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1688 and 1888: Victorian Society and the Bicentenary of the Glorious Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Edmund Rogers
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 892 - 916
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2011

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References

1 Schwoerer, Lois G., “Celebrating the Glorious Revolution, 1689–1989,” Albion 22, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pincus, Steve, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven, CT, 2009), espGoogle Scholar. chap. 1.

2 Schwoerer, “Celebrating,” 8; Kenyon, John, “1688 Remembered: The Glorious Revolution and the American Constitution,” in The World of William and Mary: Anglo-Dutch Perspectives on the Revolution of 1688–89, ed. Hoak, Dale and Feingold, Mordechai (Stanford, CA, 1996), 121Google Scholar; Quinault, Roland, “The Cult of the Centenary, c. 1784–1914,” Historical Research 71, no. 176 (October, 1998): 303–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Worden, Blair, “The Victorians and Oliver Cromwell,” in History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History 1750–1950, ed. Collini, Stefan, Whatmore, Richard, and Young, Brian (Cambridge, 2000), 116Google Scholar.

3 Blaas, P. B. M., Continuity and Anachronism: Parliamentary and Constitutional Development in Whig Historiography and in the Anti-Whig Reaction between 1890 and 1930 (The Hague, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burrow, J. W., A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge, 1981), 296CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Samuel, Raphael, “The Discovery of Puritanism, 1820–1914: A Preliminary Sketch,” in Revival and Religion since 1700: Essays for John Walsh, ed. Garnett, Jane and Matthew, Colin (London, 1993), 206–7Google Scholar; Lang, Timothy, The Victorians and the Stuart Heritage: Interpretations of a Discordant Past (Cambridge, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Worden, Blair, “The Victorians,” and Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity (London, 2001), chap. 9Google Scholar. On the decline of constitutionalism as a vital aspect of Liberalism in the 1880s, see Parry, Jonathan, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge, 2006), 371–72, 398CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The day 5 November was enshrined in the Anglican Prayer Book in 1690 as a day of national thanksgiving until such potentially divisive provisions were deleted in 1859. See Schwoerer, “Celebrating,” 3.

5 On commemoration in the Church of Scotland, see The Times, 30 May 1888, 6.

6 At least one scholar—and not a historian—has gone admirably far to justify his heavy use of The Times: Young, Robert J. C., The Idea of English Ethnicity (Oxford, 2008), 95Google Scholar.

7 The digitized newspapers used were The Times, The Scotsman, and the 19th Century British Library Newspapers collection. On the methodological issues attached to the use of digitized newspapers, see Bingham, Adrian, “The Digitization of Newspaper Archives: Opportunities and Challenges for Historians,” Twentieth Century British History 21, no. 2 (2010): 225–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Harris, Tim, Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (London, 2006)Google Scholar.

9 Birmingham Daily Post, 3 January 1888, 4.

10 Blaas, Continuity and Anachronism; Lang, The Victorians.

11 On the downward trickle of Civil War history, see Samuel, “The Discovery of Puritanism,” 206–7.

12 Blaas, Continuity and Anachronism; Bentley, Michael, Modernizing England’s Past: English Historiography in the Age of Modernism, 1870–1970 (Cambridge, 2005), esp. 95–96Google Scholar. Blaas also called Macaulay Whiggishness into question (see chap. 2).

13 On English Nonconformist support for Home Rule, see Bebbington, D. W., The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914 (London, 1982), chap. 5Google Scholar; Megahey, Alan, “‘Irish Protestants Feel This Betrayal Keenly …’: Home Rule, Rome Rule and Nonconformity,” in Problems and Perspectives in Irish History since 1800: Essays in Honour of Patrick Buckland, ed. Boyce, D. George and Swift, Roger (Dublin, 2004)Google Scholar.

14 On the enduring presence of the anti-Catholic mind-set in the liberal, “tolerant” late nineteenth century, see Sidenvall, Erik, After Anti-Catholicism? John Henry Newman and Protestant Britain, 1845–c. 1890 (London, 2005)Google Scholar.

