Studies of individuals are legion and include: S. B. Baxter, William III (1966); H. T. Dickinson, Bolingbroke (1970); E. Gregg, Queen Anne (1980); B. W. Hill, Robert Harley, Speaker, Secretary of State and Premier Minister (1988); H. G. Horwitz, Revolution Politicks: The Career of David Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, 1647–1730 (1968); R. A. Sundstrom, Sidney Godolphin: Servant of the State (1992).
Britain and Europe, 1689–1713
Although this theme has always attracted a steady trickle of interest, its significance is such as to deserve greater attention. (1991). For some overviews, see J. Black, A System of Ambition: British Foreign Policy, 1660-1793 (1991). P. Langford, Great Britain, 1688-1815 (1976). Otherwise, see J. Miller, Popery and Politics in England, 1660-88 (1973), J. I. Israel, ed., The Anglo-Dutch Moment (1991); D. Hoak and M. Feingold, eds, The World of William and Mary: Anglo-Dutch Perspectives on the Revolution of 1688-89 (1996); J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (1989); J. Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution (1980); G. C. Gibbs, ‘The Revolution in Foreign Policy’, in G. Holmes, ed., Britain after the Glorious Revolution (1969); J. B. Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession: A Study of the English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy (1987); J. R. Jones, Britain and Europe in the Seventeenth Century (1966); J. R. Jones, Britain and the World, 1649–1815 (1980). On the economic aspects of the war see D. W. Jones, War and Economy in the Age of William III and Marlborough (1988); M. Braddick, The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558-1714 (1996). On the military issues see J. Hattendorf, ed., Marlborough: Soldier and Diplomat (2012). Jeremy Black raises some interesting questions about popular influences in Debating Foreign Policy in Eighteenth Century Britain (2011).
The Glorious Revolution and the Unity of Britain, 1689–1714
In addition to the works of Kearney, Stone and Jenkins listed for Chapter 1 under ‘Place’, see R. Price, British Society, 1680-1880 (1999); L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (1992); A. Grant and K. Stringer, eds, Uniting the Kingdom: The Making of British History (1995); T. Claydon and I. MacBride, eds, Protestantism and National Identity (1998); M. Hechter, Internal Colonisation: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 (1975); T. M. Devine and D. Dickson, eds, Ireland and Scotland, 1600–1850: Parallels and Contrasts in Economic and Social Development (1983); D. L. Smith, A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown (1998). See also the contributions by D. Hayton, ‘John Bull’s Other Kingdoms: Ireland’ and D. Szechi, ‘John Bull’s Other Kingdoms: Scotland’, in C. Jones, ed., Britain in the First Age of Party: Essays Presented to Geoffrey Holmes (1987).
On Scotland, see C. Kidd, Union and Unionism: Political Thought in Scotland, 1500-2000 (2008); S. Ellis and S. Barber, eds, Fashioning a British State, 1485-1725 (1995); B. Bradshaw and P. Roberts, British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533-1707 (1998). B. Levack, The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland and the Union (1987); J. Stephen, Scottish Presbyterians and the Act of Union, 1707 (2007); B. Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain, 1689–1746 (1980); D. Szechi, The Jacobites: Britain and Europe, 1688–1788 (1979). On the union with Scotland, see P. Riley, The English Ministers and Scotland, 1707–27 (1964); B. Galloway, The Union of England and Scotland, 1603–1688 (1986); T. J. Rae, ed., The Union of 1707: Its Impact on Scotland (1974). Unrivalled on its topic is J. Robertson, ed., A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707 (1995). Older, general works are still useful; see T. C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (1970); R. Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage: Scotland 1603–1745 (1983); W. Ferguson, Scotland’s Relations with England to 1707 (1977); W. Ferguson, Scotland: 1689 to the Present (1968). K. M. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland under the Regal Union, 1603-1715 (1992).
On Ireland, consult S. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: the Making of Protestant Ireland, 1660-1760 (1992), D. Hayton, Ruling Ireland,1685-1742: Politics, Politicians and Parties (2004) and the relevant parts of the following J. Hill, Politics and Irish Protestant Patriotism 1660-1840 (1997); R. Foster, Modern Ireland, 1600–1972 (1988); J. C. Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland, 1603–1923 (1966); M. Brown and S. Donlan, eds, The Laws and Legalities of Ireland, 1689-1850 (2011). More detailed studies on the eighteenth century include J. Simms, Jacobite Ireland, 1685–91 (1969); The Williamite Confiscation in Ireland, 1690–1703 (1956); J. Kerrigan, Archipelagic English: literature, history and politics, 1603-1707 (2008).
