The Great Britain in the 18th century Political world

The 18th century saw England, and after 1707 Great Britain, rise to become the world's dominant colonial power, with France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage. The deeper political integration of Britain was a key policy of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch of England and Scotland and the first monarch of Great Britain. Under the aegis of the Queen and her advisors a Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 following negotiations between representatives of the parliaments of England and Scotland, and each parliament then passed separate Acts of Union to ratify the treaty. Having received royal assent, the Acts came into effect on May 1, 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and crowns of England and Scotland and forming a united Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne became formally the first occupant of the unified British throne and in line with Article 22 of the Treaty of Union, Scotland sent 45 Members to join all the existing members from the Parliament of England in the new House of Commons of Great Britain. Following the union with Scotland, the British government functioned according to an unwritten constitution put in place after the Revolution of 1688. This agreement between the monarchs and Parliament provided for the succession of Annes German Protestant cousin, George of Hannover, and his heirs. It excluded from the throne the Catholic descendants of James II who now lived in France and who periodically attempted to regain the throne. Their supporters were known as Jacobites, and they rose in an unsuccessful rebellion in 1715. The Church of England remained the official religious establishment, but most Protestants who belonged to other churches enjoyed toleration. The revolution also resolved the struggle for power between the monarch and Parliament, which had been an ongoing issue under the Stuarts. Parliament emerged as the leading force in government. The Hannoverians ruled as constitutional monarchs, limited by the laws of the land. During the 18th century, British monarchs ruled indirectly through appointed ministers who gathered and managed supporters in Parliament. Landowners eligible to vote elected a new House of Commons every seven years, although membership into the upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords, remained limited to hereditary and appointed lords and high church clergy. Parliament passed laws, controlled foreign policy, and approved the taxes that allowed the monarch to pay the salaries of officials, the military, and the royal family. The Hannoverian monarchs associated the Whig Party with the revolution that brought them to power and suspected the Tory Party of Jacobitism. As a result, the Whigs dominated the governments of George I (1714-1727) and his son, George II (1727-1760). Neither king was a forceful monarch. George I spoke no English and was more interested in German politics that he was in British politics. George II was preoccupied with family problems, particularly by an

ongoing personal feud with his son. Although they both were concerned with European military affairs (George II was the last British monarch to appear on a battlefield), they left British government in the hands of their ministers, the most important of whom was Sir Robert Walpole. Walpole led British government for almost 20 years. He spent most of his life in government, first as a member of Parliament, then in increasingly important offices, and finally as prime minister. Walpole had skillful political influence over a wide range of domestic and foreign policy matters. He was chiefly interested in domestic affairs and was able to improve royal finances and the national economy. He reduced the national debt and lowered the land tax, which had slowed investment in agriculture. He secured passage of a Molasses Act in 1733 to force British colonists to buy molasses from British planters and ensure British control of the lucrative sugar trade. Walpole kept Britain out of war during most of his administration. A growing sentiment in Parliament for British involvement in European conflicts forced Walpole to resign in 1742. Walpole so firmly established the Whigs that the two-party system all but disappeared from British politics for half a century. He created a patronage system, which he used to reward his supporters with positions in an expanding and increasingly wealthy government. Opposition to patronage eventually grew within the Whig Party among those who believed that ministers had acquired too much power and that politics had grown corrupt. In 1745 a Jacobite rebellion posed a serious threat to Whig rule. Led by Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of James II, the rebellion broke out in Scotland. The rebels captured Edinburgh and successfully invaded the north of England. The rebellion crumbled after William Augustus, who was the duke of Cumberland and a son of George II, defeated the Jacobites at Culloden Moor in Scotland in 1746. The Seven Years' War, which began in 1756, was the first war waged on a global scale and saw British involvement in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the Philippines and coastal Africa. The signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for Britain and its empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power there was effectively ended with the ceding of New France to Britain, leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control, and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. In India, the Carnatic War had left France still in control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states, effectively leaving the future of India to Britain. The British victory over France in the Seven Years War therefore left Britain as the world's dominant colonial power.

