England in the Age of the American Revolution

England in the Age of the American Revolution was written by Lewis Namier in 1930. A second edition (ISBN: 9780333055595) was published in 1961.

Primary/Secondary Source

The author conducted research on a massive set of letters and papers. Most are the correspondence of George III or Newcastle. In no particular order, the author documents:

• The power (and therefore constitutional) conflict between George II and the Pelham government

  • See p.46 for a conversation between Hardwicke and the king; the context is Carteret being forced out of government, and the Broadbottom (sic.) government of Pulteney being defeated.

• The methods that Newcastle employed as the royal agent in the Parliament:

  • categorizing MPs into factions, and tallying expected votes (p.175, p.205, p.209)
  • electioneering with attention to government budget

    • Lord Kinnoull to Newcastle in 1760: "First then let it be agreed that no person in possession of a seat who has acted heartily with the Administration... should be disturbed" (p.115)

  • He offered his personal evluation of a Parliament's composition on pp.155-156.

  • "If at the very outset of George Ill’s reign a double Government seemed to emerge, it was because Sir Robert Walpole, Henry Pelham, and Newcastle had provided the King with the effective means for managing the House of Commons, and Pitt prevented him from using these means in the natural manner." (p.161)

• Dissatisfaction with idea of entering opposition
  • Summarized on pp.48-51.

  • John White, MP, to Newcastle: "[A] long life spent in the service of this countery [sic] must not conclude with a too precipitate retreat." (p.124)

  • See pp.136-137 are a dialogue between Newcastle and Hardwicke about leaving government without going into opposition.

• Newcastle's apprehensions about the power Pitt wielded.
  • Newcastle to George II: "No man, Sir, will, in the present conjuncture, set his face against Mr. Pitt in the House of Commons." (p.74)
  • Newcastle to Hardwicke: "Mr. Pitt wishes to have a Parliament of Great Britain as like the Common Council of London as possible; and then he thinks, he shall be master of them" (p.135)
  • Pitt refused to serve under Bute, so Newcastle refused to appoint Bute (p.147, p.159, pp.164-165)
• Conflict between the new court, upon succession of George III, and the Whig establishment:

  • George III and Bute saw Newcastle and Pitt as enemies (p.95).

  • Cumberland and Fox were seen as even worse

    • Newcastle to Mansfield: "Leicester House is so much frighten’d with this new Administration, that they wish to make up with me" (p.94).
  • "Mr. Pitt and Mr. Grenville certainly wish’d to continue the War during the King’s life; that the Prince of Wales might find the nation in War; and, consequently, that they should be the more necessary" (p.59)
  • Newcastle saw an incompatibility in acting as the royal agent in Parliament and being out of favor

    • Newcastle to Joseph Yorke, a younger son of Hardwicke: "the money’d men of the City said that my bare continuing in office would not be sufficient for them to lend such immense sums of money; but that they must see some duration" (p.127)

    • George III and Bute perceived Newcastle as trying to create himself "Roy d'Angleterre" (p.127)
    • pp.134-135 summarize the situation of Newcastle feeling imposed upon to electioneer without control over the preferred candidates...
    • ...though the ultimate list of preferred candidates (p.154) only numbers 3; implication is that either Newcastle's power was preeminent, or that the new court was uninterested in electioneering (which leads into...)
• Bute's (lack of) ability in electioneering (pp.142-143)

  • Fitzmaurice (who is, on a side note, referred to variably as Fitzmaurice or Shelburne throughout the book) attempted to assist/advise Bute in approaching Newcastle about electioneering (p.144), and drafted a shortlist for preferred candidates (p.152) (reproduced on p.154: Mr. Parker, Lord Britton [Breton], Mr. Worsley)

• Other politics of the Bute ministry:

  • Grenville being shuffled around to accommodate other appointments (p.353)

  • Fox coordinating the retaliation against Newcastle (who now formally went into opposition) by purging Newcastle era appointees (pp.404-408).
  • The acceptability of a "power behind the throne" (pp.161-162)
    • Pitt opposed the idea (p.121), and tried to strengthen his coalition with Newcastle in response (p.123)

Political Theory

The author also editorialized/philosophizes in the opening chapters.

The House of Commons was variably representative. Functioned more as a jury that provides expertise as to what the public opinion favored.

• Parliament became more prestigious, including the Commons. The rich and powerful began to monopolize the seats.
• The landed gentry that won election to the Commons rarely participated in governance.

• Pocket boroughs 'owned' by landlords and the extremely wealthy, or by the crown via the Treasury and Admiralty.

• Rotten boroughs that can be purchased by 'new money'.
• Rural democracy was nonexistant as freeholders declined, as tenant farmers (owing their vote to landlords) accumulated, and as village laborers were too few to effectively riot (p.180).

