From Across the Pond

Book review "William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-slave Trade Campaigner"

by William Hague (link)

This was a book whose publication coincided with the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. To some extent then it should be seen as a commemoration of the efforts of one of the chief architects of that Act, William Wilberforce. However, this book is not just concerned about Wilberforce's involvement with the campaigns to first outlaw the slave trade, and later on to outlaw slavery altogether; but he also draws attention to some of the other causes that Wilberforce supported and also some of the details of his parliamentary career.

The slave trade trade however is, just as it was in Wilberforce's own life, is the predominant theme. William Hague does not try to claim all the credit for Wilberforce, he acknowledges the work of Thomas Clarkson and others, but he is writing a book on William Wilberforce and not a book on the abolition movement itself, and due to that distinction it is only right that he focuses on one man's work. And the picture that emerges of that one man: if there is one word I would use to describe Wilberforce on the basis of this book it is indefatigable. We are presented wtih a picture of an ardent campaigner, one who perseveres through defeats and disappointments, always seeking a way to try again.

The book also provides a perspective on British parliamentary politics during the generation that squatted aside the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this respect this book, I think, should be seen as the second part of a pair: for William Hague has previously written a book on William Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister who in many ways defined the last decades of the eighteenth century and the struggle against revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The two were great friends in life, but had their disagreements (about the war particularly), but they were very different men. Nearly the entirety of William Hague's career was spent in office, and very nearly all of that as Prime Minister. Wilberforce never held office, and tried to steer an independent course through the turbulent waters of his day which, as a result, saw him being allied with Charles Fox over the issue of slavery even though he was opposed to him (and therefore allied to Pitt) in other issues. The two persectives provided in these books on the politics of the day show not just the different focuses of each man, but also provide a better view of the politics in the period which they cover. Indeed, one feels that William Hague should really publish a third book, on Charles Fox, to make complete this trio of parliamentary stars.

William Hague is generally non-critical about Wilberforce, and is often laudatory. He appears to have little patience with certain criticisms of Wilberforce which he refers to at various places of the text. Indeed, the only one he responds to with any seriousness at all is one made by one of Wilberforce's contemporaries (and which I believe has been repeated since). This is the contention that while Wilberforce was seeking freedom for slaves he was wilfully ignoring the plight of the working poor in Britain. It is a contention that I feel has more noise than substance, but I will let others decide that on their own.

In any event I can recommend this book. It is well-written in an easy style. And while it is clear a great deal of research has gone into it it is no academic's book. There is no new bold theory here, rather it is an attempt to introduce people to the extra-ordinary man that was William Wilberforce.

A-

Book Review: Wellington - A Personal History

by Christopher Hibbert (link)

This is a book, one of many, that I have had on my shelves for a very long time. Although I found it very interesting, when compared to two other similar books I have read (William Pitt the Younger and Children of Henry VIII) it is a let-down, for a simple reason. It is just not as well-written as those other two books. It is also less focused.

This is, I think, a result of the books' length. It is quite short (400 pages of text), which is really not very many space to cover the life of a man like the Duke of Wellington. This is after all a man who, having had one of the most glorious military careers in known history, climaxing with the Battle of Waterloo, proceeded with a political career that saw him become Prime Minister, and for the entire rest of his life remain and advisor to monarchs and ministers. He was a national hero, but also for a time an object of national hatred. He died and remains a national icon. How can 400 pages encompass such a man? They cannot, which is why reading this book I feel unsatisfied. A great deal goes undeveloped, such as his unhappy marriage, or even his life while on campaign.

In short this is an average book. Not unreasonable if you just want a bare outline, but I feel it does not do justice to the subject.

Book Review: The Children of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir (link)

This book, so the front cover tells me, was formerly entitled <em>The Children of England</em> and is an account of the ten years between the death of Henry VIII in 1548, and the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. It is not a political history per se, but a story of the lives of the three monarchs of this decade, and their eventual successor. They are Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, and of course Elizabeth. It is a story of their lives, and their relationships with each other. The political and religious history of those times is the backdrop, the canvas on which their portraits are painted.

And this is a mixture of literary portraiture and historical story-telling. The story of these ten years is a compelling one, the personal stories of some of the main characters are riveting. It is very easy to be sympathetic to all the three women, each of whom faced various hardships with a fortitude that one has to commend. In contrast Edward, spoiled from birth, is someone that the distance of time allows me to pity, but not like in any particular fashion. He comes across in the book as rather cold.

There is plenty of tragedy in these ten years, and not very much happiness. There is scandal and betrayal, a litany of revolts and conspiracies. It helps explains why Elizabeth's reign is so praised: it provided a stability that had been torn completely away the previous decade. The pinnacle of both the tragedy and the farce though is at the midpoint, and that briefest of reigns that belongs to Lady Jane Grey. Alison Weir is more than able to bring out the dramatic elements of this story, though is left with a renewed since that no matter how fanciful fiction can be, history will always be more absurd.

