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Aristocrats: Power, Grace, and Decadence: Britain's Great Ruling Classes from 1066 to the Present, by Lawrence James
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Aristocracy means “rule by the best.” For nine hundred years, the British aristocracy considered itself ideally qualified to rule others, make laws, and guide the nation. Its virtues lay in its collective wisdom, its attachment to chivalric codes, and its sense of public duty. It evolved from a medieval warrior caste into a self-assured and sophisticated elite, which made itself the champion of popular liberty: It forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and later used its power and wealth to depose a succession of tyrannical kings from Richard II to James II. Britain’s liberties and constitution were the result of aristocratic bloody-mindedness and courage.
Aristocrats traces the history of this remarkable supremacy. It is a story of civil wars, conquests, intrigue, chicanery, and extremes of selflessness and greed. The aristocracy survived and, in the age of the great house and the Grand Tour, governed the first industrial nation while a knot of noblemen ruled its growing empire. Under pressure from below, this political power was slowly relinquished and then shared. Yet democratic Britain retained its aristocracy: Churchill, himself the grandson of a duke, presided over a wartime cabinet that contained six hereditary peers.
Lawrence James illuminates the culture of this singular caste, shows how its infatuation with classical art has forged England’s heritage, how its love of sport has shaped the nation’s pastimes and values, and how its scandals have entertained its public.
Impeccably researched, balanced, and brilliantly told, Aristocrats is an enthralling story of survival, a stunning history of wealth, power, and influence.
- Sales Rank: #1264189 in Books
- Published on: 2010-07-06
- Released on: 2010-07-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.55" h x 1.49" w x 6.29" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 448 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Descended from the early knights, British nobility seized greater power with the Magna Carta, birthed English politics and performed a delicate balancing act with rulers who embraced the "divine right of kings," regardless of its effect on either the aristocracy or the impoverished lower classes. British historian James (The Middle Class: A History) effectively shows how these ambitious, proud families combined the "balance of public duty with private selfishness," transforming over the centuries from rugged warriors to Oxford-educated art collectors who expanded the British empire and occasionally started wars. Packed with rich, entertaining information on major nobles and an unusual depiction of the monarchs who irked them, James occasionally psychoanalyzes while fleshing out the reality behind these pre-media celebrities. Interestingly, the politically astute Shakespeare serves as a source on the nemesis of Queen ElizabethÖs grandfather without bolstering the argument that Richard III was an ineffectual tyrant. Regardless, anyone who indulges in modern interpretations of Tudor courts or relishes details of British historical undercurrents should enjoy JamesÖs take on the power behind the British throne and the aristocracyÖs current fight to remain relevant. 16 pages of color photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Praise for Aristocrats
“Erudite history . . . [James] has an aptitude for the literary flourish and caustic aside.” —Sunday Herald (UK)
“A detailed and enjoyable political history of the British aristocracy . . . packed with lively and interesting anecdotes.” —Alexander Waugh, Literary Review
“Paints the nobility with all its warts. . . . [James] has a gift for illustrating points with memorable examples and writing generally pithy prose.” —Financial Times
Praise for The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
“This is a stylish, intelligent and readable book.” —The New York Times Book Review
“There is not a dull page in this book.” —The Washington Times
“An excellent work of popular history . . . fluid, accessible, and personalized.” —Booklist
About the Author
Lawrence James was born in Bath in 1943 and took degrees at York University and Merton College, Oxford. After a career as a schoolmaster at Merchant Taylors’ and Sedbergh schools, he became a full-time writer in 1985 and is the author of several books, including Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, the highly acclaimed The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, and Warrior Race. He writes occasional pieces and reviews for various newspapers and is a contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography.
Most helpful customer reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
History From The Upper Class Point Of View
By John D. Cofield
Aristocrats is a good survey of the roles of the British upper classes in politics, sport, military, and fashion since the Norman Conquest. The first few chapters can seem sketchy at times, but that was probably unavoidable. While it would not be necessary to give a battle-by-battle description of the Wars of the Roses in order to illustrate the role of the aristocracy, not doing so makes those chapters seem a bit abbreviated. Happily, the chapters dealing with more recent history have more detail (since there are more sources available), and are full of intriguing anecdotes and other passages.
Aristocrats have always been happy to delineate the differences between themselves and the common herd as resulting from things like superior breeding and character passed down through the generations. Throughout much of British history most people tended to accept the superiority of the upper classes as a given, not beginning to question it until the Enlightenment. The descriptions of that change in attitude and the reactions of the aristocrats as they dealt with it make the chapters dealing with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the most interesting. Aristocrats guarded their wealth, branching out into industry and finance when land ceased to provide much return. They also jealously held on to their political power until most were convinced that the middle and lower classes were no longer willing to allow them to keep control, after which they quickly and quietly surrendered much of their influence. James makes the point that the British aristocracy survived when others did not because of this flexibility and desire for self-preservation.
The book ends in the late twentieth century with the expulsion of most of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords and the presumed permanent end of much of their influence. It makes it rather ironic that it should be published now, soon after a Prime Minister with a long aristocratic lineage of his own has come to power, but it also reemphasizes one of James' key points, the ability of the British aristocracy to survive and thrive.
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Well-written history of the British aristocracy.