15 Lang, The Victorians; Worden, “The Victorians.”

16 Pincus, 1688, 16–21.

17 Glasgow Herald, 24 May 1888, 6. See also Notes and Queries 6 (1888): 36; Liverpool Mercury, 9 August 1888, 5; Pall Mall Gazette, 1 January 1889, 1; Birmingham Daily Post, 24 June 1889, 8.

18 Glasgow Herald, 29 December 1888, 9; Thomas, Peter W., “Jenner, Henry (1848–1934),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter ODNB), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/75066Google Scholar.

19 Schwoerer, “Celebrating,” 11.

20 For examples of positive editorial attitudes toward the Stuart exhibition, see Daily News, 3 April 1888, 5; The Times, 3 April 1888, 8.

21 Pall Mall Gazette, 3 April 1888, 1.

22 The Times, 19 January 1888, 12.

23 Glasgow Herald, 5 May 1888, 6; Schwoerer, “Celebrating,” 11–12.

24 Freeman’s Journal, 11 February 1889, 6. On Naoroji’s connections with Irish nationalism, see Biagini, Eugenio F., British Democracy and Irish Nationalism, 1876–1906 (Cambridge, 2007), 17, 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See Pincus, 1688, 24–25. The terms are those used by Macaulay.

26 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 4 December 1888, 6.

27 Fremantle, W. H., The Eighty-Eights: Sermons on the Armada and the Revolution (London, 1888), 50Google Scholar. I would like to thank Steve Taylor at the Evangelical Library for supplying me with a facsimile of this work.

28 The Times, 30 October 1888, 10.

29 The Times, 28 February 1889, 10.

30 The Times, 13 July 1888, 6.

31 Standard, 15 March 1888, 3.

32 Glasgow Herald, 1 November 1888, 6. See also Bebbington, Nonconformist Conscience, 99–100; Brewer, John D. and Higgins, Gareth I., Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998 (Basingstoke, 1998), 75–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hempton, David, “‘For God and Ulster’: Evangelical Protestantism and the Home Rule Crisis of 1886,” in Protestant Evangelicalism: Britain, Ireland, Germany and America, c.1750–c.1950, ed. Robbins, Keith (Oxford, 1990), 247–48Google Scholar. On American funding for the Land League and the Home Rule cause, see Biagini, British Democracy, 195n, 247, 259. On slightly earlier British attitudes toward American Fenianism, see Nie, Michael De, The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882 (Madison, WI, 2004), 153Google Scholar.

33 Belfast News-Letter, 6 December 1888, 4.

34 Nation, 21 July 1888, 2.

35 Hempton, “‘For God and Ulster’”; Brewer and Higgins, Anti-Catholicism, 71–78. Talk of Protestant unity in Ulster of course hid, as in England and Scotland, a long history of enmity between Protestant denominations (see Brown, Terence, The Whole Protestant Community: The Making of a Historical Myth [Derry, 1985]Google Scholar).

36 Belfast News-Letter, 5 July 1888, 4; 4 July 1888, 5; 14 August 1888, 7; McBride, Ian, The Siege of Derry in Ulster Protestant Mythology (Dublin, 1997)Google Scholar; McGovern, Mark, “‘A Besieged Outpost’: The Imagination of Empire and the Siege Myth, 1860–1900,” in Boyce and Swift, Problems and Perspectives in Irish HistoryGoogle Scholar.

37 Belfast News-Letter, 10 April 1888, 8.

38 Belfast News-Letter, 16 July 1888, 8.

39 Belfast News-Letter, 19 July 1888, 4.

40 Pincus, 1688; Fraser, T. G., “The Siege: Its History and Legacy, 1688–1889,” in Derry and Londonderry: History and Society; Interdisciplinary Essays on the History of an Irish County, ed. O’Brien, Gerard (Dublin, 1999), 393–94Google Scholar.

41 Belfast News-Letter, 5 November 1888, 7. See also Belfast News-Letter, 3 May 1888, 7 (originally published in Scotsman, 28 April 1888); Pincus, 1688, 268–73; Loughlin, James, Ulster Unionism and British National Identity since 1885 (London, 1995), 38–39Google Scholar; Bew, John, The Glory of Being Britons: Civic Unionism in Nineteenth-Century Belfast (Dublin, 2009), 218Google Scholar.

