader may be forgotten for having understood that foreign and defence policy was no more important for New Labour than it had been for Labour in the past – with the glaring exception of 1983 – and that Government action in this field would concentrate on Europe, which easily benefited from the most comprehensive discussion, with the Commonwealth a relatively poor second. In other words the ‘poodle’ was in no way perceptible in the manifesto, even if one read between the lines. To conclude, a study of the Labour Manifestos from 1945 to 1997 shows that they evidently give priority to domestic affairs, both in the order of presentation (with the exception of 1951, with the Korean War) and in the space devoted to domestic as opposed to foreign affairs – the latter occupying more than a quarter of the whole only twice, in 1959 and 1964. In absolute volume, the 4032 words of the 1983 Manifesto were far above

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the next higher figure, 2851 in 1955 – but then at 22,580 words the 1983 Manifesto was a freak one in more ways than one. Reading the Manifestos, there appears to be no primacy for foreign policy, even if one includes defence and the Commonwealth, as has been done here. Defence seems to benefit from a remarkably constant attention, especially from the point of view of disarmament, from 1945 to 1983. Likewise, and perhaps surprisingly, the Commonwealth always does well, even in the Manifestos of the ‘modernisers’ like those of Wilson in 1964–1966 and Tony Blair in 1997. Quantitatively, one is struck by the paucity of explicit references to the United States, as opposed to the Atlantic Alliance, considering that all Labour Leaders and Prime Ministers have sedulously cultivated the Special Relationship. Not unexpectedly, the largest quantitative and qualitative variations are to be found over ‘Europe’ – from the aloofness of 1950 to the violent rejection in 1983 and apparent enthusiasm in 1997. If one only considers the field of Foreign Policy which appears as the greatest headache in the Labour Manifestos 1950–1997, then there is no doubt that the primacy went to ‘Europe’. As for the quantitative fluctuations which are indicated by our statistics, they seem to follow, not the preoccupation over European integration, but détente or otherwise with the Soviet Bloc. The remarkable peak in percentage in 1959, with over a quarter of the manifesto being devoted to Foreign Policy, can with some credibility be explained by the anxious expectations of the forthcoming Summit, on which many hopes for détente were pinned after a decade of mounting tension. Likewise, the weight given to foreign policy in 1983, at 4032 words reflected Labour’s desperate efforts to counter Margaret Thatcher’s policy of quasi-unconditional alignment on President Reagan’s wish for an escalation of the confrontation with the USSR, notably with an acceleration of the nuclear arms race. This seems to be confirmed a contrario by the very low percentages of the 1992 and 1997 Manifestos – the lowest since 1945: just as in that year Labour did not perceive the Soviet Union as a menace, in the post-Cold War atmosphere of 1992 and 1997, Russia no longer generated the heated debate between Labour and the Conservatives which the Communist state had given rise to between Michael Foot and Margaret Thatcher, at the peak of the post-war confrontation between the two parties over foreign policy including defence. One senses this instinctively – but whatever reservations one may have against the ‘damned lies’ of statistics, it may not be totally idle to remark that a quantitative analysis bears out these impressionistic ‘hunches’. Appendix: Percentage of space devoted to Foreign Policy in the wide sense (i.e. including Defence and the Commonwealth) 1945: ‘A World of Progress and Peace’: 439 words out of a total of 4986 (8.8 per cent)

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1950: ‘One World of Peace and Plenty’: 685/4898 (just under 14 per cent) 1951: ‘Peace’: 342/1789 (19.1 per cent) 1955: ‘Labour’s Policy for Peace’: 666/2851 (23.3 per cent) 1959: ‘Who goes to the Summit?’ – ‘The Rule of Law and the United Nations’ – ‘The Arms Race’ – ‘Two Worlds’: 1,357/5045 (26.7 per cent) 1964: ‘A New Role for Britain’: 2463/9732 (25.3 per cent) 1966: ‘The New Britain and the World’: 1,816/10,608 (17.1 per cent) 1970: ‘Britain in the World Community’: 1621/11,724 (13.8 per cent) February 1974: ‘The Common Market’ – ‘Peace and Justice in a Safer World’: 1061/4758 (22.2 per cent) October 1974: ‘The Common Market’ – ‘Policy for Peace – International Cooperation and Security’: 1014/8690 (11.7 per cent) 1979: ‘Parliamentary Sovereignty’ – ‘Foreign Policy’ – ‘Détente and Defence’: 1,634/9290 (17.6 per cent). 1983: ‘Britain and the Common Market’ – ‘The International Dimension’: 4,032/22,580 (17.9 per cent) 1987: ‘Modern Britain in a Modern World’: 1,162/9075 (12.8 per cent). 1992: ‘Britain in a new World’: 1,368/12,452 (11 per cent) 1997: ‘We will give Britain leadership in Europe: Referendum on single currency – Lead reform of the EU – Retain Trident: strong defence through NATO – A reformed United Nations – Helping to tackle global poverty’: 1840 words/17,614 (10.4 per cent).

