From: Newton Key <cfnek@eiu.edu>
List Editor: Richard Gorrie <rgorrie@uoguelph.ca>
Editor's Subject: REV: Speck on Cruickshanks, Handley, and Hayton, _Commons 1690-1715_
Author's Subject: REV: Speck on Cruickshanks, Handley, and Hayton, _Commons 1690-1715_
Date Written: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 14:08:59 -0600
Date Posted: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 06:00:23 -0500

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Albion@h-net.msu.edu (February 2003)

[Note also archives on H-Albion Reviews.]

Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley, and David Hayton, ed. _The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1690-1715_. History of Parliament Trust, 5 volumes: I, Introductory Survey, xxix + 958 pp; II, Constituencies, xvi + 945 pp; III, Members A-F, xvi + 1134 pp; IV, Members G-N, xvi + 1052 pp; V, Members O-Z, xvi + 962 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Illustrations, notes, tables, bibliography, CD-ROM, and index. $400.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-77221-4.

Reviewed for H-Albion by Bill Speck <bill.speck@unn.ac.uk>, History Department, University of Northumbria

As Ted Rowlands MP observes in his Foreword "the completion of these volumes has been a thirty-year odyssey during which a large number of people have contributed" (I, p. xi). The three editors spanned the decades, Eveline Cruickshanks directing the project from 1971 to 1990, David Hayton from 1990 to 1994, and Stuart Handley from 1994 to 1999.[1] Hayton wrote the introductory survey which takes up the first volume, and the editors were assisted by twelve contributors to the other volumes. The acknowledgments thank some fifty scholars who provided them with material from their own research, including the present reviewer who hereby declares an interest. He, along with the rest, has waited longer than the period reviewed by this contribution to the _History of Parliament_ for it to appear.

The wait was worthwhile, for not only does it magnificently fill the gap between the volumes for 1660-89 published in 1983, and those for 1715-54, which appeared as long ago as 1970; it also updates their historiographical context. This is particularly the case with the magisterial introductory survey written by David Hayton. Hayton's previous publications have established him as the leading political historian of the period since the death of Geoffrey Holmes, whose unchallenged authority on the politics of the reign of Queen Anne he duly acknowledges. Holmes demonstrated definitively that the principal division was that which polarized the Tory and Whig parties. This fundamental polarity now provides the conceptual framework for the whole period from the Revolution of 1688 to the accession of the house of Hanover, a conclusion which emerges from Hayton's review of secondary works and informs his analysis of the politics of the House of Commons.[2] The latter incidentally contains a narrative of political history from 1690 to 1715 which, in a work which might give the appearance of prolixity, is a model of succinctness. Hayton's investigation of the nature of political parties casts light backwards into the late Stuart period and forward into the early Hanoverian.

The "Introductory Survey" covers far more than parliamentary and electoral politics. There are sections on constituencies and elections, the members, the organization and business of the House, as well as appendices with a wealth of information on the activities of MPs both in and outside the Commons, from their membership of committees to their criminal and immoral predilections. The section on constituencies and elections is indeed the most substantial in the volume, occupying 224 pages. Most of the discussion deals with the electorate and election campaigns. Where some historians, myself included, have tried to calculate the size of the electorate, Hayton rightly points out that not only is this virtually impossible, but it can only be a hypothetical exercise anyway, since what mattered were those electors who actually cast their votes and whom Stephen Baskerville has dubbed the "voterate" (I, p. 40 n. 25). This can be calculated for most constituencies which experienced contests from the numbers of votes cast. Historians have also tried to summarize the results of general elections in terms of party gains and losses. Again those earlier calculations, including my own, are here corrected with as definitive an analysis as could be realized. The section ends with a summary of the measures advocated with varying degrees of success to preserve the pristine purity of the electoral system from the perceived threat to it from corruption. It demonstrates that the period was by no means devoid of efforts at "parliamentary reform," albeit from a conservative rather than a radical viewpoint.

Where the survey of electoral politics draws mainly on the second volume, dealing with the constituencies, the analysis of the members condenses information from the remaining three volumes containing the biographies of all those returned to the Commons between 1690 and 1715. There are few surprises here for those familiar with the social composition of the House from the late Stuart and early Hanoverian volumes of the _History of Parliament_. MPs came largely from the landed elite, with a significant minority from the professional and business classes. They were also overwhelmingly members of the established church, the percentage of dissenters declining to under five in the last parliament of Anne's reign, compared with over eleven in 1690, which was itself the lowest since 1660 with the remarkable exception of James II's parliament, when it had plunged to four. Almost half had been educated at the two English Universities, approximately two-thirds of these at Oxford compared with one-third at Cambridge. Hayton demonstrates considerable skill in drawing this material together and in presenting it attractively. He even speculates intriguingly on why men entered, and left, parliament.

