Assess the impact of the French Revolution upon British politics and political thought

Résumé du document

As a close neighbour, Britain has been obviously affected by the French Revolution and the prolonged wars, at least because Britain was involved in the Revolutionary and Napoleon wars. But it is fair to pose that Britain has been influenced in a deeper way, in positive as well as in negative ways.

Extraits

[...] This increased their loss of influence, because the British wanted a strong government, to calm their anxiety while the wars were lasting. Actually, the Whigs mistakenly believed that the French were about to establish an English model based constitutional monarchy. Consequently, the revolutionary wars appeared unnecessary and unjust to them, though it was perceived as a threat by the whole population. This position did not much help them to revive some of their previous influence. Paradoxically, these two developments the increasing power of the government and the decreasing influence of the Whig opposition did not always produce a strong government. [...]

[...] And the fast demographic growth, the sustained urbanisation and the economics improvements played at worst a great role in the background of the period running from 1789 to 1815. It is actually extremely difficult to precisely measure the exact impact of the French Revolution upon British politics and political thought. It is however possible to determinate which way the French Revolution and the revolutionary wars influenced the British political leaders and the British people. This first requires a deeper study of the British political context during the 1789-1815 period and then an analysis of the political developments caused or stimulated by the French Revolution. [...]

[...] And this reaction was important and solid. I would say it helped the Parliament in its way to the independence of the influence of the crown. Although this way to independence began long before the outbreak of the French Revolution, and kept on bit by bit after, it is doubtless that the French Revolution directly or not, considerably influenced the British constitutional context and must be assigned a significant role in the way this constitutional monarchy nowadays functions. Bibliography - Berstein and Milza, Histoire du XIXeme siecle. [...]

[...] To understand and measure the impact of the French Revolution upon Britain politics and political thought, we have indeed to notice the important changes in Britain, and then we have to try to distinguish whether the French Revolution had an impact on it, event if it is an indirect influence. And between the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 and 1815, date of the Congress of Vien, after Napoleon' Napoleon has been finally re-defeated, the British constitutional context has evolved in two different ways. [...]

[...] This could be explained by internal factors, but the impact of the French Revolution was not without its strong influence. The ministerial instability was indeed due to some circumstances, as well as its explanation must assign a role to the Revolutionary wars. About the circumstances, Dickinson found out the three following factors: the king's refusal to contemplate Catholic emancipation. the Younger Pitt's death in 1806 which ended his second mandate. the internal divisions in the different ministries due to the individual ambitions. [...]