Unlimited Quote Collections
Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.
Among the educated upper classes a new phenomenon made its appearance – the Englishman who, so far from despising all who are not English, will offer… - Geoffrey Elton
" "Among the educated upper classes a new phenomenon made its appearance – the Englishman who, so far from despising all who are not English, will offer praise only to "any country but his own". In the Stalin era we have become so familiar with this type of high-minded protest that we do not seem to realise how new it was in the age of Charles James Fox, well-endowed scion of the ruling order who chose to worship Robespierre from afar. As George Canning soon pointed out in one of his contributions to the propaganda published in the Anti-Jacobin, such "friends of humanity" would refuse even sixpence to a "needy knife-grinder" who admitted that his torn breeches testified to an ale-house brawl and not to the oppression of the poor; only kicks were suitable for wretches whom "no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance". For the first time the passions of high-minded anti-patriotism sounded their tin trumpets. The wars made certain that the existing order would face serious military and economic problems but could ignore the claims of moral outrage; generally speaking, the English, explaining that they would never be slaves, remained patriotic. But there was that small band of harbingers who saw virtue only abroad.
English
Collect this quote
About Geoffrey Elton
Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton FBA (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg; 17 August 1921 – 4 December 1994) was a German-born British political and constitutional historian who specialised in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Gottfried Rudolph Otto Ehrenberg
•
Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton
•
Geoffrey R. Elton
•
G. R. Elton
•
Geoffrey R Elton
•
G R Elton
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Geoffrey Elton
We need to see the sixteenth-century in terms of its own experience, not as the prehistory of a later revolution. We need to regard even the reigns of the early Stuarts without the conviction that the only thing of moment in their history is the ultimate breakdown of government which we know was to come. If thereafter we want to investigate the causes of the civil war, we need to remember that no revolution of the size claimed for this one ever so readily stopped short and reversed itself.
The Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome was a government measure, affected slightly by opposition from the church and not at all by parliament. A proposal to authorize the archbishops by act of parliament to dissolve the king's marriage was soon replaced by a comprehensive attack on papal jurisdiction in England. In Cromwell's hands, the preamble turned into an unhesitating statement of the theory which underlay the whole practice of Henry VIII and his government: the theory of the imperial crown of England sovereign within its own realm over both laity and church.
Sir John Neale has shown how mistaken this view is: queen and Commons clashed frequently throughout the reign, but this did not prevent equally frequent co-operation. Secondly the conventional view supposes that serious conflict on the parliamentary stage is somehow normal: that "the Commons" misbehaved unless they opposed the Crown. This is nonsense. Parliament was part of the king's government, called to assist him by making grants and laws, but also designed to keep the Crown in touch with opinion and an accepted occasion for complaint and protest. It was, and is, a talking institution, a place for debate. The historian who supposed that debate must mean "inevitable conflict" had better investigate his subconscious.
Loading...