in favour of the status quo; as BritainÊs constitution was both far more liberal and flexible than that of France, those wanting expansion of civil liberties such as increasing the voting franchise, aimed to work within the system as reformists rather than revolutionaries. 4 Undoubtedly the skill of the governing class in preventing radicalism played an important part in BritainÊs avoidance of revolution in the late 18 th and early 19 th century. The measures brought in by PittÊs government were effective at suppressing radicalism and preventing social revolution and the placing of the burden of taxation on the rich made the lower orders feel they were not being exploited as the French working class had felt before 1789. But ultimately the middle and lower classes in Britain never wanted to overthrow the existing order; the ability of the British constitution to adapt to changes in time ultimately preserved BritainÊs traditional society. The kingÊs transformation from a politician to a national figurehead was crucial to the monarchyÊs survival. Firstly this made the monarch such a crucial part of national identity that republicanism was now seen as unpatriotic. But more importantly the monarchyÊs acceptance of a non-political role meant that the King could no longer be made the scapegoat for any Financial or Political disaster as Louis XVI was in the 1780s. The fact that Britain had a much larger degree of social mobility than France, as well as a flexible constitution, made ordinary British citizens hope that they might one day rise up in the social hierarchy and become themselves a member of the governing class. This meant that ordinary Britons trusted in the current system and social order and aimed to reform it rather than overthrow it through revolution.
France in that it was a constitutional monarchy with a degree of civil liberties. The Bill of Rights 1689 had safeguarded British Liberties from the arbitrary power of the monarch and established the principle of parliamentary consent to taxation. By preventing the monarch from raising a standing army in peacetime without parliamentÊs consent the Bill of Rights ensured that the monarch could not use military force to threaten hard won liberties. Britons saw the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a victory for moderate Whiggism, as it had brought about a mixed and balanced constitution. 9 To most Britons the royal absolutism that existed in pre-revolutionary France had already been defeated in 1688. Edmund Burke argued that the success of the British constitution had been as a result of its caution. In his Âreflections on the revolution in FranceÊ he described the events in France as Âtotalitarianism masquerading in Liberal dressÊ. 5 To many Britons the French revolution seemed to have gone full circle with the absolutism of Louis XVI being replaced with the tyranny of Robespierre and later, Napoleon. Edmund Burke saw the revolutionariesÊ biggest crime as the arbitrary dismissal of the tried and tested, which confirmed to him and other politicians that the revolution had only brought another kind of absolutism. The events of ÂThe TerrorÊ, which occurred after the French revolution, ensure that Britons viewed revolution as dangerous. Combined with anti-French propaganda the government was successful in convincing Britons that the only way to retain their ÂlibertyÊ was to reject French Jacobinism and safeguard their current constitution, demonstrated through the rise and dominance of Whig History. Throughout 1788 there were centenary celebrations of the Glorious Revolution most
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