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European History: Vigour, Enthusiasm and Principles

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Edmund Burke as Historian

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Abstract

Burke’s emphasis on the foundations of European civilisation distinguishes his views on European history from those of other eighteenth-century intellectuals despite the fact that he shared with them a number of ideas on European history. In Burke’s view, European nations could develop substantially during modern history even though their societies were often damaged by religious wars and several international conflicts, as they did not destroy the foundations of their own civilisation such as the Christian religion, chivalric manners and other legacies from ancient and medieval times.

This chapter is derived in part from Sora Sato, ‘Vigour, Enthusiasm and Principles: Edmund Burke’s Views of European History’, Modern Intellectual History, 13 (2016), 299–325.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See John William Stubbs, The History of the University of Dublin, from its Foundation to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, & Co. London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1889), pp. 199–200; R.B. McDowell and D.A. Webb, Trinity College Dublin: 1592–1952 An Academic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 45–6, 69; R.B. McDowell and D.A. Webb, ‘Courses and Teaching in Trinity College, Dublin, during the First Two Hundred Years’, Hermathena, 69 (1947), 9–30. For Burke’s undergraduate education and the eighteenth-century curriculum at Trinity College, Dublin, see also Canavan, The Political Reason of Edmund Burke, pp. 197–211.

  2. 2.

    ‘Burke to Richard Shackleton and Richard Burke, Sr (25, 31 July 1746)’, in Corr., I, 69.

  3. 3.

    See ‘Burke to Richard Shackleton (21 March 1746/47)’, in Corr., I, 89.

  4. 4.

    Edmund Burke, ‘National Character and Parliament’, in Bourke, ‘Party, Parliament, and Conquest ’, p. 641; Bourke, ‘Party, Parliament, and Conquest’, pp. 625–6.

  5. 5.

    Vindication of Natural Society, in WS, I, 142.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 145.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 149.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 161.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 163.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 147–8.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 165.

  12. 12.

    Abridgment, in WS, I, 338–9.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 339. See also, ibid., in WS, I, 453.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 341.

  15. 15.

    Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws

    , pp. 165–8.

  16. 16.

    Abridgment, in WS, I, 429–32.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 429.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 360.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 368.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 369.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 373, 376, 378, 380.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 377–8.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 448.

  24. 24.

    Thoughts on the Present Discontents, in WS, II, 316 (importance of political connections); ‘Speech on Divorce Bill (29 April 1771)’, in WS, II, 357 (indissolubility of marriage); ‘Speech on Clerical Subscription’, in WS, II, 363 (piety and religious toleration).

  25. 25.

    ‘Speech in Reply (28, 30 May, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16 June 1794)’, in WS, VII, 662–3 (bribes); ‘Speech on Duration of Parliaments’, in WS, III, 596 (the destructive effects of frequent elections). In the latter, Burke insisted that ‘Rome was destroyd by the frequency and charge of Elections’. The context was his opposition to the introduction of shorter parliaments in Britain.

  26. 26.

    ‘Speech on Clerical Subscription’, in WS, II, 363.

  27. 27.

    See below and also ‘Burke to James Boswell (1 March 1779)’, in Corr., IV, 45.

  28. 28.

    Burke, ‘On Parties’, in Bourke, ‘Party, Parliament, and Conquest’, pp. 645–6. Burke also referred to the partisans of Mark Antony and Gaius Octavius, the factions of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and the Yorkists and Lancastrians in England as examples of factions under the ‘unmixed’ constitution. Party should be distinguished from faction. In Greece and Italy, the contentions between the nobility and the plebeians contributed to preserving the vigour of their constitution until one party utterly destroyed the other. These historical examples contributed to the formation of his idea of party, which could be traced back to around 1757. See Bourke, ‘Party, Parliament, and Conquest’, pp. 629–35.

  29. 29.

