English Historical Studies During the Revolutionary Years

The historiography of Great Britain turned from transcribing the travails of kings and princes to the connection of the masses to the elites in the early 19th century. Much like German and American historiography, British studies of history was influenced by the revolutions that took place within its own empire (the United States) and within the theater of European affairs (France). While the public universities of England maintained their ability to instruct history to students, history also became involved in public affairs and the development of the British Empire in post-revolutionary Europe. The connection between the two was made by the study of philology, or the origins and development of language. Philology became a driving force in European historiography because after the Napoleonic Wars, language was seen as an important distinguishing force between nations.

Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” sounded the essential theme of postrevolutionary historiography. Three points made Burke’s analysis of the French Revolution important for British historiography. One point was that a good society was shaped by wisdom and the tradition of a significant amount of generations, unlike the tumult caused during the French Revolution. To this point, Burke makes a second, more general point that history should prove to be the supreme instructional tool of reason for enlightened leaders. Finally, the reasoning behind the French Revolution and the general use of weak reasoning and arguments would ultimately result not in democracy but in anarchy. This argument was never rejected but ultimately revised when the French Revolution failed to produce a viable democracy in its original form.

Thomas Macauley’s “History of England from the Accession of James II” demonstrated the modern England was not an accidental creation but a slowly developed political entity. Macauley considers the Magna Carta to be the onset of the march to liberty in English history and the author spends much of his time reconciling history, present, and future of England without sacrificing one or the others. While Macauley’s book, like Burke’s, was well written and an eloquent presentation of English history, it did not take off into a popular historical project. Macauley was naive to the field of historiography, as German historians were preparing for the new historiography of scientific standards and British historians were taking a back seat to historians in Europe and North America.

While these two writers, along with others like Henry Hallam, wrote about the connection between history and politics through philology, they went to pains to show that there were tensions between the public and their leaders. Thomas Carlyle, like Friedrich Nietzsche, saw the future of Europe and the world through a Great Men theory, which saw the true hope for change lying within either the people as a whole or a heroic leader to take these people into a democratic future. In Carlyle’s view, the French Revolution was at the least successful in ridding France of archaic institutions, if not totally successful at establishing a democratic society. Hallam’s “View on the State of Europe during the Middle Ages” saw England’s destiny to be a moderation between monarchy and democracy. English historiography may have faced challenges from strong European nations and a young American nation, but these writings are still read today as works of great historiography. Certainly, their legacy is not tarnished if their historical analyses are in the slight bit tainted by their contemporary biases.