The French Revolution had spread to Britain?
In 1789 revolutionary forces stormed the Bastille, but could the guillotine have come to Greenwich?
In 1700s France the so-called ‘Third Estate’, comprising everyone from peasant farmers to the bourgeoisie, were not happy. Politically they were invisible to both the First and Second Estates (the classes who wielded the most power) and, despite their poverty, were often subject to high taxation. The intellectual ideas of the Enlightenment began to preach the rights of the common man over the elites and following the extravagant spending of King Louis XVI, France’s involvement in the American Revolutionary wars and other additional factors, France erupted into revolution. In 1793, this would lead to execution of the monarchy. A revolutionary wave swept across Europe but in Britain, despite fears to the contrary, there was no people’s uprising. Was it ever a possibility? And what could have happened had the masses taken to the streets?
What were some of the responses to the French Revolution in Britain?
Initially, both politically and ideologically, there was an awful lot of enthusiasm and a sense that the French were becoming a bit more like Britain after 1688, forging a constitutional monarchy. There was also a radical movement, which embraced the French Revolution as a cause for parliamentary reform of Britain. At this stage Britain wasn’t a democracy; far from it. Parliament primarily represented landed interest. However there were some notes of caution as well. In his book Reflections On The Revolution In France Edmund Burke basically said that this wasn’t going to end well. In the British government, William Pitt believed that because France was so tied up with internal efforts to reform that effectively Britain didn’t have to worry too much and Europe would be at peace for quite a long time.
How did the government and conservative groups respond to the perceived threat?
Initially very sluggishly, until 1792 when the revolution radicalised and the monarchy was overthrown. This was the start of the slide of Britain joining the French Revolutionary Wars. However there was also concern about the radical ideas floating around Britain, including those written by Thomas Paine. He wrote Rights Of Man, which was a quite brilliant defence of the French Revolution. The second part, published in 1792, proposed some measures that in a sense anticipated the modern welfare state, in a very mild way. In response, the government issued a royal proclamation against seditious writings in May 1792. However, the real panic began when the French revolutionary armies spilled across Europe, conquering territory. In
November 1792, The Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property was founded to challenge a burgeoning popular radical movement in Britain.
The association founded branches across the country to put pressure on radicals, to intimidate them and bully them into violence. Another way in which conservative groups respond was to create volunteer movements. Initially the government was reluctant because the volunteer movement was essentially creating militias, in theory to guard against French invasion, but also to act as a counter revolutionary militia against domestic radicalism.
If an English Revolution had occurred were there any groups that could have led it?
If a revolution had occurred in the mid-1790s, then the London Corresponding Society would have been the obvious choice. Between 1797 and 1799, when there was perhaps more of a possibility of revolution, the London Corresponding Society became increasingly more radical until it was formally banned in 1799. There were other underground organisations like the United Scotsman, the United Irishman (who actually started a revolution in Ireland in 1798) and the United Englishman. However, it’s hard to tell how serious a threat some of these were because most of what we know about them comes from government agents and propaganda.
The vast majority of British reformers insisted they weren’t Jacobins and weren’t in favour of a violent revolution, only reform of the House of Commons. If a revolution had occurred, it would’ve been led by a very small radical fringe.
Were any plans in place?
All the radical organisations had a kind of a programme of change, but more often than not it was through persuasion. They hoped they could persuade parliament that it was time to reform. In Scotland, the radical Society of the Friends of the People established what they call a Convention in Edinburgh to debate parliamentary reform and they hoped that they would act as a kind of “conscience” for parliament. They wanted it to be a kind of assembly that expressed a broad will of a very broad range of people. However, in terms of plans for actual violent revolution? They exist but most seem to come from radicals in exile. For example Wolfe Tone, an Irish Republican, spoke to the French about landing a force in Ireland to back an insurrection. There’s also Thomas Muir, who had been found guilty of sedition and transported to Australia. He escaped and ended up in Revolutionary France, where he petitioned the French government to support a revolution in Scotland by landing a force. But a lot of these exiles had been out of the country for a long time and were out of touch. With Tone in Ireland the French did send a force, too late, but they sent one.
Were there any legal ramifications of the perceived threat?
Yes. There were some 23 laws against seditious writings; correspondence with France, once war had broken out, was illegal; and there was the Alien Act, empowering the government to deport anybody who they thought threatened the established order. They also passed a law against seditious meetings and banned what they called Combinations, which are the early forms of trade union. Also, there are the treason trials. In 1793, members of the Edinburgh Convention, including Thomas Muir, were tried for sedition and sentenced
to transportation to Australia. In 1794, you had a range of treason trials in London. Treason was a more serious crime and could carry the death penalty. The government said the radicals were trying to start a violent revolution, while the radicals said all they wanted was peaceful reform of parliament. The jurors weren’t convinced by the government’s case and the trials collapsed.
What could have been the immediate impacts of an attempted English Revolution in the late-1700s?
For an example of what might have happened had it failed, we can look to Ireland in 1798 – the repressions are pretty horrible. So the immediate impact of a failed English Revolution would have probably led to violent suppression. A successful revolution may have allowed the French in and maybe created a sister Republic out of either the entire British Isles or separate ones out of Ireland, England, Wales, etc. The French did have some vague plans as to what they might do. There’s a memorandum, I think in the French Foreign Ministry, which has what the departments of Britain would look like if there was to be a French-style revolution in Britain. London would be called the Département de la Thames (Department of the Thames) just as Paris was called the Department of the Seine.
Could it have toppled the monarchy?
It depends. Let’s say that there was a copycat revolution in 1789-91 – if they were doing it along the French model it probably would have been a constitutional monarchy but with a more democratic House of Commons. After the 1790s it almost certainly would have been a Republic that would have gotten rid of the monarchy. The French would have insisted on it, if the French had come in.
What do you think the impact of an English Revolution in the late 1700s or 1800s could have been?
Let’s say that there’s been a successful revolution in Britain and the monarchy has been overthrown. I think the first thing is that the strategic realities probably would not have changed much in the long run. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Napoleon did come to power in France – you would still have other issues to deal with such as the strategic position of Russia. What might have happened, though, is that the British Empire initially might have abolished slavery earlier because the French revolutionaries abolished slavery in 1794. Napoleon reintroduced it in
1802, which led to Haitian independence, but maybe the abolitionists in Britain would have gained the upper hand. But that’s probably a fantasy – the Dutch had a sister Republic and they didn’t abolish slavery. Ideologically it would have established a longer revolutionary tradition in Britain. We have the revolution of the 1640s and they do execute the king in 1649, but this would have established one more attuned to ideas of natural rights and individual liberties. If there had been a violent revolution in Britain and the French had arrived, what would have happened to parliament? It probably would have been completely overhauled and we would have had, at least in the long run, two different parliamentary conditions. One monarchist with a balanced constitution and based on the idea of parliamentary sovereignty, the other Republican and based on popular sovereignty. That would have established a much bigger constitutional debate in the long run.