Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History (91 page)

11
The Parliamentary History of England 1702–1714,
ed. W. Cobbett (London, 1810), 6: 25.

12
The British were still using the Julian calendar. According to the more accurate Gregorian calendar in use on the continent, the date was August 13. The British would not adopt the Gregorian calendar until the middle of the eighteenth century.

13
John, duke of Marlborough to Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, August 2, 1704, in
The Marlborough–Godolphin Correspondence,
ed. H. L. Snyder (Oxford, 1975), 1: 349.

14
Thomas Coke to John, duke of Marlborough, June 20, 1704, in
HMC Twelfth Report
(Cowper MSS.) (London, 1889), 2: 37–8.

15
Quoted in W. A. Speck,
A Concise History of Britain, 1707–1975
(Cambridge, 1993), p. 22.

16
Quoted in E. Gregg,
Queen Anne
(New Haven, 1980), p. 289.

17
H. Sacheverell,
The Perils of False Brethren in Church and State
(London, 1709).

18
Quoted in Gregg,
Queen Anne,
p. 303.

19
M. Prior,
History of His Own Time,
ed. A. Drift, 2nd edn. (London, 1740), p. 42

20
Erasmus Lewis to Jonathan Swift, July 27, 1714, in
The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift,
ed. H. Williams (Oxford, 1963), 2: 86.

21
Quoted in H. L. Snyder, “The Last Days of Queen Anne: The Account of Sir John Evelyn Examined,”
Huntington Library Quarterly
343 (1971): 271.

Conclusion: Augustan Polity, Society, and Culture, ca. 1714

1
As with Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Charles I, he would have been known to his subjects simply as “King George,” not “George I,” until the accession of his son, George II, in 1727.

2
The previous Whig administration had allowed the South Sea Company to take over three-fifths of the national debt in return for certain trading privileges. The promise of these privileges resulted in a run on South Sea stock, which rose in value by nearly 1,000 percent in the summer of 1720. When it became clear that the Company was not making a profit (having engaged in almost no actual South Sea trade), the stock price collapsed, ruining many holders and discrediting the government, some of whose officials had been bribed to support the scheme. The ministry fell and Walpole persuaded the Bank of England and the East India Company to assume much of the loss, thus saving the government’s finances.

3
J. C. D. Clark,
English Society, 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the
Ancien Régime, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2000).

4
P. Langford,
A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989); and Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689–1798
(Oxford, 1991).

5
Quoted in K. Wrightson,
Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain
(New Haven, 2000), p. 335

6
The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone,
ed. A. L. Beier, D. Cannadine, and J. M. Rosenheim (Cambridge, 1989).

7
H. Fielding, “A Modern Glossary,”
Covent Garden Journal
4 (January 14, 1752).

8
Estimates derived from G. S. Holmes,
The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and Early Georgian Britain, 1660–1722
(London, 1993), tables B.1, p. 403, B.3, p. 408.

9
The following relies heavily on J. A. Sharpe,
Early Modern England: A Social History, 1550–1760,
2nd ed. (London, 1997), pp. 38–41, 49–53.

10
The following relies heavily on J. Hoppit,
A Land of Liberty? England, 1689–1727
(Oxford, 2000), esp. pp. 242–77, 313–82.

11
This list is based on Holmes,
Making of a Great Power,
p. 67.

12
Lorenzo Magalotti at the Court of Charles II,
ed. W. E. K. Middleton (Waterloo, Ontario, 1980), p. 114.

13
The estimates of size for various social groups in England are based, roughly, on the figures given by Gregory King in his famous “Scheme of the Income and Expense of the several families of England, calculated for the Year 1688,” printed in C. Davenant,
Essay Upon the Probable Methods of Making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade
(London, 1699). We have added King’s categories of baronets, knights, esquires, and gentlemen to arrive at the estimate of the size of the landed gentry. Using Guy Miege’s definition of a gentleman as “any one that … has either a liberal or genteel Education, that looks gentleman-like (whether he be so or not)” (G. Miege,
The New State of England Under Our Present Monarch K. William III,
4th ed., 1702, 2: 154), one might possibly include other categories, such as eminent clergymen, persons in greater offices, persons in liberal arts and sciences, and naval and military officers. This would bring the total to nearly 50,000.

