Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837

Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837

thumb| Britons, 3rd edition
Author	Linda Colley
Language	English
Subject	British History, Nationalism
Genre	Academic History
Publisher	Yale University Press
Publication place	United States
Pages	xxxi, 442, illus.
ISBN	978-0300152807
Dewey Decimal	941.07 C
LC Class	DA485.C65 2009

Britons aims to chart the emergence of British identity from the Act of Union in 1707 with Scotland and Wales to the beginning of the Victorian age in 1837. British identity, she argues, is the result of both what unites the Britons and what sets them apart from others: as a Protestant state defined against a largely Catholic Europe; as an island nation with a strong navy in contrast to the military and land-based nations on the Continent; as a metropole with colonial peoples across the globe; and as a rival to France, as the frequent wars with France throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth century allowed the Britons to unite against a common enemy and display their patriotism. Colley concludes her analysis of the causes of emerging British identity by questioning the ability of that identity to survive in the future, now that so much of what made the Britons British – religion, Empire, disaffiliation from the Continent – has been lost. Britons won the Wolfson History Prize in 1992.

Methodology

Colley focuses more on civilian engagements with the nation than on military and political ones and is careful to avoid an insular approach to British history.

Chapter Summaries

Protestants

Colley describes the period after the 1707 Act of Union, when the British isles were infinitely diverse in regional and cultural loyalties but developed a sense of “Britishness” in response to perceived differences from the world outside the British Isles. A common commitment to Protestantism provided Britons with a unifying history and a constant enemy in Catholic France, Britain’s enemy for a century of bloody conflict: the image of Britain as Jerusalem, a nation elect but perenially embattled, was a culturally persistent one that excluded both foreigners and British Catholics. British exceptionalism was assisted by material reasons for pride, as well, especially the fruitful system of liberal commerce and the stability of Hanoverian-style parliamentarianism—all these were linked in public discourse to the Protestant faith. Although it contained strong chauvinistic elements, Colley notes, British Protestant identity also helped to provide a sense of pride for quotidian life and a singular opportunity for national unity.

Profits

This chapter explores the ways the growth of British trade and mercantilism contributed to the development of British identity. Though the landed gentry dominated politics and traders depended on the ruling class for domestic stability and naval protection overseas, merchants served as the engine of state growth and as national creditors, fostering a new unity between the middle and upper classes. Colley contends that the Jacobite insurrection of 1745 against the Hanoverian government was unsuccessful because the twin forces of Protestantism and the financial interests of the merchant class motivated Britons to stand firmly against a Catholic Stuart uprising and the economic destabilization it would bring.

Peripheries

In “Peripheries,” Colley describes how originally the small and relatively uniform British Empire was united against the Other, especially Catholic Europe, through British ideals of Protestantism, commerce, and liberty. However, this unity was shaken after the overwhelming success of the Seven Years' War which left Britain with a huge and utterly foreign empire to rule, turning Britain into a military power and forcing her citizens to re-examine their definition of Britishness and empire in light of these new peripheries. In this turbulent time, Colley sees John Wilkes as an embodiment of Englishness and largely credits him with developing an English national character in opposition to the Scots; however, after Scotland supplied manpower in the Seven Years’ war, the Scottish periphery became integrated into the nation and government, raising English fear and suspicion. Losing the American Revolutionary War a few years later, served to strengthen British identity, making the country more patriotic and attached to ideas of monarchy, military, and empire; as Britain fought and lost one of the peripheral portions of her empire, the British nation was forced to reexamine what it meant to be a patriot.

Dominance

According to Linda Colley, Great Britain’s crushing defeat in the American Revolution prompted concerns about the foundation and definition of British identity; traditional bonds were not enough to preserve the ties between the colonists and mainland Great Britain, leading to a reexamination of the national identity. Colley explains that the British governing elite’s failure to lead the nation to victory made the public question its utility; however, over the next half century, during extreme changes and conflict abroad and at home, the British governing elite managed to recover its prestige, growing in size, homogeneity, and power. In the end, she argues that the elite’s shift in its cultural focus from the continent to the island, combined with existing population trends, helped cement its value to the populace as a mainstay of authentic British culture. Indeed, Colley claims that many staples of British cultural life, such as grand military uniforms and fox-hunting, originate from the elite’s cultural transformation.

