The Ancient Constitution Revisited
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This collection of essays, all by pre-eminent exponents of the history of political thought, explores the political ideologies of early modern Britain. Organised on a broadly chronological basis, the topics addressed by individual scholars reflect in general the themes initiated and inspired by the work of the distinguished intellectual historian, J. G. A. Pocock, for whom the collection is intended as a tribute. Each of the sixteen contributors has thought long and critically about Pocock's seminal contributions to the subject, and in each essay engages with the debates he has provoked. As a fitting conclusion to the volume, Professor Pocock has responded to the essays and provided his personal interpretation of the themes they invoke. Contributors: J. H. BURNS; CONAL CONDREN; MARK GOLDIE; ISTVAN HONT; LAWRENCE E. KLEIN; WILLIAM KLEIN; WILLIAM LAMONT; MICHAEL MENDLE; NICHOLAS PHILLIPSON; J. G. A. POCOCK; JOHN ROBERTSON; GORDON J. SCHOCHET; LOIS G. SCHWOERER; JONATHAN SCOTT; QUENTIN SKINNER; RICHARD TUCK; JAMES TULLY. IDEAS IN CONTEXT POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN IDEAS IN CONTEXT Edited by Quentin Skinner (General Editor), Lorraine Daston, Wolf Lepenies, Richard Rorty and J. B. Schneewind The books in this series will discuss the emergence of intellectual traditions and of related new disciplines. The procedures, aims and vocabularies that were generated will be set in the context of the alternatives available within the contemporary frameworks of ideas and institutions. Through detailed studies of the evolution of such traditions, and their modification by different audiences, it is hoped that a new picture will form of the development of ideas in their concrete contexts. By this means, artificial distinctions between the history of philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature may be seen to dissolve. The series is published with the support of the Exxon Foundation. A list of books in the series will be found at the end of the volume. POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN EDITED BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPSON Reader in History, University of Edinburgh AND QUENTIN SKINNER Professor of Political Science, University of Cambridge | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 I RP 40th West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Victoria 3166, Australia ©Cambridge University Press 1993 First published 1993 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Political discourse in early modern Britain/edited by Nicholas Phillipson and Quentin Skinner. p. cm. - (Ideas in context) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o 521 39242 x 1. Great Britain — Politics and government - Historiography. 2. Political science — Great Britain — History. I. Phillipson, Nicholas. II. Skinner, Quentin. III. Series. DA300.P62 1993 320.94 i--dc2O 92-9049 CIP ISBN o 521 39242 x hardback Transferred to digital printing 2004 Contents Contributors page ix Preface xii PART I 1 George Buchanan and the anti-monarchomachs j. H. BURNS 3 2 The ancient constitution revisited WILLIAM KLEIN 23 3 Arminianism: the controversy that never was WILLIAM LAMONT 45 4 'Scientia civilis'in classical rhetoric and in the early Hobbes QUENTIN SKINNER 67 PART II 5 Parliamentary sovereignty: a very English absolutism MICHAEL MENDLE 97 6 The civil religion of Thomas Hobbes RICHARD TUCK 12O 7 The rapture of motion: James Harrington's republicanism JONATHAN SCOTT 139 8 Casuistry to Newcastle: The Prince in the world of the book CONALCONDREN 164 vii Vlll CONTENTS PART III 9 Between Lambeth and Leviathan: Samuel Parker on the Church of England and political order GORDON J. SCHOCHET 189 10 Priestcraft and the birth of Whiggism MARK GOLDIE 209 11 The right to resist: Whig resistance theory, 1688 to 1694 LOIS G. SGHWOERER 232 12 Placing the Two Treatises JAMES TULLY 253 PART IV 13 Shaftesbury, politeness and the politics of religion LAWRENCE E. KLEIN 283 14 Propriety, property and prudence: David Hume and the defence of the Revolution NICHOLAS PHILLIPSON 302 15 The rhapsody of public debt: David Hume and voluntary state bankruptcy 1ST VAN HONT 32 I 16 Universal monarchy and the liberties of Europe: David Hume's critique of an English Whig doctrine JOHN ROBERTSON 349 PART V 17 A discourse of sovereignty: observations on the work in progress j. G. A. POGOGK 377 A bibliography of the writings o/J. G. A. POCOCK 429 Index 438 Contributors J. H. BURNS is Professor Emeritus of the History of Political Thought at University College London. He edited both The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought (1988) and The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700 (1991). CONAL CONDREN is Professor of Political Science in the University of New South Wales. His principal publications include The Status and Appraisal of Classic Texts (1985) and George Lawson's Politica and the English Revolution (1989). His edition of Lawson's Politica Sacra et Civilis