    Burke applied this to the case of India. ‘Speech on Opening of Impeachment’, in WS, VI, 277. See also ‘Speech on Sixth Article: Presents (21 April, 7 May 1789)’, in WS, VII, 63; Philip Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 46.

  30. 30.

    Abridgment, in WS, I, 375–6.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 377–8.

  32. 32.

    ‘Speech on Motion for Papers on Hastings (20 February 1786)’, in WS, VI, 63. See also WWM Bk P 9/76. His understanding of Rome clearly provided him with a language to censure corruption in the imperial politics of his age. For this, see especially, P.J. Marshall, ‘Introduction’, in WS, VI, 29–31, 34.

  33. 33.

    Reflections, pp. 410–1.

  34. 34.

    For example, see Peter Burke, ‘Tradition and Experience: The Idea of Decline from Bruni to Gibbon’, Daedalus, 105 (1976), 137–52 (at 143, 146); O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, p. 48.

  35. 35.

    Abridgment, in WS, I, 384.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 453–4. See also Vindication of Natural Society, in WS, I, 149.

  37. 37.

    Abridgment, in WS, I, 454–5.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 456.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 456.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 456. Fragile monarchies eroded by oppressive aristocratic powers were a characteristic of the medieval feudal societies widely recognised by eighteenth-century historians.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 481.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 534, 548.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., in WS, I, 495.

  44. 44.

    See ibid., in WS, I, 517; ‘Speeches on Bill to Secure Protestantism (26 June 1780)’, in WS, III, 609–10; Parl. Hist., XXI, 720.

  45. 45.

    Hume, History of England, II, 519–20.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., II, 522–4. See also Smith, Wealth of Nations, book iii, chap. iii.

  47. 47.

    Burke may, however, have been familiar with European history of this period at an earlier stage of his life. A letter to Richard Shackleton in 1744 ends with the phrase ‘The Subjects of the Mod: Hist: 13th begins with Present State of Naples and ends with france: 14th france total: 15 france total.’ The reference is to a Dublin edition of Thomas Salmon’s Modern History: or, The Present State of All Nations. See ‘Burke to Richard Shackleton (24 November 1744)’, in Corr., I, 38.

  48. 48.

    William Robertson, The History of Scotland, During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI. Till His Accession to the Crown of England (2 vols., London, 1759), I, 12–8; Annual Register … for the Year 1759, pp. 489–94. Burke may have reviewed Robertson’s History of Scotland.

  49. 49.

    Adam Anderson, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce (2 vols., London, 1764), I, 142–5; Annual Register … for the Year 1764 (London, 1765), pp. 250–6. In his private library, Burke owned Anderson’s Historical and Chronological Deduction. See LC MS; LC, p. 8; and its revised version by William Combe (6 vols., Dublin, 1790): LC, p. 1.

  50. 50.

    First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 248. The European nations also came to possess a similar system of education. See ibid., in WS, IX, 248–9.

  51. 51.

    Ibid. See also ‘Letter to William Smith (29 January 1795)’, in WS, IX, 662.

  52. 52.

    First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 248.

  53. 53.

    Reflections, pp . 238–9. Even before publishing the Reflections, Burke made the same point. See ‘Burke to Philip Francis (20 February 1790)’, in Corr., VI, 90–1: ‘Is it absurd in me, to think that the Chivalrous Spirit which dictated a veneration for Women of condition and of Beauty, without any consideration whatsoever of enjoying them, was the great Scource of those manners which have been the Pride and ornament of Europe for so many ages?’.

  54. 54.

    Reflections, pp. 241–2.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., p. 242. This was not the first time he put forward the idea of commerce whose growth owed much to the Christian religion . See Account, I, 192–3.

  56. 56.

