‘An odd question enough’. Charles James Fox, the crown and British policy during the Hanoverian crisis of 1806

Abstract

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0018246X00019981How to cite this article: Brendan Simms (1995). 'An odd question enough'. Charles James Fox, the crown and British policy during the Hanoverian crisis of 1806. A B S T R A C T . The essay aims to close a longstanding gap in the political historiography of laterGeorgian Britain by examining the 'Hanoverian Crisis' of 1806. Drawing on a broad range of British, Hanoverian and Prussian records, the essay demonstrates that the British-Prussian conflict of that year was caused not -as conventionally assumed -by the closure of the North Sea ports to British shipping, but by the Prussian occupation of George IIPs electoral land of Hanover. The essay then shows how the commitment of the British government to its restitution was largely motivated by the desire of Charles James Fox and the incoming Ministry of All the Talents to build bridges to the crown. This stance was in complete contradiction both to the broad thrust of the new 'maritime' foreign policy of the Talents and to Fox's previous policy in matters Hanoverian. Subsequently the implications of this for our understanding of Fox's political biography are assessed. Finally, the essay illuminates the existence of a coherent 'Hanoverian Faction' in London headed by Count Minister which together with a highly activist George III was often able to tip the balance in the formulation of British policy. foreign policy in the eighteenth century: a survey', Journal of British Studies, xxvi (1987), 41. See also Jeremy Black, 'The British state and foreign policy in the eighteenth century', Trivium, xxm (1988), 141-3. 567 568 BRENDAN SIMMS Hanoverian interest during the Furstenbund and regency crises of the mid-to late 1780s. 2 At the same time Hamish Scott was well into work for his carefully crafted British foreign policy in the age of the American revolution, which showed thatHanoverian concerns played a comparatively minor role in British politics between 1763 and 1783. 3 Similarly, the contributions of Uriel Dann, Paddy Doran and Karl Schweizer, 4 all of whom attested the importance of Hanover and the electoral interest during the Seven Years' War, go a long way towards achieving the reassessment demanded by Black. The period after 1815 has been treated in depth by Wolf Gruner, whose research has revealed the importance of Hanoverian concerns right down to the dissolution of the personal union in 1837. 5 As for the influence of Hanover under the first two Georges, the work of A. W. Ward on the personal union still possesses sufficient resonance as to leave us in no doubt of its importance. 6 However, when it comes to the role of Hanover in the revolutionary and Napoleonic period we are left with a hiatus in the historiography which an outdated monograph and a few isolated articles in foreign languages only inadequately fill.' This lack of research has left unchallenged the widespread notion that not only was Hanover less important in British policy and politics after 1763, which seems indeed t...