Sixteenth Century
ENGLAND'S PRECEDENCE. By William McElwee. (Hodder and Stoughton, 21s.) THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE SECRETARIES OF STATE AND THEIR MONOPOLY OF THE LICENSED NEWS, 1660-1681. By Peter Fraser. (C.U.P., 21s.) IF Milton had begged England to remember her precedence in teaching nations how not to live, Mr. McElwee's title would have been more appropriate; the chief lesson which nations learned from England under the Stuarts was that royal stupidity, vanity, hypocrisy and bigotry are inimical to stable rule. Apart from the title, however, this is an excellent study of the period; balanced—between the different historians' specialities, as well as between different interpretations; sensible; and shrewd. The author's particular skill lies in bringing out the pattern of events; he can be forgiven the few occasions when the pattern is imposed
retrospectively for his own convenience. He manages, too, to be readable without relying on the stock clichés of history— except, for some reason, in the reign of Charles II. He is less satisfying on Charles than on the other three Stuart Kings, and a certain amount of 1066-and-all-that, let-not-poor-Nelly-starve' adornment has sidled in. And occasionally he is repetitive. But in general this is quite the best introduction to the period I have read.
As his formidable title suggests, Mr. Peter Fraser is not afraid of letting us know he is a researcher rather than a populariser. His thesis about the relationship of press and State is original, and convincing; he has also uncovered some interesting informa- tion on the side—such as the explanation of the division of the fleet scandal in 1666. But it is the student of the period, rather than the casual reader, to whom this book is directed. Mr. Fraser might have done better to recast his work in a more general and assimilable form. His subject, after all, allows him to bring 'in such diverse and eccentric characters as Arlington, Colonel Blood, Shaftesbury, and Titus Oates; and it deals with the period of the Plague, the Great Fire, the treaties of Dover, and the revolution of 1688—wonderful scope for a much more ambitious work on what the author calls 'the remarkable development of an organised public opinion' in these years.
BRIAN INGLIS
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