was published in 1992 in Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. MARK GOLDIE is Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Churchill College, Cambridge. He is co-editor (with J. H. Burns) of The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700 and (with Robert Wokler) of The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought. ISTVAN HONT is University Assistant Lecturer in History and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He is the editor (with Michael Ignatieff) of Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (1983). LAWRENCE KLEIN teaches in the Department of History, University of Nevada. A pupil of J. G. A. Pocock, his forthcoming study of Shaftesbury will be published by the Cambridge Univer- sity Press. WILLIAM KLEIN, University of Madison, Wisconsin, studied with J. G. A. Pocock and is currently writing history text books for American high school students. He was a main contributor to World Explorers and Discoverers (1992). WILLIAM LAMONT is Professor of History at the University of Sussex. His recent publications include Puritanism and the English Revolution (1991). He is currently preparing an edition of Richard IX X CONTRIBUTORS Baxter: A Holy Commonwealth for Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. MICHAEL MENDLE teaches in the Department of History at the University of Alabama. He is the author, among other works on the English Revolution, of Dangerous Positions (1985). NICHOLAS PHILLIPSON is Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Hume (1989) and The Scottish Whigs and the Reform of the Court of Session (1991). He is co-editor (with R. M. Mitchison) of Scotland in the Age of Improvement (1971) and editor of Universities, Society and the Future. J. G. A. POCOCK is Harry C. Black Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University. He was previously Professor of History and Political Science at Washington University in St Louis, Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, Research Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and Lecturer in History at the University of Otago. A full list of his publications appears at the end of this volume. JOHN ROBERTSON is a Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford, and Tutor and Lecturer in Modern History. He is the author of The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (1985). He is currently preparing a new edition of The Political Works of Andrew Fletcher for Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. GORDON J. SCHOCHET is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. The author of Patriarchalism in Political Thought (1975; 2nd edition, 1988), co-author of Moral Development and Politics, and numerous articles, he is completing a book provision- ally titled John Locke and the Politics of Religious Tolerations and preparing an edition of Locke's unpublished writings on toleration. With John Pocock, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the Folger Institute Center for the History of British Political Thought and the editor of the Center's six volumes of Proceedings. LOIS G. SCHWOERER is the Elmer Louis Kayser Professor of History at the George Washington University. Her publications include The Declaration of Rights, i68g (1981) and, as editor, The Revolution of 1688-168g: Changing Perspectives (1992). JONATHAN SCOTT is Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Downing College, Cambridge. His publications include Algernon Sidney and the English Republic 1623-1677 (1988) and Algernon Sidney and the Restoration Crisis 1677-1683 (1991) and he is currently working on England's Troubles 1603-1702, a study of English political and intellectual history in its European context. Contributors xi QUENTIN SKINNER is Professor of Political Science in the University of Cambridge. His publications include The Foundation of Modern Political Thought (2 vols. 1978). RICHARD TUCK is Lecturer in History and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. His publications include Natural Rights Theo- ries (1979), and he has recently completed an edition of Hobbes: Leviathan for Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. JAMES TULLY is Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at McGill University. His recent books include An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (1992) and an edition for Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought oiPufendorf: On the Duty of Man and Citizen (1991). Preface When John Pocock published Politics, Language and Time in 1971, he opened his Introduction by remarking that 'during the last ten years scholars interested in the study of systems of political thought have had the experience of living through radical changes, which may amount to a transformation, in their discipline'. If it now seems clear that the 1960s did indeed witness the beginning of a revolution in our ways of thinking about the history of political theory, it is even clearer that John Pocock himself was one of the most active and important of the revolutionaries.