Why I am fascinated by British history

“That it is the right and privilege of the subjects to protest for remedy of law to the king and parliament against sentences pronounced by the lords of session, providing the same does not stop execution of these sentences.”

– Claim of Right 1689 (or “The Declaration of the Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland containing the Claim of Right and the offer of the Croune to the King and Queen of England”), Paragraph 41 – as passed by the Convention of the Estates, a sister body to the Parliament of Scotland

Exposure to British history (and larger British culture) in my early childhood

To some degree, I actually grew up seeing the British as the “bad guys” of the American Revolution. They were the tyrannical regime against whom we had been fighting during our war of independence. Thus, it actually surprised me to learn that the British have since become our most important allies (as I describe here). I remember being surprised, for example, at seeing British and American soldiers fighting alongside each other in various World War II movies. I grew up on many movies, historical and otherwise, that took place in the British Isles – or had British characters, of one sort or another. To some degree, that’s because Americans routinely watch a fair number of British movies, like the various Harry Potter movies of my youth. And, even in many American movies, British characters and ideas can figure prominently in the story. Playful stereotypes of the British can show them as “stuffy” and “unemotional,” while the British (in their turn) sometimes portray Americans as unsophisticated “cowboys” and “rubes.” Nonetheless, the two sides of this “great Atlantic divide” usually see each other in a more favorable light today. And, in many ways, this is as it should be. The controversies of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 are usually put aside when Britons and Americans interact, and most disputations on these subjects tend to be fairly good-natured today (although they would not have been such at the time). In high school, I was often watching movies and reading books which undertook to depict the British experience of World War II. These movies are a great contribution to the history, and I learned much from watching various British movies about their own (truly vital) role in this conflict. These included “The Dam Busters,” “Battle of Britain,” and “Sink the Bismarck!” (among others).

Why we ignore British history at our peril

“The archbishop or bishop shall say, Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same? --- The king or queen shall say, I solemnly promise so to do.

Archbishop or bishop. Will you to your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgments? --- King or queen. I will.”

– First part of the coronation oath of British monarchs in Sir William Blackstone’s time, as quoted in his “Commentaries on the Laws of England” (1765), Book 1, Chapter 6 (some of the oath’s wording regarding the monarch’s duty to Parliament has since been changed)

I should acknowledge that every known civilization has left its distinctive mark upon the world. But Britain’s influence upon world history, including through its daughter country of the United States, seems particularly great. In the history of the world, I hold Britain’s influence to be pretty much incomparable. In my opinion, even the influence of the Athenian democracy of Ancient Greece, or the Republic and Empire periods of Ancient Rome, may not quite compare to the influence of Britain. Again, the influence of the United States could be seen as being merely an extension of this British influence. It seems to have been the British Isles that gave birth to a government … answering to most of their people. (More about that later on in this post.) I understand that the influence of other civilizations is also great, and I have likewise covered some of their truly-salutary influence elsewhere. For example, I have covered India here, China here, and Japan here. I have covered Mexico here, Brazil here, and the distant African continent here. But nearly every post-Renaissance civilization has been influenced, to some degree or another, by the sons and daughters of the British Isles. Some of that influence has been good, and some of it has obviously been rather bad. But all of it has been important, in one way or another, for the history of the larger world.