Hayton's skills are also displayed in many of the constituency surveys in the second volume, including all of those for Wales. His survey of Cambridge University is worth singling out as being quite outstanding, providing a polished and scholarly overview based on a wealth of local, national and foreign sources. It provides a benchmark by which to assess how far others rise to the difficult challenge of presenting such surveys. For in this volume Hayton is joined by his colleagues on the editorial team. These were clearly assigned to write up the surveys of particular counties and their boroughs. Thus Stuart Handley is responsible for the entries on Berkshire, Derbyshire, Kent, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire; Andrew Hanham for Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Warwickshire and Worcestershire; and, Mark Knights for those on Essex and Hertfordshire. Perry Gauci's initials appear at the end of the surveys of Middlesex, London and Westminster. His work on the merchant community of the capital made him just the right authority to address these crucial constituencies. He also surveyed Surrey, which of course included the metropolitan borough of Southwark. Some surveys are the joint work of two editors. For example, Eveline Cruickshanks and Richard Harrison signed those for Cumberland and Westmorland. It was gratifying to see that they drew on the Ph.D. thesis of a former graduate student of mine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Robert Hopkinson, and even on an undergraduate dissertation on Cockermouth. Pat Murrell, who also obtained her doctorate at Newcastle for her thesis on Suffolk and its constituencies, is likewise acknowledged in the surveys of that county. The use of doctoral and other dissertations is another indication of how far this contribution to the _History of Parliament_ was a collective effort. Scottish constituencies are surveyed separately, some by David Hayton, the rest by David Wilkinson. Their surveys provide vital details on the workings of the electoral system in Scotland in the years immediately following the Union of 1707. The whole volume is a mine of information on constituency politics in the period, and even for those immediately before and after. There are useful maps of the English, Scottish and Welsh constituencies, however Newark has somehow been omitted from the first, although it is mentioned in the introductory survey as well as the descriptions of the constituencies.

The remaining three volumes contain the biographies of the 1982 members who were returned to parliament between 1690 and 1715. These vary considerably in length from brief entries for obscure backbenchers to the substantial lives of prominent politicians. Hayton again supplies a model entry with a thirty-six page essay on Robert Harley. Harley was in many ways the key player in the post-Revolution political world, and it is crucial to an appreciation of the period to get the measure of the man. Hayton does this superbly, showing what made Harley tick. There are other blockbuster biographies, which help to swell this addition to the _History of Parliament_ to an unprecedented length. Thirty-three pages are devoted to the career of Sir Edward Seymour, thirty to Charles Montagu's, and twenty-eight to Sir Christopher Musgrave's. By contrast little is known of John Acland beyond the fact that "he was returned unopposed for Callington in 1702..., but made no significant contribution to the 1702-3 session," at the end of which he died (III, p. 8)! Many of those with longer careers entered parliament before 1690 or left after 1715. Hayton makes it clear in the introductory survey that, where the biographies differ from those in previous contributions to the _History of Parliament_, those published in these volumes are to be preferred. This is particularly apposite for the entries on Tory members, many of whom are described as Jacobites in the _History of Parliament_'s survey of The Commons 1715 to 1754 on very suspect evidence, descriptions which are here silently omitted.

A novel feature of this contribution to the _History_ is the addition of a CD-ROM at the end of the first volume, with instructions on its use appended after the Index. What this in fact amounts to is a very impressive search tool for exploring the _Journals of the House of Commons_ for the years 1690 to 1714. The software for this purpose is Idealist for Windows, a read-only version of which is available on the CD-ROM with clear instructions how to install it spelled out in the appendix. Once installed on a computer the database on the CD-ROM can be searched in a variety of ways, examples of which are also given in the printed text. Thus all entries of names or bills can be collated and analyzed. A search for the term "speaker" generated 155 hits, while "elections" produced 628. The software can be a bit "clunky," for example if you wish to narrow a search down by date. But the availability of this electronic edition of the _Journals_ considerably enhances the value of these volumes.

Notes

[1]. This is the first of two reviews of this mammoth undertaking commissioned by H-Albion. [ed. note]

[2]. The principal works on the parliamentary history of this period heretofore are: H. Horwitz, _Parliament, Policy and Politics in the Reign of William III_ (Manchester, 1977); G.S. Holmes, _British Politics in the Age of Anne_ (London: Macmillan, 1967; rev. ed., Hambledon, 1987); idem, _The Electorate and the National Will in the First Age of Party_ (Lancaster, 1976); W.A. Speck, _Tory and Whig: the Struggle in the Constituencies, 1701-15_ (London, 1970); C. Jones, ed., _Britain in the First Age of Party, 1680-1750: Essays Presented to Geoffrey Holmes_ (London, 1987), esp. Speck, "The Electorate in the First Age of Party"; J. Cannon, ed., _The Whig Ascendancy: Colloquies on Hanoverian England_ (1981); esp. Holmes, "The Achievement of Stability: The Social Context of Politics from the 1680s to the Age of Walpole," and Speck, "Whigs and Tories Dim Their Glories: English Political Parties under the First Two Georges." [ed. note]

Copyright (c) 2003 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.

