Ideas of Monarchical Reform

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This book examines the political works of Andrew Michael Ramsay (1683-1743) within the context of early eighteenth-century British and French political thought. In the first monograph on Ramsay in English for over sixty years, the author uses Ramsay to engage in a broader evaluation of the theory in the two countries and the exchange between them. After the Glorious Revolution (1688) Britain had rejected James II's absolutist pretensions in favour of a monarch that governed through Parliament, while in France Louis XIV ruled a seemingly absolute state. Yet in the first three decades of that century, the growing impetus towards mixed government in Britain influenced the political theory of its long-standing enemy. Shaped by experiences and ideologies of the seventeenth century, thinkers in both states expressed a desire to stimulate change by integrating past wisdom with modern knowledge. A Scottish Jacobite émigré living in Paris, Ramsay employed a synthesis of British and French principles to promote a Stuart restoration. He offered a daring vision of European co-operation that would allow Britain to claim its place as the 'capital of the universe.' Adapting a range of philosophies, including his mentor Archbishop Fénelon's opposition to Louis XIV, Ramsay created a compelling image of the future that grappled with key political ideas extant in Britain and France. Mansfield reveals that Ramsay was an important intellectual conduit for the two countries, whose contribution to the history of political thought has been greatly under appreciated. With extensive analysis of Britain and France between the 1660s and 1730s in Britain and France, this book will be of interest to scholars, students and those with an interest in the history of political thought, religious, intellectual, political and cultural history, as well as the early Enlightenment.