Susan E. Whyman. Sociability and Power in Late Stuart . New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xiv + 287 pp. $55, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-820719-1.

Reviewed by Victor Stater

Published on H-Albion (April, 2000)

The Verneys of Bucking‐ Whyman's work is built upon impressive hamshire have been the subject of scholarly in‐ foundations. She has meticulously examined over vestigation before, and no wonder, having left an seven thousand letters in the Verney archive, and archive of over 30,000 documents for the beneft constructed a formidable database. Carefully clas‐ of posterity. In 1984 Miriam Slater published Fam‐ sifying both senders and recipients of these letters ily Life in the Seventeenth Century: The Verneys of enables her to reconstruct the Verney's social and . Slater focused upon the lives of political networks. Further, she catagorizes the Sir Edmund Verney, Charles I's standard-bearer types of letters --from acquittances for debt to and a prominent casualty at Edgehill, and his begging letters to wood sales and workmen's ac‐ twelve children, particularly his heir Ralph. Susan counts -- and analyzes the contents of each. She E. Whyman carries the family's story forward into notes no less than seventy-nine diferent subjects the eighteenth century. Her principal subjects are, in these letters, running the gamut from annuities once again, Ralph Verney (1613-96), now grown to women. Not surprisingly the two most common into an elderly baronet and patriarch, and his subjects were fnances (684 citations) and the inti‐ son, John (1640-1717), later second baronet and mately related topic of marriage (656 cites)(ap‐ frst Viscount Fermanaugh. But Whyman's work is pendix 2, p. 187). more ambitious than Slater's. She considers both Yet, as valuable as her statistics are, Whyman the Verney family -- including a constellation of does not allow the counting of subjects ("christen‐ aunts, cousins, nieces, and nephews -- as well as ing," ffty-one citations; "death," 247; "feuds," 115; the family's wider social and political networks. "love," ffty-seven) to stife the Verneys' story. She The result is a fascinating, and very valuable, pic‐ combines her quantifying with a subtle examina‐ ture of the life of an English gentry family over tion of context and enlivens the text with an eye two generations. for detail. Dominating the story, as they did the family, were its heads. We see, for example, the H-Net Reviews skinfint patriarch John, after his inheritance cut‐ But even so, the contrast between the two ting of his dependant relatives' meager pensions generations is clear. Sir Ralph's honor- and kin- and ordering an end to the distribution of charity based understanding of gentility was efectively at Claydon House's gate, announcing "Whatever replaced by his son's urbanized, market-oriented ...happened before, that's no rule to me." (p.159) one after the old man's death. No doubt this was But no less fascinating is the cast of lesser charac‐ at least in part the result of John's long experience ters, such as John's aunt Cary Gardner, a poverty- in the Levant and London as a merchant -- as a stricken London widow whose gossipy letters kept second son he did not expect to inherit the estate; the family informed and entertained during its his elder brother Edmund, who seems to have country sojourns. been much more committed to traditional ways We learn a great many things from Whyman's than John, died leaving no direct heirs in 1688. book. Some of her fndings will come as no sur‐ John's worldview was better suited to the new prise to scholars, such as the importance of build‐ political realities of party politics. Whyman's ac‐ ing and protecting the family estate. In other count of the Verneys' political careers shows the places Whyman breaks new ground, as in her dis‐ family struggling, with only modest success, to un‐ cussion of the signifcant role women played as derstand the rules of the very diferent game be‐ social and political mentors to their menfolk. In ing played in the 1680s. Sir Ralph refused to treat essence, Whyman is chronicling the transition of voters in Parliamentary elections and longed for the Verney family from a traditional, country-ori‐ consensus. Sir John, while he always sought to ented gentry clan to a more modern, urban-cen‐ buy votes at the cheapest possible rate, had no tered one. She does this very efectively by con‐ compunctions about spreading money around. trasting the lives and worldviews of two heads of Whyman shows how important party divisions the family, Sir Ralph, frst baronet, and his heir, were in late Stuart society as Whigs and Tories Sir John, later frst Viscount Fermanaugh. Sir segregated themselves, and ties of kinship were Ralph's generation is epitomized by the ritualized broken by political disagreements. In 1714, John, a hunt and gifts of venison, the subjects of a fasci‐ dedicated Tory, was not even invited to the funer‐ nating disquisition by Whyman. Sir John's genera‐ al of his cousin and former ward, Edmund Den‐ tion is symbolized by the coach and formal city ton, a Whig. John's Tory activism earned him an visits. Irish viscountcy, but, as the author points out, The hunt was, traditional, male-dominated, thanks to his lack of a base at Court he never and country-oriented; the visit modern, female- achieved the national status of his local rivals the dominated, and London-centered. Whyman's ac‐ Temples or Whartons. count is very persuasive, and fts well with recent A larger part of Whyman's story is the impor‐ work on sociability, such as that of Lawrence tance of younger sons and women in determining Klein. At times, however, she overplays the difer‐ the course of a family's destiny. John had a very ences between father and son -- for example, as diferent outlook upon life than his father and el‐ Slater has shown, London loomed large in the der brother, shaping the Verney family's respons‐ Verney's life well before John inherited. John's es to the world around them in signifcant ways. grandfather Sir Edmund was spending months in John's three wives, his six aunts, and many female the capital every year as early as the 1620s. And cousins also played an important role, especially Sir Ralph's was not reluctant to employ ^Ñmod‐ as the arbiters of an increasingly pervasive Lon‐ ern' methods of estate management in the 1650s-- don-dominated and rule-bound civility. These are rackrenting and enclosing with abandon. important insights.

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Whyman's consideration of the London mar‐ riage market makes clear the importance of both the capital and women in one of the most impor‐ tant aspects of gentry life. As she rightly points out, it is often difcult to see the female hand in marriage negotiations if we focus only upon set‐ tlements and the work of attorneys. But the Ver‐ ney correspondence, with its trove of letters, shows how important women were as brokers and advisors. Whyman does not claim that the Verneys were typical of the late-Stuart gentry. They were undoubtedly unique in some ways, as every fami‐ ly is. But they do typify the common strategies and assumptions of the gentry, and were, in the end, more successful than many other families-- Verneys live in Claydon House to this day. Susan Whyman's superb study reveals a great deal about gentry life and should be read by anyone with an interest in England's transformation to modernity. Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: Victor Stater. Review of Whyman, Susan E. Sociability and Power in Late Stuart England. H- Albion, H-Net Reviews. April, 2000.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3986

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