    Northamptonshire MS. A. XXVII. 75: ‘Notes on the French Revolution’. For this manuscript, see Bourke, Empire and Revolution, p. 705. Cf. ‘Sketch of a Negro Code (post 9 April 1780)’, in WS, III, 565: ‘whereas Religion, Order, Morality and Virtue are the elemental principles, and the knowledge of Letters, Arts, and handicraft Trades, the chief means of such civilization and improvement’.

  57. 57.

    Richard Hurd , Moral and Political Dialogues; with Letters on Chivalry and Romance (3 vols., London, 1765); Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 191–3; John Millar , The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, ed. Aaron Garrett (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2006), pp. 133–5, 137, 141–2; William Robertson, The Situation of the World at the Time of Christ’s Appearance, and Its Connexion with the Success of His Religion, Considered (Edinburgh, 1755), pp. 38–43; idem, ‘View of the Progress of Society in Europe’ in The Works of William Robertson (12 vols., Reprint of the 1794 edn. London, 1996), III, 80–6, 91; Henry Home, Lord Kames, Sketches of the History of Man (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1778), II, 307–8; Hume, The History of England, I, 486–7. Burke owned Hurd’s Moral and Political Dialogues: LC MS; LC, p. 12., Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society: LC MS and Hume’s History of England: LC MS; LC, p. 15. For a favourable review of Ferguson’s Essay, see Annual Register … for the Year 1767 (London, 1768), pp. 307–16. For Montesquieu’s views of chivalry, see Montesquieu , Spirit of the Laws, p. 562.

  58. 58.

    For this, see Pocock, ‘The Political Economy of Burke’s Analysis of the French Revolution’, idem, Virtue, Commerce, and History, p. 199.

  59. 59.

    For this, see Daniel I. O’Neill, The Burke-Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), pp. 135–6, 146–7.

  60. 60.

    Reflections, p . 241.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., p. 239.

  62. 62.

    Annual Register … for the Year 1758, pp. 464–9. Burke reviewed volume one of John Jortin, The Life of Erasmus (2 vols., London, 1758–1760). In his private library, Burke owned Samuel Knight, The Life of Erasmus (1726): LC MS; LC, p. 13.

  63. 63.

    See Annual Register … for the Year 1758, p. 463.

  64. 64.

    Account, I, 3.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., I, 3–4. In his private library, Burke owned Francesco Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia. See LC MS; LC, pp. 11, 15 (Guicciardini, The History of Italy, from the year 1490, to 1532 (10 vols., London, [1754]), wanting vol. 7).

  66. 66.

    Among his surviving manuscripts, there is a brief note on Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and others. See Northamptonshire MS. A. XXVII. 13.

  67. 67.

    Account, I, 5.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., I, 47.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., I, 46.

  70. 70.

    Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election, in WS, III, 639.

  71. 71.

    Ibid., in WS, III, 639.

  72. 72.

    Ibid., in WS, III, 639–40.

  73. 73.

    Jortin, Life of Erasmus, I, 609.

  74. 74.

    In this letter, Burke referred to the corruption of the Greek and Latin churches. See ‘Burke to Lord Kenmare (21 Feb 1782)’, in Corr., IV, 412–3. In his private library, Burke owned Paolo Sarpi, The Historie of the Councel of Trent, translated by Nathaniel Brent (London, [1620]): LC MS; LC, p. 27.

  75. 75.

    Later, Tocqueville made the same point in his Old Regime and the Revolution (book i, chapter iii).

  76. 76.

    Thoughts on French Affairs (1791), in WS, VIII, 341.

  77. 77.

    Ibid., in WS, VIII, 342.

  78. 78.

    Reflections, pp . 312–3. Probably, this was not the first time he linked the events of 1789 with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. In a letter of 9 August 1789, he already had in mind St. Bartholomew’s Day and the wars of the Fronde (1648–53). See ‘Burke to the Earl of Charlemont (9 August 1789)’, in Corr., VI, 10; Clark, ‘Introduction’, in Reflections, p. 61.

  79. 79.