By Jill Meyer
Lawrence James, in his new book, "Aristocrats", takes a long look at the British aristocracy from 1066 to modern times. He examines the role the aristocracy has played in English history, society, governmental affairs, the arts, and warfare.
The aristocracy has held a middle place between English royalty and the common people. Great families were raised to aristocratic level - pointedly one layer under royalty - as a reward to helping the monarch in both war and peace time. Along with the Church, aristocrats were often the only members of society educated during the late middle ages and served their royal masters as government officials and representatives of the central government.
These families often fought among themselves for access at court - for continued royal favor. Great dynasties could flourish and often overwhelm a weak ruler. There was a constant balancing act between sovereign and the aristocracy over power. Royalty often married into aristocratic families and those families were particularly good at grasping at power. This has continued to present day; Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was a member of high Scottish aristocracy when she married the future George VI. And, of course, Diana Spencer was from a wealthy aristocratic family.
Wealthy merchants and military officers were often given peerages as reward for their duties to the Crown. Old families died off and new people were ennobled, replenishing the aristocracy. James is particularly effective when writing about the social impact the aristocracy played in English life.
Aristocrats were often charged with running the various governments of the British Empire, as well as serving as high-ranking military officers. They were influential in importing the arts from countries on the Continent young men had seen on their "Grand Tours". The current aristocracy, made up of hereditary and life-peers, has entered the 21st century, their number being trimmed by war and death taxes. A stunning statistic, noted by James on page 368, was that "two hundred direct heirs to titles or major landed estates were killed between 1914 and 1918". For some reason, that number seems staggering to me.
Lawrence James is a lively, interesting writer. His book was a wonderful history.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
First-rate interpretive history of the English aristocracy
By Michael K. Smith
The ruling elite in Britain -- originally simply the warrior class -- adopted the Aristotelian concept of "government by the best," the author says, to reinforce their deep sense of natural superiority, the "long process of collective self-hypnosis by which aristocrats convinced themselves that their distinctive qualities made them indispensible to the nation." This argument of hereditary superiority was still being made in 1999 even as most of the hereditary peers were being expelled from the upper house of Parliament. But the aristocracy in Britain also can be quite practical, almost Darwinian, when it comes to survival, as in the Reform Act crisis of the 1830s and the reduction of power of the House of Lords in 1910; "compromise was infinitely preferable to extinction."
It's an historical oddity -- especially when compared with the role of nobility on the Continent -- that Britain's peerage has so frequently been in contention with the Crown, has so often been a force for moderation in royal control and for broadening the base of power. Not that the peers ever have been natural democrats, but that they have pushed steadily for rule by an elite class -- which, though tiny, was still to be preferred to one-man rule by an absolute monarch, as in Austria or Russia or even the France of Louis XIV. Even the present House of Lords, filled with life peers created by prime ministers and their friends, has notably acted as a bulwark in defense of established liberties and legal processes against arbitrary government and executive authoritarianism in an Age of Terrorism.
The peerage in Britain took awhile to develop. William I ran the country the way he wanted. Earldoms were in the king's gift and even powerful Norman noblemen taking up newly conquered lands in England had to knuckle under to the king's wishes. It wasn't until more than a century later that the unlucky and generally incompetent King John, in his twisting of feudal custom to fill his depleted coffers, created an opportunity in his alienation of the large landowners. A coalition made up of a substantial number of his barons insisted on rectification of two generations' worth of grievances regarding royal power by forcing the king to sign the landmark Magna Carta. Relations between the king and his most powerful subjects were clarified and the principle of rule by consent was established in Britain. And the author describes this process, its origins and outcome, in a very clear and logical prose that recommends itself to any student of Anglo-American political science. He does an equally superior job with the two decades of armed struggle between Parliament and the Crown, in which only about half the aristocracy actively supported the royalist position. Of the rest, about half were active supporters of Cromwell while the remainder tried hard to stay neutral and only wanted to be left alone. The Restoration led to the Glorious Revolution -- again, the act of a recalcitrant peerage -- and then to the establishment of the Whigs in the 18th century. It wasn't until the 19th century, of course, that true democracy began to infiltrate the established power structure -- and again, that movement was led by those members of the aristocracy who either had a conscience or who could see the shape of the industrial future.
As he moves closer to the present, in an era when the notion of natural, genetic superiority has lost its power to convince, James becomes somewhat more skeptical of the utility of hereditary power. Just since World War II, there has been a great fundamental shift among ordinary English citizens when it comes to the relevance of the aristocracy. If hereditary titles suddenly ceased to exist, if the peerage was stripped of its few remaining huge estates, if dukes and marquesses were required to earn a living like everyone else, most Englishmen would simply shrug. While it's difficult for most thinking authors to remain neutral when writing about a group of people who for most of their nation's history comprised the ruling class, James comes close. He apparently sees the development, supremacy, and decline (and possible extinction) of the peerage as an inevitable natural process.
As with most surveys covering more than a thousand years, the title of this one is a bit misleading. The first quarter of the volume covers more than four centuries, from the Conqueror to the advent of the Stewart dynasty. James, while not an academic, has established a reputation through his earlier works for semi-scholarly historical writing that is both dependably rigorous and very accessible. This latest work is highly recommended.
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