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From: Newton Key <cfnek@eiu.edu> List Editor: Richard Gorrie <rgorrie@UOGUELPH.CA> Editor's Subject: REV: Bucholz on _The House of Commons, 1690-1715_ and Hoppit, _A Land of , Liberty?_ Author's Subject: REV: Bucholz on _The House of Commons, 1690-1715_ and Date Written: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 08:51:11 -0600 Date Posted: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 15:45:52 -0500

H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Albion@h-net.msu.edu (March 2004)

Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D. W. Hayton, eds. _The House of Commons 1690-1715_. 5 volumes. The History of Parliament Series. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xxix + 958, 945, 1134, 1052, 962 pp. Figures, tables, maps, notes, bibliography. $400.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-77221-4.

Julian Hoppit. _A Land of Liberty? England, 1689-1727_. The New Oxford History of England Series. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xxi + 580 pp. Tables, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $70.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-19-822842-2; $21.95 (paper) ISBN 0-19-925100-2.

Reviewed for H. Albion by Robert Bucholz <RBUCHOL@luc.edu>, Department of History, Loyola University of Chicago

These substantial volumes represent the latest contributions to two on-going enterprises whose origins and most basic assumptions belong to an earlier, and in some respects, golden, age. They add to a long and distinguished British tradition of defining, cataloging, calendaring, and biographing the collective inheritance of the British past that includes the _Dictonary of National Biography_, the _Historical Manuscripts Commission_, the _Oxford English Dictionary_, the _Victoria County History_, and innumerable _Calendars_ of State Papers, Treasury Books, etc. All of these series remain essential to the pursuit of traditional, empirical history in Britain. It is an interesting comment on our priorities and the economics of publishing and historical research in the early twenty-first century that some continue to be renewed while others lie more-or-less defunct _in media res_. This reviewer can only express his most profound gratitude that Her Majesty's Government, the House of Commons Commission, the History of Parliament Trust and the university presses of Oxford and Cambridge have seen fit to continue two of the most noble and useful historical endeavors of the past century. Moreover, their distinguished pedigrees notwithstanding, both of these works reflect the latest scholarship and the new questions that historians have learned to ask since the origins of their respective series.

The main course of this substantial meal is the new five-volume _History of Parliament 1690-1715_.[1] Scholars have been anticipating these volumes for some time (thirty years according to the foreword), but the delay in their completion is understandable, for it could be argued that this period, famously characterized as "the rage of party," was more complicated, in being transitional, than those immediately preceding or following it. The parliaments of 1690-1715 not only saw the perfection of England's first party system, but also the beginning of the fact of Parliament as a permanent, perennial mechanism of the Constitution rather than an _ad hoc_ and occasional debating club, dependent on the monarch's whim. According to Julian Hoppit, "the extensive and intensive use of parliamentary government to gain consent, money, and men" made possible, in turn, England's embrace of constitutional monarchy, achievement of "great power status" and entry into "the mainstream of European affairs" (Hoppit, p. 492). So a very great deal came from the doings in St. Stephen's Chapel between 1690 and 1715.

As a consequence, it was inevitable that the volume of material generated by and about this cohort of honorable members should be much larger than that for previous periods. In the words of John Miller, Chairman of the Editorial Board, "the intrinsic importance of this period, and the richness of the surviving records, explains why this section is so much more substantial than its immediate chronological predecessor" (v. 1, p. xii). Moreover, more than previous editors, Drs. Cruickshanks, Handley, and Hayton have made use of the work of other scholars of all ranks: the acknowledgments are a _Who's Who_ of recent scholarship on Augustan politics; there are for example, nearly two pages of abbreviations for doctoral theses alone (v. 3, pp. xiv-xvi). As one of the former graduate students whose work was of some small assistance in these labors, this reviewer must say that the editors of these volumes gave as generously as they got: while they sought help from all quarters, they also dispensed it, generously, to any scholar who turned up at their front door at Tavistock Square. In the interests of full disclosure, I must acknowledge the immense help provided to me in my own work by editors Cruickshanks and Hayton who made available manuscript biographies, division lists and papers. It is therefore a source of all the more satisfaction to see this great collective work, not unlike a Medieval _summa_, come to fruition, providing access to these riches for scholars who cannot come up to London. It is a tribute to all those who worked on these volumes that, despite two changes of editor, they have the feel of a collective and, ultimately, coherent effort. The reason why is well explained in the opening pages, entitled "Method," of Hayton's introductory survey, which constitutes a textbook on the considerations that must take place in planning a major work of reference.

A great deal of the coherence noted above arises from Hayton's masterful introduction which takes up the bulk of volume 1. This must, in some ways, have seemed a thankless task, not least because it might well stand as the definitive monograph (535 pages _sans_ appendices) for our time on the election, organization, business, and politics of the Augustan House of Commons if it were published separately. Interpretively, and unexceptionably, it acknowledges and confirms much of the work that Geoffrey Holmes, Henry Horwitz, and William Speck did on the institution in the 1960-70s. Little here will come as a real surprise to any scholar noddingly acquainted with the scholarship of the last forty years. Still, never before have we known in such detail, for example, about constituencies and elections, both county and borough, including such special cases as the Cornish boroughs, Cinque Ports, universities, Wales, Scotland, etc. This will be the definitive reference on the many types of borough franchise; its lucid explanation of the Scottish electoral system is especially welcome. The second volume of this set provides individual entries for all the constituencies represented by parliament, in each case taking a chronological approach. These entries are appropriately thorough on politics, but their usefulness as local and urban history would have been enhanced by just a bit more on economic and social realities.

