Religious ideas and power-politics were strongly connected in the early eighteenth century: William III, George I and George II all took their role as defenders of the protestant faith extremely seriously, and confessional thinking was of major significance to court whiggery. This book considers the importance of this connection. It traces the development of ideas of the protestant interest, explaining how such ideas were used to combat the perceived threats to the European states system posed by universal monarchy, and showing how the necessity of defending protestantism within Europe became a theme in British and Hanoverian foreign policy. Drawing on a wide range of printed and manuscript material in both Britain and Germany, the book emphasises the importance of a European context for eighteenth-century British history, and contributes to debates about the justification of monarchy and the nature of identity in Britain.
Dr ANDREW C. THOMPSON is Lecturer in History, Queens' College, Cambridge.
- ISBN10 6612079886
- ISBN13 9786612079887
- Publish Date 17 August 2006
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 9 March 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Boydell & Brewer Ltd.
- Format eBook
- Pages 288
- Language English