The Nature of Stability in the Augustan Age

Abstract

This article seeks to synthesise aspects of recent research on the Augustan age and consider the longevity of the interpretations of the period provided in the late 1960s by Geoffrey Holmes and Jack Plumb. More particularly, it reconsiders the nature of political and social instability in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and examines the arguments historians now offer to account for the diminution of the strife and discord that characterised the rage of party under Queen Anne and the difference between that late Stuart polity and the seemingly more stable and politically placid Georgian period. Furthermore, it considers the broader social and economic conditions of the Augustan age and seeks to show the importance contemporary debates over moral reform, poverty and poor relief had for social stability in the decades after the Glorious Revolution.