    Reflections, p. 306. Burke owned Enrico Caterino Davila, Histoire des guerres civiles de France (2 vols., 1657): LC, p. 7; idem, Historia delle guerre civili di Francia (2 vols., 1755): LC MS; LC, p. 7; idem, The History of the Civil Wars of France ([London], 1678), LC MS; LC, p. 10; François Eudes de Mézeray, Histoire de France, depuis Faramond jusqu’à maintenant (3 vols., Paris, 1643–1651): LC, p. 18; Charles Jean François Hénault, Nouvel abrégé chronologique de l’histoire de France (Paris, 1752): LC MS; LC, p. 15; Huraut, Dictionnaire historique de Paris (4 vols., Paris, 1779): LC, p. 12. In the letter to Pierre-Gaëton Dupont on 28 October 1790, Burke drew some information from the Mémoires de Maximilien de Bethume, Duc de Sully …, Mis en ordre, avec des remarques par M.L.D.L.D.L. (3 vols., London, 1747), which he owned in his private library: LC MS; LC, p. 24.

  80. 80.

    ‘Burke to Pierre-Gaëton Dupont (28 October 1790)’, in Corr., VI, 146.

  81. 81.

    ‘Pierre-Gaëton Dupont to Burke (27 October 1790)’, in Corr., VI, 144.

  82. 82.

    ‘Burke to Pierre-Gaëton Dupont (28 October 1790)’, in Corr., VI, 147–8.

  83. 83.

    William Knox, The Present State of the Nation (London, 1768), pp. 97–9.

  84. 84.

    Observations on a Late State of the Nation, in WS, II, 207–8.

  85. 85.

    Reflections, pp. 204–5.

  86. 86.

    Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in WS, VIII, 302–3, 321–2; Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in WS, VIII, 497–8.

  87. 87.

    Reflections, p. 324.

  88. 88.

    Here we may add his low view of Phillip II (1527–98), of whose persecution of Calvinism in the Netherlands Burke was probably highly critical. See Speech at Bristol Previous to Election, in WS, III, 651. Burke was a reader of Robert Watson’s The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain (2 vols., 1777), and, in his previous speech, he clearly regarded the king as a tyrant. See ‘Speech on Cavendish’s Motion on America (6 November 1776)’, in WS, III, 254–5: LC, p. 25. See also Speech on Conciliation with America, in WS, III, 139.

  89. 89.

    Smith, Wealth of Nations, book iii, chapter iv.

  90. 90.

    For this phrase, see for instance Maria Pia Paganelli, ‘Is a Beautiful System Dying?: A Possible Smithian Take on the Financial Crisis’, The Adam Smith Review, 6 (2011), 269–82 (at 280).

  91. 91.

    Adam Smith , Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael and P.G. Stein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 264.

  92. 92.

    Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in WS, IV, 433; Thoughts on the French Affairs, in WS, VIII, 347; Reflections, p. 259.

  93. 93.

    Reflections, pp . 281–2; Letter to a Noble Lord , in WS, IX, 166–7. See also Burke, ‘National Character and Parliament’, in Bourke, ‘Party, Parliament, and Conquest’, p. 642.

  94. 94.

    James Mackintosh, Vindiciae Gallicae: Defence of the French Revolution and its English Admirers, against the Accusations of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke (London, 1791), in idem, Vindiciae Gallicae and Other Writings on the French Revolution, ed. Donald Winch (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006), p. 87.

  95. 95.

    Account, II, 4.

  96. 96.

    Ibid., II, 4–5.

  97. 97.

    Cf. David Hume, ‘Of Civil Liberty’, in idem, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985), pp. 87–96 (at 88): ‘Trade was never esteemed an affair of state till the last century’.

  98. 98.

    Account, II, 16–7.

  99. 99.

    [Edmund and William Burke], An Account of the European Settlements in America (2nd edn., 2 vols., London, 1758), II, 17.

  100. 100.