Notes 1. There are at least three possibilities for giving references to the Manifestos. The actual Manifestos are not always the obvious solution, because some are unpaginated. Collections are compiled by F. W. S. Craig (1975) British General Election Manifestos, 1900–1974 (London: Palgrave Macmillan); F. W. S. Craig (1990) British General Election Manifestos, 1959–1987 (Aldershot: Dartmouth); I. Dale General Election Manifestos, 1900–1997. (1) Conservative Party General Election Manifestos. The solution adopted here is to direct the reader to the excellent site run by Richard Kimber at Keele University: http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man.htm (accessed 8 May 2010). 2. J. Callaghan (2007) The Labour Party and Foreign Policy: A History (London: Routledge), p. 97. 3. W. Churchill (1950) In Randolph S. Churchill (ed.) Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948 (London: Cassell), p. 417. 4. K. O. Morgan (1984) Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); D. Reynolds (ed.) (2000) Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century (London: Longman); J. Callaghan (2008) ‘Clement Attlee’s Foreign Policy, 1945–50’, in P. Corthorn, J. Davis (eds) The British Labour Party and the Wider World: Domestic Politics, Internationalism and Foreign Policy (London: Tauris Academic Studies), pp. 110–126. 5. H. Macmillan (1969) Tides of Fortune 1945–1955 (London: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 32.

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6. S. Kelly (2005) ‘ “The ghost of Neville Chamberlain”: Guilty Men and the 1945 election’, Conservative History Journal, V, 21. 7. Callaghan, Labour Party and Foreign Policy, p. 175. 8. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, p. 148. 9. I. Angus and S. Orwell (eds) (1968) George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (London: Secker & Warburg), II, p. 74. 10. The phrase is attributed to Gerald Kaufman M. P.; see D. Healey (1989) The Time of My Life (London: Michael Joseph), p. 500. 11. D. Butler and D. Kavanagh (1984) The British General Election of 1983 (London: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 282. 12. Callaghan, Labour Party and Foreign Policy, p. 214. 13. M. Phythian (2007) The Labour Party, War and International Relations, 1945–2006 (London: Routledge), p. 6. 14. Ibid., p. 101.

Conclusion Brendan Simms and William Mulligan

Standing back from the case-studies discussed in this volume, we can sketch out an alternative narrative of British history according to the ‘primacy of foreign policy’. This begins in the seventeenth century, when European politics cast a long shadow over the Stuarts. On the one hand, it powered a parliamentary and popular critique of royal policy, which was increasingly accused of abandoning the ‘Protestant cause’ on the continent, in particular the Elector Palatine.1 On the other hand, it drove the Stuart Kings to ever greater resource extraction in support of their diplomatic aims – and in order to appease activist critics – which ultimately brought them into conflict with the political nation and provoked civil war. It was exactly the same tension which saw James II pilloried for military weakness in the face of Louis XIV’s advance in Europe, and yet accused of plotting against English liberties when he attempted to put the defence of the realm on a more regular footing. During this period the English imagination was gripped by European affairs, and conflicting visions of foreign policy played an integral and increasing role the configuration of party politics, underpinned parliamentary activity, and intensified domestic unrest and instability. The Glorious Revolution of 1688, like the Civil War which preceded it, can be seen as a revolt against royal foreign policy. Indeed, the demands of the European balance of power were constitutive of the modern Anglo-British state. It provided the decisive impetus for the Union between England and Scotland in 1707. Moreover, as Peter Dickson and John Brewer have shown, the wars of William III and his successors required the creation of a ‘fiscalmilitary state’ with the Bank of England, the stock market and the national debt. It also led to the emergence of corresponding, though not always identical, structures in Ireland and Scotland. For the next 100 years or so, foreign policy continued to dominate British high politics, not only because the country was successively linked to two continental European states (The United Provinces, 1688–1702) and Hanover (from 1714), but also because British liberties were believed to depend on the ‘liberties of Europe’, that is, the balance of power.2 This was not just an elite concern: it also preoccupied the burgeoning pamphlet ‘public sphere’. The development of cabinet responsibility in eighteenth-century Britain was driven by the imperatives of foreign-policy decision-making rather than abstract notions of constitutional propriety. For much of the period, this primacy of foreign policy underpinned exclusionary penal laws against Catholics, but the need to tap into all the energies of the nation inspired a more inclusive policy towards the end of the century. Indeed, late-eighteenth-century Scottish Covenanters saw accommodation with the American colonists as a means to revitalise their own Union with England and thus to safeguard their place within the European state system. These strategic pressures were hugely increased by the onset of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars after 1792. The rise and fall of ministries continued to be determined largely by differences over the direction of the war with France: for example, the split between Charles James Fox and Edmund Burke, or the secession of the Portlandite Whigs. The Union with Ireland in 1801 was motivated in part by the desire 336

