Political Writings

by Henry Saint John, David Armitage (editor)

Bolingbroke: Political Writings provides the first accessible, modernized and annotated texts of three of the most important works in eighteenth-century British political thought. These works, the Dissertation upon Parties, the letter "On the Spirit of Patriotism" and The Idea of the Patriot King together formed the first coherent platform of a political opposition movement in Anglo-American politics and influenced not only radicals in Britain, but the American Founding Fathers and the French Revolutionaries.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy

354 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

Henry Saint John, first viscount Bolingbroke, English statesman, orator, and a Jacobite, spent much life in exile and wrote influential political treatises, notably The Idea of a Patriot King in 1749.

This Tory philosopher flourished.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_S...

Reviews

[Dr G]

Henry St John, who later became Lord Bolingbroke, was a politician in early eighteenth century Britain, so a decade or so after the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 which saw the end of the Stuarts and the arrival of William of Orange and his wife Mary, the eldest daughter of the deposed James II. So this was also some forty to fifty years after the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth, and the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy.
Although there was some fluidity to political organization, at this time, the Tories then were broadly pro-monarchy, pro-Established Church of England and pro-aristocracy. The Whigs were in favour of limiting the monarchy’s powers and preserving parliament’s; they were anti-Catholicism and opposed persecution of non-conformists.
Bolingbroke was a Tory, although he was not a strong supporter of Anglican theology. He succeeded to high position in the Tory government and was regarded as a likely leader until the Whigs won the 1815 election at the time of the succession of George I. The leader of the Whigs, and generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of England, was William Walpole who sought to get rid of as many Tories as possible. Bolingbroke fled to France and took up with the Jacobites. He was then the subject of a vote of attainder for treason, which was passed. When Jacobitism in France collapsed he returned to England and was subsequently pardoned by George I. One rather gets the impression that his primary political principle was that he personally deserved to be at the top of the pile. So, such solipsism is not a recent invention.
The bulk of this book is made up of Lord Bolingbroke’s “A Dissertation Upon Parties” which he published in his The Craftsman journal and which is written as a series of letters but was published as editorials. “On the Spirit of Patriotism” was a letter, and “The Idea of a Patriot-King” was intended as a small monograph but ended up in other forms. Curiously, he spends much time arguing that Walpole betrayed true Whiggery, although he himself was a long-term Tory.
Bolingbroke was a friend of both Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, for which one can, perhaps, partially forgive his political infelicities.
This edition was no doubt welcomed by scholars of Bolingbroke or of early Toryism. However, for anyone else, it presents difficulties. The major problem is that so many of the situations which prevailed at the beginning of the eighteenth century have long since changed. The most obvious is the existence then, despite the Revolution, of the Crown’s retention of potent executive power (“No Parliament ever did more to gain the prince than this. They seemed for several years, to have nothing so much at heart as securing his government, advancing his prerogative, and filling his coffers”). Secondly, there is the prominent role of church politics in government, including the assumption that Catholicism was an immediate threat to the nation’s government (“But we must place at the head of all, a jealousy of popery, which was well founded, and therefore gathered strength daily”). Thirdly, there is the fear of a standing army being used by the monarch to impose his or her will on a reluctant populace “(the Commons) would give him neither the whole supply of one million two hundred thousand pounds, which he asked, nor sanctify, by the authority of Parliament, the practice of keeping up a standing army in time of peace”).
More generally, it seems to have been considered axiomatic that there was, watching over the universe, a supreme, omniscient, omnipotent agent who judged all of us and our actions, thoughts and deeds at all times, and was able to intercede in the universe’s events at any point, and might do so in response to our prayers. What we would now name misogyny seems to have been widely accepted as a critique on women’s capacities. This was commonly overlooked in relation to Elizabeth Gloriana. But Bolingbroke says of the Roman, Antony: “He became an Egyptian king, sunk into luxurious effeminacy, and proved he was unfit to govern men, by suffering himself to be governed by a woman.”
There is a plangent oppositional tone to Bolingbroke’s commentary: “but this I say, that the principles by which King James and King Charles the First governed, and the excesses of hierarchical and monarchical power, exercised in consequence of them, gave great advantage to the opposite opinions, and entirely occasioned the miseries which followed. Frenzy provoked frenzy, and two species of madness infected the whole mass of the people. It has cost us a century to lose our wits, and to recover them again./ If our grievances under King Charles the First had been redressed by a sober, regular, parliamentary reformation of the state, or, if the civil war happening, a new government had been established on principles of the constitution, not of faction, of liberty, not of licentiousness, as there was on the abdication of King James the Second; we may conclude both from reason and experience, that the absurd and slavish doctrines I have mentioned would have been exploded early.… The state was subverted, instead of being reformed; and all the fury of faction and enthusiasm was employed to destroy the constitution to the very foundation.”
