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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't believe there is any serious argument of that. All of your historical claims are disputed, you've just laid out a view of history and vaguely linked it to conditions in the USA. Your knowledge of history is poor and the link is tenuous.

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I said 'there is an argument' - and there is, I've heard it said and have read comments to that effect. It doesn't mean that I agree with that argument.

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There are parallels and echoes, but whether the links are any more than tenuous is a moot point.

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Parallels have certainly been suggested between the situation in 1688 when RC officers replaced Protestant ones in various militias in this country - leading to a certain jumpiness that James II was going to use the militias to put down dissent ... and the situation in the Colonies in 1776.

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I'm not saying that's definitely the case. All I'm saying is that the American Revolution didn't happen in a vacuum -- as well as drawing on models and antecedents from classical antiquity, the Founding Fathers drew on historical precedents and rhetoric about individual freedoms and rights from British history. How could they not have done?

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I was posting in a rather broad-brush and rather flippant way and certainly wasn't laying out any kind of historical manifesto for scrutiny.

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I don't claim to be an historian - but I have studied aspects of British political satire in the late 18th century - mostly in connection with the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars - rather than the earlier American War of Independence - although I did have a quick look into that.

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I've been more than happy to accept your corrections and clarifications on the location of Chi-Rho monograms and Romano-British artefacts over on the 'oldest church' thread, mr cheesy - but I must admit I find your picky and carping tone rather tiresome at times.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not saying that's definitely the case. All I'm saying is that the American Revolution didn't happen in a vacuum -- as well as drawing on models and antecedents from classical antiquity, the Founding Fathers drew on historical precedents and rhetoric about individual freedoms and rights from British history. How could they not have done?

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Well for a start it was a certain kind of person who went to the colonies, there is not necessarily a connection between the official behaviours of the Crown in England and the behaviours of the Revolutionary leaders in the USA.

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Originally posted by Mere Nick:
While I'm no sure what you mean by "certain kind of person", the Declaration of Independence strongly suggests, even indicates to my mind, that there certainly was a connection between the behavior of the crown and the behavior of the the leaders of the revolution. It's why they revolted.

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About all I can say about "certain kind of person" is that King George was a square and our Founding Fathers were groovy.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The reason people say they did something and the reason they actually did something might, just might, be in conflict.

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ETA: Nasty? Please help pay for the war you started and we didn't really need is nasty?

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Originally posted by Mere Nick:
[QUOTE]

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Well yes, that's what I had in mind and all I had in mind. I wasn't arguing for direct causation or correlation.

I've not heard anyone seriously suggest that there was but I've certainly seen comments about the US Revolution being a 'British Civil War' as much as anything else - and there was even a Cambridge history model recently - people can Google it if they wish - which dealt with that issue.

I've also heard the War of Independence / Revolution referred to as 'The English Civil War Round 2' - but with a bit of a sparkle in the eye when it was said.

As I pointed out - parallels and echoes have been suggested. That's all. I'm not saying any more than that - nor did I on the thread that mr cheesy took so much exception to.

If he'd have given me a bit of space to make my point clearer instead of going off on one and starting a Civil War here with me then perhaps we could have all moved on ...


 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
As I understand it, the French and Indian war as triggered in large part by the colonists desire to expand. Yeah, it is more involved than just this.
As far as the colonist's beef with Britain, what was that?
There is a myth in America about a populist uprising against unfair treatment.
Really, just before the war began, the sentiments for separation were roughly split by thirds. One third each for rebel, maintain loyalty and bugger off, you lot, I just want to farm. So, not so populist.
So, really, it was a few people who had most to lose with the new taxes, rousing the ire of a portion of the population who would end up no better, and likely worse, after independence. And doing so against a larger portion who would rather everyone just calm down.
Read here.
Really, it is rather like a person borrowing money to buy a house. Then, after years of partial payments and missing payments, the bank reduces the payment amount but insists it get paid. In response to which, the borrower fortifies his house and shoots at the loan officer.
To make matters worse, instead of outlining the problems, the colonial representatives lie and say "Oh sorry, that was just a bunch of nutters, everything is alright".
Not saying there were no legitimate issues, major events are rarely completely one-sided. But it wasn't Evil King George against the noble colonists.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
The English Civil War II is usually thought of as the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

I believe it's generally thought that the Founding Fathers of the US were influenced by John Locke, whose political writings were largely justifications of the Glorious Revolution. There's some argument that earlier writers such as James Harrington who wrote into the Civil War itself were also influential on American republican thinking.
 