On Wales, see G. E. Jones, Modern Wales (1994) and G. H. Jenkins, The Foundations of Modern Wales (1987).
CHAPTER 3. WHIGGISM SUPREME, 1714–1757
The Hanoverian Succession, 1714–1721
The period of the Hanoverian Succession is reliably dealt with in modern works, especially those by Hoppitt and Holmes and include two books by B. Hill, The Growth of Parliamentary Parties, 1689-1742 (1976) and The Early Parties and Politics in Britain, 1688-1832 (1996) and D. Szechi, 1715: the Great Jacobite Rebellion (2006). More detailed accounts will be found in W. Michael’s old established but still authoritative volumes, The Beginnings of the Hanoverian Dynasty (1936–7) and The Quadruple Alliance (1939); J. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George I (1967); L. Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy: the Tory Party, 1714-60 (1982); N. Rogers, Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt (1989); G. S. de Krey, A Fractured Society: the Politics of London I the First Age of Party, 1688-1715 (1985); S. Biddle, Bolingbroke and Harley (1975); J. F. Naylor, ed., The British Aristocracy and the Peerage Bill of 1719 (1968); J. Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (1960) and A. Starkie’s The Church of England and the Bangorian Controversy 1716-21 (2006). R. Hatton’s biography of George I (1978) is easily the best biography in this period; other biographies include B. Williams, Stanhope (1932); B. W. Hill, Robert Harley (1988); J. B. Owen, ‘George II Reconsidered’, in A. Whiteman, J. Bromley and P. Dickson, eds, Statesmen, Scholars and Merchants: Essays in Eighteenth Century History Presented to Dame Lucy Sutherland (1973).
Useful general accounts of foreign policy may be found in D. B. Horn, Great Britain and Europe in the Eighteenth Century (1967); P. Langford, Great Britain, 1688–1815 (1976); J. Murray, George I, the Baltic and the Whig Split of 1717 (1969); R. Hatton, Diplomatic Relations Between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, 1714–21 (1950); J. Black, British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole (1985).
The Walpolean Regime, 1721–1742
The years of Walpole’s supremacy are dealt with in several of the standard general accounts, not least those by Holmes, Speck and B. W. Hill. Important material on a number of issues will be found in at least three works by Jeremy Black, Walpole in Power (2001); J. Black, ed., Britain in the Age of Walpole (1984); Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth Century Britain (1990). See also L. Colley, Britons, Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (1992); P. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727–1783 (1989); J. Black, British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole (1985); M. Harris, London Newspapers in the Age of Walpole (1987); B. Goldgar, Walpole and the Wits: The relation of Politics to Literature, 1722-44 (1976).
The most recent biography of Walpole by E. Pearce, The Great Man: the Life and Times of Sir Robert Walpole (2007) does not replace older works. The standard biographies of Walpole include those by J. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, 2 Vols. (1956, 1960); H. Dickinson, Walpole and the Whig Supremacy (1973); B. Kemp, Sir Robert Walpole (1976); B. Hill, Sir Robert Walpole: ‘Sole and Prime Minister’ (1989). Aspects of Walpole’s power are explored in J. Black, ed., Britain in the Age of Walpole (1984). On George II, see ‘George II Reconsidered’, in A. Whiteman, J. S. Bromley and P. G. M. Dickson, eds, Statesmen, Scholars and Merchants: Essays in Eighteenth Century History Presented to Dame Lucy Sutherland (1973).
The opposition to Walpole is discussed in K. Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (1995); C. Gerrard, The Pa
triot Opposition to Walpole (1994); S. Baltes, The Pamphlet Controversy about Wood’s Halfpence (1722-25) and the Tradition of Irish Constitutional Nationalism (2002); R. Harris, A Patriot Press: National Politics and the London Press in the 1740s (1993); L. Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party, 1714–60 (1982); H. Dickinson, The Politics of the People in Eighteenth Century Britain (1995); A. S. Ford, His Majesty’s Opposition, 1714–1830 (1964); E. P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origins of the Black Act (1975); N. Rogers, Crowds, Culture and Politics in Georgian Britain, c.1-3 (1998); I. Kramnick, Bolingbroke and his Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (1968); N. Rogers, ‘The City Opposition to Walpole and his Successors’, in J. Stevenson, ed., London in the Age of Reform (1997); N. Rogers, Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole (1989); E. Cruickshanks, Political Untouchables. The Tories and the ‘45’ (1979); P. Fritz, The English Ministers and Jacobitism, 1714–45 (1975); G. V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State (1975); C. B. Realey, The Early Opposition to Walpole (1931); I. Krammick, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (1968); H. T. Dickinson, Bolingbroke (1970); P. Langford, The Excise Crisis: Society and Politics in the Age of Walpole (1975).
