Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800

How the eighteenth-century English country house became a site for political advancement. __Politics and the English Country House__ explores the relationship between the country house and the changing British political landscape of the eighteenth century. Essays explore how the country house was a stage for politicking, a vehicle for political advancement, and a symbol of party allegiance and political values. "Politics has always been at the heart of the English country house: in its design and construction, as well as in the activities and experiences of those who lived in and visited these places. Thus, as Britain moved from an agrarian to an imperial economy over the course of the eighteenth century, the home mirrored the social change experienced in the public sphere. This collection focuses on the relationship between the country house and the mutable nature of British politics in the eighteenth century. Essays explore the country house as a stage for politicking, a vehicle for political advancement, a symbol of party allegiance or political values, and a setting for appropriate lifestyles. Initially the exclusive purview of the landed aristocracy, politics increasingly came to be played out in the open, augmented by the emergence of career politicians--usually untitled members of the patriciate--and men of new money, much of it created on Caribbean plantations or in the employ of the East India Company. Politics and the English Country House, 1688-1800 reveals how, during this period of profound change, the country house remained a constant. The country house was the definitive tangible manifestation of social standing and, for the political class, owning one became almost an imperative. In its consideration of the country house as lived and spatial experience, an aesthetic and symbolic object, and an economic engine, this book offers a new perspective on the complexity of political meaning embedded in the eighteenth-century country house--and on ourselves as active recipients and interpreters of its various narratives, more than two centuries later."-- Provided by publisher Politics has always been at the heart of the English country house, in its design and construction, as well as in the activities and experiences of those who lived in and visited these places. As Britain moved from an agrarian to an imperial economy over the course of the eighteenth century, the home mirrored the social change experienced in the public sphere. This collection focuses on the relationship between the country house and the mutable nature of British politics in the eighteenth century. Essays explore the country house as a stage for politicking, a vehicle for political advancement, a symbol of party allegiance or political values, and a setting for appropriate lifestyles. Initially the exclusive purview of the landed aristocracy, politics increasingly came to be played out in the open, augmented by the emergence of career politicians – usually untitled members of the patriciate – and men of new money, much of it created on Caribbean plantations or in the employ of the East India Company. Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800 reveals how, during this period of profound change, the country house remained a constant. The country house was the definitive tangible manifestation of social standing and, for the political class, owning one became almost an imperative. In its consideration of the country house as lived and spatial experience, as an aesthetic and symbolic object, and as an economic engine, this book offers a new perspective on the complexity of political meaning embedded in the eighteenth-century country house – and on ourselves as active recipients and interpreters of its various narratives, more than two centuries later. Cover Politics and the English Country House,1688–1800 Title Copyright Contents Table and Figures Acknowledgements 1 Introduction PART ONE: POLITICAL POSITIONING AFTER THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION 2 Introduction 3 For Politics, Progresses, or Posterity? Some Alternative Reasons for Building State Apartments 4 Holding Court at Marlborough House: The London Residence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough PART TWO: THE QUESTION OF STYLE 5 Introduction 6 Gothic Architecture and the Liberty Trope 7 ‘Whig Gothic’: An Antidote to Houghton Hall 8 The House with Two Faces: From Baroque to Palladian at Wentworth Woodhouse PART THREE: THE SOCIAL POLITICS OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE 9 Introduction 10 Burke’s Exemplum: The ‘Natural Family Mansion’ and Wentworth Woodhouse 11 House Painting: Place and Position in Estate Portraiture circa 1770 12 The House and Estate of a Rich West Indian: Two Slaveholders in Eighteenth-Century East Anglia PART FOUR: HOUSES AND HOMES 13 Introduction 14 The Clives at Home: Self-Fashioning, Collecting, and British India 15 William Pitt the Younger, 1759–1806: Reshaping the Political Home Afterword: Whose Country House? Bibliography Contributors Index