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Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :
 

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But it wasn't Evil King George against the noble colonists.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure that believing oneself to be the anointed King is any crazier than the Colonists' apparent belief that they had a God-given right to own slaves.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Many High Church Episcopalians secretly pray for our rightful king every Sunday.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Many High Church Episcopalians secretly pray for our rightful king every Sunday.

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Which rightful King? The Duke of Bavaria?

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Ahhh...you too secretly pray for the rightful King?
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
The rightful King of England is the Duke of Beaufort
 

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Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, Beeswax Altar, I was surprised to find High Church US Episcopalians online who are as, if not more, Monarchist than any of the most ardent monarchists I've come across here.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I find it puzzling and bizarre to hear 'Piskies who've had no family connections with the UK for years and years waxing lyrical about monarchist systems as opposed to republican ones.

Unless they are simply using it as yet another stick with which to beat Obama ...

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, that makes sense Gwai. What I find less easy to understand is the apparent fixation with monarchy than some High Church Episcopalians - or the 'Continuing' version - appear to have when their ancestors seem to have settled in the US a lot further back.

I mean, I can understand someone who migrated from here in their teens having some kind of misty-eyed fondness for the Monarchy, alongside afternoon tea, scones and jam, cricket or whatever else -- proper hand-pulled cask ale, say -- but I find it puzzling and bizarre to hear 'Piskies who've had no family connections with the UK for years and years waxing lyrical about monarchist systems as opposed to republican ones.

Unless they are simply using it as yet another stick with which to beat Obama ... seeing as he seems to be blamed for almost everything that goes wrong over there at the moment ...

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One, I was kidding. Supporting your claim, high churchman, including Samuel Seabury, were loyalists during the American Revolution. However, Samuel Seabury remained in the United States and pledged fidelity to the United States. The Nonjuror Primus of Scotland consecrated Seabury after he promised to promote the communion rite in the Scottish Prayer Book over the one contained in the 1662 BCP. I see no reason why they wouldn't have also asked him to pray for a restoration of a Stuart monarch as well. Of course, Seabury would have to keep that a secret. Hey, Dan Brown makes a lot of money off this kind of conjecture. Tom Hanks would do a fine job playing Samuel Seabury.

Two, some traditional conservatives in the United States are monarchists and for the same reason that European conservatives used to be monarchists. Returning to your original premise, if the American Revolution was English Civil War II or III, then the United States has no conservative intellectual tradition only two competing versions of liberalism. What are conservatives to do? Well, some try to piece one together. For the best attempt at that, see Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. Others throw their hands up and admit that the whole project was poisoned from the start and come out in support of a monarchy. And, if you support a monarchy, you'll probably go with a version of Christianity most compatible with it such as Traditional Roman Catholicism, High Church Anglicanism/Anglo-Catholicism, or Eastern Orthodox. You will also come to hate France.

Three, some High Church Episcopalians prefer the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Taking that to the extreme means praying for the monarch. If you are serious in that prayer, you must at least give lip service to the idea of the monarchy. Now, this is a fringe of a fringe group.

Four, the Dark Enlightenment...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, I knew you were kidding, Beeswax Altar and I was gently kidding in return - although I do recognise the tendency of some US Episcopalians to act as if they're some kind of 'more British than thou' Fifth Column who've been left behind after 1783 like those Japanese soldiers on Pacific Islands after 1945.

I think you're right about the tendency of some forms of High Church spirituality to incline towards Monarchy -- but I've found some US Orthodox, for instance, to be as strongly Republican - in the non-monarchist sense - as their Protestant counterparts.
 