Through it all we get a definite sense of these our main charcters, but Weir does not neglect the supporting cast, the nobles of England and the Ambassadors of France and Spain, not to mention Philip II and the off-stage Charles V. The final character, if you will, are the English people themselves. The people who in an undemocratic age made their feelings all too evident in their support for Mary in 1553, and Elizabeth towards the end of her sister's reign.

This is not a history, but if one wants to get a sense of the main people at play here, an inkling of the atmosphere in which they lived, a few details of the perils of their lives, this is an excellent book.

Review: Willliam Pitt the Younger

by William Hague

I got this book in paperback 1/3 off, and so bought it remembering that it had received generally good reviews when it was published a couple of years ago. It certainly did not disappoint me.

I know very little in detail of the political history of the period that was dominated by William Pitt the Younger. His father was in many ways the architect of Britain's victories in the Seven Year's War in the mid-eighteenth century. A second son, he became First Lord of the Treasury (the office which over the course of history morphed into today's office of Prime Minister) at the tender age of twenty-four, in 1784. He retired briefly in 1803, returned to office in 1804, and died in 1806. He is one of the great men of British history, especially in more recent times. And yet I knew very little about him.

I know a good deal more now. William Hague is able to deftly portray an image of a man devoted to political life. He also has a sense of the dramatic. The book opens with the funeral of Pitt's father, and ends with his own. comparing the differences between the scorned hero that was Pitt the Elder, and the truly national mourning that occured at the passing of his son. He writes with an effective style that passes information from the dry page to a thereby enriched brain with a minimum of fuss and bother. There are also a few nice touches about the way he organises things. For example, this was a period when many people would receive a peerage half-way through their career. William Hague scrupulously follows the practice of referring such people by their family names before their peerage, and then by their title (as was custom) afterward, with a point of transition clearly made. This helps to gain a feel of the period, in many respects as important as just knowing some bare and thereby embarrased facts.

His portrait is generally sympathetic, and it is hard to escape the idea that this book is in many respects a paean of praise. There is very little genuine criticism to William Hague's account, and where there is it is usually tempered by reminding the readers of the particular circumstances that Pitt was operating in when he turned his back on Parliamentary Reform after the outbreak of the French Revolution. The one primary exception is that Pitt did not force through the abolition of the slave trade, something he argued strongly for but never comitted the political capital to achieve.

No man is entirely isolated however, and William Hague also richly captures some of Pitt's contemporaries. In particular Wilberforce and Fox emerge best-formed after Pitt himself.

Finally, William Hague is of course a politician himself. In some of his discussions of why Pitt made this or that decision you can see William Hague the poltician behind the visage of the author, nodding thoughtfully.

Of course since this a period where my knowledge is limited to military matters, and this book really is concerned with British domestic politics, I cannot make any judgements on its various accuracies. I liked it however, and I sincerely hope that William Hague will consider another foray into the field in the future.

200th Anniversary

Today is, of course, the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, when the British Fleet under Lord Horatio Nelson defeated the Combined Fleets of France and Spain. It was to be a hundred years before any other nation would seriously contest Britain's supremacy of the ocean wave, and it was the last great battle of the Age of Sail. Likewise it was the culmination of over a century of development of the Royal Navy, and the navies like it. It is one of those events through which our history has to pass if it is to make much sense. These reasons are all good reasons to commemorate this great battle, this most decisive of victories, but this is not the reason the battle is remembered with such fervour.

This Battle and its remembrance ultimately comes down to a man, and to his death. Had Nelson not died 200 years ago we would not celebrate Trafalgar. We might mark it at the big anniversaries for a while, like Blenheim or Waterloo, but eventually it would fade into congenial obscurity. Not Trafalgar, for today we celebrate one of this nation's greatest sons. It is important to remember that this is no recent fad. A few years ago the BBC did a national poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. The Top 10 had a run-off. Nelson was voted 9th. Now, I was not a fan of the format, but it says something that Nelson made it so far in such a show.

So, to the Immortal Memory of Lord Nelson.

Review: The Black Prince

by Richard Barber (link)

To be fair and upfront, this book left me with a somewhat unsatisfied feeling. It's title would suggest it is about Edward III's eldest son, known as the Black Prince, who was a legend in his own lifetime. It is, but I know nothing really more about the Black Prince that I did before I read this book. The most fundamental reason for this is not the fault of Richard Barber, at least not directly. Rather it is simply because very little personal detail has survived regarding the Black Prince. Some of this is just the luck of the dice, and some of it is a byprodut of the Black Prince being immortalised in his own lifetime. What we get therefore is a history of the times in which the Black Prince lived, centred on him. In essesence therefore this book is a history of the first forty years or so of the Hundred Years War, with one Spanish interlude.

In and of itself this is shift in perspective is actually quite interesting. Histories of the period inevitably view things from a more national perspective, or from the perspective of the respective rulers. Seeing the Poitiers campaign being told from the Prince's point of view is a benefit I take from it. However, that is not the book I really wanted to read.

Undoubtedly the great weakness of the book is Richard Barber's inablitiy to paint a picture. There are few direct personal details, but plenty of the accounts of the Black Prince survive. We get hints of these when Barber tells us a little of what the Prince's shopping bill was one Christmas, or the expenses for a tournament. What Barber is unwilling to do is take these bits and pieces - almost the literary equivalent of the archeologists rubbish dump - and weave them together. About the best he can manage to that the Black Prince liked the high life, but from what he quotes I am willing to wager a fuller picture could be crafted.