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to deny France, once again, the ‘back door’ to England; in part, it was also designed to facilitate the passage of Catholic Emancipation without which Irish energies could not be harnessed for the war effort. It was George III’s blunt refusal to deliver on that promise which underlay William Pitt the Younger’s resignation that same year. The economic, social, cultural and fiscal transformations wrought by the epochal struggle with France were immense: loyalism, volunteering and the first income tax. The British state which emerged in 1815 was therefore very much a product of the primacy of foreign policy. In the early nineteenth century, however, something changed. To be sure, under the direction of Castlereagh, Canning and Palmerston, Britain remained closely involved with the European state system. Undoubtedly the British public was often enthusiastic about continental issues, for example, Greece in the 1820s, and later Italian nationalism. But the sense of the urgency, which had lain behind this engagement since the late sixteenth century was largely lost. Moreover, the great European upheavals of 1848–1849 and 1860–1871 caused much less public debate and had fewer domestic repercussion than in pervious centuries (or the next one, for that matter). This cleared the way for what Philip Harling and Peter Mandler have called the move from the ‘fiscal-military’ to the laissez faire state’. Peace was held to be the pre-condition for the growth of prosperity, free trade, and low government spending, the characteristics of the Victorian fiscal state.3 The radical demand for Free Trade in Victorian times was not driven by some abstract ideal of free market but by the desire to weaken the aristocracy through ‘cheap’ government. This in turn required Britain to abandon its traditional balance of power, interventionist diplomacy in Europe and globally. This looks very much like a ‘primacy of domestic policy’. Unlike earlier debates, say the Yorkshire movement or the franchise reforms mooted during the Napoleonic period, the Chartist agitation does not seem to have had much to do with a desire to mobilise national energies. It is almost as if the history of nineteenth-century Britain could be written without reference to Europe, and the primacy of foreign policy which had shaped so much of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and British history. And yet, developments in Europe continued to preoccupy British politics and opinion throughout the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century.4 Foreign policy was also a central concern in the emergence of Ulster Unionism, which was ‘more concerned with the great events on the continent than the latest sectarian scrap’. Moreover, as the Crimean War showed European events could still bring down a government or cause major soul-searching at home. The civil service reforms which followed can be seen as an attempt to mobilise the energies of the nation, much in the same way that the Tsarist empire abolished serfdom in response to defeat in the Crimea. Moreover, it was foreign policy that provided the arena of party conflict when the Conservatives sought to break the Whig–Liberal dominance. Indeed, every single one of the governments in the 1850s fell over foreign policy. This is not so very different from the position 100 years earlier. In any case, German unification in 1871 was not only a shock to British foreign policy, but had a profound long-term effect on domestic politics. Imperial and European issues played an important role in shaping Gladstone’s Liberal party, featuring prominently in the election campaigns of 1874 and 1880, and driving financial, Irish and imperial policy. Home Rule for Ireland, which would reduce the cohesion, prestige, and security of the United Kingdom, was unwise in an international environment dominated by great mergers, such as Italian and German unification. Indeed, the projects of imperial federation were driven by the desire to mobilise energies in support of the home country’s European interests. The distinction between the imperial,

338

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domestic and the foreign thus collapsed. It is perhaps no surprise therefore that contemporaries saw the Foreign Office as ‘The chief of all offices’, which had a decisive influence on the development of the other Whitehall departments. So a primacy of foreign policy had re-emerged unmistakably by around 1900. First of all, the rise of the Anglo-German naval antagonism focussed attention not merely on the state of the European balance of power, but also on the question of how best to mobilise Britain’s formidable resources in defence of her interests there.5 Secondly, the shock of early defeats and international isolation during the Boer war spawned an anxiety about Britain’s cultural, physical and economic preparedness for large-scale conflict. As Geoffrey Searle has argued, the ‘national efficiency’ debate, the embryonic welfare state, and Chamberlain’s tariff reform movement at the turn of the century were inspired partly by the fear of falling behind global rivals.6 Foreign policy provided a fertile ground for the articulation of both Liberal and Conservative varieties of ‘patriotism’. This preoccupation also extended to intellectuals: liberal internationalists came to believe in the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ because only by solving the problem of international anarchy, with its attendant disregard for legal and moral norms, could liberal values be secured. Moreover, foreign policy also featured prominently – dominated would be too strong a word – in parliamentary politics. Elections far from being just about tax and welfare were also very much about the question of how to respond to the German naval challenge. The war itself and the question of how it should be conducted split the Liberal party, transformed the interventionist powers of the state, and precipitated the independence of most of Ireland, the most far-reaching territorial change in the British Isles in modern history. If Lloyd George came to power on the back of his promise to wage the war more efficiently, he lost it for good thanks to his inept handling of the Chanak Crisis in 1922. Inter-war party politics were thus profoundly concerned with events in Europe. After 1933, elections were dominated by the question of appeasement. Thus Simon Ball writes that Macmillan ‘and his contemporaries were . . . entirely at one in believing that the great issue which politicians had to deal with was foreign affairs’.7 If the first volume of Maurice Cowling’s history of the post-1918 Conservative party was entitled The Impact of Labour, the second was entitled The Impact of Hitler. As Harold Macmillan remarked in his memoirs ‘It was not Churchill who lost the 1945 election; it was the ghost of Neville Chamberlain.’8 Besides, the huge social, cultural and economic changes wrought by the two world wars hardly needs elaboration. The First World War transformed the interventionist powers of the state, while the Second World War saw the creation of the ‘warfare state’, the twentieth-century successor to the ‘fiscal-military state’. It provided the backdrop to the emergence of the welfare state: the Beveridge report and ‘homes fit for heroes’. Thanks to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, foreign policy continued to shape domestic politics long after 1945. It drove Britain’s engagement with the process of European integration, and very much affected attitudes to the Northern Ireland question. As Glen O’ Hara has shown, the post-war preoccupation with planning was partly driven by the need to keep up with a Soviet Union whose command economy had defeated the Nazi war machine. Throughout the twentieth century the state remained geared to warfare, be it the open conflict of the Second World War or the latent threat of the Cold War.9 Foreign policy continued to impress upon high politics. The only government to fall over international affairs – Anthony Eden’s over Suez – did so over an issue tangential to the Cold War itself, but from Nye Bevan’s resignation to the fall of Margaret Thatcher, questions of foreign policy, in their broadest sense, were as likely to precipitate cabinet crises as those of domestic policy. The key strategic issue

