This book examines the Whig theory of resistance that emerged from the Revolution of 1688 in England, and presents an important challenge to the received opinion of Whig thought as confused and as inferior to the revolutionary principles set forth by John Locke. While a wealth of Whig literature is analyzed, Rudolph focuses upon the work of James Tyrrell, presenting the first full-length study of this seminal Whig theorist, and friend and colleague of John Locke. This book provides a compelling argument for the importance of Whig political thought for the history of liberalism.
Brilliantly executed....Reid's central argument is reserved for his contentions about how the American Revolution occurred within the British constitutional framework. Crucial is his assertion that the eighteenth-century British constitution itself was a vital crossroad between the old constitution of 'customary powers, with rights secured as property' and the newer constitution 'of sovereign command and of arbitrary parliamentary supremacy.' The conflict between the two was profound and ultimately irreconcilable as the Americans, with occasional misgivings and uncertainties, sustained the old and Parliament lurched toward the new...This book (has) a compelling intellectual force that deserves the closest scrutiny.' -George M. Curtis III, American Historical Review
The period from 1680 to about 1720 was one of the most complex and difficult in the history of British politics, to contemporaries as well as to posterity. The parameters of political obligation were decisively shifted by the Revolution of 1688; statesmen and politicians had now to accustom themselves to the novelty of a parliament in session every year; Britain was almost continuously engaged in the most ambitious and expensive wars in her history to date; political parties were slow to form, and of doubtful repute when they did. Professor Kenyon's Ford Lectures, delivered in Oxford in 1976 and now published as a paperback for the first time, remain a standard account of the period. For this reissue, Professor Kenyon has written a new preface which discusses the book in the light of recent historiography.