14
J. Evelyn,
The Diary of John Evelyn,
ed. E. S.De Beer (Oxford, 1955), 4: 6.

15
Quoted in M. Foss,
The Age of Patronage: The Arts in England, 1660–1750
(Ithaca, N. Y., 1972), p. 78.

16
Mary Astell, Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasioned by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case (London, 1700), Preface.

17
Quoted in Wrightson,
Earthly Necessities,
p. 289.

18
Adding, for the substantial merchants, King’s categories “Eminent Merchants and Traders by Sea” to “Lesser Merchants and Traders by Sea”; for the manufacturers, artisans, and tradesmen adding “Shopkeepers and Tradesmen” to “Artizans and Handicrafts.”

19
This number conflates King’s categories of persons in greater and lesser offices, persons in the law, eminent and lesser clergymen, persons in liberal arts and sciences, and naval and military officers.

20
H. Misson,
Memoirs and Observations in His Travels Over England
(London, 1719), p. 36, quoted in Hoppit,
Land of Liberty?
, p. 212.

21
William Pitt the elder (1708–78; prime minister 1756–61; 1766–8), from 1766 earl of Chatham; his son William the younger (1759–1806; prime minister 1783–1801; 1804–6).

22
T. de Laune, Angliae Metropolis: or, the Present State of London (London, 1690), p. 298, quoted in Hoppit, Land of Liberty?, p. 426.

23
Nathaniel Harley to Edward Harley, September 6, 1712, in
HMC Thirteenth Report, Appendix, Part II
(Portland MSS.) (London, 1893), 2: 254–5.

24
We have conflated King’s categories of freeholders, better sort; freeholders, lesser sort; and farmers.

25
Quoted in Holmes,
Making of a Great Power,
p. 391.

26
The next two paragraphs are based on R. B. Shoemaker,
Gender in English Society, 1650–1850: The Emergence of Separate Spheres?
(London, 1998); and A. Laurence,
Women in England, 1500–1760: A Social History
(New York, 1994).

27
M. Kishlansky,
A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603–1714
(Harmondsworth, 1996), p. 342.

28
W. S. Churchill, radio broadcast, February 9, 1941.

Glossary

Cross-references to further definitions in the glossary are given in
bold
.

Acts
See first word of Act (for example,
Appeals
,
Act in Restraint of
)

Advowson
Right of the local landlord to choose the parish priest.

Affinity
Entourage of a late medieval magnate, which formed the basis of a political/military retinue. Its nucleus was often related to the magnate by blood or marriage, but it also included clients, retainers, household servants, and tenants, many of whom wore his livery.

Anabaptists
For England, see
Baptists

Anglicans
Technically, all members of the Church of England. Used to denote conservative or “High Church” members of the Church of England favoring Church government by bishops. Theologically, favorably disposed toward elaborate ritual and ceremony (see
Arminians
). The dominant strain of the Church of England after the Restoration, the term is anachronistic but useful for explaining tendencies before then.

Annates
Also known as First Fruits and Tenths, first year’s revenue of an ecclesiastical office paid to the papacy. Limited by the Act in Restraint of Annates (1532), and assumed by the Crown in 1534.

Appeals, Act in Restraint of, 1533
Statute which forbade appeals in legal cases to jurisdictions beyond that of the king of England (such as Rome). It not only made Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon possible; some historians believe it established a modern conception of royal and national sovereignty in England.

Arminians
Those English and Scottish
Anglicans
, named for Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, who believed that good works and efficacious rituals might play a role in salvation (opposed to Calvinists). They emphasized “the beauty of holiness” via elaborate church decor and ceremonial. Led by Archbishop Laud, Arminian clergy became influential under Charles I.

Asiento
The right to supply African slaves to the Spanish colonies of the New World, secured for Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 (see Utrecht, Treaty of).
Assizes
Court held twice a year in a major town as part of a regular circuit of assize judges with jurisdiction over felonies.

Attainder, bill of
Statute which declares the party in question “attainted” of treason, without a formal trial. Those attainted lost their lives, titles, lands, and goods.

Babington Plot
Plot engineered in 1586 by Anthony Babington, page to Mary Queen of Scots, to assassinate Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne. Discovered by Secretary Walsingham’s spy system, he waited to see if Mary would incriminate herself. She did so, leading to her trial and execution.