Conclusion

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of disarmament and how to respond to the Soviet threat more generally, did periodically dominate British party politics, and may well have doomed the Labour party in 1983. For 10 years after the end of the Cold War 1989–1990, foreign policy almost completely disappeared off the radar screen; it is no accident, surely, that Northern Ireland was solved after the Secretary of State announced that Britain had no (longer) any selfish strategic interest in Ulster. The single important exception is the Europe debate, which so divided John Major’s Conservatives. Neither Bosnia nor Kosovo were domestically polarising, though they might have become so had the military option failed. All this changed with the outbreak of the ‘Global War on Terror’ in September 2001. Foreign policy became, once again, no longer a matter of choice, but a question of existential importance. The Iraq War nearly cost Mr Blair the 2005 election. Relations with the Muslim population, a matter of integration in the late twentieth century, increasingly resembled those with disaffected minorities of years gone by: Catholics, Jacobins and communists. Even Gordon Brown, widely seen as a man committed to domestic politics, announced in 2005 that his ‘first priority’ on becoming Prime Minister would be the struggle against terrorism; almost the very first issue he had to deal with on coming to office were the attacks on Glasgow airport and how to wind down Britain’s commitments in Iraq. To the present day, in other words, foreign policy continues to shape political debate, the powers of the state, and even national identity.

Notes 1. J. Scott (2000) England’s Troubles: Seventeenth Century English Political Instability in Political Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 2. B. Simms (2007) Three Victories and a Defeat. The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783 (London: Allen Lane). 3. M. Daunton (2001) Trusting Leviathan. The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1799–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 110–111, 314–317. 4. J. Parry (2006) The Politics of Patriotism. English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 5. P. Kennedy (1980) The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London: Allen & Unwin). 6. G. R. Searle (1970) The Quest for National Efficiency. A Study in British Politics and Political Thought, 1899–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell); Aaron Friedberg (1988) The Weary Titan. Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press). 7. S. Ball (2004) The Guardsmen. Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made (London: Harper Collins), p. 401. 8. Cited in S. Kelly (2005) ‘ “The ghost of Neville Chamberlain”. Guilty men and the 1945 election’, Conservative History Journal, V, 18. 9. D. Edgerton (2006) Warfare State: Britain, 1920–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Index Acland Hood, Anthony, 255 Acton, Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 216–17, 220–1 Act of Security, 55–6 Act of Union (1707), 56–62, 124–5, 336 Act of Union (1800), 138–42, 337 Afghanistan, 182, 189 Aitken, William Maxwell, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, 306, 312 Alien Act, 57 Amery, Leo, 10, 281–8, 309 Anne, Queen, 49, 53–6, 58, 70 Anti-Common Market League, 307, 311 Army, 8, 24, 32, 34, 38–44, 50–1, 83–94, 102–13, 119, 142, 171, 185, 188–9, 264, 271, 294–7 Asquith, Herbert Henry, 235, 237, 251–7, 263 Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, 56 Australia, 198, 203–5, 296, 306 Austria, 83, 86–9, 92–3, 157–60, 163, 241 Bagehot, Walter, 66–7, 186, 200 Baldwin, Stanley, 277, 282–3 Balfour, Arthur, 250–1, 253–7, 285 Bank of England, 50, 79 Barker, Ernest, 225 Belgium, 144, 285, 288 Bellings, Richard, 17 Benn, Tony, 307, 314 Bennet, Henry, 1st earl of Arlington, 22 Bentinck, Hans Willem, 1st earl of Portland, 37–43 Bernhardi, Friedrich von, 226 Bernstorff, Andreas Gottlieb von, 73 Bethel, Slingsby, 22 Bevin, Ernest, 306, 320 Bismarck, Otto von, 176, 219, 224, 238, 241 Blair, Tony, 307, 310, 313, 331–3, 339 Bolingbroke, Viscount, 27, 82, 85, 86–9 Bothmer, Hans Kaspar von, 73 Brand, Henry, 191 Bright, John, 188, 190, 192