Returning to the introductory survey, there follows a lucid explanation of the process of standing for parliament and getting elected (necessitating a public announcement of one's candidacy, circular letters, aristo-backing, preliminary meetings, personal canvassing, and the need to present oneself as reluctant, self-effacing, sometimes partisan but seeking consensus, and always full of "benevolent concern for the welfare of the constituency; and respect for rights of the voters" [v. 1, p. 178]); what happened at a poll; and the costs (examples given range from £150 to £1,500) of treating and outright bribery. In both county and borough, party tensions tended to be highest where Dissent was strong. Consistent with this, the incidence of contested elections ranged from a low of 31.6 percent of all constituencies in 1695, a year in which religion was less prominent an issue than the management of the war, to a high of 48.7 percent in that of 1710, following the Sacheverell trial. Hayton carefully explores the reputation and reality of the government interest, identifying perhaps fourteen government boroughs, but noting the difficulties of separating this sort of advantage from other factors. Generally, its effects were overestimated by contemporaries, for it returned, no more than twenty MPs per session. More seats were influenced by individual peers, perhaps 6-10 percent of the total. While the collective influence of the nobility sometimes raised the ire of the Commons (elsewhere, Hayton chronicles the Commons' staunch defense of their right to regulate membership, elucidating such test cases as Ashby vs. White), in general the political world expected peers to lead. Hayton also analyzes the influence of Churchmen, Dissenters, and women--this last a relatively new preoccupation for this series. Women played more of a role in electoral politics than is often assumed: encouraging men to stand as well as canvassing and campaigning (Sarah Duchess of Marlborough is the most famous example); moreover, they were also sometimes the target of campaigns as a way to reach husbands and other male relatives.

As befits a work likely to stand as the reference for many years, Hayton tends to lean on the side of caution in generalizing about realities and trends about the electorate. Thus, while he concedes that the number of voters was probably increasing due to inflation and improved electoral management, he stresses the difficulties in trying to estimate the overall size of the electorate: we often know how many voted, but they were only a fraction of those who could vote. Thus it is better to talk about a "voterate." Low continuity of voters from election to election fits what social historians have found out about migration patterns. While there were substantial numbers of split and floating votes, most tenants were influenced by their landlords. Landed aristocrats and even outside merchants also found corporation boroughs happy hunting grounds for seats; and even freemen boroughs were subject to heavy aristocratic influence. Still, while only a few borough constituencies were genuinely open, equally few were genuinely lodged in some patron's pocket. Most were won through a varied calculus of influence, interest, and independent choice. Hayton is especially good on how people voted and what they looked for in a candidate; his summary analysis of the electoral history of Bedford (v. 1, p. 112) illustrates the wide variety of factors which could influence returns to Parliament including aristocratic endowment of schools, the needs of local industry, etc.

At the heart of this enterprise are the nearly two thousand members themselves. The assemblage of their collective biography has made possible a massive quantitative operation which is, perhaps, the most original and useful part of the introductory survey. Sir Lewis Namier's notion that the History of Parliament would advance social as well as political history was criticized, even in his own day, as being too narrowly focused on the elite. But, as Linda Colley has suggested, "as a means of uncovering the changing pattern of social arrival and social experience at the top, Namier's methodology remains outstandingly useful." That is, these nearly two thousand biographies present a wonderful opportunity to analyze that portion of the elite who had "made it" to very nearly the apogee of Augustan society.[2] In no previous volumes in the series has this opportunity been taken so fully: this section of the introductory survey (v. 1, pp. 262-342) is enhanced by some twenty-seven appendices, seventy-five tables and twelve figures. Surprisingly and annoyingly, the tables are neither numbered nor listed in a separate portion of the prefatory apparatus. This is one of the few errors of execution made in these otherwise magnificently produced volumes.

Altogether, the evidence gathered herein yields the overwhelming conclusion that membership in the House of Commons was a consequence of social rank and material wealth, not its cause. Nearly half of all members came from titled families. Nearly half of those from England and Wales descended from previous parliamentarians themselves; and, even before the Landed Qualification Act of 1711, "the vast majority" were landed (v. 1, p. 263). There were, of course, _parvenus_, like the financier and eventual suicide Sir Stephen Evance or Leonard Gale, whose blacksmith father had made a fortune of £16,000 out of iron manufacture. Still, only thirty-three came from humble birth, though fifty were the sons of the clergy. Most, some 67 percent of those whose age at first election is known, were relatively young by modern standards, falling into the twenty-one to forty year age range. About half boasted some acquaintance with university education; about one third had attended an Inn of Court (15 percent of the membership were lawyers) and about fifty per session had been on the Grand Tour. There were few monied men (forty-three), but about two hundred overseas merchants of various sorts. In terms of religious preference nearly all were nominal Anglicans, with only thirty-nine being identifiable Nonconformists (though many more had Nonconformist connections): this, plus the low numbers of monied men, rather undermines Country Tory fears of a Parliament dominated by Dissenting stock-jobbers. Finally, most MPs were not carpet-baggers and fully one third sat for only one constituency.

