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Review
| The Hanoverians: The History of a Dynasty, by Jeremy Black. New York: Hambledon and London, 2004. 288 pages. $29.95, cloth.
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| In his latest book, the prolific Jeremy Black sets out to rescue the Hanoverian Dynasty from the margins of British political history. Black focuses on the Kings and Queens themselves, and wisely avoids constructing a grand, political narrative that might possibly overshadow his original subject. This method helps clarify his central argument: that "Whig" historians, limited by their fixation on Parliament and powerful ministers like Walpole and Pitt, have underestimated the political acumen of the Hanoverian monarchs. Black argues that the dynasty dealt successfully with critical challenges ranging from Jacobitism to Jacobinism, and in the process strengthened the place of the monarchy in British political culture. |
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In the first chapter, "The House of Hanover," Black provides an overview of the book's themes. Georges I and II defeated Jacobite rebellions and intrigue, and unlike their Stuart predecessors, produced Protestant heirs that enabled the British monarchy to stand against Catholicism, autocracy, and French aggression. The Germanic Hanoverian monarchs thus became patriotic symbols of English Protestant liberty defined against French, Jacobite, and Catholic treachery. This transformation in political culture was self-consciously cultivated by George III, whose Anglican piety and calculated nationalism enhanced the popular appeal of the monarchy. Black also makes astute points in the chapter concerning Hanoverian constitutional theory, contending that it rejected Stuart divine right absolutism and embraced the idea of a popularly accountable monarch whose sovereign power could only be exercised in accordance with the rule of law. |
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The book advances a valuable analysis of why the dynasty maintained strong political ties with its Hanoverian homeland in Germany, and how this made the kings' ultimately successful transition to British political culture exceptionally difficult. Through the lens of the Seven Years War, Black argues that limited monarchies like Hanoverian England's were better able to face down foreign rivals than more centralized nation-states like France and Spain. But Black also recognizes that by protecting the fortunes of their German territories, the Hanoverians sometimes played into the hands of their Jacobite critics and continental rivals. In stifling their autocratic sensibilities and working efficiently with ambitious ministers, the Hanoverians defined the British monarchy against its continental counterparts, and gave the institution the protean strength to handle constantly unfolding crises. |
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Chapters four through eight are devoted respectively to the five Hanoverian monarchs, George the First through George the Fourth, and William IV. The best work in this section deals with George III, whose ascension to the throne in 1761 marked the end of the British Monarchy's Baroque period. George accomplished this by reinventing the popular image of the sovereign as a "Patriot King." Born in England unlike his two predecessors, he never visited Hanover and although a patron of the German composer Handel, he also absorbed works of English political theory by Bolingbroke, Burnett, Clarendon, and Burke. As King, he disdained partisan factionalism and pursued a "contract" theory of Kingship. George's ability to compromise with ministers that he liked (Bute, North, and Pitt) as well as ministers and politicians that he despised (Fox, Grenville and the Rockingham Whigs) helped steer an increasingly flexible political system through the daunting challenges presented by international republicanism. |
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Although an innovative work, Black's book contains methodological and interpretive problems. Declaring war against "Whig" scholarship, Black neglects to discuss this voluminous historiography and thereby misses an opportunity to highlight the scholarly significance of his own argument. His footnotes do not reveal an intensive engagement with the secondary literature. In terms of interpretation, the author puts the monarchy at center stage in eighteenth century politics, but neglects to explore in any sustained way its contributions to the expansion of the British Empire. With his avid concentration on foreign policy, this seems inexplicable, particularly in lieu of the rising tide of Atlantic perspectives in British historical scholarship. Black heaps praise on the political savvy of Hanoverian monarchs. But we never really discover from his discussions whether their policies were a matter of shrewd statecraft in times of acute political crises, or just their collective recognition that if they behaved in the continental fashion of their Stuart predecessors, they, like them, might end up headless and/or throneless. Finally, Black unfortunately shortens the discussion of Hanoverian Protestant bigotry and support for the slave trade in an era when religious toleration and emancipation were on the rise, even among the British political elite. Despite these criticisms, Black's concise historical summary has accomplished what he set out to do: to rescue the Hanoverian kings from their undeservedly marginal place in British history. |
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| Mount Lebanon High School, Pittsburgh, PA |
John Leo Donoghue |
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