Britaine, William de, 18–19 Brittan, Leon, 312 Brodrick, George, 187 Brooke, James, 173 Brown, George, 310 Brown, Gordon, 313, 315, 339 Brown, William, 145 Bryce, James, 216–17, 221, 225 Bulstrode, Richard, 17 Bulwer-Lytton, Robert, 236 Burke, Edmund, 75, 141, 336 Burnet, Gilbert, 22 Burt, Thomas, 264 Butler, Rab, 315 Cabinet, 5, 8, 39, 66–75, 185, 234–5 Cairns, Hugh McCalmont, 1st earl, 240 Campbell, George Douglas, 8th Duke of Argyll, 185 Campbell, Hugh Hume, 3rd earl of Marchmont, 27 Campbell, John, 1st earl of Loudon, 122 Campbell, John, 2nd Duke of Argyll, 57–8 Campbell, John, marquess of Lorne, 201 Campbell-Bannerman, Henry, 235 Canada, 91, 169, 198, 201, 203, 287, 294, 297–8 Canning, George, 8, 142, 337 Capel, William, 23 Cardwell, Edward, 189 Carteret, John, 2nd earl Granville, 72, 74 Caryll, John, 24–5 Castle, Barbara, 307 Catherine of Braganza, 22 Catholic Church, 5, 9, 21, 52–3, 83–4, 103–4, 141, 143, 147–9, 162–3 Cavendish, Spencer Compton, 8th Duke of Devonshire, 189–90, 192, 262 Cavendish, William, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, 27 Cavendish, William, 4th Duke of Devonshire, 74

340

Index Cecil, Robert, 3rd marquess of Salisbury, 7–8, 176, 233–4, 236–7, 241–2, 263, 266, 268–70 Chamberlain, Austen, 11, 240, 255, 278–9, 281–9 Chamberlain, Joseph, 9, 176, 185, 190–1, 198, 238, 253–5, 261, 263–7 Charles II, 16–24, 27 Chevalier, Michel, 174 Childers, Hugh, 189 China, 161, 261, 263, 268, 282, 330 Church of England, 20, 36–7 Churchill, John, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 40, 49, 51, 57 Churchill, Randolph, 237, 269 Churchill, Winston, 251, 253–4, 256, 265, 270, 285, 319–22 Clarges, Thomas, 25–6, 39 Clarke, Kenneth, 311 Clifford, Thomas, 9, 20 Cobden, Richard, 168, 170–7, 224 Cochrane, Billie, 200 Colville, John, 263 Commerce, 10, 18, 20–7, 49–61, 83–94, 125, 130–1, 143–4, 167–77, 182, 184, 227, 238, 277, 284, 337 Committee of Imperial Defence, 235, 285, 287 Commonwealth, 308–10, 312, 315, 320–6, 329–33 Conservative Party, 154–63, 181–2, 186, 189–93, 249–58, 260–72, 277–89, 305–16, 319–23, 326–33, 337–9 Cooper, Ashley, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, 56 Corn Laws, 155, 167–77 Covenanters, 6, 8, 10, 120–4 Coventry, Henry, 22–3 Cowling, Maurice, 277–80, 291 Crookshank, Harry, 9 Croskery, Thomas, 146 Cross, Richard, 185 Crowe, Eyre, 177, 268 Cunningham, Thomas, 121–2 Curtis, Lionel, 206 Curzon, George Nathaniel, 253, 255, 285 Danvers, Joseph, 81 Darien, 50, 59–60 Davenant, Charles, 51–2, 85

341

Davis, H. W. C., 225 Dawson, William Harbutt, 225–6 Declaration of Independence (American), 129 Defoe, Daniel, 41, 85 De Gaulle, Charles, 307 Delors, Jacques, 311, 315 Denmark, 122–4, 298 Desmarets, Samuel, 36 Dicey, Albert Venn, 190 Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes, 227 Dilke, Charles, 185, 205 Disraeli, Benjamin, 156–9, 162, 170, 182–4, 188, 191–2, 233, 241, 260–2, 265, 269 Douglas-Hamilton, James, 4th Duke of Hamilton, 53–5, 58, 61 Douglas, James, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, 53–5, 57–8, 61 Downing, George, 20 Droysen, Johann Gustav, 218, 221 Dryden, John, 15, 21, 24, 26 Dudley, Joseph, 52 Dutch Republic, 18–27, 35–6, 71–2, 81–2, 121–2, 129, 336 East India Company, 25, 59 Eden, Anthony, 3, 338 Edward VII, 233 Egerton, Hugh, 205 Egypt, 175, 182–5, 188–92, 241, 268–70 Eisenhower, Dwight, 324 Elliott, Arthur, 190 Emerson, James, 142–4 Erskine, John, 126 Erskine, John, 6th earl of Mar, 55–60 Estates, Scottish, 52–8, 62 European Community, 7, 305–16, 325–33 European Defence Community, 310 European Free Trade Area, 305, 308–9, 325 Evelyn, John, 20–1 Finance, 50, 52, 60–1, 103, 106, 111, 113, 158–9, 183, 186–90, 238–40, 251–3, 264, 337 Finch, Daniel, 2nd Duke of Nottingham, 53, 56 Fisher, H. A. L., 225–6