42 For the preceding decades of the nineteenth century, see Bew, Glory.

43 Beckett, John, City Status in the British Isles, 1830–2002 (Aldershot, 2005), 43–47Google Scholar.

44 Belfast News-Letter, 6 April 1889, 3; 22 December 1888, 8.

45 All quotations are from Glasgow Herald, 5 May 1888, 6. On the Herald’s Unionism and sectarian character, see MacKenzie, John M., “The Press and the Dominant Ideology of Empire,” in Newspapers and Empire in Ireland and Britain: Reporting the British Empire, c.1857–1921, ed. Potter, Simon J. (Dublin, 2004), 31Google Scholar.

46 Christian Life, 1 October 1887, 482.

47 Standard, 11 May 1888, 3; The Times, 11 May 1888, 5; 17 May 1888, 5; 18 May 1888, 7; 31 May 1888, 6; 1 June 1888, 5; Tablet, 5 May 1888, 714. See also Quinault, “The Cult of the Centenary,” 315.

48 Letter from T. C. Noble to Western Morning News, 24 November 1887, in T. C. Noble, A Collection of Papers Relating to the History of the Spanish Armada 1588 and the Tercentenary Celebration 1888 etc, held in the British Library; Tablet, 5 May 1888, 714–15.

49 Fremantle, The Eighty-Eights, 41–45, 61; Church and State, 6 February 1886, 1.

50 This was the angle for the tercentenary in 1988.

51 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 4 December 1888, 6.

52 Quinn, Dermot, Patronage and Piety: The Politics of English Roman Catholicism, 1850–1900 (Basingstoke, 1993), chap. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Western Mail, 16 July 1889, 2. Somewhat discourteously, they instead returned a Liberal.

54 Parry, Jonathan, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT, 1993), 299Google Scholar.

55 Elliott, Marianne, Watchmen in Sion: The Protestant Idea of Liberty (Derry, 1985)Google Scholar.

56 Protestant Commemoration in 1888 of the Defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the Accession of the Protestant Dynasty in 1688: Report of Sermons and Public Meetings Held Under the Auspices of the Hastings and St Leonards Auxiliary of the Protestant Reformation Society (Hastings, 1888), 7–8Google Scholar.

57 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 1 December 1888, 6. For Blackwood’s views on Home Rule, as well as the importance of 1688 to his Unionism, see Montagu, H. S. D. and Blackwood, Lady, eds., Some Records of the Life of Arthur Blackwood (London, 1896), 359Google Scholar.

58 Morley and Goschen were taking part in a debate over diplomatic presence at the Paris Exhibition, which was held from 6 May to 31 October 1889 to coincide with the centenary of the French Revolution. Goschen had responded to Gladstone’s point that the French would not decline to attend a British exhibition held in 1888 to coincide with the 1688 bicentenary (The Times, 29 May 1889, 8).

59 McFarland, Elaine W., “‘Outposts of the Loyalists of Ireland’: The Orangemen’s Unionist Vision,” in Unionist Scotland, 1800–1997, ed. MacDonald, Catriona M. M. (Edinburgh, 1998), 39Google Scholar. On Scottish anti-Catholicism, see Brown, Callum G., Religion and Society in Scotland since 1707 (Edinburgh, 1997), 191–96Google Scholar.

60 Waller, P. J., Democracy and Sectarianism: A Political and Social History of Liverpool, 1868–1939 (Liverpool, 1981)Google Scholar; Belchem, John, Irish, Catholic and Scouse: The History of the Liverpool Irish, 1800–1939 (Liverpool, 2007)Google Scholar.

61 Liverpool Mercury, 3 March 1888, 5; 23 October 1888.

62 Waller, Democracy and Sectarianism, 92–96; Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, 189.

63 Liverpool Mercury, 23 October 1888, 5. On Taylor, see Waller, Democracy and Sectarianism. He spoke in Liverpool on the Revolution earlier in the year; see Liverpool Mercury, 26 July 1888, 6.

64 The “quadrilaterial resolution” at Lambeth set four conditions for reunion: the preeminence of Scripture, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds as statements of faith, the scripturally justified sacraments of baptism and communion, and the “historic episcopate” as adapted to local conditions. See “Resolutions from 1888, Resolution 11,” Lambeth Conference Resolutions Archive, http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1888/1888-11.cfm.

