Forsaken_Champion722 t1_j83yg8v wrote on February 11, 2023 at 1:47 PM

Had the Corn Laws not been repealed in 1846, is it possible that the revolutions of 1848 would have occurred in England as well?

quantdave t1_j865a4j wrote on February 11, 2023 at 10:45 PM

England is an obstinately un-revolutionary land for all its impacts on the international status quo (or perhaps because it found such outlets for its restlessness?), and modest relaxation from the 1820s of the harsh 1815 law allowed it to import grain during periods of shortage around 1830 and 1840, though prices remained high: the real crisis in 1846 was in Ireland, where the devastation of the potato crop left people unable to buy grain even at post-repeal prices, and worse followed in 1847 even as England more than doubled its grain purchases.

An upheaval was possible in the England of the 1840s, but not even the denial of the vote to the great majority of the population could rouse the masses to rise up when the issue came to a head in the spring of that year. "No revolution please, we're British."

Forsaken_Champion722 t1_j88krmo wrote on February 12, 2023 at 1:33 PM

Thanks for the reply. I agree that Britain found a good outlet for its restlessness in the form of colonies. The British may have lamented the loss of the 13 colonies, but the reality is that if those rebel colonists had still been in England, Britain might have followed the same path as France.

Still, nothing motivates people like hunger. Without bread, the circus only goes so far, and England did have a civil war back in the 17th century. Speaking of which, I have a question about that too. During the years when Cromwell was in charge, did British nobles continue to have the same powers and privileges? Was there anything in the way of a ceremonial monarch? Who was living in the royal palaces?

quantdave t1_j88udhm wrote on February 12, 2023 at 2:55 PM

I wasn't thinking just of colonies, rather of a range of economic and political outpourings - its contributions to industrialisation, liberalism, modern parliamentary governance (even if few had a say). Nobody but the king lamented the loss of the 13 colonies that much - within a few years trade was bouncing along as never before - rather it's the passing of the later "second" empire that that still agitates some fevered minds.

The conflict of the 1640s was again primarily about political power, and the economic dimension mostly involved division among the well-to-do between those benefiting from privileges granted by the crown and those competing in the market. Food was (as across most of Europe) more expensive than a century earlier owing to the inflow of Spanish colonial silver, but prices on the eve of the civil war weren't much above those of the previous 20-30 years.

The peerage continued mostly unmolested under the Commonwealth, though the House of Lords was abolished from 1649 until the Restoration of 1660 ended a brief experiment with a hand-picked upper house. Cromwell was invited to assume the crown, but declined: his title of Lord Protector can be interpreted as regent, though he insisted his regime was republican. He wasn't averse to the odd palace: most of the less essential royal properties were sold off in 1649, but today's older residences remained state assets, Cromwell governing from Whitehall Palace (its site today occupied mostly by the MoD and Cabinet Office after most of the old building burned down in 1698, the Banqueting House and parts of the basement surviving).