One of the remarkable continuities of British history is the absence of fanaticism. There is no equivalent of the continental tradition of anti-Semitism (the occasional Plantagenet pogroms being debt repudiation schemes rather than ethnic crusades). There is surprisingly little Protestant-Catholic violence, despite the Tudor burnings, as most of the country seemed happy to change with fashion (the French massacres of the Huguenots stand in contrast to the English preference for punishment by denial of access to Oxford, Cambridge and Parliament). The one exception to this tradition is the reign of Cromwell whose combination of martial brilliance and religious fanaticism was as alien to England as it was effective. The failure of the Commonwealth shortly after Cromwell’s death marked the end of absolute rule in England.
The democratic institutions, which had existed in some form and accessible only to the elite since the fourteenth century, were already at that time sufficiently robust, sufficiently entrenched that their suspension and direct rule have proved beyond any prospective potentate ever since. The English conceptualization of liberty as something expressed in a negative sense (freedom from authority, rather than the continental sense of national greatness arising through concentrated authority) may now be seen as a meaningful political force. It was to go on to have a significant influence on international affairs – one of the significant reasons for which those parts of the Empire populated by expatriates proved so head-strong and independent was that this government model proved to be equally durable on foreign soil as at home.
A very English Revolution in that it began at an Oxford college and escalated over a disagreement an arcane procedural point, the glorious Revolution finalized English religious identity and constitutional structure at what was comparatively a very early stage in national life. When Parliament, resentful of the religious tolerance which James II had associated himself with, invited William of Orange to take the throne with his wife Mary, it cemented the notion that survives to the current day that the monarch rules with the consent of the nation, not through divine right. Moreover, it locked in the aggressively Protestant style of national administration that built the colonial empire, and in removing James ensured the enmity of France, an enmity that lasted till the late 19th century.
No one single moment brought the current constitutional arrangements uniting the constituent components of the UK into being. England formalized its de facto union with Wales in two early sixteenth century Laws in Wales Acts, which both extended the English justice system to cover Wales and provided for Welsh representation at Westminster. Likewise, the Union of the Crowns, which came in 1603 with the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English and Irish thrones, provided for a private dynastic union but not a political or institutional union with Scotland.
The Act of Union came about when this arrangement broke down under the pressure of the English Alien Act, which formalized the status of Scottish citizens as foreign nationals and placed an embargo on sales of Scottish goods into England. This pressure, and a generous dollop of bribes to Scottish political power brokers, secured the union that England had long sought as a means of protecting its northern border. The Scottish intellectual revolution as well as its military and engineering prowess would henceforth be allied with English capital and the Royal Navy. The most successful national union in history was born.
Slavery was never legal on British soil, a fact confirmed in Somerset v Stewart in 1772, a judgement which may have had the unfortunate consequence of fueling the separationist movement in the American colonies. Slavery prospered beyond Britain, however. The Arab and African slave trades were well established prior to the appearance of Europeans in Africa, but the appalling deprivations suffered by those unfortunate souls captured, chained and transported on British and European ships to the New World persuaded Britain it had a duty to act. The resulting parliamentary bill did not abolish slavery in the Empire (that was to return in 1833), but it did abolish the slave trade, not just for British ships, but for everyone. Moreover, this was an act with teeth. The formation of the West Africa Squadron, which went on to free 150,000 Africans meant that naval dominance translated into the imposition of Britain’s moral stance on other empires, whether they liked it or not.
Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo put to an end French dreams of European mastery. It confirmed the lesson from Blenheim a century earlier – that Britain was capable (through a mixture of bribery and naval coercion) to place along land armies capable of maintaining order in Europe. The failure of Napoleon was also the failure of the Continental System, and a demonstration that Britain’s trading influence was already so great that removing her from European markets would affect the continent more than it would Britain. The Battle of Waterloo had profound effects for the British. Firstly, it put to an end the battle over land in Europe, which had lasted from the fall of Rome. Peace would reign until the Crimea, not a sign that Europe was unimportant, but a sign that land here was now so important that it could not be won without a holocaust.
The next great conflicts in Western Europe would be total wars, a form in which Britain was very poorly placed to participate (both in terms of manpower and a liberal political tradition). Secondly, balance in Europe unleashed the scramble for territories elsewhere – from Africa to the Pacific – which were to prove both echo points for British civilization, but also points of little economic contribution and ingrained strategic overstretch. When the great conflict did arrive, the obligation to guard all points against Sydney to Gibraltar diluted British battlefield presence and naval advantage. Finally, the peace that Western Europe now enjoyed till 1870 marked the only real achievement of that perpetual aim of British foreign policy – a self-sustaining balance of power in Europe, something never before or after achieved without active British involvement.
Slavery was never legal on British soil, a fact confirmed in Somerset v Stewart in 1772, a judgement which may have had the unfortunate consequence of fueling the separationist movement in the American colonies. Slavery prospered beyond Britain, however. The Arab and African slave trades were well established prior to the appearance of Europeans in Africa, but the appalling deprivations suffered by those unfortunate souls captured, chained and transported on British and European ships to the New World persuaded Britain it had a duty to act. The resulting parliamentary bill did not abolish slavery in the Empire (that was to return in 1833), but it did abolish the slave trade, not just for British ships, but for everyone. Moreover, this was an act with teeth. The formation of the West Africa Squadron, which went on to free 150,000 Africans meant that naval dominance translated into the imposition of Britain’s moral stance on other empires, whether they liked it or not.
Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo put to an end French dreams of European mastery. It confirmed the lesson from Blenheim a century earlier – that Britain was capable (through a mixture of bribery and naval coercion) to place along land armies capable of maintaining order in Europe. The failure of Napoleon was also the failure of the Continental System, and a demonstration that Britain’s trading influence was already so great that removing her from European markets would affect the continent more than it would Britain. The Battle of Waterloo had profound effects for the British. Firstly, it put to an end the battle over land in Europe, which had lasted from the fall of Rome. Peace would reign until the Crimea, not a sign that Europe was unimportant, but a sign that land here was now so important that it could not be won without a holocaust.
The next great conflicts in Western Europe would be total wars, a form in which Britain was very poorly placed to participate (both in terms of manpower and a liberal political tradition). Secondly, balance in Europe unleashed the scramble for territories elsewhere – from Africa to the Pacific – which were to prove both echo points for British civilization, but also points of little economic contribution and ingrained strategic overstretch. When the great conflict did arrive, the obligation to guard all points against Sydney to Gibraltar diluted British battlefield presence and naval advantage. Finally, the peace that Western Europe now enjoyed till 1870 marked the only real achievement of that perpetual aim of British foreign policy – a self-sustaining balance of power in Europe, something never before or after achieved without active British involvement.
