Britain and the Netherlands: Volume V Some Political Mythologies

218 Pages·1976·8.45 MB·English

by  C. A. Tamse (auth.), J. S. Bromley, E. H. Kossmann (eds.)

BRITAIN
AND
THE NETHERLANDS
BRITAIN
AND
THE NETHERLANDS
Volume V
SOME POLITICAL MYTHOLOGIES
PAPERS DELIVERED TO THE
FIFTH ANGLO-DUTCH HISTORICAL CONFERENCE
EDITED BY
J. S. BROMLEY AND
E. H. KOSSMANN
•
MARTINUS NIJHOFF/THE HAGUE/1975
© 1975 by Martinus NijhojJ, The Hague, Netherlands
Softcover reprint oft he hardcover 1st edition 1975
A II rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1363-5 e-lSBN-13: 978-94-010-1361-1
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-1361-1
Text set in 11/12 pt. Photon Times,
Contents
PREFACE vii
The Political Myth by C. A. Tamse, Rijksuniversiteit,
Groningen
2 Dutch Privileges, Real and Imaginary by J. J. Woltjer,
Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden 19
3 The Black Legend during the Eighty Years War by K. W.
Swart, University College, London 36
4 Queen and State: the Emergence of an Elizabethan Myth
by J. Hurstfield, University College, London 58
5 The Batavian Myth during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries by I. Schoifer, Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden 78
6 'No Popery' in the Reign of Charles II by K. H. D. Haley,
The University, Sheffield 102
7 The Myth of 'Patriotism' in Eighteenth-Century English
Politics by J. D. Jarrett, Goldsmith's College, London 120
8 Oliver Cromwell's Popular Image in Nineteenth-Century
England by J. P. D. Dunbabin, St. Edmund Hall, Oxford 141
9 The Rise and Progress of Tory Democracy by E. J.
Feuchtwanger, The University, Southampton 164
10 Mythical Aspects of Dutch Anti-Catholicism in the
Nineteenth Century by J. A. Bornewasser, Katholieke
H ogeschool, Tilburg 184
Index 207
PREFACE
AS Dr. Coen Tamse points out in the introductory essay specially
written for this volume, what we call myths are all too often the errors
and misconceptions of others. Time being short and human un
derstanding imperfect, it is wise to suppose that posterity will convict
us all of thinking and acting in some sort within mythological uni
verses; only a dead myth is by common consent recognized as a false
reading of reality. And yet, in our troubled century, we have witnessed
the deliberate fabrication of mythologies, apart from the inheritance of
earlier growths like those which still feed nationalism and anti
Semitism. It almost looks as if mass democracies positively require
neatly packaged and emotionally charged explanations of the social
and political environment as a substitute for religion. At all events, the
modern science of public relations has advanced far enough for cer
tain regimes, or for those who seek to overthrow them, to make a
calculated appeal to the vanities, anxieties and frustrations of ordinary
people by offering highly simplified explanations of a baffling world,
often in easily grasped pictorial or dramatic forms, whether the object
is to condition obedience or incite to 'struggle'. The advent of the mass
media is generally, if unfairly, taken to have opened limitless new op
portunities for the manipulation of our thought-processes, even below
the threshold of consciousness. Meanwhile, trends in philosophy, psy
chology and sociology have done something to undermine that con
fidence in individual reason which was our principal defence against
quacks and demagogues. Most contemporary myth-making,
moreover, achieves impressiveness by constructing 'the meaning of
history' in shorthand terms which few are in a position to question.
Never perhaps was it more necessary than it is now to be on guard
against these siren voices.
Much research clearly remains to be done concerning the anatomy
and physiology of the political myth. In the belief that some of the
alluring modern structures have affinities with earlier ones that once
viii PREFACE
cast a spell even over intelligent men, a group of Dutch and British
historians met in September 1973 to discuss the content and fortunes
of a variety of political mythologies now believed to bt! recognizable
because they are dead, although in one or two cases the dead may only
be asleep. A different selection could easily have been made, but all of
those presented in this volume were among the shaping historical
forces of their period as well as reflecting its predicaments. On the
whole, it seemed more profitable to adopt these specimens than to
explore the dark undergrowth of the twentieth century, whose myth
making in any case, like that of the Middle Ages, has already drawn
more attention than comparable legends of the sixteenth to nineteenth
centuries. Since the chapters that follow, however, with the exception
of Dr. Tamse's, were originally papers delivered to an Anglo-Dutch
conference, their topics are all taken from the history of Britain or of
the Netherlands.
The conference, the fifth of its kind, took place at the invitation of
the History Department of the University of Southampton, whose Ad
vanced Studies Committee was good enough to subscribe a portion of
the expenses. The editors wish to express appreciation also of financial
support from Shell International Petroleum Company Ltd., Philips In
dustries and an anonymous donor, in addition to a generous grant
from the British Academy and the hospitality of the British Council.
Without this distinguished patronage the conference could not have
taken place.
