Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain tells the story of the tumultuous decades between the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 and the accession of George I in 1714. Following the twists and turns of the politics, the players – the Whig Junto, the calculating Robert Harley, the ‘traitor’ Henry St John, the military hero Marlborough – and their monarchs, the turbulent waters of these years are explored in distinctive, engaging style. Throughout it all, author George Owers brings the story to bear on modernity, describing how the two-party system and a certain political style came to prevail, and how divisions over everything that mattered – religion, economics, control, political outlook, international relations – set the stage for the world as we know it today. It is a tale of the high politics and low scheming, of assassination plots and international wars, of finance and culture that went to the heart of all walks of English (and then British) society in those years, and that tainted it for centuries thereafter.
Political history is not everyone’s cup of tea. Indeed, in the last few years, some have seen it as very much passé. The grand narrative of yesteryear has rightly been questioned and, as a result, has perhaps less usefully been dismissed. Instead, there has been a focus on the minutiae, on filling out the picture to provide a more solid vision of a moment in time, to understand how ordinary people lived their lives in their individual ways. This is interesting and, indeed, enlightening. And historians have been right to point out that history did not just affect the ‘great men’ of the past. Nevertheless, this style of popular history as the sole and only approach misses a vital element: it does not explain the how and the wherefore, the events and the people that had such a profound impact on the way we live and think today.
Not only that, but political history can be viewed as something set aside for tweed-clad professors sat atop their ivory towers: an honourable discipline but not one likely to touch the hearts and minds of the scurrying multitudes below. No matter the truth of this generalisation, it absolutely does not apply to Rage of Party, which instead is punchy, and pacy, and fun. A lover of the salacious side of history myself, this is the sort of prose that I can really dive into. Alongside the grittier political aspects are the stories, the whimsies, and the scandals that make the protagonists leap from the page. The drinking, the duels, the desecration of churches all describe the times and the people in vibrant, stunning three dimensions. One can’t help but feel that Owers has enjoyed writing Rage of Party as much as his audience will enjoy reading it. Political history does not have to be stuffy and dry, and Owers proves the case.
Owers therefore excels in overturning both of these preconceptions – and many other, academic, myths as well. Not only has he written a thumping good read, a book enjoyable for the story in and of itself, and where the characters in all their multiple aspects come alive, their fancies and foibles sympathetically expressed; where the scene is painted in vivid technicolour, allowing the protests and battles, the cheers and celebrations to shine with bright immediacy; where wit and knowledge powerfully combine to form a grand narrative that would challenge any of the great masters of the past. Not only has he looked afresh at previous scholarship, found it to be wanting, and rehabilitated both the era and the actors to bring about a new understanding of the time and its meaning.
As well as all this, he has written a political history that could not be more relevant, and more illuminating. Contemporary politics is divisive, and is possibly becoming more sectarian. Commentators cast around, grasping at historical parallels. Rarely, however, have they turned to the genesis of our modern system. Owers, in Rage of Party, provides that corrective. With finely honed skill, he has both shown where we should be looking if we want to understand the causes and consequences of extreme party-political discord, and he has created an indisputable case for why political history, now perhaps more than ever, needs to be studied and understood. No wonder that Rage of Party has won so many awards. This is one political history book that absolutely should be read.