This extract leads us to another difficulty with reading this book: the style is verbose with multi-clause sentences making the structure of the argument often difficult to follow.
Quite a lot of the material also requires a reasonable level of familiarity with the politics of the time, more familiarity than I have, I am afraid. Interestingly, Bolingbroke shows himself to be a staunch Elizabethan, firmly adhering to the Elizabeth Gloriana notion. By contrast, he has no time for any of the Stuarts.
Having made these points, I should move on to recognize that there is much good sprinkled through what Bolingbroke writes. He provides a perfectly sensible argument against inherited positions, perhaps more obvious in our age than in his. Or perhaps not. “I cannot help being surprised that a man should expect to be trusted with the Crown, because he is born a prince, in a country where he could not be trusted by law, and ought not to be trusted in person, with a constable’s staff, if he was born a private person.”
The significant responsibility of parliament to do much more than simply create laws is wisely explained, and might profitably be made compulsory reading for many contemporary democratic parliaments: “To destroy British liberty with an army of Britons, is not a measure so sure of success as some people may believe. To corrupt the Parliament is a slower, but might prove a more effectual method; and two or three hundred mercenaries in the two Houses, if they could be listed there, would be more fatal to the constitution, than ten times as many thousands in red and blue out of them. Parliaments are the true guardians of liberty.”
Furthermore, “Socrates used to say, that although no man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government. He said this upon the experience he had in Greece. He would not change his opinion if he lived now in Britain.”
The messy complexities of political activity in general, and of the Stuart period in particular, are eloquently described: “The Tories acted on the most abject principles of submission to the King; and, on those of a hereditary right, were zealous for the succession of a prince, whose bigotry rendered him unfit to rule a Protestant and a free people. – The Whigs maintained the power of Parliament to limit the succession to the crown, and avowed the principle of resistance in which they had law, example and reason for them. But then the fury of faction was for doing that without Parliament, which could only be legally done by it: and, in order to this, the principles of resistance were extended too far; and the hottest men of the party taking the lead, they acted in an extravagant spirit of licence, rather than a sober spirit of liberty; and the madness of a few, little inferior to that of Cromwell’s enthusiasts, dishonoured the whole cause for a time.”
At his best, Bolingbroke writes clearly, sensibly, and impartially, and also robustly. He writes of King Charles II: “Obstinacy provoked obstinacy. The King grew obstinate, and severe too, against his natural easiness and former clemency of temper. The Tory party grew as obstinate, and as furious on their side, according to a natural tendency in the disposition of all parties: and thus the nation was delivered over, on the death of King Charles, à la sottise de son frère , ‘to the folly and madness of his brother.’” He continues: “This Prince was above fifty, when he came to the throne. He had great experience of all kinds; particularly of the temper of this nation, and of the impossibility to attempt introducing popery, without hazarding his crown. But his experience profited him not. His bigotry drew false conclusions from it. He flattered himself that he should be able to play parties against one another, better than his brother had done (which, by the way, was the least of his little talents) and to complete his designs by an authority, which was but too well established. He passed, I think, for a sincere man. Perhaps, he was so; and he spoke always with great emphasis of the word of a king; and yet never was the meanest word so scandalously broken as his.”
More broadly, Bolingbroke asserts of the politics of the post-Restoration period generally: “the struggle was in the main for power, not principle.” And, “Truth and reason are often able to get the better of authority in particular minds; but truth and reason, with authority on their side, will carry numbers, bear down prejudices, and become the very genius of the people.”
It does not take much imagination to apply many of his statements to our own times and circumstances: “We do not read, I think of more than ‘one nation, who refused liberty when it was offered to them; but we read of many, and have almost seen some, who lost it through their only fault, by the plain and necessary consequences of their own conduct, when they were in full possession of it, and had the means of securing it effectually in their power. A wise and brave people will neither be cozened, nor bullied out of their liberty; but a wise and brave people may cease to be such: they may degenerate; they may sink into sloth and luxury; they may resign themselves to a treacherous conduct; or abet the enemies of the constitution, under a notion of supporting the friends of the government: they may want the sense to discern their danger in time, or the courage to resist, when it stares them in the face.”
Indeed!
I can conclude my review with no better words than Bolingbroke’s own: “What shall I say further on this head? Nothing more is necessary. Let me wind it up, therefore, by asserting this great truth, that results from what has already been said.”