In preparing this volume for the press, we are under a deep obliga
tion to Dr. C. A. Tamse and Mr. A. C. Duke. It is hoped that they will
undertake the editing of future volumes in this series.
December. 1974 J. S. B.
E.H.K.
1. The Political Myth
C. A. TAMSE
Non ridere, non lugere neque detestari,
sed intelligere (Spinoza)
THE rampant growth of political myths in the twentieth century is
often regarded as one of the most disturbing phenomena of the
modern world. At the least, they are a principal instrument by which
totalitarian regimes have brought misery to mankind on an un
paralleled scale. By making effective use of concepts such as the
chosen race or class, and of a mythical language and symbolic rites,
such systems have challenged the rational as well as the moral norms
on which western civilization, and democracy in particular, was sup
posedly built. After the Second World War, during which the ap
palling consequences of political myth-making were so vividly
demonstrated, attempts were made to analyse this mysterious power
by theologians and philosophers, psychologists and sociologists,
political scientists and historians, from their different vantage-points.
1
Since in many ways political myths appear to be akin to the mythical
structures elaborated by primitive civilizations and the forerunners of
European culture, there were also attempts to find analogies derived
from ethnology and anthropology. But the study of a given problem
from various methodological standpoints does not always lend it
greater clarity and this seems to be so in the case of the political myth.
Ever since the late seventeenth century, when the mythical cast of
mind was widely felt to be antithetical to the scientific and rational
I See (e.g.) E. Bohler, 'Unser lebender My thus', Schweizer Monathefte
(1966-67), pp. 622, 626 et seq.; E. Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New
Haven, 1967), pp. 3 et seq .• 295 et seq.; 1. 1. Fahrenfort, Het mythische
denken in de moderne samenleving (Groningen, 1946), passim; C. M.
Edsman, The Myth of the State, or the State's religious legitimation', in H.
Biezais (ed.), The Myth of the State. Based on Papers read at the Symposium
on the Myth oft he State held at Abo the 6th-8th September 1971 (Stockholm,
1972), p. 174; E. B. Koenker, Secular Salvations: The Rites and Symbols of
Political Religions (Philadelphia, 1965), passim; H. Tudor, Political Myth
(London, 1972), passim.
2 THE POLITICAL MYTH
way of thinking, scholars have tried to study systematically Baby
lonian, Egyptian, Indian, Graeco-Roman, Germanic and Judaic
Christian myths. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries research
was extended to the mythology of African, American, Australasian
and Asiatic civilizations. The result has been to stimulate fresh
questions and hypotheses concerning the nature of human perception
and intelligence, the functions of language and religion, and the
vagaries of social behaviour. Under the influence of Herder and the
Romantics, myths were examined in the expectation that the un
derstanding of such folklore would reinvigorate activities as different
as art, linguistics, philosophy, religion, historiography and political
theory. 2 These hopes were to be disappointed, and by the mid
nineteenth century myths lost the central importance they had had for
the Romantic movement. In spite of occasional colloquia and other
opportunities for the exchange of experience and ideas, 3 the study of
myths broke up into 'disciplinary' fragments in pursuit of dissimilar
objectives.
A great variety of historical studies has in fact already been devoted
to political myths of a religious and mystical nature belonging to the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance: in dealing with such central themes
as the sacred character of kingship 4 or the chiliastic expectation of a
future salvation centred on the ideas of renovatio and reformatio, they
take account to a greater or lesser degree of the political implications. 5
Again, enough books have been written on the mythical elements in
2 B. Feldman and R. D. Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology,
/680-/860 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1972), pp. xix et seq., 3 et seq., 165 et
seq., 297 et seq.
3 See (e.g.) Cassirer; also B. A. van Groningen (ed.), De My the in de
literatuur (The Hague, 1964); H. A. Murray (ed.), Myth and Mythmaking
(Boston. 1960); T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Myth, a Symposium (Bloomington, In
diana, 1971); M. Fuhrmann (ed.), Terror und Spiel. Probleme der
Mythenrezeption (Munich, 1971).
4 M. Bloch. Les rois thaumaturges. Etude sur Ie caractere surnaturel at
tribue d fa puissance royale, particulierement en France et en Angleterre
(Strasbourg. J 924); L. Ejerfeldt, 'Myths of the State in the West European
Middle Ages' The Myth of the State, pp. 160 et seq.
< N. Cohn. The Pursuit of the Millennium (London, 1970); K. Griewank,
Der neuzeilliche Revolutionsbegrijf(Frankfurt, 1969), ch. i. ii, iii; M. Reeves,
The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. A Study in Joachimism
(Oxford. 1969); J. M. Stayer, 'The Miinsterite Rationalization of Bernhard
Rathmann" Journal of the History of Ideas, XXVIII (1967), 179 et seq.; F.
A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London, 1964); W.
J. Bouwsma. Concordia Mundi. Career and Thought of Guillaume Postel
(Cambndge. 1959). ch. viii.