The Pelhams and Patriotism, 1742–1757
Many of the works mentioned earlier in this section include the period 1742–57. More detailed studies cover particular aspects of the period, not least J. B. Owen, The Rise of the Pelhams (1956); R. Browning, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (1983); T. W. Perry, Public Opinion, Propaganda and Politics in Eighteenth Century England (1962) (on the Jewish Naturalization Bill); R. Harris, A Patriot Press: National Politics and the London Press in the 1740s (1993); J. C. D. Clark, The Dynamics of Change: The Crisis of the 1750s and English Party Systems (1982); U. Dann, Hanover and Great Britain, 1740-60: Diplomacy and Survival (1991). Biographies of leading personalities are, in Companion, general disappointing. See, however, R. Browning, The Duke of Newcastle (1975); J. Wilks, Henry Pelham: A Whig in Power (1964); E. Eyck, Pitt versus Fox, Father and Son (1950); J. Black, Pitt the Elder (1992); B. Williams, Carteret and Newcastle (1943).
CHAPTER 4. THE SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARLY HANOVERIAN REGIME, 1714–1757
The Identity of Britain
Many of the titles listed for Chapter 2 under ‘The Glorious Revolution and the Unity of Britain’ will once more be helpful, especially Colley, Claydon, Foster, Kearney, Grant and Stringer, and Stone. A helpful essay in this subject by Colin Kidd may be found in H. Dickinson’s Companion (2002). Three volumes command immediate attention: S. J. Connolly, R. A. Houston and R. J. Morris, eds, Conflict, Identity and Economic Development: Ireland and Scotland, 1600-1939 (1995); S. G. Ellis and S. Barber, eds, Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State, 1485-1725 (1995); J. Hoppitt, Parliaments, Nations, Identities: Britain and Ireland 1650-1850 (2003). General works of some significance include K. Kumar, The Making of English National Identity (2003) and A. Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (2003). See also the essay by B. Lenman in J. Black, eds, British Politics and Society in the Age of Walpole (1990). More detailed general and comparative accounts include L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (1992); A. Murdoch, British History, 1660-1832 (1998); P. Ihalainen, Protestant Nationalism Redefined, 1685-1772 (2005); E. W. McFarland, Ireland and Scotland in the Age of Revolutions (1994); K. Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England (1995); T. M. Devine and D. Dickson, eds, Ireland and Scotland 1600–1850: Parallels and Contrasts in Economic and Social Development (1983); J. Livesey, Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (2009); C. Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600-1800 (1999). The two essays on Ireland and Scotland by H. Ayton and D. Szechi in C. Jones, ed., Britain in the First Age of Party (1987) are particularly illuminating. The essay by D. Szechi and D. Hayton, ‘John Bull’s Other Kingdoms: the English Government of Scotland and Ireland’, in C. Jones, ed., Britain in the First Age of Party, 1680-1715 (1987) goes far towards outlining the problems of governing three states.
On Ireland, see the relevant sections of I. MacBride, Eighteenth Century Ireland; the Isle of Slaves (2009); J. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland, 1660–1760 (1992); D. Hayton, The Irish Parliament in the Eighteenth Century: the Long Apprenticeship (2001); D. Hayton, Ruling Ireland,1685-1742: Politics, Politicians and Parties (2004); J. C. Becket, The Making of Modern Ireland (1965); T. W. Moody and W. E. Vaughan, A New History of Ireland, vol. IV (1986);
L. M. Cullen, Anglo-Irish Trade, 1600–1801 (1968); F. G. Jones, Ireland in the Empire, 1666–1770 (1973); T. Bartlett, The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question, 1690–1830 (1992); T. Claydon and I. MacBride, Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland c. 1650-c. 1850 (1998); D. Dickson, New Foundations: Ireland 1660-1800, 2nd edn (2000); J. Kelly and M. J. Powell, Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth Century Ireland (2010); J. P. McNally, Parties, Patriots and Undertakers: Party Politics in Early Hanoverian Ireland (1997); D. C. Boyce, Political Discourse in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Ireland (2001); C. McGrath, The Making of the Eighteenth Century Irish Constitution: Government, Parliament and Revenue, 1692-1714 (2000); P. Clark and R. Gillespie, eds, Two Capitals: London and Dublin, 1500-1840 (2001); T. McLoughlin, Contesting Ireland: Irish Voices against England in the Eighteenth Century (1999).
