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The Survival of the British MonarchyThe Prothero Lecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

I USE as my epigraph a famous remark by Joseph Chamberlain— fit to be included in that rich anthology of unlucky forecasts, of which classic examples are Pitt's fifteen years of peace in February 1792, and Neville Chamberlain's ‘I think it is peace for our time’, in 1938. To Charles Dilke, Joseph Chamberlain wrote, in 1871: ’The Republic must come, and at the rate at which we are moving, it will come in our generation.’1

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1986

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References

1 Gwynn, S. and Tuckwell, G. M., The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke (1917), i. 140Google Scholar.

2 Lipset, S. M., Political Man: the Social Bases of Politics (1963 edn.), 78Google Scholar. Lipset went on to suggest that the existence of hereditary monarchy, by making it easier for the traditional classes to accept egalitarian democracy, eased the process of transition.

3 Shils, E. and Young, M., ‘The meaning of the coronation’, Sociological Review (1953), i, no. 2, pp. 6381CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birnbaum, N., ‘Monarchs and sociologists—a reply’, Sociological Review (1955), iii, no. 1, pp. 523CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 Now is the time: a scheme for a commonwealth (Somers Tracts) is sometimes referred to as a republican pamphlet. But in fact it sketches out a plan for limited monarchy, rather on the lines adopted in Sweden in 1721. Kramnick, I., Bolingbroke and his Circle: the Politics of Nostalgia in the age of Walpole (Cambridge, Mass., 1968Google Scholar) makes the point that many so-called republicans were just supporters of limited monarchy. Toland admitted that he hardly knew one genuine republican.

7 Hobbledehoys, turn up in ‘The Anarchie, or the Blest Reformation since 1640’, a ballad in Political Ballads published in England during the Commonwealth (1841), ed. Wright, T. for the Percy Soc.Google ScholarFlecknoe, R., Aenigmaticall Characters, all taken to the life (1658), 76Google Scholar, gives examples of the humiliations of the peerage during the Commonwealth.

8 The point was made, in the discussion that followed my paper, that, in that sense, the monarchy did not survive at all.

10 The Diary of Sylas Neville, ed. Cozens-Hardy, B. (1950), 14Google Scholar, 40, 59, 188. Horace Walpole described himself elegantly as ‘a quiet republican, who does not dislike to see the shadow of monarchy’; Memoirs of King George II, ed. Brooke, J. (1985), ii. 34, iii. 45Google Scholar.

11 Diary of Sylas Neville, 51.

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24 The article was by Harney, who acted as secretary: Cowen was treasurer. Cowen MSS, B.31, B–32.

25 The Times, 14 Dec. 1864. See also 1 and 6 Apr. 1864.

26 Gwynn and Tuckwell, i.139. Reported in full in Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 7 Nov. 1871. See Gossman, N. J., ‘Republicanism in nineteenth century England’, International Review of Social History, vii (1962), 4760CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 A copy of this rather rare pamphlet is in the Bodleian Library.

28 1st edn. (1872); 2nd edn., revised and largely rewritten (1873).

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35 Harrison, 219; National Reformer, 8 Dec. 1872.

36 National Reformer, 10 Aug. 1873.

37 Hansard, , Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser. ccx, 19 03 1872Google Scholar, cols. 251–317. Dilke was accused of having broken his oath of allegiance and Gladstone attempted to show that the grant was lower than in previous reigns.

38 Harrison, 244.

39 Quoted Royle, 206.

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41 See, e.g. Moorhouse, H. F., ‘The Marxist theory of the labour aristocracy’, Social History, iii (1978)Google Scholar; Reid, A, ‘Politics and economics in the formation of the British working class: a response to H. F. Moorhouse’, Social History, iii (1978)Google Scholar; Moor-house, H. F., ‘History, sociology and the quiescence of the British working class: a reply to Reid’, Social History, iv, (1979)Google Scholar; Reid, A., ‘Response to Moorhouse’, Social History, iv, (1979)Google Scholar; McLennan, G., ‘“The Labour aristocracy” and “Incorporation”; notes on some terms in the social history of the working class’, Social History, vi (1981)Google Scholar; Moorhouse, H.F., ‘The significance of the labour aristocracy’, Social History, vi, (1981)Google Scholar.

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44 With great reluctance he gave assurances to Asquith that he would create peers if necessary. The alternative was to accept Asquith's resignation and ask Balfour to form a ministry. Even if Balfour agreed, which was doubtful, he had no majority and would have had to ask for a dissolution. It would have been very difficult at the general election to have kept the King's conduct out of public debate.

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50 Finer, S. E., Comparative Government (1970)Google Scholar, ch. 5.

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52 See n. 3.

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55 Nairn, op. cit.