Mercantilism
Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies. Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchantsand kept others outby trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximise exports from and minimise imports to the realm. The government had to fight smugglingwhich became a favourite American technique in the 18th century to
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circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the Royal Navy captured New Amsterdam (later New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country.

American Revolution
During the 1760s and 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's ability to tax American colonists without their consent. Disagreement turned into violence, and in 1775, the American War of Independence began. The following year, the colonists declared the independence of the United States and with economic and naval assistance from France, would go on to win the war in 1781.

Second British Empire

The loss of the Thirteen Colonies, at the time Britain's most populous overseas possessions, which became the United States, marked the transition between the "first" and "second" empires, in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1781 confirmed Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success.

India
During its first century of operation, the focus of the East India Company had been trade, not the building of an empire in India. Company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the French East India Company (Compagnie franaise des Indes orientales) during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey and Battle of Buxar, which saw the British, led by Robert Clive, defeat the Indian powers, left the Company in control of Bengal and a major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control, ruling either directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force by its Presidency armies, much of which were composed of native Indian sepoys.

Australia
In 1770, James Cook had discovered the eastern coast of Australia whilst on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific. In 1778, Joseph Banks, Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788.

Life and culture

Towns
During the 18th century towns in England grew larger. Nevertheless most towns still had populations of less than 10,000. However in the late 18th century new industrial towns in the Midlands and the North of England mushroomed. Meanwhile the population of London grew to nearly 1 million by the end of the century. Many towns in England were improved in the later 18th century when bodies of men called Paving or Improvement Commissioners were formed by Acts of Parliament. They had powers to pave and clean the streets and sometimes to light them with oil lamps and candles. Some also arranged collections of rubbish. Since most of it was organic it could be sold as fertiliser.

Agriculture
During the 18th century agriculture was gradually transformed by an agricultural revolution. Until 1701 seed was sown by hand. In that year Jethro Tull invented a seed drill, which sowed seed in straight lines. He also invented a horse drawn hoe which hoed the land and destroyed weed between rows of crops. Furthermore until the 18th century most livestock was slaughtered at the beginning of winter because farmers could not grow enough food to feed their animals through the winter months. Until the 18th century most land in England was divided into 3 fields. Each year 2 fields were sown with crops while the third was left fallow (unused). The Dutch began to grow swedes or turnips on land instead of leaving it fallow. (The turnips restored the soil's fertility). When they were harvested the turnips could be stored to provide food for livestock over the winter. The new methods were popularised in England by a man named Robert 'Turnip' Townsend (16741741). Under the 3 field system, which still covered much of England, all the land around a village or small town, was divided into 3 huge fields. Each farmer owned some strips of land in
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each field. During the 18th century land was enclosed. That means it was divided up so each farmer had all his land in one place instead of scattered across 3 fields. Enclosure allowed farmers to use their land more efficiently. Also in the 18th century farmers like Robert Bakewell began scientific stockbreeding (selective breeding). Farm animals grew much larger and they gave more meat, wool and milk.

Food
There was little change in food in the 18th century. Despite the improvements in farming food for ordinary people remained plain and monotonous. For them meat was a luxury. In England a poor person's food was mainly bread and potatoes. In the 18th century drinking tea became common even among ordinary people.

Homes
In the 18th century a tiny minority of the population lived in luxury. The rich built great country houses. A famous landscape gardener called Lancelot Brown (1715-1783) created beautiful gardens. (He was known as 'Capability' Brown from his habit of looking at land and saying it had 'great capabilities'). The leading architect of the 18th century was Robert Adam (1728-1792). He created a style called neo-classical and he designed many 18th century country houses. In the 18th century the wealthy owned comfortable upholstered furniture. They owned beautiful furniture, some of it veneered or inlaid. In the 18th century much fine furniture was made by Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779), George Hepplewhite (?-1786) and Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806). The famous clockmaker James Cox (1723-1800) made exquisite clocks for the rich. However the poor had none of these things. Craftsmen and labourers lived in 2 or 3 rooms. The poorest people lived in just one room. Their furniture was very simple and plain.

