Sam Leith Sam Leith

Irate men

The English Rebel, by David Horspool

issue 01 August 2009

‘No English monarch until Victoria — that is, long after monarchy had become the “dignified”, rather than the “efficient” part of the constitution — remained free from challenge, and three lost their thrones to rebellions.’

David Horspool’s new book is a detailed survey of the English men, women and mobs who have been prepared to risk life and property to rise up against power. It starts in the time of the Norman yoke and ends with the Poll Tax riots in the time of the Norman Tebbit. It is, to adapt Carlyle, a ‘history of irate men’.

There’s an awful lot of ground to cover and Horspool goes over it at a hell of a scamper. The disadvantage is that he sometimes sacrifices detail for dispatch: the catalogues of risings and quashings and exiles and defections, particularly where there’s less colour in the sources, can be a bit chewy.

But the advantage is that the shape of Horspool’s overall argument emerges fluently and persuasively.

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