342

Index

Fitzmaurice, Henry Charles Keith Petty, 5th marquess of Lansdowne, 234, 270 FitzRoy, Charles, Duke of Grafton, 74 Foley, Paul, 39 Foot, Michael, 329, 333 Forster, William, 185, 203 Fox, Charles James, 336 Fox, Henry, 72 France, 20–7, 36, 61, 109, 112, 125, 127–8, 130, 141–4, 147–8, 156–60, 163, 169, 174, 237–8, 242, 263, 266–9, 271, 277, 284–8, 314–15, 322, 330 Franchise, 181, 186–7, 191, 197 Fraser, Simon, 53 Freeman, E. A., 215, 221–2 Froude, J. A., 200 Gaitskell, Hugh, 307, 309–10, 315, 324 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 147–9 George I, 70–3, 80, 84, 86, 109 George II, 70–5, 80, 87–8, 93 George III, 75, 337 George V, 233 Germany, 9, 86, 92–4, 139, 144, 168–9, 171, 174–5, 182, 193, 197, 205, 214–27, 233, 237–42, 263–71, 277, 282, 284–5, 288, 291, 294–5, 298–9, 306, 308, 310, 312 Gibson, John, 121 Gladstone, John, 170 Gladstone, William, 9–10, 11, 157, 162, 169–70, 175–7, 181–93, 224, 234, 239, 241, 261–2, 269 Glorious Revolution, 5, 16–17, 26–7, 32–44, 65–6, 102–3, 128, 336 Godolphin, Sidney, 1st earl of Godolphin, 51, 55, 57 Goldie, George, 268 Gooch, G. P., 216, 221, 223–5 Gordon, Charles, 183–4, 189 Gordon, George Hamilton, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, 154, 158, 161, 169, 173 Görtz, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 73 Goschen, George Joachim, Viscount Goschen, 10, 238 Gower, Granville George Leveson, 2nd earl Granville, 184, 192, 241 Greece, 142, 175

Greenwood, Arthur, 226 Grey, Edward, 222, 235, 237, 239, 242, 251, 253–4, 256, 263, 266–8, 271–3 Guy, Henry, 39 Haldane, Richard Burton, 235, 251, 256, 263, 267 Hamilton, Edward, 185, 187 Hammond, J. L., 263 Handasyd, Thomas, 52 Hankey, Maurice, 235, 285 Hanover, 65–76, 83–6, 89, 93–4, 109, 336 Harcourt, William, 176, 234 Hardie, Keir, 198 Hardinge, Charles, 233 Harley, Robert, 40–1 Harris, James Howard, 3rd earl of Malmesbury, 156–7, 159–62 Hay, John, 2nd Marquess of Tweeddale, 55 Headlam-Morley, James, 216, 221–3 Heathcote-Amory, Derek, 312 Heath, Edward, 307, 310, 313–15 Heinsius, Anthonie, 41 Heseltine, Michael, 312 Hicks Beach, Michael, 238–9 Hintze, Otto, 1, 69 Hobhouse, Leonard, 202, 226 Holland, William, 260 Holles, Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, 72, 74, 80 Home Rule, 10, 189–93, 337 Howe, Geoffrey, 312 Howell, James, 17, 19 Hume, David, 81 Hutton, R. H., 187 Hyde, Edward, 1st earl of Clarendon, 16 Hyndman, H. M., 198 Imperial Federation League, 201, 203 India, 19, 91–2, 154, 156, 173, 184, 197, 199–202, 267–8, 293, 296–7, 300 Iraq, 282, 286–7 Ireland, 5, 8, 10, 40, 49–52, 102–13, 128–9, 137–49, 189–93, 253, 336–8 Italy, 139, 142, 146–9, 154, 158, 160 Jacobites, 53–4, 58–62, 83–7, 90–1, 93, 109 Jamaica, 201