How did the honorable members line up? Hayton reaffirms that the most important determiner of votes and allegiance in parliament was party. Some 85.4 percent of the members can be classified as belonging to one of the two parties. He is aware of the element of circularity in this analysis: once someone is identified as a Whig or Tory, it is not difficult to find proof of consistent voting patterns. But the evidence provided by division lists shows far more consistency along these lines than it does for any court/country division, let alone the sorts of familial factions that Robert Walcott once proposed. Admittedly, a small percentage of MPs are unclassifiable, mostly habitual courtiers, government officers, or those who opposed every government out of principle or spite. But it is probably significant that even their small percentage declines as one advances through the period chronologically.

Hayton's chronological analyses of elections and of the politics of the House are likewise cast in party terms. The latter is especially welcome, as Geoffrey Holmes's work was not arranged chronologically.[3] This is now the most up to date survey of the political history of the House of Commons. Subsequent analyses of groupings within and across parties--Jacobites, Court MPs, Country MPs, the Welsh, Irish and Scots, show Hayton to be a conservative if not an agnostic on the numbers and cohesiveness of all but the Country persuasion. Here it must be said that while his explication of the Welsh and Irish interest groups is clarity itself, this reviewer found the Scottish section to be far less penetrable: the bewildering splitting and coalescing of Scottish political factions remain mysterious, in part because too much knowledge is necessary, and assumed, but probably mostly because of the nature of the beast. Overall, Hayton argues that none of these three seeming interest groups really acted as such. In fact, the Union and some Irish economic and land legislation apart, the Westminster Parliament was reluctant to take on measures affecting the whole of any of these countries.

There is a great deal of useful information on the organization, procedure and business of the House. The section on committee work explains the various species of parliamentary committee (of the Whole, Grand, Select) at this time, and the difficulties for historians of determining the significance of being named to a select committee in particular. Sadly, little evidence survives about how committees were staffed and worked. More helpful is the section on divisions, in which Hayton displays an absolute command of the procedures of the House. Turning to legislative business, he usefully surveys the late history of the royal veto (used six times 1660-89, five times 1692-95, and for the final time in 1708) before addressing the growth in the amount of legislation (mostly private) generated over the period with longer and more frequent sessions. His most important finding here is that that increase was not proportional. Over time and with experience, the members seem to have developed a growing expertise, resulting in fewer bills proportionally, but a greater rate of success (see tables in v. 1, pp. 384-387). Hayton explains this not only as a matter of increased experience, but also better clerical support and possibly greater ministerial control. Longer sessions, of course, also made passage more likely. A similarly important trend was the gradual decline of the sort of grand inquiry into the State of the Nation and airing of grievances before consideration of supply of which Country members were particularly fond. The heyday for this sort of thing was the early- to-mid-1690s, with a brief revival during the last four years of Queen Anne. One wonders if, in ways more subtle than those identified by Swift and Davenant, war may have stifled Country concerns: the financial burdens of the conflict with Louis XIV meant that supply came to be seen as a national necessity which could not be delayed because of backbench concerns. Consistent with the steady firming up of party loyalties over the period, Hayton also detects a change in the purpose of such Country enquiries, from a genuine desire to reform the government and country in the 1690s to a more cynical goal of embarrassing the current ministry by the end of Anne's reign. In a related vein, while the examination of accounts by various Country inspired commissions has always received a great deal of attention from parliamentary historians, Hayton would argue that the increasing expectation that the government would provide estimates for the year's expenditure was at least as important a development.

How active were individual members? Hayton builds upon the pioneering quantitative work of Moore and Horwitz to go well beyond earlier volumes in the History of Parliament in providing extensive information on the work done by individual MPs reporting, telling, chairing committees, etc. as related in the _Journals of the House of Commons_.[4] As parliamentary scholars know only too well, the _Journals_ contain no personal indices and so are the devil to use if one is trying to trace the activities of a specific member. Moreover, the lists of names given for committee membership are thoroughly ambiguous in meaning: it is often unclear which "Mr. Smith" or "Mr. Seymour" is intended; and there is no evidence that being named to a committee implied attendance, participation, or even necessarily interest in or support for the measure being considered. It is similarly impossible to quantify attendance levels in the House generally. But the _Journals_ do allow for quantification of other types of activity: chairing, reporting, telling, etc. The present volumes for the first time make it possible to do so fairly easily by providing a CD ROM whose search function makes accessible the activities of nearly every MP who served 1690-1715. The Commons Journal Database also allows for searches relating to particular kinds and pieces of legislation or activities (telling, motions, etc.); subjects appearing in the _Journals_; or activities taking place on a particular day or range of dates. Because the database is designed to show one record (i.e., one appearance in the _Journals_) at a time, it is not easy to get an immediate overview of any member's activities or of any particular type of activity. But the individual records can be imported into plain text formats which allow for the compilation of such lists.