65 Fremantle, The Eighty-Eights, esp. v–vii.

66 Dundee Courier and Argus, 31 August 1888, 6; John Wordsworth, “Wordsworth, Charles (1806–1892),” rev. H. C. G. Mattew, ODNB.

67 Grimley, Matthew, “The Religion of Englishness: Puritanism, Providentialism, and ‘National Character,’ 1918–1945,” Journal of British Studies 46 (October 2007): 891CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Protestant Commemoration in 1888, 20.

69 Waller, Democracy and Sectarianism, 96.

70 Schwoerer’s sources, by contrast, presented a post-Newman England reconciled to Catholicism (see Schwoerer, “Celebrating,” 11).

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73 Protestant Commemoration in 1888, 8, 10.

74 The charges against King included the administering of wine mixed with water, ceremonial washing of the communion vessels, facing eastward with his back to the congregation, and making the sign of the cross. The outcome of his trial was mostly in King’s favor, leading to the Church Association lodging an unsuccessful appeal with the Privy Council. For accounts of King’s actions and the trial, see Russell, George W. E., Edward King, Sixtieth Bishop of Lincoln: A Memoir (London, 1912), chap. 5Google Scholar; Norman, E. R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (New York, 1968), 105–21Google Scholar; Bentley, Ritualism and Politics, 116–20.

75 Derby Mercury, 27 February 1889, 5.

76 Protestant Commemoration in 1888, 7.

77 These concerns continued into the Edwardian period (see Megahey, “Irish Protestants,” 173).

78 Bruce, Robert, “Preface,” in Bicentenary Lectures: A Historical Series Delivered on the Occasion of the Bicentenary of the Revolution of 1688, ed. Congregational Union of England and Wales (London, 1889), viiGoogle Scholar.

79 Leeds Mercury, 14 April 1888, 12.

80 Cheshire Observer, 14 April 1888, 7.

81 Western Mail, 12 June 1888, 4.

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83 Glasgow Herald, 7 March 1888, 13.

84 On ritualism in Scotland, see Yates, Anglican Ritualism, 308–14.

85 Ibid., 31 July 1888, 4. See also North British Daily Mail report, reprinted in Bruce Herald (New Zealand), 25 September 1888, 4.

86 Dundee Courier and Argus, 21 November 1888, 3.

87 Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 12 November 1888, 3. The story (eventually) made it as far as New Zealand (see Wanganui Herald, 3 January 1889, 2).

88 The Times, 10 October 1888, 7.

89 Protestant Commemoration in 1888, 15–16.

90 The Times, 6 September 1889, 11; Waller, Democracy and Sectarianism, 96.

91 The Times, 31 March 1888, 8; Belfast News-Letter, 5 April 1888, 7; “The British Mission to the Vatican,” American Journal of International Law 9, no. 1 (January 1915): 207Google Scholar; Quinn, Patronage and Piety, 167–69; Parry, J. P., “Nonconformity, Clericalism and ‘Englishness’: The United Kingdom,” in Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Clark, Christopher and Kaiser, Wolfram (Cambridge, 2003), 154Google Scholar; Urbach, Karina, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: Gladstone, Ireland and Pope Leo XIII, 1881–1885/6,” in The Papacy and the New World Order: Vatican Diplomacy, Catholic Opinion and International Politics at the Times of Leo XIII, 1878–1903, ed. Viaene, Vincent (Leuven, 2005)Google Scholar; Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Holy See,” http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-profile/europe/holy-see/?profile=intRelations.

92 Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 27 January 1888, 6.

93 Protestant Commemoration in 1888, 8, 10.

94 The Times, 31 May 1888, 6. For the Edinburgh meeting, see Belfast News-Letter, 27 June 1888, 5.

95 Glasgow Herald, 31 July 1888, 4.

96 Glasgow Herald, 4 April 1888, 10. See also Belfast News-Letter, 5 April 1888, 7; Machin, Politics and the Churches, 179.

97 The Times, 31 May 1888, 6.

98 Glasgow Herald, 7 March 1888, 13.

99 Glasgow Herald, 4 April 1888, 10; Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 11 April 1888, 5; The Times, 31 May 1888, 6; 1 June 1888, 5.