Clothes
In the 18th century men wore knee-length trouser like garments called breeches and stockings. They also wore waistcoats and frock coats. They wore linen shirts. Both men and women wore wigs and for men three-cornered hats were popular. Men wore buckled shoes. Women wore stays (a bodice with strips of whalebone) and hooped petticoats under their dresses. Women in the 18th century did not wear knickers. Fashionable women carried folding fans. Fashion was very important for the the 18th century but poor people's clothes hardly changed at all.

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Leisure
Traditional games remained popular in the 18th century. These included games such as chess, draughts and backgammon. They also tennis and a rough version of football. It is believed dominoes was invented in China. It reached Europe in the 18th century. Then in 1759 a man named John Jeffries invented an entirely new board game called A Journey Through Europe or The Play of Geography in which players race across a map of Europe. Horse racing was carried on for centuries before the 18th century but at this time it became a professional sport. The Jockey Club was formed in 1727. The Derby began in 1780. For the well off card games and gambling were popular. The theatre was also popular. In the early 18th century most towns did not have a purpose built theatre and plays were staged in buildings like inns. However in the late 18th century theatres were built in most towns in England. Assembly rooms were also built in most towns. In them people played cards and attended balls. In London pleasure gardens were created. Moreover a kind of cricket was played long before the 18th century but at that time it took on its modern form. The first cricket club was formed at Hambledon in Hampshire about 1750. Also in the 18th century rich people visited spas. They believed that bathing in and/or drinking spa water could cure illness. Towns like Buxton, Bath and Tunbridge prospered. At the end of the 18th century wealthy people began to spend time at the seaside. (Again they believed that bathing in seawater was good for your health). Seaside resorts like Brighton and Bognor boomed. Reading was also a popular pastime in the 18th century and the first novels were published at this time. Books were still expensive but in many towns you could pay to join a circulating library. The first daily newspaper in England was printed in 1702. The Times began in 1785. Many people enjoyed cruel 'sports' like cockfighting and bull baiting. (A bull was chained to a post and dogs were trained to attack it). Rich people liked fox hunting. Public executions were also popular and they drew large crowds. Boxing without gloves was also popular (although some boxers began to wear leather gloves in the 18th century). Puppet shows like Punch and Judy also drew the crowds.

Education In the early 18th century charity schools were founded in many towns in England. They were sometimes called Blue Coat Schools because of the colour of the children's uniforms. Boys from well off families went to grammar schools. Girls from well off families also went to school but it was felt important for them to learn 'accomplishments' like embroidery and music rather than academic subjects. However non-comformists or dissenters (Protestants who did not belong to the Church of England) were not allowed to attend most public schools. Instead they went to their own dissenting academies.

Transport
Transport was greatly improved during the 18th century. Groups of rich men formed turnpike trusts. Acts of Parliament gave them the right to improve and maintain certain roads. Travellers had to pay tolls to use them. The first turnpikes were created as early as 1663 but they became far more common in the 18th century. Transporting goods was also made much easier by digging canals. In the early 18th century goods were often transported by packhorse. Moving heavy goods was very expensive. However in 1759 the Duke of Bridgewater decided to build a canal to bring coal from his estate at Worsley to Manchester. He employed an engineer called James Brindley. When it was completed the Bridgewater canal halved the price of coal in Manchester. Many more canals were dug in the late 18th century and the early 19th century. They played a major role in the industrial revolution by making it cheaper to transport goods. Travel in the 18th century was made dangerous by highwaymen. The most famous is Dick Turpin (1705-1739). Originally a butcher Turpin does not deserve his romantic reputation. In reality he was a cruel and brutal man. Like many of his fellow highwaymen he was hanged. Smuggling was also very common in the 18th century. It could be very profitable as import duties on goods like rum and tobacco were very high.