Hayton's endeavors along these lines reveal that in the parliaments sampled, about one fifth of the membership took responsibility for at least one bill, with a very few members characterized by the author as "hyper-active." Some of these were professional politicians; many were lawyers. Some MPs had specialties: trade legislation, social reform, or private bills in which, surprisingly, the otherwise undistinguished Sir Francis Masham played an important role. This reminds us that we have, for too long, taken the Whig historiography on high politics for granted in its estimation of the stars of the House. Hayton's comprehensive analysis throws light on a number of heretofore anonymous backbench MPs who turn out to have played an active role, albeit on occasions other than the great set-piece political battles. Perhaps as a corollary, there is little evidence of direct ministerial management of most such legislation.

Given the vast scope of the introductory survey and Hayton's mastery, it may seem churlish to want more. There is relatively little on the physical topography of St. Stephen's Chapel or on the corporate culture of MPs, apart from some discussion of political clubs and dining societies. After all, if these members sat more frequently and for longer and drafted more legislation than their predecessors, one would like to know the degree to which they thought of themselves as a permanent, corporate body, and had an articulated vision of their role in the constitution and what it meant to be a "Parliament Man." One would further like to know if they formed a community, inter-marrying, engaging in mutual favoritism and nepotism, subscribing to the same books, music societies, etc. This is asking for a great deal, but, thanks to the industry of the compilers, such information is there for the asking in individual entries. Perhaps Hayton could be persuaded to extend his already magnificent achievement towards a discussion of the culture of the Augustan Parliament Man?

Volumes 2-5 contain the nearly two thousand individual members' biographies. These go well beyond what has appeared in previous instalments. For example, Sir Edward Seymour received sixteen columns in the 1660-90 section edited by B. D. Henning; here he receives nearly sixty-four, despite a diminishing role before his death three-quarters of the way through the period. A less important but still significant member like John Aislabie gets twelve columns; George Baillie of Jerviswood, twenty-eight, and the entry for, arguably, the pivotal parliamentary figure of the period, Robert Harley, nearly seventy-two columns. These articles easily supercede comparable biographies in the current _DNB_ and one wonders if they will be matched in the new one.

The basic elements of each member's entry are more or less the same as in previous volumes: each begins with a brief summary including name, titles, dates, place of residence, parliamentary service, family background, and offices. The biographies proper give details of education and marriages and provide even more information on political and parliamentary activities (reporting, telling, etc.) than previously. They also give quotes, sometimes copious, from contemporary correspondence, newsletters, accounts of debates, etc., many of which are not otherwise available. As a result, one gets a much more well-rounded sense of each member's contribution, contemporary reputation, and personality. Thus, one can readily understand Sir Thomas Hanmer's reputation for oratory or Sir Nicholas Lechmere's stature among his fellow Whigs from the speeches quoted in their respective biographies. Take, for example, Lechmere's forthright opening statement at the Sacheverell trial: "The nature of our constitution is that of a limited monarchy, wherein the supreme power was--by mutual consent and not by accident--limited and lodged in more hands than one.... [T]he consequences of such a form of government are obvious; that the laws are the rule to both, the common measure of the power of the crown and of the obedience of the subject; and if the executive part endeavors the subversion and total destruction of the government, the original contract is thereby broke, and the right of allegiance ceases, and that part of the government thus fundamentally injured has a right to recover that constitution in which it had an original interest" (v. 4, p. 603). On a more mundane level, one can practically smell the roast beef of Old England in John Machell's blunt, bluff, businesslike speech in favor of increasing the duty on French wines in 1692: "Because there are arts used to bring in French wines, I desire we may lay £4 a tun above all other duties upon red wine. This will raise a good sum. Your French wines ...are now rose to 6d. a quart by reason they have found ways to bring them in here under other names. But by laying this duty on all manner of red wines you will come at them" (v. 4: p. 718).

Forthrightness and strong personalities were not confined to the interiors of St. Stephen's. Sir Charles Kemys may have distinguished himself on a visit to Hanover in 1707 "on account of the lessons he had given the court ... in the British accomplishments of drinking and smoking tobacco," but when entreated to repeat the tutorial at a _levée_ of the newly-ascended George I, he refused: "I should be happy to smoke a pipe with him as Elector of Hanover, but I cannot think of it as king of England" (v. 4, p. 539). Mark Knights similarly displays Charles Caesar's "charm and wit" by quoting letters to his beloved wife, Mary, in 1730 from their estate at Bennington, Herts. Alluding to a long separation due to her convalescence at Bath, he compared himself to: "Adam before Eve was created, spending my time with the beasts in the field, the fowls of the air and the fish in the waters, tho' he had this advantage over me, that not having experienced how happy a loving and beloved wife makes her husband, he could not be so sensible of his want as I am who have for so many years been blessed with one" (v. 3, p. 440).

