Leslie Mitchell
Encyclopedia
Dr Leslie Mitchell is a leading British
authority on 18th century history
.
Mitchell is historian
and Emeritus Fellow of University College
and a member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford
, England
. He has been Dean of the college, appeared in the Univ Revue, and was editor of the University College Record, an annual publication for former members of the college. Mitchell is counted among a talented generation of post-war historians, including Maurice Keen
, Alexander Murray and Henry Mayr-Harting
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
authority on 18th century history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
.
Mitchell is historian
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and Emeritus Fellow of University College
University College, Oxford
.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...
and a member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He has been Dean of the college, appeared in the Univ Revue, and was editor of the University College Record, an annual publication for former members of the college. Mitchell is counted among a talented generation of post-war historians, including Maurice Keen
Maurice Keen
Maurice Hugh Keen is a British historian specialising in the Middle Ages. He is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, where he lectured in Medieval history from 1961-2000.In 1984 he won the Wolfson History Prize for his book Chivalry....
, Alexander Murray and Henry Mayr-Harting
Henry Mayr-Harting
Professor Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford and Lay Canon of Christ Church, Oxford from 1997 until 2003....
.
Reception to 'Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters'
- Kathryn Hughes (The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
): 'Leslie Mitchell has organised his book along thematic lines. This allows him to sidestep the deadening effects of a linear narrative and to bury in the background the kind of relentless detail that can make reading biography such a slog. It also means that Lytton springs to life from the very first chapters, which concentrate on the relationships with his ghastly mother and peculiar wife. The downside is, inevitably, a certain loss of coherence. This, though, is a small price to pay. Mitchell has a kind eye for this curious man, who now, on the second centenary of his birth, needs not simply an introduction, but a whole book to explain who he once was.'
Reception to 'The Whig World'
- Kathryn Hughes (The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
): 'In 10 wonderful chapters, as fluid and generous as anything that Macaulay or Trevelyan ever wrote, Mitchell sets about describing a tone, a temper and a style that was emphatically Whig. He takes us from those great "power statements in stone" of ChatsworthChatsworth HouseChatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...
or Woburn AbbeyWoburn AbbeyWoburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...
to the buffing and polishing that went on during the grand tour, only reluctantly and temporarily abandoned thanks to a little unpleasantness in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
; we visit languorous Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's earliest crush, who believed that parliamentary reform was probably inevitable, although he couldn't be bothered to read the detailed clauses of various bills. The result is an elegant exposition of a way of being that informed, without directing, let alone controlling, some of the most important social and political developments of the second half of the Georgian period.'
Selected quotations from 'The Whig World'
- 'If Parliament is controlled by public opinion, and that public opinion is moulded by an international media, who then effectively governs?'
- 'Living with the Whigs for the whole of a professional career has been very congenial…Lecture audiences and pupils in tutorials have patiently listened to the stories, often laughed in the right places, and have exercised a sobering restraint on undue enthusiasm'.
- Guizot to Lord Melbourne: 'Les dispositions du Gouvernement du Roi a l'egard de la Grande Bretagne sont aussi bienveillants, aussi conciliantes qu'a aucune epoque.'
- 'Charles X was 'a Hypocrite', or 'that old idiot', or 'a bigoted superstitious and wicked Ultra prince.' He and his brother were natural persecutors, who, left to their own devices, would have preferred a massacre of their liberal and BonapartistNapoleon I of FranceNapoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
opponents.'
- 'By calling the Glorious RevolutionGlorious RevolutionThe Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
'that modern Magna CartaMagna CartaMagna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
', WhigsBritish Whig PartyThe Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
neatly gave historical context to these events. The barons of 1215 and the Whigs of 1688 were warriors in the same battle. It was 'Glorious' because it was bloodless, and it was bloodless because it was 'not effected by an indignant and enraged multitude, but was slowly prepared by the most virtuous and best informed amongst the higher and enlightened classes of people, who took prudent and effectual steps for securing its success without bloodshed…These were the Whigs of EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
at the Revolution.'
- 'So who were 'the people' in a Whig vocabulary? Who were these paragons for whose benefit all legitimate government existed? … When Whigs talked about 'the people' in the context of civil rights, they referred to everyone. When the same words were used in association with political rights, they meant only people like themselves. Confusion between the two was always possible, not least in the minds of their opponents, but context was everything.'
- 'So Whiggery died unmourned by either ToryToryToryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
or RadicalRadicalism (historical)The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
. The first thought that they had received their just deserts and the latter showed no gratitude. Yet BritainUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's march towards full democracy was slower than in any other EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an country and more moderated.'