Glorios Medium Essay

7/30/2019 Glorios Medium Essay

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Thomas Babington Macaulay and Stephen Pincus emphasize different

comparisons in their descriptions of the setting of the Glorious Revolution. The key

analytical differences between their respective discussions of the socioeconomic

condition of England lead to the divergences in their broader conclusions about the

period. Macaulay views the Glorious Revolution as the origin of rapid economic

development that comes to overtake Britain in the eighteenth century as well as

throughout his own lifetime. Pincus argues that the Glorious Revolution occurred as

a result of rapid economic development already in progress in the second half of the

seventeenth century. Pincus arrives at his contrary assertion by attempting to revise

some of the assumptions held in the Whig historical tradition, specifically by

explaining that England had already leaped forward significantly in the rate of its

expansion of trade and manufactures and also heavily contextualizing Englands

position internationally.

Macaulay describes the England of the Glorious Revolution as thoroughly

backwards and undeveloped, going so far as to compare the north of England to the

American Wild West. Physical and moral causes, Macaulay claims had conspired to

prevent civilization from spreading to that region north of the River Trent.1

Throughout his third chapter, in which he details the socioeconomic background of

the story he tells about England at the time of the Glorious Revolution, Macaulay

repeatedly draws unfavorable comparisons between the Great Britain of his own

day and the younger country of the seventeenth century that in his view remained

in a state of barbarism. When examining the military capability of England, he calls

1 Macaulay, pg. 139


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the little army formed by Charles II as only the germ of great and renowned army

which has, in the present century, marched triumphant2 in a number of great

foreign cities. Macaulays somewhat belittling tone extends to his discussions of

population and economic comparisons among other descriptions.

Of course, the barbarism viewed by the observer of one century may be

civilization to the resident of another. A great army may look small with the

advantage of a hundred years of hindsight. Perhaps with this in mind, Pincus uses a

different set of evaluative criteria to understand the economic position of

Restoration-era England. English merchant shipping more than doubled its tonnage

between 1640 and 1686,3 Pincus states as part of a long list of statistics that

highlight the increasingly rapid economic progress that the country experienced in

the period. Pincus uses the hundred or so years prior to the Glorious Revolution as

the frame of reference in which to tell his own story. This rapid economic growth

was remarkable, Pincus marvels, because it diverged sharply from major trends

on the Continent.4 Macaulay does not see the English economy of the time in the

same way, as he is more concerned with how it differed from the economy of his

own age.

Pincus emphasis on the comparative economic history of the seventeenth

century brings different conclusions about the underlying determinants that led to

the Glorious Revolution. Economic development was a cause rather than a

2 Macaulay, pg. 1443 Pincus, pg. 824 Pincus, pg. 51


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consequence of the revolution.5 Pincus argues that the political conflicts of the

time were much more economic in nature than Macaulay allows. Whigs and Tories

divided over their political economic visions6 rather than simply over their

differing views of church and state. For Pincus, Macaulays understanding of the

Revolution as fundamentally about the assertion of traditional English liberties is far

too narrow to provide a truly comprehensive explanation of the events.

By describing the English economy in terms of comparison to Holland and

other parts of continental Europe, Pincus attempts to expand upon the traditional

view of the Glorious Revolution by stressing the international context of the events

and conditions normally discussed by Whig-influenced historians. Pincus regards

internalist accounts of the Glorious Revolution as incomplete pictures. Thus, in

discussing the dramatic economic expansion that he denotes as a major cause of the

Glorious Revolution, he points out that thirty percent of English imports and fifteen

percent of English exports were due to trade with North American and West Indian

colonies and India. Pincus believes that these colonialist and mercantile successes

explain the unique position of England better than the more nationalist Whig

accounts, which cite less specific and more ephemeral characteristics. The key

factor in accounting for English and Dutch prosperity while the rest of the

European economies stagnated in the seventeenth century, is the growth of long-

distance trade and the development of overseas colonies.7 Other countries appear

in Macaulays story of the revolution much more infrequently, and when other

5 Pincus, pg. 506 Pincus, pg. 3967 Pincus, pg. 82


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states do appear they are primarily sites for exile and sources of invasion or

intrusion into English affairs. By contrast, Pincus paints them as trading partners,

economic competitors, examples of differing political models, and in the case of the

Americas, colonies of enormous commercial value. These more extensive roles that

Pincus attributes to international actors leads him to argue that external factors

were incredibly important shaping forces on the Glorious Revolution.

Stephen Pincus and Thomas Babington Macaulay use very different frames

for their respective stories of the Glorious revolution. Macaulay frames his story

with comparisons between his own time and the period of the Glorious Revolution.

Pincus frames his own retelling mostly within the changes that took place

throughout the seventeenth century, with a particular focus on the decades leading

up to the revolution itself. In addition, the international scene plays a more limited

role in Macaulays work. For Pincus, other nationsand Englands own colonies

provide major context to his framing. These differences in approach for each

historian are reflected in the broader conclusions they each draw about the causes

and consequences of the Glorious Revolution. Pincus sees the rapid economic

development that England experienced in the late seventeenth century, which

Macaulay does not seem to have fully considered, as a significant cause of the

Glorious Revolution. For his part, Macaulay sees the Glorious Revolution as an event

that allowed for the market and industrial revolutions that so shaped the events of

his own lifetime. Each interpretation derives from the respective authors different

frames of reference.

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Glorios Medium Essay