Courting the Moderates: Ideology, Propaganda, and the Emergence of Party, 1660–1678 by John Patrick Montaño

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

163 term as it refers to family members, close sentimental relationships, and political cohorts. Yet after establishing Turner’s use of the term, she then examines its employment in The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless and Clarissa without explicitly addressing how gender might alter that. Indeed, as women were often the economic and sentimentalcapitalthatcould cement male friendship, the oversight on Ms. Tadmor’s part seems particularly glaring. Ms. Tadmor would again use the term ‘‘friend’’ to extend the notion that kinship remains powerful in the eighteenth century, yet the point of these two novels is that the history of the individual ultimately prevails. Ms. Tadmor’s study of usage makes this history more complex , but at the risk of ignoring its more profound dramas. Cynthia Richards Wittenberg University JOHN PATRICK MONTAÑO. Courting the Moderates: Ideology, Propaganda, and the Emergence of Party, 1660–1678. Newark: Delaware, 2002. Pp. 406. $60. Focusing on the turbulent period between the Restoration and the fall of Danby , Mr. Montaño’s study traces the production and dissemination of an official ‘‘ideology of moderation,’’ and the relation of this government ideology to the formation of political parties. After analyzing the evolution of this ideology through varied forms of contemporary political culture, he argues for its central role in the emergence of an organized court party in Parliament during this period , culminating in the activities of Danby . In this account, government tactics, rather than the first Whigs, initiate English parties. The first part, seven chapters occupying almost two-thirds of the narrative, focuses on the ideology itself. A useful opening summary of current historiographical thinking about the period is followed by a chapter examining how a rhetoric of moderation developed between 1660 and 1662, particularly its impoverishment by early associations of unity with conformity. Four chapters examine diverse forms through which this ideology was articulated: verse, stage productions and street spectacles, Anglican sermons, and polemical pamphlets. A seventh chapter on government efforts to control the press ends the section. The second part, three chapters and a conclusion, joins the ideological exposition of the initial section with issues of organization. ComplementingAndrew Swatland’s work on organized parties in the House of Lords during the period, Mr. Montaño argues for the emergence of an organized government party in the Commons as well. After a chapter analyzing speeches that opened Parliament over the period, two chapters focused mainly on Danby survey attempts at managing Parliament through party organization. Courting the Moderates is thus organized partly by genre or issue and partly by chronology, resulting in occasional repetition when temporal and topical demands of the narrative conflict. In fairness , however, the constantly shifting parameters of royal, Parliamentary, court, popular, and international politics make this period difficult to organize in terms of ideology, and the generic and topical foci are useful in highlighting the ubiquity of key themes and the impact in specific areas of ministerial efforts to mold Restoration political culture. A more basic difficulty emerges in the obstacles to treating moderation as the ‘‘official’’ or ‘‘government’’ ideology of this period. Although the ideologies of Clarendon and Danby shared significantsimilarities, 164 they diverged in important ways, while both differed markedly from the ideological jumble of the Cabal. Throwing Charles II’s own attitudes into the mix further complicates the issue; Mr. Montan ̃o analyzes various popular and Parliamentary audiences for propaganda,but the King was probably also at times a target . The question is whether moderation was actually a government ideology, wishful thinking on the part of individuals , a cynical rhetorical camouflage, a fallback position whenever the political situation overheated, the consensus of a national majority, or an unstable amalgam of various elements of all of these that altered according to circumstances. Throughout this period, any kind of substantive moderation too often seems to exist mainly in the eye of the beholder; after 1660 it is frequently difficult to tell whether the majority of the English nation was genuinely moderate, or simply tired. In addition, many of the central elements of this ideology predate the Restoration , initially appearing not in the Declaration of Breda but in various other writings that Hyde produced for the Stuarts during the Civil Wars...