THE POLITICAL MYTH 3
twentieth-century ideologies to fill libraries. In this collection of essays
a number of political myths in the intervening period are discussed.
They suffice to show that while the rise of rationalism and empiricism
broke the hold of magic in the realm of the natural sciences, these
intellectual procedures could not displace it in that of politics and
society at large.
With the development of mathematical and scientific thought in the
seventeenth century, supernatural accounts of cosmic phenomena
became less acceptable. Established explanations of the creation of
man and matter, for instance, clashed with the new rational view of the
world, which was based no longer on the arbitrary intervention of
gods and heroes but on ascertainable laws and principles.
Philosophers like Fontenelle, Bayle and Hume saw myths as fanciful
and foolish attempts to explain the world; the defect of the myth lay
precisely in its irrationality. The mental as much as the material world
came to be considered as obedient to the laws oflogic, myths therefore
having nothing whatsoever to do with reality. It is true that even before
the . scientific revolution' Christians had often harboured grave doubts
about myths which they attnbuted to heathen superstition; their defect
was ignorance of the revealed Truth. The eighteenth-century Deists
rejected classical mythology and Judaic-Christian revelation alike as
corrupting the plain statements of natural religion. 6
The attitude~ of traditional Christians and rationalists, naive as
they now seem, are nevertheless reflected in our modern idiom, where
myth and reality still contend in opposition and the myth is seen
chiefly as the embodiment of untruth and irrationality. Thus The
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives two principal meanings for
myth: 1. A purely fictitIOUS narrative, usually involving supernatural
phenomena. and often used vaguely to include any narrative having
fictitious elements; 2. A fictitIOUS or Imaginary person or object. In the
figurative sense, mythical means having no foundation in fact, and to
illustrate thi:; the Dictionary gives (among several examples) one
where true stands in opposition to mythical.7 Van Dale's Groot
Woordenboek der Vederlandse Taal offers the same two meanings:
first, myt he is a cosmogonic account (but without pejorative over
tones) and then a groundless story. Van Dale's supplement gives yet a
third meaning: an unfounded representation about a person, thing or
case which is taken as accurate; in particular, historische myt he is a
'narrative and usually flattering tradition concerning the past of a
nation, group or individual which is either wholly or partly fictitious
, Feldman and Richardson. p. xx.
Rev. edn. (2 vols . Oxford. 1969),1.
I
4 THE POLITICAL MYTH
and which mayor may not have been deliberately created'. Among
other things mythisch means fanciful. 8 The French my the and the Ger
man My the, My thus and Mythos refer to the stories of gods, heroes
and great men, but they too know the vaguer, figurative meaning of a
false, fictitious story. Mythomane means in both languages a
systematic liar.9 According, then, to the usage of at least four Euro
pean languages, myth is the antithesis of truth, reality and rationality.
One French dictionary notes that the use of the word in this
pejorative sense is now very common.IO
It is clear that such an emotionally charged word can be just as con
fusing in the writing of history as terms like nationalism, Bolshevism
and Fascism. At any rate it should be used sparingly. Because of its
unfavourable connotations it can easily become an obstacle to sober
analysis. For political myths are always the errors and misconcep
tions of others; once an idea has been labelled as mythical it is all too
likely to be considered as so utterly absurd as no longer to require
proper analysis. There is, moreover, little to be gained by supposing
that the mythical and historical interpretations of reality are complete
ly opposed. Certainly, the historian reconstructs the reality of the past
by following rational procedures, but for many reasons his re-creation
must differ from the reality which is perceived by the senses. Historical
and mythical reality should, therefore, be thought of as essentially in
comparable rather than as antithetical. As for those other contexts in
11
which linguistic usage supposes some radical distinction between
myth and reality, it is difficult to make out an entirely hard-and-fast
distinction: a myth can be true as psychological or sociological reality,
and it may well contain incontrovertible facts. For this reason alone a
historical analysis of myths will raise different questions. The historian
is free both to take the myth as a source of information and to locate
its historical importance. In addition, he will probably examine the
way or ways in which it has functioned in politics and society.
From the beginning of this century much emphasis has been placed
on the social function of myths. But by then myths had already been
8 Rev. edn. (2 vols., The Hague, 1970), I, 1240; II, 2717. The third
meaning was derived from a definition of historical myth in: F. W. N.
Hugenholtz, 'Historicus. My the, Publiek', Forum der Letteren, III (1962),
pp. 1 et seq.
9 P. Robert, Dictionnaire alphabetique et analogique de la Langue
Franraise (7 vols., Paris, 1953-70), IV, 722 et seq.; Der Grosse Duden (10
vols., Mannhelm, 1958-71), V, 466 and VII, 459.
10 Robert, Dlctionnaire, IV, 723.
11 H. von der Dunk, 'My the en Geschiedenis', Kleio heelt duizend ogen
(Assen, 1974), p. 105.