As this implies, these volumes contribute to an older species of social history by providing evidence of the general level of literacy among the elite and the degree of eloquence the language had obtained by the early-eighteenth century. Clearly, the old charge that History of Parliament biographies were limited in usefulness by their nearly exclusive concentration on parliamentary, or at least high political, activities cannot stand the evidence of these entries. While never losing sight of politics, they provide well rounded accounts of the members' lives and personalities outside the House. This reviewer found the accounts of members' deaths and attitudes towards religion to be especially compelling.

Finally, it must be said that the literary quality of these biographies is very high, fully justifying their long gestation. Hayton's entries, in particular, are marked by trenchant analysis, pithy characterization, and beautiful prose. He has a particular gift for the telling opening, as in his first lines on Anthony Hammond: "It was Hammond's misfortune to possess the temperament and modest intellectual attainments of the dilettante, without sufficient means to enable him to fritter away his opportunities in comfort" (v. 4, p. 169). His biography on Sir Thomas Hanmer begins with a subtle overture: "Hanmer, a fastidious young man inclined to preciosity yet of a warily calculating disposition, took the earliest steps in his public career with characteristic care" (v. 4, p. 187); but ends with a devastating coda: "A grandly Ciceronian view of public duty, and a morbidly exaggerated attachment to his own reputation, consistently impelled him to perform in the political arena, but by the same token deprived him of the will seriously to compete in it" (v. 4, p. 197).

Hayton's greatest achievement may be his biography of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. Though not comprehensive in every detail (Oxford's loss of favor late in Queen Anne's reign is skimmed over), no previous biographer has displayed greater insight into the psychology of this Protean figure. Hayton sees Harley as a man who emerged from his father's domineering religious influence, in part, by developing a facility for dissimulation which would vex his contemporaries and later historians. Nevertheless, Hayton finds a consistent Country theme through Harley's life, not of perennial opposition or disdain for office, but rather a yearning for office in order to effect reform. Thus, Robert Harley was at once Country and Court, critic and actor, a defender of the past but also a harbinger of the future in British politics.

Like the latest installment of the History of Parliament, Julian Hoppit's must be among the most highly anticipated volumes in the New Oxford History of England, both because the period 1689-1727 witnessed the constitutional changes noted above, and because it has been revised beyond recognition since the initial publication of G. N. Clark's long standard survey (covering a slightly different period: 1660-1714) in 1934. It takes a synthesist of no mean ability to hold all the disparate political, diplomatic, economic, social and cultural strands of Augustan England in hand and lay them out with clarity for the varied audience intended for this book. Hoppit succeeds admirably. He thereby provides a useful tool of reading and reference for all students of the period at whatever level of interest.

Clark's book was famous in its day for the amount of attention he gave to the last three branches of Clio's house, as noted above, in particular. Hoppit surpasses him. There are four explicitly political chapters, two which deal with war and empire, four which lay out the facts of social and economic life, two which deal with religion and culture, all bracketed by wide-ranging discussions of world-view and that besetting preoccupation of the Augustan Age, order and disorder. As this implies, this book benefits from the expansion of purview which has taken place in the field by virtue of the New Social History and its offspring, the New Cultural History. Though a history of England, it also contains extensive sections on Scotland, Ireland, and the Empire, usefully drawn together in Chapter 8. This seems to the reviewer a reasonable compromise with "three kingdoms" revisionism in that it results in a more coherent text than would a narrative history of Britain, while explaining fully how other regions affected the English story.

That is not to say that the interconnections among political, social, economic, and cultural themes have produced a seamless narrative. This reviewer finds the organization of the book problematic: The introductory chapter, "England after the Glorious Revolution" _precedes_ the chapter entitled "The Glorious Revolution and the Revolution Constitution," which is _followed_ by "The Facts of Life." Given Hoppit's implicit conviction that those facts provide the foundation upon which politics are built (see below), it would have been better to give them before erecting the political edifice. Nor does it make sense to separate the Glorious Revolution chapter (2) from the wars which it spawned (4) or to _follow_ that with "The Political World of William III." This last would seem to be another "facts of life" chapter, which should come earlier. In short, the political chapters are not always well integrated into the fabric of the book.

But the content of those chapters themselves is immensely useful. Each one provides an admirable summary of current research, leavened by Hoppit's views where he deems appropriate. Hoppit perpetuates one of the strengths of Clark's volume in the attention he pays to the national economy, leaving no doubt as to why England became the economic juggernaut of Europe subsequent to this period. Students of the period will find his explanations of the Commercial and Financial Revolutions to be immediately accessible. _Pace_ his disclaimer in the Preface, The Oxford History of England should aspire to be a work of reference as well as tell a story, and, again like Clark, Hoppit is careful to supply specific facts and figures, for, say, the number of troops at Blenheim; the number of Catholics in England; the expansion of the sugar trade in the eighteenth century; or the rise of print culture. As with the _History of Parliament_ volumes, tables (this time clearly marked as such) and quotations are well chosen. Thus Misson on the state of the Augustan clergy: "There are a vast many poor Wretches, whose Benefices do not bring them in enough to buy them Cloaths. This obliges 'em to look out for other Ways, and those often sordid ones, to get their Bread; and thus the Ministry grows scandalous" (p. 212); or de Laune on Augustan London: "The mighty Rendezvous of Nobility, Gentry, Courtiers, Divines, Lawyers, Physicians, Merchants, Seamen, and all kinds of Excellent Artificers, of the most Refined Wits, and most Excellent Beauties" (p. 426).

