11 OCTOBER 1969, Page 21

Orange order

CHARLES STUART

The Descent on England John Carswell (Barrie and Rockliff 50s) The reign of James Ii has always responded to narrative treatment. It was short, drama- tic and decisive ; the issues were important —the survival of political and religious liberty at home and resistance to the domin- ance of Louis XIV abroad ; and the heroic champion of both causes was William Ill. The traditional English view, nobly and vigorously expressed by Macaulay, empha- sised the constitutional, domestic achieve- ments of the Glorious Revolution. The European aspect of these great events took second place. It has been the work of three Oxford historians, Sir George Clark, Sir Keith Feiling and the late David Ogg to set this balance even. They showed that the revo- lution of 1688 was a part of European as well as of English history, and, in particular, that William 111's motives and purposes were continental and not insular. As Sir George Clark wrote in the Oxford History, 'by his nationality, his official position in the Dutch republic and the whole work of his life, William was bound to consider England not as an isolated state but as a part of Europe'.

Mr Carswell has taken up this theme and itten a vigorous and stimulating account of

events of 1685-88 from the European ndpoint. His book, he says, began as a ries of lectures at the University of Sussex

it is perhaps a criticism of its form that times it shows marks of the lecture-room

its exaggerations, in its admonitions to oid the crass illusions of the young in peet of time and space, and in its resort supposition and guesswork to enliven the ry on occasions when the evidence is

k.

Nevertheless Mr Carswell puts forward o interesting and original themes. The

t is his suggestion that William Ill's

of the weapon of propaganda was a vital rt of his success in his struggle with mes II. In this context he has skilfully ploited the correspondence of James o■art, and William Carstares, who is in me ways the second hero of his tale. His -ond theme, perhaps less convincing, is at William Ill was the champion of 'parti- larism' against the French-inspired `cen- lising policy' of James 11, and that the glish landed gentry responded more to this an to William's Protestantism.

In dealing with the English story in detail

r Carswell has worked hard on the s%,ers given by the JPS to James ll's mus questionnaire of 1687 and has pro- ced statistical tables in the modern man-

to show that about a quarter of the agistrates were prepared to support the yal policy of indulgence. He acknowledges at political pressure and straight popery re elements in this result but does not tell how great a proportion of James's support me from Roman Catholic justices. In the e way he emphasises the early support James from Protestant dissent, particu- y in the City of London, and argues that

s was 'washed away' not by Halifax's sous Leiter to a Dissenter (he dismisses lifax as a compromising grandee), but by lham's propaganda from Holland.

Overall, then, Mr Carswell has provided readers with interest and material for ument. Only in one respect has his Euro- n approach played him false. This is in insistence on transposing all dates into

New Style. The result has been far from ppy. On two occasions he has even to ert to the Old Style for substantial Im- es. But he does not extend this welcome onsistency to the anniversary of William's ding at Torbay. For him, apparently, it is ase of 'Please to remember the fifteenth November'.