Medicine
Knowledge of anatomy greatly improved in the 18th century. Until 1745 craftsmen called barber-surgeons performed operations. However in that year the barber and the surgeon became two different jobs. Their organisation The United Company of Barber-Surgeons split in two. Surgeons began to be university educated. The famous 18th century surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) is sometimes called the Father of Modern Surgery. He invented new procedures such as tracheotomy.

Among other advances a Scottish surgeon named James Lind discovered that fresh fruit or lemon juice could cure or prevent scurvy. He published his findings in 1753. A major scourge of the 18th century was smallpox. Even if it did not kill you it could leave you scarred with pox marks. Then, in 1721 Lady Mary Wortley Montague introduced inoculation from Turkey. You cut the patient then introduced matter from a smallpox pustule into the wound. The patient would (hopefully!) develop a mild case of the disease and be immune in future. Then, in 1796 a doctor named Edward Jenner (1749-1823) realised that milkmaids who caught cowpox were immune to smallpox. He invented vaccination. The patient was cut then matter from a cowpox pustule was introduced. The patient gained immunity to smallpox. In 1700 many people believed that scrofula (a form of tubercular infection) could be healed by a monarch's touch. (Scrofula was called the kings evil). Queen Anne (1702-1714) was the last British monarch to touch for scrofula. However there were still many quacks in the 18th century. Limited medical knowledge meant many people were desperate for a cure. One of the most common treatments, for the wealthy, was bathing in or drinking spa water, which they believed could cure all kinds of illness.

Art and Science

During the 18th century England produced two great portrait painters, Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). Meanwhile the artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) painted scenes showing the harsh side of 18th century life. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1768. In theatre the greatest actor of the 18th century was David Garrick (1717-1779). In science Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) discovered oxygen. Henry Cavendish (17311810) discovered hydrogen. He also calculated the mass and density of the earth. William Herschel (1738-1822) discovered Uranus. The Scottish engineer Thomas Telford (1757-1834) built roads, canals and the Menai suspension bridge.

Religion
In the early 18th century England was notable for its lack of religious zeal. Some of the clergy continued to do good work but generally there was a lack of energy in the church. This began to change in the 1730s. First a man named George Whitefield (1714-1770) became a great preacher. It was said that he could preach to crowds of 20,000 people (without a microphone). Then in 1738 John Wesley (1703-1791) founded the Methodists. Wesley did not want to break with the Church of England. He wanted his followers to remain within it but in the end this proved impossible and the Methodists were forced to become a separate denomination.

At the end of the 18th century religious enthusiasm began to revive. Within the Church of England there were a number of Evangelicals campaigning for an end to slavery.

Years of French Revolution in Britain

The ardour for liberty
'How much the greatest event that has happened in the history of the world, and how much the best' - Charles James Fox, Opposition Whig leader 1789 News of the opening events of the French Revolution was greeted with widespread enthusiasm by British observers, although some, patronisingly, saw it as evidence that France was abandoning absolutism for a liberal constitution based on the British model. Enthusiasm was most potent among those championing domestic political reform - Dissenters excluded from political office by the Test and Corporation and Subscription Acts, members of the middling orders denied the vote by antiquated constituency boundaries and a restricted suffrage, and Parliamentary Whigs whose ambitions for office were blocked by Pitt's firm hold on power. For these groups and their associated literary, scientific and political circles, events in France signified a much deeper change in government. I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading... Following hard on the American Revolution (1776-83), the sweeping aside of the French feudal order demonstrated the irresistible rise of freedom and enlightenment. In November 1789, Richard Price's sermon commemorating the Glorious Revolution of 1688 concluded by hailing events in France as the dawn of a new era. 'Behold all ye friends of freedom... behold the light you have struck out, after setting America free, reflected to France and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes and warms and illuminates Europe. I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading; ...the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.