Other useful features include a detailed critical bibliography; full notation for quotes, and brief biographical notes on important figures as they appear in the text. Such attention to detail in a book of this scope is rare and much to be appreciated.

But what does Hoppit think about the period? How well does he succeed in his own goal "to evoke the spirit of the age" (p. ix)? In the end, the picture he paints will be familiar to those who have kept up with its many historians. That is, like many of the most recent writers on the Revolution and its aftermath, he emphasizes its contingency, hence the ambiguity of the book's title. He portrays an England emerging hesitantly from the upheavals of the seventeenth century: "Far from the Glorious Revolution solving England's problems and ushering in a period of calm assurance and inexorable progress, it provoked many anxieties and insecurities, divisions and disorders" (p. 1). And yet, despite the almost self-conscious rejection of the broadest strokes of an older, more celebratory Whig teleology, the substance of the book argues for "England's rise to greatness" (to quote an older collection edited by Stephen Baxter) as surely as do the History of Parliament volumes. In the end, this book segues neatly into Paul Langford's volume, depicting the English as a polite and commercial people who just happened, often as much by luck and circumstance as by design, to become the wealthiest and most powerful state in Europe.

Hoppit well understands the inter-relationship of war, trade, colonies and finance in this transformation, arguing that the two great wars with France were the engine that drove economic and political developments. It is perhaps when he turns to the impact of these wars and this wealth on society and culture that the book becomes most adventurous but less certain, the lines of historiographical argument less clear. He is very strong on England's cultural and intellectual development, in particular the increasing audience for a wide variety of cultural products and the increasing domination of the sacred by the secular, with useful explanations of key debates over urbanization, luxury, reason, the reformation of manners, etc. Though he is an important contributor to the History of Parliament, in particular as the editor of a recent book on failed legislation,[5] one senses a greater degree of tentativeness in his political sections: his statement that "the meaning of Whig and Tory ... had been so clear in the 1690s" (p. 493) is highly debatable and it should be obvious from its very name that the Calves Head Club was not a Tory assemblage. He also has Charles II of Spain dying in October 1701, after James II. More importantly, the explanation of the differences between the two political parties under Queen Anne relies too heavily on the contemporary charges of each about the other, and would benefit from an application of the sort of authorial clarity that Hoppit so usefully provides on economic matters. Fortunately, here, readers can turn to Hayton's account.

The men who initiated the great series of which these volumes form the latest contributions, believed that the achievements of English history were unprecedented and something of a miracle. Take the words of the distinguished committee which oversaw the initiation of the History of Parliament: "We were the first people to govern ourselves through responsible representatives."[6] This sense of uniqueness continues today: in the foreword to the History of Parliament volumes, Ted Rowlands, Chairman of the History of Parliament Trust, former member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and contributor to this and earlier sets, asserts that "No other European monarchy ... discovered the art of fighting wars with representative consent" (v. 1, p. ix; the quote's order has been reversed without affecting meaning). Admittedly, much recent historiography has served to disabuse us of some of the awe implicit in such assertions. But it is surely inarguable that some of the celebratory exceptionalism which we now find so off-putting about the old Whig view of English constitutional history can be applied legitimately to the very enterprise of writing English--now self-consciously British--history itself. If such encompassing labors as the History of Parliament and the New Oxford History of England are not unique to British historiography, they are surely unsurpassed. Linda Colley, a distinguished historian of parliamentary politics in her own right, has written of the History of Parliament: "the sheer scale and vision of this enterprise remain remarkable, as do its scholarly quality and potential. At the end of the day, Namier had achieved not a mausoleum, but a monument.[7]

The History of Parliament and New Oxford History of England are monuments whose erection is not, nor ever will be, complete. Long may their good work continue.

Notes

[1]. Editor's note: see also, an earlier H-Albion review by Bill Speck, <http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=209071047797478>.

[2]. Linda Colley, _Namier_ (New York: St. Martin's, 1989), pp. 73-74, 79, 82-84.

[3]. Geoffrey Holmes, _British Politics in the Age of Anne_, rev. ed. (London: Hambledon, 1987).

[4]. T. K. Moore and Henry Horwitz, "Who Runs the House? Aspects of Parliamentary Organization in the Later 17th Century," _Journal of Modern History_ 43 (1971): pp. 205-227.

[5]. _Failed Legislation, 1600-1800: Extracted from the Commons and Lords Journals_, ed. J. Hoppit (London: Hambledon, 2003).

[6]. Colley, p. 76.

[7]. Ibid., p. 89.

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