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  3. British Lives

This series of short biographical studies focuses on major figures from the early medieval period to modern times. Each figure is of political, intellectual or religious significance in British or British imperial history. A major aim of the series is to seek out and scrutinize figures whose current interpretation has become stale or conventional, and to establish a lively interaction between author and subject in an attempt to place each historical figure in a new light.

  • General Editors: Maurice Cowling, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, John Vincent, University of Bristol

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2 results in British Lives

Marlborough
  • J. R. Jones
  • Published online:
    10 December 2009
    Print publication:
    25 February 1993
  • John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, was one of the two greatest military commanders in British history and the first subject to achieve and exercise a dominating influence in European affairs. With Wellington and Nelson he is the nearest that Britain has had to a national hero, yet today his reputation has faded. Few, apart from specialists in military history, have any appreciation of the extent of his achievements. This new study sets Marlborough's career in its contexts: the royal Court of the last Stuart monarchs, the desperate struggle against French attempts to establish hegemony in western Europe and the bitter political strife in Britain between the Whig and the Tory parties. It examines the opportunistic ways in which John Churchill rose from obscurity and poverty to wealth and greatness, his decisive role in the Revolution of 1688 and the circumstances and reasons for his dramatic fall.

Pitt the Elder
  • Jeremy Black
  • Published online:
    30 September 2009
    Print publication:
    27 November 1992
  • This book offers a readable yet scholarly account of the life of one of the greatest statesmen of empire, William Pitt the Elder, First Earl of Chatham (1708-78). Chatham is seen as a political outsider who rose to direct British policy in the Seven Years War, the crucial struggle that gave Canada to Britain. A critic of domestic corruption, he was subsequently a champion of American liberties. Chatham's achievement was all the more remarkable for a politician who was dogged for much of his life by poor physical health and considerable mental stress. His position as an outsider was crucial: it helped make his reputation, and to make him an unsettling figure. It also caused problems when he gained office, but it ensured Chatham was and seemed, 'different'. He was a man with whom the national interest could be associated, not simply because he made the claim himself, but also because he seemed apart from the world of court and connection.