The revolution controversy

Image of Edmund Burke Edmund Burke responded to the Revolution in France with conservatism Price's sermon attracted the wrath of Edmund Burke - a leading Whig increasingly uncomfortable with the reformist flirtations of his Whig friends, convinced that reform was destroying the French state, and fearful that revolution would spread to Britain. Burke's response, his powerful, deeply conservative, Reflections on the Revolution in France... (1791) prophesied the destruction of civilisation in France and the outbreak of European war. The pamphlet sparked an intense debate on fundamental questions in politics fought out in over three hundred
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pamphlets - including Thomas Paine's, Rights of Man, Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Man, and James Mackintosh's Vindiciae Gallicae - and spilling over into novels, poetry, popular song, and caricature. The debate rapidly became an escalating battle of political rhetoric and mobilisation. The controversy gave renewed energy to metropolitan and provincial reform societies, such as the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI), and fuelled the emergence of new associations, some organised by ordinary working people who declined the patronage and control of the wealthy. Thomas Hardy's London Corresponding Society (LCS), formed early in 1792, spent five evenings discussing whether they 'as treadesman (sic) shopkeepers and mechanics', had any right to seek parliamentary reform. The society went on to become hugely influential and developed scores of divisions and local branches. The debate rapidly became an escalating battle of political rhetoric and mobilisation. Those sympathetic to reform were tarred with France's worst revolutionary excesses and responded by taking their message to the mass of the people through political organisation and the circulation of cheap pamphlets and broadsides. Their most potent weapon, Paine's Rights of Man reached several hundred-thousand readers. In May 1792, the government reacted with a Royal Proclamation against seditious writing. In the subsequent prosecution of Paine, the Attorney General succinctly expressed the government's anxieties: 'all industry was used to obtrude and force this upon that part of the public whose minds cannot be supposed to be conversant with subjects of this sort.... Gentlemen, to whom are these positions addressed...to the ignorant, to the credulous, to the desperate.' Paine escaped to France but others were less fortunate.

Reaction
Image of Tom Paine Tom Paine, focus for anti-revolutionary feeling Government fears of popular insurrection escalated in November and December 1792 when the French promised armed support for all subject peoples and rumours of a London insurrection swept the capital. The establishment of the Association for the Protection of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers helped turn the tide by encouraging provincial correspondents to communicate with the London base, enjoining the denunciation and prosecution of local radicals, and circulating loyalist tracts and pamphlets to the middling and artisan classes. Branches also organised local demonstrations of loyalty, including over 300 ritualised burnings of Tom Paine. ...reformers attempted to organise a National Convention to express popular support for reform. Petitions and popular pressure for reform produced increasing intransigence in the government and exacerbated tensions amongst the Whigs (culminating in the defection of Burke and the Portland Whigs to Pitt in June 1794). In turn, reformers attempted to organise a National Convention to express popular support for reform. Such conventionism has precursors in the 1770s, but its popularisation alarmed the government and the notorious Judge Braxfield reacted

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punitively to the leaders of the Scottish and British Conventions of 1793 by sentencing them to transportation. Nonetheless, plans for an English Convention continued and in May 1794, the government arrested leading members of the SCI and LCS on suspicion of treason. The evidence was relatively scanty, but much depended on the interpretation of the statute of Edward II that defined treason in terms of 'compassing or imagining the death of the King'. In a series of dramatic trials in October and November 1794 the accused were acquitted. But they were hardly exonerated - William Windham denounced them in Parliament as 'acquitted felons'.