    Account, II, 17–8.

  101. 101.

    See Speech on Fox’s India Bill (1 December 1783), in WS, V, 401–2, where he claimed that, although the early invaders to India brought great turmoil to the country, they did not utterly ruin its society: ‘With many disorders, and with few political checks upon power, Nature had still fair play; the sources of acquisition were not dried up; and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished.’

  102. 102.

    For Brown, see John Brown, Estimate and Principles on Manners (2 vols., London, 1758), I, 18–9.

  103. 103.

    Account, I, 6 (Venice and Georgia in the age of Columbus), 228 (‘Jealousy is the glaring character of the court of Spain, in whatever regards their American empire’).

  104. 104.

    Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in WS, VIII, 331–2.

  105. 105.

    Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 291.

  106. 106.

    Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, 351. See also, ibid., in WS, VIII, 348–9.

  107. 107.

    ‘Letter to William Elliot (26 May 1795)’, in WS, IX, 36.

  108. 108.

    Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 274–5. See also Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace (1795), in WS, IX, 96; Bk P 25/32.

  109. 109.

    Armitage, ‘Edmund Burke and Reason of State’, in idem, Foundations of Modern International Thought, pp. 166–7.

  110. 110.

    See Edmund Burke, ‘Extracts from Vattel’s Law of Nations’, in Three Memorials on French Affairs. Written in the Years 1791, 1792 and 1793. By the late Right Hon. Edmund Burke.

  111. 111.

    Third Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 338.

  112. 112.

    Ibid., in WS, IX, 339.

  113. 113.

    Annual Register … for the Year 1760, p. 2.

  114. 114.

    ‘Second Speech on Conciliation (16 November 1775)’, in WS, III, 187.

  115. 115.

    See Speech on Economical Reform, in WS, III, 488; Speeches on the Army Estimates (9 February 1790), in WS, IV, 285–6, 300–1, 304.

  116. 116.

    Tracts relating to Popery Laws (1765), in WS, IX, 459–60.

  117. 117.

    Ibid., in WS, IX, 459–60, where Burke aimed to establish a historical analogy with the Penal Laws in Ireland. See also Annual Register … for the Year 1763, p. 3; ‘Speech on French Corps Bill (11 April 1794)’, in WS, IV, 615.

  118. 118.

    A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly in WS, VIII, 306.

  119. 119.

    First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 238. Burke’s view of Louis XIV was close to the typical view held by his British contemporaries. For the eighteenth-century views of Louis XIV and his reign, for instance, see N.R. Johnson, ‘Louis XIV and the Age of Enlightenment: The Myth of the Sun King from 1715–1789’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 172 (1978), 1–350; O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, pp. 67–8 (Voltaire's and Hume’s views); Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, I, 111, II, 137.

  120. 120.

    Reflections, p. 275 (Louis XIV’s patronage of intellectuals).

  121. 121.

    Annual Register … for the Year 1762 (London, 1763), pp. 6–7; Account, I, 285–6.

  122. 122.

    Annual Register … for the Year 1762, p. 7.

  123. 123.

    Thoughts on the French Affairs, in WS, VIII, 368. Burke was generally critical of Polish politics. See Vindication, in WS, I, 159–60; Annual Register … for the Year 1763, p. 45.

  124. 124.

    See Annual Register … for the Year 1762, p. 11; ‘Burke to the Empress of Russia (1 November 1791)’, in Corr., VI, 444 (the context was Burke’s plea to Russia to intervene in French affairs); Annual Register … for the Year 1762, p. 17; ‘Burke to [Adrian Heinrich von] Borcke [post 17 January 1774]’, in Corr., II, 514. See also Annual Register … for the Year 1765 (London, 1766), p. 5, where the author maintained that Russia had been steeped in religious and civil prejudice.

  125. 125.

    Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, I, 110.

  126. 126.

    See First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 190.

  127. 127.