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Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
I am still not sure what this thread is supposed to be about; this seems to happen sometimes when a thread is spun off from the middle of another thread.

My comment is that the American Revolution was probably not simply a rebellion against the concept of monarchy. I see nothing to suggest that if George III had suddenly yielded most of his power to Parliament and become a reigning rather than ruling king, the colonists would have been appeased and canceled their rebellion. I imagine such a British government would not have behaved much differently toward the colonists. (In any case, by the time of George III, much of the power had already been ceded by the throne, a trend that started at Runnymede.)
 

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Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
There was a general trend towards everyone believing that they deserved to be treated with some fairness and humanity - and the British system has never been very good at adjusting itself in that direction voluntarily - even today
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well yes, I don't know enough of the detail but I suspect that the anti-monarchy sentiments were simply a peg to hang some more general discontent on -- and a convenient target for the rhetoric.

The British Monarchy was a constitutional one by George III's time anyway - that'd largely been settled, arguably, in 1688.

There are far more knowledgeable Shipmates around than me when it comes to these issues, but my impression is that before 1776 Parliament was just as - if not more - recalcitrant as the King when it came to listening to the Colonist's gripes about 'not taxation without representation'.

In the end, Parliament opposed continuing the War, although 'Mad King George' wanted to continue it and to somehow regain the Colonies.

So, no, I don't think of the US Revolution being primarily anti-monarchy as such - it was more about self-determination and having proper representation - as well as not wanting to pay so much in taxes, of course ...

I've heard that the Colonists were taxed less heavily than the King's loyal subjects elsewhere - and that they also paid a lot less for their tea.

I'm not saying the Colonists didn't have legitimate gripes and grievances but they hyped the whole 'tyranny' thing up beyond proportion. As I've joked before, they should have tried living under French or Spanish rule at that time and then they'd have known what a despotic monarchical regime was like ...



Of course, the British liked to think they were among the most enlightened countries in Europe - alongside the Dutch ...

It was priest-ridden, Catholic Europe where the real despots held sway ...



Anyhow - I'm not sure what this thread is about now either - but it's pootled on.
 

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Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :
 

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Originally posted by HCH:
I am still not sure what this thread is supposed to be about; this seems to happen sometimes when a thread is spun off from the middle of another thread.

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My comment is that the American Revolution was probably not simply a rebellion against the concept of monarchy.

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Probably not. It seems that the complaints in the DOC was what he was doing to us, not that he existed. We set up a different form of government in the hope those kinds of things wouldn't happen to us anymore.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
What kinds of things? Sounds to me that you are doing worse things to one another than King George III was supposed to be doing to you ...

But I'd still like to buy you a beer. US craft beer or proper hand-pulled British cask-conditioned ale ... none of this beer substitute Budweiser stuff ...

But I'm sure you're right, the Colonists would have wanted independence sooner or later irrespective how constitutional or otherwise the British monarchy was.

Which is fair enough ... shame we felt the need to fight you over it rather than agreeing a peaceful handover with a cuppa or a pint ...

Hindsight's always a wonderful thing though.

On the whole English Civil War thing -- that didn't start out as an anti-Monarchy thing either. 'For King AND Parliament ...' was the rallying cry for the Parliamentarians. They generally thought they were doing the King a favour by fighting him - they thought that they'd steer him away from his allegedly wicked counsellors, his High Church pals and his French Catholic wife ...

Things got more serious when they realised that it was impossible to negotiate with him and he'd always start trying to playing people off against each other - Parliament against the Scots, the Scots against Parliament ...
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
When I was at school (England, 1960s) we were taught that the American Rebellion was a direct result of our winning the 7 Years War. Until then, the 13 colonies had been dependent on the mother country to protect them from the French to the north and to a lesser extent the declining Spanish to the south. When that danger was removed, the colonies decided they didn't need the mother ship any more and could do a UDI.

That still strikes me as a good analysis.


