A Political Biography of Richard Steele by Charles A Knight

Author:Charles A Knight [Knight, Charles A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General, Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781317314899
Google: CVSkCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-09-30T16:10:30+00:00

The Crisis and its Consequences

On October 22, 1713, Englishman, no. 8 contained a letter from the publisher:

As you are an Englishman; I desire you to insert this Advertizement in a conspicuous Manner in your Paper. A Discourse, now ready for the Press, is designed as an Antidote against the treasonable Insinuations which are licentiously handed about the Town; and is entituled THE CRISIS; or a Discourse plainly shewing, from the most authentick Records the just Causes of the late happy Revolution: And the several Settlements of the Crowns of England and Scotland on her Majesty; and on the Demise of her Majesty without Issue, upon the Most illustrious Princess Sophia, Electress and Dutchess Dowager of Hanover and the Heirs of Her Body, being Protestants; by both Parliaments of the late Kingdoms of England and Scotland; and that no Power whatsoever can barr, alter, or make void the same: With some seasonable remarks on the Danger of a POPISH SUCCESSOR. By Richard Steele, Esq;.

The phrase denying that the settlements could ever be changed was deleted from the title page of the published pamphlet.

The Crisis was again advertised in nos. 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 22, 23, 32, 36, 46, 47, and 49. In no. 36 (26 December 1713) an advertizement was inserted that, in compliance with the wishes of ‘several Ladies of Quality’, publication was postponed until more women could subscribe. By the time The Crisis actually appeared on 19 January 1714, it had been strongly, even excessively advertised. Whatever excitement might have been generated by these repeated announcements, the actual tract, once it appeared, was bound to disappoint. The publisher’s description of it was all too accurate: the first half of the tract consisted of passages, mainly from Parliamentary records, establishing and verifying the Protestant succession, and these are followed by Steele’s urgent and sometimes excessive warnings against the dangers of a Jacobite Succession.

Steele begins with a rather cheeky dedication ‘To the CLERGY of the Church of England’. Despite Steele’s protestations of the honour and respect in which he has held the clergy, he tells them that they have used their position to advance views that have little to do with religion, perhaps out of ignorance of the legal principles that will be documented in The Crisis, principles that ought to have been ‘carefully recommended to the Perusal of young Gentlemen in Colleges’.18 Steele had the temerity to propose curricula to Oxford and Cambridge, but he had the further audacity to prescribe, in threatening terms, the content of their sermons, in light of the danger from Catholics and the Pretender:

It behooves you therefore, Gentlemen, to consider, whether the Cry of the Church’s Danger may not at length become a Truth: And as You are Men of Sense and Men of Honour, to exert your selves in undeceiving the Multitude, whenever their affectionate Concern for you may prove fatal to themselves.19

Not only does Steele tell the Clergy what the substance of their sermons ought to be, he strongly implies that their position during the Sacheverell incident that the Church was in danger is false.

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