Majesty

“Majesty,” Linda Colley’s fifth chapter, traces the evolution of the role of monarchy in Britain throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries from the Hanoverian succession of 1714 to George III’s death, and explains how the central figure of monarch helped unite the British people. The British monarchy, unlike virtually every other European monarchy during this time, faced several constraints: parliamentary, financially, and spatially; the monarchs were also constrained by their unpopularity, as both George I and George II were widely disliked on account of their inability to assimilate and their Whig tendencies. George III, however, was more attentive to royal image than his predecessors and came to be beloved by his people, gaining their support through a combination of sympathy, on account of his mental illness and loss in the American war; the politics of the 1780s (which accorded a sense of stability after William Pitt the Younger became prime minister); and the French Revolution and successive Napoleonic Wars, which increased patriotism at home and turned George III into a central figure around which to rally. He also emphasized his role in domestic life – as a father, a husband, and simply an immortal man – to make himself more accessible to the public. By the end of George III’s reign, Colley argues, the monarchy was more British, more splendid, and more economically secure than ever before.

Womanpower

“Womanpower” charts the development of a limited female politics in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, when severe legal restrictions were still imposed on female economic and political activity. The dominant ideology of separate gender spheres—with the woman as private and the man as public—was fiercely asserted in a period of great social transformation for Britain: this backlash, Colley insists, was a response to the destabilization of traditional boundaries as women found political involvement in patriotic activism. These female contributions to the war effort were acceptable because they represented an extension of traditional feminine qualities of virtue and charity into the military sphere—and many women used their role as upholders of morality to become “angels of the state” in a politically active way. Thus a limited politics, as exemplified by Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, became gradually possible for women within the old structure, but not yet as citizens.

Manpower

Linda Colley argues that the government’s need for increased military participation during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had a transformative effect on the general populace's political participation, eventually leading to the public’s demands for increased political power. Because of its total war mentality, the government supported a mass arming and mobilization campaign that was reasonably well supported by the public; however, there were still pockets of resistance throughout the British populace, documented by evaluative government surveys from the era. Primarily, the government faced the difficulty of garnering support from a broad social and geographic base; for example, due to economic inequality, the poor was disproportionally represented in this new armed force. Colley asserts that factors such as cultural views on war, economic need, and self-interest increased the number of volunteers from certain groups, along with more traditional factors like idealism and youth.

Victories?

This chapter describes the 1830s as a period of unprecedented debates over citizenship and of changes in the character of British identity and power; the unity of the British nation was challenged by three reform crises: the expansion of the rights of Catholic citizens, the movement for parliamentary reform, and the abolition of slavery. Colley argues that the new provision of rights to Catholic Britons, under the Emancipation Act of 1829, stemmed largely from an unprecedented diminution in national fear of Catholics, and that the extension of rights to British citizens under the Whig government led by Lord Grey fundamentally redistributed national power. [INSERT SOMETHING ABOUT ABOLITIONISM HERE] Moreover, the loss of British America prompted discussion on British identity, reform, and her “moral integrity”, and resulted in new legislation against slavery, despite its continued economic worth. At the same time that these reform efforts provided a great number of Britons their first opportunity to engage directly in the political life of the nation, the majority of British subjects were still not citizens, calling into question the degree to which Britain was a nation of Britons.

Conclusions

In concluding Britons, Colley begins by reviewing the forces that united Britain as a nation since 1707---firstly war which united Britain’s citizens through conflict with a hostile Other; then Britain’s free trade, urbanization and island geography; and most importantly in Colley’s eyes, Protestantism. Through involvement in war efforts, the British populous became active and patriotic, driven by profit and political gain; however, Colley reveals that regionalism remained in the British consciousness, creating a sense of dual nationality. As debates about British identity resurface today, especially regarding the European Union, Colley notes that the influences which bonded Britons originally are now gone; no longer strongly Protestant, Britain lacks her former commercial and imperial supremacy, as well as a Catholic Other with which to fight and compare herself. Linking the resurgence of English, Scottish, and Welsh identity to the faltering sense of Britishness, Colley explores the possibility of the nation splintering or integrating with Europe, and ultimately concludes that the definition of the British nation is still being created.

References

Linda Colley (2009). Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, revised ed. Yale University Press.

External links

• example.com

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