Mind, one can also only call it a 'revolution' rather than a 'rebellion' by analogy with the Glorious Revolution of 1689. In modern terms, neither is a revolution. In both cases the social order was not overturned. The class in power before and after remained the same.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes - but 'Revolution' sounds a lot sexier than 'rebellion' of course and also makes it sound like the 'rebels' had a higher moral and ideological purpose than they might actually have done ...

I once chuckled at a comment I saw in a review of a book about Napoleon by a university lecturer who said that he'd always been tempted to put as an exam question for his students, 'Was Napoleon anything more than a successful shit? Discuss.'

'Were the Colonists and Founding Fathers any more than greedy slave-owners with an eye for the main chance?'

Discuss ...



Actually, FWIW I don't agree with that analysis - in either case. For a kick-off, Napoleon wasn't necessarily successful - he messed up big time with his invasion of Russia.

As for the US Colonists in 1776, probably mixed motives there. It doesn't do to demonise them, as the Wesleys did, any more than to hold them up as shining exemplars of all that is good, noble and true -- as happens in certain forms of US hagiography.

Like everyone else they had their good points and bad points, their weaknesses and strengths, successes and failures.
 

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Posted by fausto (# 13737) on :
 

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Originally posted by Enoch:
When I was at school (England, 1960s) we were taught that the American Rebellion was a direct result of our winning the 7 Years War. Until then, the 13 colonies had been dependent on the mother country to protect them from the French to the north and to a lesser extent the declining Spanish to the south. When that danger was removed, the colonies decided they didn't need the mother ship any more and could do a UDI.

That still strikes me as a good analysis.

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For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states

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Taking vigorous issue with recent efforts to portray Charles as a martyred monarch, Mayhew began with observations on the antiquity of English liberties. The English constitution, he asserted, “is originally and essentially free.” Roman sources, such as the reliable Tacitus, made it clear that “the ancient Britons … were extremely jealous of their liberties.” England’s monarchs originally held their throne “solely by grant of parliament,” so the ancient English kings ruled “by the voluntary consent of the people.” After forty pages of such historical discourse, Mayhew reached his major point: the essential rightness of the execution of an English king when he too greatly infringed upon British liberties.

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Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
Interesting suggestion. Where are we with Syria; English Civil War LXXIII, perhaps?

Perhaps the French Revolution would be a better candidate for English Civil War Part II. As with many, 'me toos' it was rather more successful than the original.

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Nah, that's the American Revolution part 2.

They spent lots of money and soldiers to 'win' whatever else we call the events in 1776 (AR I, War against cheap tea, war to keep slaves 17, 7 year War part 2, ECW2).

They'd also supported Ben Franklin and associated phrasing as useful support against the Brits. Which of course could be applied by against them too.

Perhaps we should just call the whole schebang the 4000 year war.
 

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Posted by Anglo Catholic Relict (# 17213) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Except that the French Revolution didn't take place in a British Colony.

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So that level of equivalence doesn't apply.


I would suggest, though, that with some caveats, one can trace a 'line' from the kind of thinking and debates that inspired the Parliamentarians in the Civil Wars and the positions adopted by the rebel Colonists in 1776 and the French Revolutionaries in 1789.

I'm not, however, positing some kind of 'apostolic succession' of revolution ...

I'd also suggest that this line isn't a straight one but a wiggly one with lots of tributaries and other influences/streams feeding into it.

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It was clearly understood here during the French Revolution that Britain was wobblier than before. But fortunately the situation was different enough.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
So it's only a matter of opinion that pre-Revolutionary France wasn't a British colony?



What on earth are you driving at?

Of course Britain was rattled by the Revolution in France and the Government became very jumpy indeed -- hence the way that the Castlereagh government was arguably the most reactionary one this country ever had -- notwithstanding Thatcher's three terms of office.
 

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Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Well, I suppose Mad King George™ didn't drop the title 'King of France' until 1801.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, that's certainly the case. Well done ...
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Obviously in over 100 years, the world had moved on. New ideas had gained currency. Nevertheless, many of the original North American colonists were Puritans. Several wanted men took refuge there after 1660. It was the obvious place to go. And 1688 was more recent. Going back to the OP, it's very difficult to argue that there's no ideological descent leading from the English Civil War to the events of 1776 and onwards.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 

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Originally posted by Enoch:
Going back to the OP, it's very difficult to argue that there's no ideological descent leading from the English Civil War to the events of 1776 and onwards.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Okay here is a question I have long wondered about. I would try to google it, but my google-fu is so bad that if I tried to find Abraham Lincoln's birthday, I'd probably end up with nothing but Presidents Day car sale adverts.