It seems that Richard Barber is unwilling to engage in even the most rudimentary speculation, why I do not know. As someone who cut his teeth in ancient history where speculation of one sort or another is a simple necessity I find this reluctance to use the the faculty of constructive imagination baffling to say the least, and I am always inclined to put such prejudices down to academic pretensions. This may or may not be true in this case, I genuinelly do not know.

Anyway, short review is that this is an interesting look at the Hundred Years War between the 1337 declaration of war and the end of the 1370s, but it at best a mediocre history of the Black Prince.

Review: The Command of the Ocean

by N A M Rodger (link)

This is the second part in a series about British Naval History. I have not read the first, though I recently purchased it, and will review it in due course. This tome, and it is a tome, covers the period 1649-1815, or to put that in terms of events from the execution of Charles I to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. This is the period when Britain became the dominant naval power of the world. It is also the period when a great deal of modern naval mythology was formed.

The book itself is very well writen. It is crammed with information, and there is very little fluff, if any at all. Yet it is not a dense tome, and the words flow readily. It is technically a wonderful example of concise, efficient, and effective writing. If anything the tone is slightly breathless, since the reader is assailed with so much information it is not always easy to appreciate what we have. It is also one of those wonderful books with plenty of appendices to get lost in as well, along with maps and tables.

It is organised thusly: at the start we get a very important introductory section discussing such things as dating conventions. For a time when Europe used a number of different calenders at different times this is important. There is also some useful information regarding terms of weights and measures, different ranks, and the like to allow the reader to get their bearing in the pages that will follow. Next there are the maps, all handily put together at the front. The book proper then begins. The chapters are organised thematically. There are usually two or three "Operations" chapters, giving an overview of events, be they battles or revolutions, or more ordinary politics that are important to understand this remarkable tale. After these there is an "Administration" chapter dealing wtih the rather vital, and highly interesting, development of the structures of the Royal Navy, and some of their impacts on wider British life. Following this there will be a chapter of "Social History" dealing with the men who manned the Navy. Then it begins again. There are also two chapters throughout the book on "Ships" with a more detailed look at the ships themselves, and the later social history chapters are divided into "Officers" and "Men and Manning". Finally a conclusion, and then no less then seven appendicies packed with historical goodies (they are entitled Chronology, Ships, Fleets, Rates of Pay, Admirals and Officials, Manpower, and Naval Finance). This is followed, along with the usual Notes, Bibliography, and the like with two comprehensive Glossaries of various weird and wonderful English and non-English terms that are littered throughout the book.

Mr Rodger does have a definite tale to tell, but that tale is not quite the history of the Royal Navy. It is the Naval History of Britain, and in many respects the "Administration" chapters were most interesting. As the Admiralty and Navy Board struggled to form efficient logistics needed for victualling the fleet we see it helping to form a national agricultural market, to streamline the building of ships the development of various industries including, incidentally, the first industrial production line. There is also the role the Navy has on the public psyche of these times, and plays in the politics of the day. He also debunks a few of the more popular myths, from the frequently inaccurate representations of impressment in action to the image of flogging. As regards to this last he points out that the Great Mutiny the men did not complain about flogging but pay, and that in the War of 1812 a sailor was twice as likely to be flogged in the nascent United States Navy as in the Royal Navy.

He also does mention something of the histories of Britain's main naval rivals of the period: principally the Dutch, France, and Spain. He is particularly critical about France's naval establishment of the time, but also very positive of Spain's, which he argues was mostly hamstrung being tied to a French foreign policy. He is truly scathing about Napoleon in naval terms, and with a fair bit of evidence on his side.

This is also a story about the great personalities of these times: of Monke, Peypes, Anson, Howe, St Vincent, and of course Nelson to mention just a few. He sticks up for some unfashionable causes, arguing very strongly that Charles II was a vital (and positive) link in the development of the navy because of his personal interest and expertise. He brings out these people very well, and the rather curious world through which they moved.

It is the "Operations" chapters which are in many respects the poorer. He does not have the time or space to go into detail about this or that battle, and this is particularly where the breathlessness I mentioned earlier becomes apparent however. They are more general, the inforation better known. These chapters are, however, poorer only by degree. For areas where I had only little or partial knowledge they were informative and useful, and even in an area I knew more (like the run-up to Trafalgar) odd details demanded attention.

What these chapters really reinforce however is the importance of logistics. In the Dutch Wars the British fleet was simply unable to maintain a blockade of a relatively near foreign port for want of a decent victually system. Less than one hundred years later British vessels would be carrying out operations on the far side of the world, backed by a system of supply unrivalled. This capabilty, enabled because of various administrative and financial reforms that had parallels in much else of British life and led to the Industrial Revolution, the author thinks is the real reason why Britain, and not some other country, came to dominate the Ocean.

I could go on, but I'll stop now. I cannot recommend this read highly enough.