Admirals as Heroes: Patriotism and Liberty in Hanoverian England

Abstract

In recent years historians have significantly broadened the parameters of popular politics in the eighteenth century to include the ceremonial and associational aspects of political life, what might be aptly described as popular political culture. Whereas the subject of popular politics was conventionally confined to the programmatic campaigns of post-1760 radicals and to the crucial but episodic phenomenon of popular disturbance, historians have become increasingly attentive to the anniversaries, thanksgivings, processions, and parades—to the realm of symbolism and ritual—that were very much a part of Georgian society. This cultural perspective has radically revised our notion of the “popular,” which can no longer be consigned unproblematically to the actions and aspirations of the subaltern classes but to the complex interplay of all groups that had a stake in the extraparliamentary terrain. It has also broadened our notion of the “political” beyond the confines of Parliament, the hustings, and even the press to include the theater of the street and the marketplace with their balladry, pageantry, and iconography, both ribald and solemn.Within this context, the theme of the admiral-as-hero in Georgian society will be explored by focusing on Admiral Edward Vernon, the most popular admiral of the mid-eighteenth century, and Horatio Nelson, whose feats and flamboyance are better known. Of particular interest is the way in which their popularity was ideologically constructed and exploited at home. This might seem an unorthodox position to take. Naval biographers have assumed that the popularity of admirals flowed naturally and spontaneously from their spectacular victories and exemplary feats of valor. This may be taken as a truism. But it does not entirely explain their appeal.