This thesis describes the ways in which hosting a salon opened up opportunities for eighteenth century French women, divided in practical opportunities and opportunities to challenge contemporary...Show moreThis thesis describes the ways in which hosting a salon opened up opportunities for eighteenth century French women, divided in practical opportunities and opportunities to challenge contemporary ideas about women.Show less
Richard Brothers was a notable early believer and advocate for English-Israelism. He antagonized the government with prophecies of the king of England yielding his throne to him. Prophesying that...Show moreRichard Brothers was a notable early believer and advocate for English-Israelism. He antagonized the government with prophecies of the king of England yielding his throne to him. Prophesying that the hidden Jews of England would return to Israel under his guidance. He was the most prominent late 18thcentury prophet and remains a controversial and misunderstood figure. Despite decade long interest from scholars, Brothers’ role as part of the broader radical culture remains a matter of debate. While his story can be interpreted as that of a lunatic who stumbled into fame, we will discuss what allowed Brothers to blossom into a national phenomenon. The aim is to explore Brothers’ role and impact in the context of the larger radical movement. We will explore why Brothers was prosecuted in a government effort aimed at silencing these radical groups in England, and why his political and religious message were deemed too dangerous to be left unchecked. We will view Brothers through the lens that most of Britain would have seen him through in 1795, the newspapers. A deeply divisive figure, he sparked discourse in all layers of English society. His fame reached even outside Britain. While the exact number of followers and sympathetic individuals has been the subject of some debate, the aim is to find out if there was significant support for the prophet. With material documenting Brothers’ impact on London now readily available in online newspaper archives, the goal of this research is to answer the question: What impact did Richard Brothers have on society and how was he perceived by the government and the public?Show less
Newspapers reveal much more than the facts reported within them. They illustrate revolutionary culture and the climate of ideas which faced readers. Understanding this is crucial to imagining how...Show moreNewspapers reveal much more than the facts reported within them. They illustrate revolutionary culture and the climate of ideas which faced readers. Understanding this is crucial to imagining how people experienced the daily reality of living through such times. Newspapers during the Directory period have seldom been studied. This is a particular lacuna given the crisis and unexpected chaos of the summer of 1799. By mid-1799, multiple military fronts as well as internal unrest backgrounded the beginning of the royalist rebellion in the Haute-Garonne. The way in which the press characterised this royalist threat and communicated the crisis discloses much about what editors, and in turn their readership, were afraid of happening. Editors relied on collective memories of the horrors of the Terror to characterise opposing political factions thereby demonstrating fears of repeating the recent past. Contrasting this dire rhetoric and the extreme demonisation of the rebels with actual indifferent government attitude to the insurrection illustrates that this was merely a form of propaganda employed for political ends by the Jacobin, royalist, and republican political movements. In the same vein, the post-rebellion manipulation of the depiction of peasant rebels once again establishes that these words were more motivated by political needs than by reality. This reveals an underlying anxiety from a Directory whose control over France was steadily eroding.Show less
Between 1750 and 1773 the three Catholic kingdoms of Portugal, Spain and France expelled the Order of Jesuits from their respective realms. The motives for this expulsion were by and large the same...Show moreBetween 1750 and 1773 the three Catholic kingdoms of Portugal, Spain and France expelled the Order of Jesuits from their respective realms. The motives for this expulsion were by and large the same, as were the procedures taken to expel the Jesuits. Altogether, these three national expulsions can be seen as part of a trilateral diplomatic effort to convince the pope, the unequivocal leader of the Jesuits, to do the same. This article discusses the 'stages of expulsion' and the transnationality of the suppression of the Jesuits.Show less
This thesis analyses Whig and Tory ideas of Europe as they were invoked between the Act of Union and the Treaty of Utrecht, or 1707-1713. It demonstrates how concepts of Europe were significant in...Show moreThis thesis analyses Whig and Tory ideas of Europe as they were invoked between the Act of Union and the Treaty of Utrecht, or 1707-1713. It demonstrates how concepts of Europe were significant in shaping Whig and Tory thought in this period. The Whigs drew a fiercely demarcated confessional split between Protestant and Catholic states, informed by a broad sympathy for different denominations of Protestantism, and a deep distrust of Catholicism. Toryism, conversely, was rooted in a suspicion of any Christian belief other than Anglicanism. Consequently, the Tory confessional map of Europe was more nuanced and suspicious of continental engagement. These divisions became more topical as the War of the Spanish Succession intensified, and polemics became increasingly accusatory and conspiratorial. These conspiracies derived from the two parties’ own understandings of Europe, and their unwillingness to comprehend the opposite idea. Whig pamphlets presented Tory peace efforts as an attempt to undermine the Protestant Succession, by strengthening France and the Pretender. Calls for peace were seen as a pretence for a cull against international Protestantism. Tory pamphlets, contrastingly, could not understand the Whig sympathy for international Protestantism. Consequently, they argued that such discourses were a front for the imposition of radical Whig government. The war necessitated higher taxes, bringing in a stronger military, which could impose its will on the Queen and country. Further, the influx of dissenting Protestant refugees into the country could only mean a strengthening of the Whig vote. The rising conspiratorial climate drew reactions in calls for unity. These calls for unity were party political, in spite of authorial attempts at appearing impartial. The two unity discourses that arose understood their idea of unity through their party political understandings of Europe. The Whig call for unity was based on rationalism; later Whig texts drew cynical critiques of the political process into a broader understanding of governance, which meant moving away from the superstitions of the Tories and an acceptance of Whig government. The Tory bid for unity contrastingly derived from its pre-Revolutionary ideas of a nation united under a monarch, which was wedded to a national church. Attempts to impose any other form of unity, under any person other than the monarch, was a factional way of distracting the nation from its purpose. This thesis therefore demonstrates the importance of competing ideas of Europe in the dynamics of the Rage of Party. As well as this, it provides two relative novelties: it reconstructs the Tory ‘idea of Europe’ in 1707-1713, which has been traditionally neglected in the historiography. It also highlights the importance of both parties’ ideas of Europe in their calls for unity. In so doing, this thesis provides new insights into the history of the latter part of Queen Anne’s reign, particularly relating to how the two parties were animated in their competition for power.Show less
Salons were a widespread phenomenon in late eighteenth-century Paris, but their political role during the first years of the French Revolution has been overlooked. As centres of news and...Show moreSalons were a widespread phenomenon in late eighteenth-century Paris, but their political role during the first years of the French Revolution has been overlooked. As centres of news and information, places for education in political culture and political sociability, and public opinion shapers, salons were of vital importance for professional politicians and revolutionaries. The salonnière or hostess formed the centre of the informal conversation held between a select company of elite people, invited at her home and on her initiative. In this way she could wield power and have an informal political ‘career’. The flexible character of a salon, which is a concept changing according to its context rather than a fixed institution, makes it hard to give a definition. The case study of the political meetings at the home of Madame Roland questions the way in which salons have been regarded so far, for their place functioned as a headquarters of the Girondin political movement, a propaganda institution and a political salon in which she initially played little to no role. In the radicalising political environment leading towards the Terror, Jacobin revolutionaries who often were former visitors of the salons themselves increasingly regarded the salons with suspicion, rejecting its non-transparency, aristocratic character and female activities. By the end of 1793, both the revolutionary politicians and public opinion had turned against the salons and the elitist salon society, which disappeared from Paris.Show less
