Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Author(s): J. G. A. Pocock
Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Jun., 1976), pp. 516-523
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1852422 .
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5i6
517
J. G. A. Pocock
5I8
519
Oceana,53.
Ibid.,36, 41-2.
Charles S. Sydnor,Gentlemen
Freeholders:
PoliticalPractices
in Washington's
Virginia(Chapel Hill, 1952).
J. G. A. Pocock
520
There was widespreadacceptanceof thatpart of the Harringtonianinterpretationwhich stressedthat since the landholdingclasses were no longer
dividedinto barons and theirdependentvassals or retainers,England must
nowbe governedby a schemeofcivicrelationsobtainingamongitsindependent proprietors.The latter,accordingto classical and constitutionaltheory,
mustbe dividedintoaristocraticand democraticcomponents,and therenow
existeda hereditary
but no longerfeudalupperhouse to play the aristocratic
role. Harringtonand otherradicals ofthe Interregnum
thoughtit important
to insure that the feudal nobilitywas not replaced by any other kind of
"standingaristocracy,"'whetherofhereditary
or ofelectsaints.
officeholders
The RestorationHouse of Lords, however,claimed no hereditarymonopoly
of any significantpoliticalfunction;the lords had instead hereditarytitles,
hereditary
rightsofsummonsto parliament,and lands inheritedindeed,but
inheritedin much the same way as by any othergentleman.Edmund Burke,
like most thinkersof the eighteenthcentury,argued that in a polity of
role in
the lords' hereditarydignityand hereditary
independentproprietors,
parliamentrenderedthemindependentin a veryspecial degree.This is the
pointofhis famousand not reallysycophanticletterto Richmond,in which
he says thatthe hereditarypeers are like greattreesand the new men-like
Burkehimself-thenone too hardyannuals thatbloom in theirshelter.8All
men are independent,Burkeis saying,and the hereditarily
independentare
not different
fromthe restof us. They are thoseanimalswho are moreequal
than others.
7
8
(London, 1656).
ofa Free-State
Forexample,see MarchmontNedham, The Excellencie
ofEdmundBurke(Cambridgeand Chicago, 1960), II, 377.
Lucy S. Sutherland,ed., The Correspondence
521
522
3. G. A. Pocock
523