100 Pincus, 1688, 16–21.

101 Nonconformist and Independent, 22 March 1888, 277.

102 Bebbington, Nonconformist Conscience, chap. 7.

103 Ibid., 133.

104 See, e.g., Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 11 April 1888, 5.

105 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 24 October 1888, 8. See also Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 2 October 1888, 6.

106 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 24 October 1888, 8.

107 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 24 October 1888, 8. For Fairbairn, see Birmingham Daily Post, 26 September 1888, 5.

108 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 10 October 1888, 6.

109 Congregational Union of England and Wales, ed., Bicentenary Lectures: A Historical Series Delivered on the Occasion of the Bicentenary of the Revolution of 1688 (London, 1889)Google Scholar.

110 Stoughton, John, The Revolution of 1688 in its Bearing on Protestant Nonconformity (London, 1888)Google Scholar.

111 Leicester Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury, 2 February 1889, 8.

112 The Times, 10 October 1888, 7.

113 Parry, “Nonconformity”; Grimley, “The Religion of Englishness,” 892.

114 Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 29 May 1888, 3. Quinault states that The Times has the distinction of making the first recorded use of “bicentenary” in 1862; see Quinault, “The Cult of the Centenary,” 309. However, the Oxford English Dictionary currently gives the honor to the Congregational Year Book. But I have found an even earlier use made nearly twenty years before, also in connection with religion: Bicentenary of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster (Edinburgh, 1843)Google Scholar.

115 Bruce, “Preface,” iv–v.

116 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 11 April 1888, 5.

117 Birmingham Daily Post, 26 September 1888, 5.

118 Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, 29 May 1888, 3.

119 Celebration of the Armada was most overt and enthusiastic in Plymouth; see Quinault, “The Cult of the Centenary,” 315.

120 Bury and Norwich Post, and Suffolk Standard, 27 March 1888, 6.

121 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 4 December 1888, 6.

122 Richardson, Joanna, “Queen Victoria’s Jubilees,” History Today 27, no. 6 (1977): 349–56Google Scholar.

123 Gregory, Adrian, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919–1946 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar, and “The Commemoration of the Battle of Britain,” in The Burning Blue: A New History of the Battle of Britain, ed. Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A. (London, 2000)Google Scholar.

124 Kenyon, “1688 Remembered,” 121.

125 Worden, “The Victorians,” and Roundhead Reputations, 309–14.

126 See, e.g., MacRaild, Donald M., “Wherever Orange Is Worn: Orangeism and Irish Migration in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 28, no. 2 (2002)Google Scholar; 29, no. 1 (2003): 98–117.

127 Ashley, W. J., The Adjustment of Wages (London, 1903), 3Google Scholar.

128 Traill, Henry Duff, William the Third (London, 1888), 201–3Google Scholar. See reviews in Dublin Review 20 (1888): 462Google Scholar; Journal of Education 10 (1888): 448–49Google Scholar; and London Quarterly Review 70 (1888): 376–77Google Scholar.

129 Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar; Hilton, Boyd, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795–1865 (Oxford, 1988), 13–16Google Scholar; Fraser, Hilary, “The Victorian Novel and Religion,” in A Companion to the Victorian Novel, ed. Brantlinger, Patrick and Thesing, William B. (Oxford, 2002), 115Google Scholar; Grimley, “The Religion of Englishness.” On Providentialism in American Church history in this period, see Richey, Russell E., “Methodism and Providence: A Study in Secularization,” in Protestant Evangelicalism: Britain, Ireland, Germany and America, c. 1750–c. 1950, ed. Robbins, Keith (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar.

130 Hinchliff, Peter, God and History: Aspects of British Theology, 1875–1914 (Oxford, 1992), 18–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bentley, Modernizing England’s Past, 72–76.

131 See, esp., Fremantle, The Eighty-Eights.

132 I am indebted to James McConnel for the highly stimulating conversation from which the main ideas in this conclusion derive.

133 Evans, Richard J., “The Wonderfulness of Us (the Tory Interpretation of History),” London Review of Books 33, no. 6 (17 March 2011): 9–12Google Scholar.