The situation in Scotland is dealt with in the relevant sections of C. Whatley, Scottish Society, 1707-1830 (2000). Two books which have implications far beyond their somewhat daunting titles are C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland’s Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creation of an Anglo-British Identity, 1689–1830 (1993) and M. Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain; Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685-1789 (1997). T. C. Smout’s, A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (1970) remains a classic. Other works include T. M. Devine and J. R. Young, eds, Eighteenth Century Scotland: New Perspective (1999); A. Murdoch, ‘The People Above’: Politics and Administration in Mid-eighteenth Century Scotland (1980, 2000); J. S. Shaw, The Management of Scottish Society, 1707-64 (1983); R. Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage: Scotland 1603–1745 (1983); and W. Ferguson, Scotland’s Relations with England to 1707 (1977). On economic themes see R. H. Campbell, Scotland Since 1707: The Rise of an Industrial Society (1985); H. Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (1963); B. Lenman, An Economic History of Modern Scotland, 1660–1976 (1977); J. S. Shaw, The Management of Scottish Society, 1707–1764 (1983) and for the economic underpinnings of Jacobitism. B. Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain, 1689–1746 (1980).
For Wales, first see G. H. Jenkins’s introduction to eighteenth-century Wales in H. Dickinson’s Companion before turning to his The Foundations of Modern Wales, 1642–1780 (1987). See also P. Morgan, A New History of Wales: The Eighteenth Century Renaissance (1981); D. Howell, The Rural Poor in Eighteenth Century Wales (2000); D. Howell, Patriarchs and Parasites (1986).
The Ruling Order: Oligarchy and Deference
Once again, volumes from an earlier section, Chapter 1, under ‘Economy’, will be found useful. There is a particularly fine chapter in Speck’s Stability and Strife (ch. 6, ‘The Making of the English Ruling Class’). P. Jenkins provides a welcome shift of emphasis in his The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry, 1640–1790 (1983). F. M. L. Thompson, Gentrification and the Enterprise Culture, Britain 1780-1980 (2001) is a rounded commentary on the social and economic place of the aristocracy. General treatments of the aristocracy include J. Beckett, The Aristocracy of England, 1660–1914 (1986); D. Cannadine, Lords and Landlords (1980), J. Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (1997) and F. M. L. Thompson, ‘Landownership and Economic Growth in England in the Eighteenth Century’, in E. L. Jones and S. J. Woolf, eds, Agrarian Change and Economic Development (1969). For a
broader survey there is H. M. Scott, European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1998).
On aristocratic culture, see M. Henry’s essay on ‘Elite Culture’, in H. Dickinson’s Companion (2002). Major works include L. Davidoff, Best Circles: Society, Etiquette and the Season (1973); R. Wilson and A. Mackey, Creating Paradise: The Building of the English Country House, 1660-1880 (2000); C. Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century (1980); P. and C. Hammond, Life in the Eighteenth Century Country House (2013). On landscape and gardening, see T. Williamson, Polite Landscape: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth Century England (1995); D. Coke and E. Borg, Vauxhall Gardens: A History (2011).
The Habakkuk thesis of the consolidation of landed estates was outlined in three papers: ‘The Rise and Fall of English Landed Families, 1680–1800’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1979, 1980 and 1981), as well as in ‘English Landownership, 1680–1740’, Economic History Review, 10 (1939–40). Reconsiderations of this interpretation can be found in J. Beckett’s papers, ‘English Landownership in the later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Economic History Review, 30 (1977), and ‘The Pattern of Landownership in England and Wales, 1660–1880’, Economic History Review, 37 (1984). His later statement may be found in Marriage, Debt and the Estates System: English Landownership 1650-1950 (1994). Other important contributions to this debate have issued from C. Clay, ‘Marriage, Inheritance and the Rise of Large Estates in England, 1660–1815’, Economic History Review, 21 (1968); C. Clay, ‘Landlords and Estate Management’, in J. Thirsk, ed., Agricultural History of England and Wales, v. 1640–1750 (1984); J. V. Beckett, ‘The Decline of the Small Landowner in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England: Some Regional Considerations’, Agricultural History Review, 30 (1982).
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