Why did New Brunswick not join with the rebellion, when neighboring Maine did? Was it not a distinct entity from "Lower Canada"? Did it just have a higher proportion of loyalists? Was it not caucusing with those more southerly colonies? Or...?

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Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Ontario (Upper Canada) was carved out of Quebec in 1791 to accommodate refugee Loyalists and New Brunswick. New Brunswick's official motto is "It has restored hope" and Ontario's is "Loyal she began, loyal she remains" both refer to these provinces Loyalist origins.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Was NB Francophone at the time?

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There was no NB until 1784. There was a very small Acadian population in the north and east-- by my historical atlas, only about a dozen parishes-- and likely perhaps ten thousand Miqmaq and Maliseet. As well, there were small Pennsylvania and New England settlements in Moncton and Sackville. About 15,000 Loyalists came up in the mid- and late-1780s.
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
I think it's obvious that the American revolutionaries saw themselves in the tradition of English gentlemen asserting their rights against the monarchy, going back to the Glorious Revolution, the Civil War, the Petition of Right, Simon de Montfort (who has a bust in the US Capitol, though still no memorial in England), and the Magna Carta.

However, it's also possible to see the American Revolution as a minor proxy war in the global struggle between Britain and France that went on from the mid-18th century until 1815.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
There are many, many historical models. The reason that the American revolution was funded to be a proxy for a Franco British war was that Beaumarchais wanted the King to override the censors so his play "The Marriage of Figaro" could be performed. This is part of the operatic model of World History.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
The Methodist Church as such didn't actually exist as a separate entity to the Anglicans until after John Wesley's death, Sober Preacher's Kid - although the grounds of the split went well back -- and Wesley's sending of 'unordained' missioners/overseers to the Colonies was one of the key factors that led to the eventual schism.

That all happened much later, of course. When Wesley went to Georgia in the 1730s he was a young Anglican cleric with an unfortunate habit of rubbing people up the wrong way ...

Nobody in the 1730s could have foreseen the development of the Methodist Church later in the century.

On the ongoing, sporadic and sometimes almost continuous British/French conflict ... yes, the American War of Independence / Revolutionary War was played out against that backdrop - and there were contemporary actions against the French and Spanish around Gibraltar and elsewhere as part of the conflict. The Dutch also supported the Colonists, which was an interesting development.

That's part of the background and the way things played out - but not the actual causus belli of course as far as either the rebel Colonists nor the Loyalists were concerned.
 

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Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
The history is a little different in North America and happened earlier and for different reasons. The Methodists had practically split from the Anglicans during the American Revolution; the final split in the newly-minted USA was in 1784 when Fracis Asbury was ordained as Bishop in the Methodist Espicopal Church (USA).

Hay Bay and Stoney Creek were founded as Methodist Episcopal congregations in 1791. Both were initially under the Genesee Conference of the MEC(USA). The Methodist Episcopals had a strong whiff of the United States about them and were treated with distrust by the colonial administration in Upper Canada. Anglican/Methodist relations were usually distant and frosty in Canada.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure -- I get that but wasn't aware of all the detail. The Francis Astbury thing was - to all intents and purposes - what set the ball rolling for Methodist separation from the Anglicans over here too - but the formal separation here didn't take place until after John Wesley's death.

I've heard that awkwardness with the Anglican establishment in the form of the Church of England also led to the US Episcopalians having closer links with the Scottish Episcopalians (ie. the Anglicans in Scotland) rather than the CofE.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've heard that awkwardness with the Anglican establishment in the form of the Church of England also led to the US Episcopalians having closer links with the Scottish Episcopalians (ie. the Anglicans in Scotland) rather than the CofE.

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