• "Charles James Fox entered Parliament at the age of nineteen, and the younger Pitt became First Lord of the Treasury at twenty-four. Facts like these seem to have fostered the idea that the House of Commons consisted largely of immature youths, a belief which apparently prevailed even at that time. In 1776, a careful observer, Samuel Curwen--a Judge of the Admiralty at Boston who had come to England as a loyalist refugee--referred to the House of Commons as ‘that assembly of untutored, inexperienced youths, (for half, I believe, have not seen thirty,) called the Parliament of Great Britain, or the great council of the nation’. [Journal and Letters of the late Samuel Curwen, ed. by George Atkinson Ward (1842), p. 87] When he wrote these words, men under thirty formed in reality about one-eighth, not one-half, of the House--more or less the same proportion as men over sixty." (p.215)

There were antecedents to political parties.

• The first two Hanoverian kings were directly involved in government. The Whigs the king's approved 'party'.

• Tories were ineffective, party or otherwise; Jacobite sympathizers were systemically sidelined.

• The Whig Split created an actual opposition, but division did not outlive power shifting back towards Walpole.

  • Division returned when favor shifted towards Cumberland and Fox, but correspondence with Hardwicke and Mansfield convinced Newcastle against it (pp.49-51)

Structurally and culturally, England was predisposed towards governance with a focus on commerce and mercantilism.

• As an island nation, England with Scotland and Wales are unitary. A coup, revolt, or invasion has necessarily been a complete and thorough takeover, never a fragmenting of power.
  • Last invasion was 1066.
• As a unitary island nation, military investment is almost entirely in the navy. The military power is thus kept away from home and at the colonies.
• Lacking any need for a martial role, landed feudal powers were relegated to administrative roles.
  • Merchants held roughly equal social standing to the landed gentry.
  • Some anecdotes of new wealth purchasing estates and 'inheriting' the corresponding seats in the Commons.

At the end of the Seven Years War, debate over territorial concessions from the French seems to have been a geopolitical security issue.

• Geopolitical security issue following Seven Years' War
  • The formulation of demands in peace process was largely dictated by perceptions of what would cause a spiraling security dilemma
    • Major preoccupation with securing Canada.
      • There was at least some consideration of how the presence of the French military in Canada restrained colonial independence.
    • Other territorial gains that were considered: Louisiana, Newfoundland, Guadalupe, Neutrall Islands, Senegal, Goree, Menorca
    • If Newfoundland was demanded, fishing rights of those waters could also be used as a bargaining chip.

      • Bedford was an opponent of the war and also an opponent of these territorial demands. In particular, he believed conflict would be inevitable if England extracted a concession for exclusive fishery of Newfoundland.

    • Lord Morton (having a lot of trouble determining who this is...) explicitly made the geopolitical security argument that others danced around (pp.277-278).

Following the Seven Years War, there was interest in the American colonies to be reorganized as a state rather than a frontier. English politics were entirely focused on trade administration for the new territory.

• First American-born in the Commons was John Huske, from New Hampshire, representing Maldon from 1763-1773.
• London and Bristol both elected an American-born merchant after conflict started (p.230).
• Despite massive deployment of the Army to the Americas during the Seven Years War, only 6 of the 59 Army officers returned as members of Parliament in 1761 had any experience there. They were largely from the Guard, which was not deployed to the Americas.
  • Author blames cultural and religious differences (esp. Puritans in New England socially rejecting the rowdy soldiers)... and the number of Scottish officers posted there...
• By contrast, the West Indians held outsized influence. This leads to...

West Indians as a scapegoat.

• Perception as a large and controlling special interest group.

  • See p.234: A short Sketch on the Transactions that led to the new Regulations of Commerce that have lately been agitated in Favour of the Colonies, Gent. Mag., vol. xxxvi. p.229, as evidence of there being 40+ "West Indians" in the Commons in 1766.

  • The author devises a novel definition of "West Indian" and counts 13 in 1761.
• American politicians blamed "West Indian" interest groups for, e.g., the Sugar Act.
• Some examples of negotiated compromise through merchants and the Board of Trade (pp.252-254).

Author reduces the rise of the Tories to childish rivalry between the king and crown prince. Heirs are inexorably drawn to opposite politics and their enmity to their fathers blends with/bleeds into enmity to their fathers' advisors.

• Uses the allegory of...
  • Rudolf of Austria criticizing the "constitutional advisors" of Franz Joseph I with "ill-chosen confidants", and "profess[ing] liberal views" just to counter his conservative father
  • Frederick of Germany developed an "advanced liberalism" just to oppose William I, and William II ("though not a liberal") did still dismiss Bismarck.

Reading Notes

I have never read such a spirited defense for imperialism, restricting suffrage to landowners, patriarchy, etc. I think it's for the best that Namier is long dead, I would struggle to accept such a person as a contemporary.

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