Examine Cunningham’s claim that patriotism in the late eighteenth century ‘was not a unanimous declaration of national unity.’

As can be seen in the quotation above, the ‘national unity’ referred to in the title was only possible after the invention of the United Kingdom in 1707. However, it is not the question of the unity of England, Scotland and Wales that Cunningham is most concerned with. It was not only the British nation which was being invented at this time. The very conceptual structure of nationhood itself was in the process of being engendered. As B. Anderson says:

Cunningham’s perspective is from that of a self identified ‘socialist historian’. With this in mind, it is necessary to examine Cunningham’s claim, with the intention of exposing the evidence, for or against, the thesis that patriotism was an ideology of British national unity of the socio-economic classes.

In opposition to Cunningham’s claim, L. Colley says:

In other words she is casting doubt upon the findings of Marxist historians such as E. Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson that eighteenth century plebeian and bourgeois politics was characterised by social protest. Colley’s main argument is that during the eighteenth century war and religion were the main factors in creating a British national consciousness. That is, a series of wars with France led to a national identity fused by opposition to the foreign and alien Other of France. This she argues went hand in hand with Welsh, English and Scottish Protestantism also enabling a sense of British national unity as opposed to the French enemies Catholicism. This sense of commonality of interests between the social classes became useful to the ruling class in an age which increasingly needed the support of the poor to act as cannon fodder in the wars with France. Colley estimates that 20% of adult males were involved in the war by the end of the century, clearly indicating the voluntary enthusiasm for the needs of the nation state to the degree of preparedness to sacrifice life and limb in its defence. The thing she argues that held the British together was a sense of national superiority over the French, running through to the poorest in society. Through this perceptual lens the labouring classes could console themselves that although they were clearly worse of than their own aristocratic class they were better of than their French equivalents who were the slaves of peasanthood compared to their status as freeborn Englishmen and that their material circumstances were far superior in their diet and clothing, for example one popular perception of superiority was their possesion of leather footwear as opposed to the wooden shod feet of the continental unfortunates. H. Perkin also takes this line of patriotism acting as a social adhesive when he says that "as long as the Great French Wars lasted, patriotism reinforced paternalism to hold overt class conflict in check."

This form of nationalism can be interpreted as a form of false consciousness in Marxist terms or as Anderson puts it an ‘imagined community’:

Therefore, it may have been in the ruling class’ interests to propagate what would later be understood as the ideology of nationalism in a time when it needed the labouring classes support. The use of national iconography was as essential then as at any other time. M. Dresser traces the origins of the ubiquitous Britannia back to the second century and she was certainly used as a symbol of national pride in the eighteenth century. However, John Bull was the quintessential eighteenth century national icon, invented during the century and used extensively through it, he can be seen in many differing forms as a symbolic representation of the idealised embodiment of the British male character. In this J. Surel argues he was a character of "contradictory virtues" both supportive of the establishment and critical of "those institutions whose defence he nevertheless assured."

Similar to the character of John Bull the concepts of nationalism and patriotism were constantly changing and realigning ones during the eighteenth century. Nevertheless in opposition to Colley’s assertions that the national consciousness was essentially supportive of the existing state order K. Wilson says that:

This ‘natural’ home for the language of patriotism in the radical and oppositional camps is also convincingly put by Cunningham:

Wilson illustrates the patriotic self identity claimed by mid-eighteenth century bourgeois radical politician John Wilkes with the print below. As she says:

Not only are the political enemies of the Wilkite camp portrayed as dangerously foreign and unpatriotic they are also identified as inferior in their femininity (sic) to his manly British character. This use of patriotic imagery was clearly directed against the "corrupt" existing state order and in favour of the forces of opposition who sought to preserve not the existing order of things but to protect the natural rights of the British. This concept of patriotism was one which relied upon a reading of history which harked back to a golden era of guaranteed freedoms and natural rights within a paternalistic structure to underwrite them. Through this lens the radical can be seen as the patriotic defender of British national custom against the corrupt existing order. Cunningham argues that throughout the century this was a growing trend as can be seen in the quotation below:

However, these forces of radical patriotic opposition were not a continuos or united front. They were split by continuos changes in the political and economic scene. This was especially true of the effect of foreign war. As Wilson says for example:

This "important episode" Wilson claims split the radical allegiance of artisans and merchants because the merchants economic advantage lay with siding with the Government while the artisans sided with the Americans’ bid for freedom. The radicals in support of the Americans could still claim the patriotic identity because of their support for ‘traditional’ radical patriotic values.

C. Emsley argues that the British Government was to attempt to turn this around with the dawning of the French Revolution. The radical societies such as the London Corresponding Society were to grow rapidly with the impetus from the French Revolution. This foreign source of radical ideas was seized upon by a grateful Government as Emsley says:

This allowed the establishment to claim the patriotic and nationalist clothes from the radicals after a century when patriotism’s usual residence was in the opposition camp.

In conclusion, with the constant battle for ownership of the badge of patriotism outlined above it seems proven that this ‘was not a unanimous declaration of national unity’. In fact it seems quite the reverse as the forces of opposition had possession of the label for most of the century. That patriotism could be claimed by those who opposed the existing order in itself denies the hypothesis of national unity. Colley’s assertions that this was marginal activity not supported by the majority appears questionable as the Government could not rest the public perception of what it meant to be patriotic from the radicals until radicals themselves aligned with a hated foreign enemy.