Index James II, 16–17, 19, 21, 23, 25–6, 336 Jay, Douglas, 307 Jeffreys, Thomas, 107 Jenkins, John Edward, 204 Jenkins, Roy, 307, 313 Johnston, Archibald, 122 Johnston, William, 148–9 Keppel, Arnold Joost van, 1st earl of Albemarle, 43 Khruschev, Nikita, 324 Kinnock, Neil, 307, 310, 329–30 Kipling, Rudyard, 203 Kirk, 56, 60–1, 119–21, 124–6, 131–2 Labillière, F. P. de, 204–5 Labouchère, Henry, 176 Labour Party, 3, 4, 6, 7, 250, 253, 261, 264, 277–8, 305–16, 319–33 Laing, Samuel, 185–6 Law, Andrew Bonar, 253, 257, 266 Lawson, Nigel, 312 League of Nations, 282–3, 286–7 Leopold I, 42 Lewis, George Cornewall, 200 Liberal Party, 175–7, 181–93, 250–7, 261–72, 277–9, 337–8 Lindsay, David, 2nd Earl of Crawford, 255 List, Friedrich, 169 Lloyd George, David, 9, 237, 250–6, 338 Lockhart, George, 58 Long, Walter, 234 Louis XIV, 7, 9–10, 16–17, 20–5, 42–4, 49, 51, 53, 336 Louisbourg, Cape Breton, 111 Lowe, Robert, 186–7 Lucas, C. P., 202 Ludlow, J. H., 191 Lurgan, Lord, 146 Lytcott, John, 24 Macaulay, Thomas Babbington, 65–6, 199 MacDonald, Ramsay, 284 Mackay, R. W. G., 306 Mackinder, Halford, 284 Macmillan, Harold, 306, 308, 313, 315, 322, 324–5, 338 Maitland, Patrick, 312 Major, John, 309, 312, 315, 339

343

Mallet, V. A. L., 286 Mallet, Louis, 175 Marshall Plan, 306 Martineau, John, 200 Massue de Ruvigny, Henri de, earl of Galway, 40 Maudling, Reggie, 313 Maynard, John, 25 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 148–9 McComb, William, 147 McKenna, Reginald, 239, 251, 254 Metternich, Clemens von, 142, 163 Mill, John Stuart, 200, 208, 217 Milnes, Robert, marquess of Crewe, 251 Moll, Herman, 107 Montagu, Ralph, 23 Montague, Charles, 39 Montgomery, Henry, 147 Monypenny, W. F., 205 Morel, E. D., 236 Morley, John, 176, 185, 190, 216, 223–4, 251 Morrice, Roger, 22 Muir, Ramsay, 226 Münchhausen, Philip Adolf von, 73 Murray, John, 1st Duke of Atholl, 53–4 Napier, Joseph, 145 Napoleon III, 145, 148, 154, 156–7, 159, 163, 173 Napoleon Bonaparte, 141–2 National Union, 277 Navigations Acts, 50, 59, 170 Navy, 7, 19–20, 51, 85–6, 141–2, 157–9, 173, 188–9, 239, 242, 250–7, 262, 267, 271, 295 Nedham, Marchamont, 18–19 Netherlands, 144, 298 Newfoundland, 111 New Zealand, 198–9, 306, 310 Nicolson, Thomas, 24 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 305, 308, 326, 329–33 Northcote, Stafford, 186 North, Lord, 129 Nova Scotia, 109, 111 O’Connell, Daniel, 143 Ogilvie, James, 1st earl of Seafield, 58

344

Index

Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, 306, 308 Ottoman Empire, 184, 262, 266 Page Croft, Henry, 312 Palmer, G. W., 263 Palmer, Roger, earl of Castlemaine, 18 Palmerston, Lord, 154–63, 168, 170–6 Parks, Daniel, 52 Parliament, 8, 21–7, 32–3, 36–44, 66–9, 84–94, 102–6, 112–13, 121–3, 143–4, 155–8, 160, 200, 249–58, 262, 266, 306, 308, 327 Irish, 102–6, 109–13 Scottish, 53–4, 56, 58 Peel, Robert, 156–63, 168–72, 176 Pelham, Henry, 66, 74–5 Persia, 299 Pitt the Elder, William, 72, 80 Pitt the Younger, William, 167, 336 Pius IX, 147 Poland, 56 Popish Plot, 16 Popular Party, 119–21, 125, 128–31 Porter, William, 142 Powell, Enoch, 314 Poyning’s Law, 103 Presbyterianism, 18, 22, 120–1, 124, 140–3, 149 Primrose, Archibald Philip, 5th earl of Rosebery, 6, 9, 176, 190, 205, 234, 237, 242, 263, 266, 268 Privy Council (English), 68, 73 Privy Council (Scottish), 54, 61 Prussia, 1, 3, 90, 168 Pulteney, William, 82, 88 Quebec, 111, 129 Ramsay, James Andrew Broun, 1st marquess of Dalhousie, 173 Randall, Thomas, 125 Ranke, Leopold von, 1, 121, 215, 218–23, 232–3 Referendum Party, 312 Reresby, John, 24 Rhodes, Cecil, 176 Ridley, Nicholas, 312