    In his Reflections, he referred to a French census ordered in the early eighteenth century, and to Jacques Necker’s and Richard Price’s estimates rather approvingly and maintained that there had been an increase in the population of France. See Reflections, p . 296. Burke owned Necker’s De l’Administration des Finances de la France (3 vols., [Paris], 1784): LC MS.

  128. 128.

    ‘Burke to Richard Burke, JR (18 August 1791)’, in Corr., VI, 359. See also Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in WS, IV, 402.

  129. 129.

    Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in WS, VIII, 331–2.

  130. 130.

    For instance, see ‘Burke to Captain Thomas Mercer (26 February 1790)’, in Corr., VI, 97.

  131. 131.

    Letter to William Elliot (26 May 1795), in WS, IX, 39; Reflections, p . 241.

  132. 132.

    Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 287.

  133. 133.

    ‘Speech on Opening of Impeachment’, in WS, VI, 283. See also, ibid., in WS, VI, 352–3; Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in WS, VIII, 320.

  134. 134.

    Burke, ‘Considerations on a Militia’, in Bourke, ‘Party, Parliament, and Conquest’, p. 652.

  135. 135.

    First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 192–3. For his review of Brown’s Estimate of the manners and principles of the time, see Annual Register … for the Year 1758, pp. 445–53.

  136. 136.

    Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de. Montesquieu, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains and de leur décadence, in Œuvres complètes de Montesquieu, ed. Jean Ehrard, Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, et al. (Oxford, 1998–), II, 95, 263–4; Paul A. Rahe, ‘The Book that never was: Montesquieu’s Considerations on the Romans in Historical Context’, History of Political Thought, 26 (2005), 43–89 (at 75–6).

  137. 137.

    Abridgment, in WS, I, 399.

  138. 138.

    Pocock, ‘The Political Economy of Burke’s Analysis of the French Revolution’, in idem, Virtue, Commerce, and History; idem, ‘Edmund Burke and the Redefinition of Enthusiasm: the Context as Counter-Revolution’, in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture. Vol. III. The Transformation of Political Culture 1789–1848, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989), pp. 19–43.

  139. 139.

    Reflections, pp . 363–4. See also Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, 344–6.

  140. 140.

    Reflections, p. 364.

  141. 141.

    What was happening in France was utterly new to history and extraordinary in its nature. See ‘Burke to Lord Grenville (21 September 1791)’, in Corr., VI, 407; ‘Burke to the Archbishop of Nisibis (14 December 1791)’, in Corr., VI, 458; Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, 367; Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in WS, VIII, 498; Letter to a Noble Lord, in WS, IX, 174–5; Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, 290–1.

  142. 142.

    Richard Bourke, ‘Edmund Burke and Enlightenment Sociability: Justice, Honour and the Principles of Government’, History of Political Thought, 21 (2000), 632–56 (at 651–2).

  143. 143.

    ‘Burke to the Chevalier de la Bintinaye [March 1791]’, in Corr., VI, 242.

  144. 144.

    For this and the following discussion, see Bourke, Empire and Revolution, pp. 751–2, 926. For Tocqueville’s views of history in the Old Regime and the Revolution, see for instance, Delba Winthrop, ‘Tocqueville’s “Old Regime:” Political History’, The Review of Politics, 43 (1981), 88–111.

  145. 145.

    Alexis de Tocqueville , The Old Regime and the Revolution, ed. François Furret and Françoise Mélonio (2 vols., Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998–2001), I, 147.

  146. 146.

    Ibid., I, 150.

  147. 147.

    Ibid., I, 151.

  148. 148.

    Ibid., I, 191.

  149. 149.

    Ibid., I, 99.

  150. 150.

    ‘Speech on War with France (12 February 1793)’, in WS, IV, 546 (editor’s preface).

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Sato, S. (2018). European History: Vigour, Enthusiasm and Principles. In: Edmund Burke as Historian. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64441-7_3

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