At Utrecht the bigwigged Plenipotentiaries ended an epoch, and liquidated the fifty years' struggle of the smaller States of Europe to save themselve… - G. M. Trevelyan
" "At Utrecht the bigwigged Plenipotentiaries ended an epoch, and liquidated the fifty years' struggle of the smaller States of Europe to save themselves from the hegemony of France, and of the Protestants of Europe to save themselves from the fate of the French Huguenots. These two movements of self-defence, combined by the political genius of William, had triumphed through the military genius of Marlborough. England, entering late into the struggle, had decided the issue. Her success had demonstrated that a country of free institutions could defeat a State based upon autocratic rule. This was a new idea in the world, and caused men to think afresh on the maxims of State.
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About G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was an English historian and academic.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
George Macauley Trevelyan
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George Macaulay Trevelyan
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Additional quotes by G. M. Trevelyan
The occupation of Tripoli appears to rest on the same basis as the occupation of other parts of North Africa by other European Powers—viz., on the law of force. Some of us wish, for the sake of our friends the Italians, that the Italian State had continued to rest on the stronger, nobler, and more economical basis of a free national union of a single race. But the Italians may know their own affairs best, and in any case we are in no position to scold them for imitating ourselves.
The action of these courageous but wary statesmen was based, not on theory, but on sound information and calculation of all the forces on the board. Such was the method of the Whigs and Tories who made the Revolution Settlement of 1689, the Act of Settlement of 1701 that fixed the Succession on the House of Hanover, and half-a-dozen years later this Union with Scotland. These three settlements, on which the British Constitution has rested ever since, are parts of a single scheme; they were all of them made in the same spirit of compromise between parties, churches, and nations, and therefore they were never over-set. The not very idealistic statesmen of that Augustan age laid the foundation of modern Britain more wisely and well than the passionate Cavaliers and Roundheads of an earlier time had been able to do. It was the heroic idealists—Laud, Hampden, Cromwell, Montrose—who had rough-hewn the issues of controversy, but the terms of settlement were drawn up by their prudently compromising successors in the reigns of William and Anne. The Scottish Union was a piece of their most characteristic and successful work.
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The greatest gains with which Britain emerged from the war did not appear in the treaties. There were the unrivalled supremacy of our navy and of our mercantile marine; the reputation of having been the only Power that consistently withstood Napoleon; the possession of a Parliamentary system now more than ever the envy of "less happier lands" since the relative failure of "French principles" of liberty. With these advantages we faced the coming era.
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