Robinson, George, 1st marquess of Ripon, 185 Rodd, James Rennell, 233 Roebuck, J. A., 145 Royal Air Force, 295–6 Rumbold, Horace, 271 Russell, Lord John, 154, 156, 158–63 Russia, Soviet Union, 146, 159–60, 182, 184, 193, 197, 237, 239, 241–2, 262–3, 266–71, 300, 320, 322–3, 333 Rylands, Peter, 190 Sandys, Duncan, 309 Savile, George, 1st marquess of Halifax, 36 Schleswig-Holstein, 154, 157, 163 Schulenberg, Ehrengard Melusine von der, 70 Schuman Plan, 306, 312, 314 Scotch Plot, 53, 55, 57 Scotland, 6, 8, 10, 49–62, 74, 103–4, 109, 112, 119–32, 257–8, 336 Scott, C. P., 264 Scott, James, Duke of Monmouth, 23 Seeley, J. R., 197, 201–3, 205 Sepoy Rebellion (1857), 201 Seymour, Edward, 24, 26 Shippen, William, 85 Slavery, 138, 143, 173, 191 Smith, Adam, 167, 207 Smith, Goldwin, 205 Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 125–6 Solms, Count Hendrik, 40 Somers, John, 39, 41, 43 South Africa, 182, 189, 198, 206 South Sea Bubble, 84–5 Soviet Union, see Russia Spain, 21–7, 50–1, 84–9, 93, 112–13, 142, 175 Spencer, C., 263 Spencer, Herbert, 217 Spencer, Robert, earl of Sunderland, 39, 42 Squadrone Volante, 55 Stanhope, James, Earl of, 80, 84 Stanley, Edward, 14th earl of Derby, 154, 156–63, 171

Index Stanley, Edward, 15th earl of Derby, 185, 190, 192, 233–4 Stead, W. T., 202 Stephen, Leslie, 187 Stewart, Robert, Viscount Castlereagh, 10, 141–2, 337 Stone, Andrew, 74 Stuart, John, 3rd earl of Bute, 80, 83 Stubbe, Henry, 18–19 Sudan, 182, 188–92 Sweden, 109, 122–4 Sybel, Heinrich, 218, 221 Taaffe, Francis, 3rd earl of Carlingford, 22 Talbot, Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury, 38–9 Tallard, Count, 42–3 Temple, William, 22–4 Thatcher, Margaret, 3, 7, 308–9, 313, 315, 338 Thom, William, 126, 128–9 Thompson, John, 26 Thorpe, Jeremy, 313 Thurot, François, 113 Tories, 7, 17, 24–5, 27, 36, 38–9, 44, 56–7, 60–1, 81–2 Townshend, Charles, 2nd Viscount, 72–3, 80 Townshend, George, 4th Viscount, 107 Treasury, 5–6, 9, 72, 189, 238 Treitschke, Heinrich von, 215–16, 218–26 Trelawney, John, 185 Trenchard, John, 39, 42 Trevelyan, George Macaulay, 65 TUC (Trade Union Congress), 310 Turkey, 282 UK Independence Party, 312 Ulster Unionism, 137–49, 337 United Nations, 321, 324, 329–30 United States of America, 129–32, 139, 145, 168–72, 182, 184, 193, 197, 205–6, 292, 294–300, 305, 309, 321–2, 330–3, 336 Usborne, Henry, 306 Venezuela, 299 Vernon, James, 43 Vetch, Samuel, 124

345

Victoria, Queen, 233 Villiers, George William Frederick, 4th earl of Clarendon, 162, 234 Vogel, Julius, 199 Wales, 258, 308 Walker, Peter, 309 Wallmoden, Amalie von, 70 Walpole, Robert, 66, 72, 74–5, 80, 82–3, 88–9 Walton, Lawson, 263 Ward, A. W., 223 Warfare state, 294–301 Wars Anglo-Dutch, 16, 20–1, 22–3 Austrian Succession, 7, 83, 108 Austro-Prussian, 175 Boer, 8, 199, 238, 261, 263–4, 267, 270–2 Crimean, 5, 7–9, 146, 148, 154, 157–60, 163, 187, 337 First World War, 5, 9, 215, 222, 225 Franco-Prussian, 182–5, 188–92 Korean War, 323 Napoleonic, 5, 10, 141–2, 336 Nine Years’, 32–44, 104 Second World War, 9, 291–302 Seven Years’, 7, 103, 109, 128 Spanish Succession, 10, 49–62 Watkin, Edward, 174 Welfare state, 291–4 Wellesley, Henry Richard Charles, 1st earl Cowley, 159 West European Union, 305, 308 Whigs, 7, 17, 23–7, 36, 38–42, 44, 53–8, 60, 154–63, 167–8, 173 Whitelaw, Willie, 313 Whiteside, James, 145 Wilkes, John, 83 William III, 5, 8, 9, 16, 21, 32–44, 69–70, 102, 104 Williamson, Joseph, 17 Wilson Croker, John, 144 Wilson, Harold, 310, 313–14, 324, 327, 333 Witherspoon, John, 119–21, 126–30 Wodehouse, John, 1st earl of Kimberley, 185, 187, 189–91, 234 Yorke, Philip, 1st earl of Hardwicke, 74

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