The Two Acts

Following the trials, the LCS focussed on mobilising popular unrest against the war, taxation, food shortages, and recruitment, through mass public meetings in June and October 1795. Days after the October meeting, during the state opening of Parliament, the king's coach was attacked (the king claiming to have been shot at) and when it returned empty it was destroyed by protesters. The government rushed in the 'Two Acts' or 'Gagging Acts' to tighten the treason statute and to ban large political meetings. A huge petitioning campaign followed, with loyalists expressing support and reformers protesting against the restriction, but the Bills were passed. ...the popular movement was driven underground and into more conspiratorial activity... The Two Acts encouraged an increasingly close alliance between the Foxite Whigs and the reformers. By the end of 1797 Fox was denouncing Pitt's 'reign of terror', and later seceded from Parliament in protest. Meanwhile, following further prosecutions and harassment, the popular movement was driven underground and into more conspiratorial activity - emerging in a series of splinter groups - the United Englishmen, United Irishmen and United Scotsmen.

Ireland and war

The Irish radicals, with a longer history of repression and a nationalist cause to fight, produced a full-scale insurrection in the summer of 1798, but were savagely repressed and collapsed before the promised French invasion force arrived. The Union of Ireland and Britain in 1800 further weakened Irish radicalism, although there was a final rebellion in 1803. In Britain the suspension of habeas corpus enabled the government to imprison most of the leading radicals and to silence the popular movement, despite widespread social unrest from 1799-1801 due to poor harvests and high taxes. The Defence of the Realm Acts of 1798 and 1801 sought to gauge the extent of popular loyalty throughout the country. Ministers, however, were far from complacent. The Defence of the Realm Acts of 1798 and 1801 sought to gauge the extent of popular loyalty throughout the country. The results suggest neither widespread loyalism nor extensive alienation. Although some announced they
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would not fight, people's willingness increased sharply in the south-east which was expected to bear the brunt of invasion. Others were not prepared to fight far from home but would enlist in local volunteer and militia units. Responded to such concerns, a national defence force of regular units, militias, and Volunteer units was constructed. At the height of the invasion scare in 18035, following the lull of the Peace of Amiens (1801-3), approximately one in five able-bodied men enlisted in some form of military organisation. War became, for the first time, a national endeavour touching practically every family in the land.

The legacy
Reformers' attempts to bring the 'debate' to the people from 1791, were mirrored in the reaction of loyalists from 1792, and was further intensified following war with France after February 1793. At the height of the invasion scare in 1803 the mass dissemination of loyalist ballads and broadsides had become a hugely efficient part of government strategy - so much so that, during the invasion threat loyalism became completely ascendant. But the practical struggle for the hearts and minds of the British people meant that popular awareness of the national political agenda expanded dramatically. The reformers may have failed, but British political culture changed fundamentally in the course of resisting their efforts. Haunted by the spectre of popular revolutionary violence the political lite refused to trust the people to exercise democratic rights responsibly... When the reform movement re-appeared around 1807, it did so largely under the leadership of Parliamentarians such as Frances Burdett, and it eschewed Paine's radical, democratic rhetoric for a more constitutionalist idiom demanding the restoration of proper balances between the Crown, Lords and Commons. One major element of this movement was the attack on corruption - with William Cobbett becoming the populist spokesman, denouncing the use of royal pensions to buy political allegiance, inefficiency in the administration of the state's finances, and incompetence among senior government ministers as the war dragged on until 1815. Limited electoral reform was conceded in 1832, universal suffrage in 1928. This slow evolution might be attributed to the resilience of the British political elite, the weakness of political opposition, or the failures of the extra-parliamentary reform movement. But the French Revolution was also a critical factor. British liberal and opposition writing up to 1789 concentrated almost entirely on the dangers of the excessive power of the crown. In contrast, 19th-century conservatism and liberalism were united in seeing the people themselves as the principal threat to liberty. Haunted by the spectre of popular revolutionary violence the political lite refused to trust the people to exercise democratic rights responsibly - while simultaneously understanding the importance of their loyalty. From 1793, propaganda, political ritual and the cultivation of a popular monarchy became key elements in a strategy that recognised the power of the people, but declined to accord them democratic rights.

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