Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals by Niall Ferguson Page A
Authors: Niall Ferguson
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larger typeface. I would like to express my thanks to: the Modern History Faculty, Oxford; the Acting Principal and Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford; my agent, Georgina Capel, of Simpson, Fox Associates; Peter Straus and Tanya Stobbs, my editors at Macmillan; Glen O‘Hara of Jesus College, Oxford, for his indispensable assistance with the research for both the introduction and my chapter; and Vivien Bowyer at Jesus College, Oxford. I am especially indebted for their comments on my sections of the book to Dr Christopher Andrew of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Professor Jonathan Clark of the University of Kansas; Professor Roy Foster of Oxford University; Dr Jonathan Steinberg of Trinity Hall, Cambridge ; Dr John Stevenson of Worcester College, Oxford; and Professor Norman Stone of Oxford University. Many other friends and colleagues too numerous to name have assisted me by patiently fielding questions about the theory and practice of counterfactual history over coffee, lunch and dinner. Above all, I would like to thank my wife Susan for providing inspiration.
AFTERWORD: A Virtual History, 1646-1996
Niall Ferguson
As we approach the 300th anniversary of the accession of James III in September 1701, it is all too easy to be complacent about the subsequent course of modern history. Viewing the past, as we do, through the distorting lens of hindsight, we are often tempted to assume that there was something inevitable about the Stuarts’ success in withstanding the religious and political storms which caused so much upheaval in the rest of Europe during the seventeenth century. The world we know today may be said to owe much to James III, and perhaps more to his grandfather Charles I. But it is the great error of historical determinisn to imagine that their achievements were in any sense predestined. We should never underestimate the role of contingency, of chance - of what the mathematicians call ‘stochastic behaviour’.
If, for example, we look back further, to the victory of James’s grandfather Charles I over the Scottish Covenanters at the battle of Duns Law in June 1639, we can see clearly the contingent nature of the Stuart triumph. With the benefit of hindsight and historical research, we know that Charles’s army was larger and better funded than the Scottish forces which faced it across the Tweed. And we know that the King’s victory at Duns Law dealt a death blow not only to the Covenanters but to the Scottish Parliament and Kirk. Yet none of this was as clear to Charles’s commanders as it is to us now. The Earl of Holland, as John Adamson points out, was strongly tempted to retreat when first confronted by the Scottish forces under Leslie.
Of course, there are those historians who see no point in asking counterfactual questions. But let us venture to do so. What if Charles had backed down at the critical moment and sought some kind of settlement with the Scots? Under these circumstances, it seems clear that he would very quickly have found himself in the most acute political crisis to face the crown in over a century. Not only would he have been at the mercy of a militant kirk and a recalcitrant Edinburgh parliament. He would also have played directly into the hands of his opponents in England and Ireland.
With the benefit of hindsight we know, of course, that most of the old Puritans who had caused so much trouble in the reign of Charles’s father were to die out in the course of the 1640s. We know that the judges who had opposed Charles’s financial policies in the 1630s were also in their seventies. But had Charles returned to England without a victory in 1639 - and had he (as it seems reasonable to assume) demoted those who had been responsible for the expedition - there might yet have been time for one last offensive by that ageing generation. Fears of a ‘Popish plot’ were much exaggerated, as we know, and soon faded as the Thirty Years’ War drew to its close in 1648. But such fears were
AFTERWORD: A Virtual History, 1646-1996
Niall Ferguson
As we approach the 300th anniversary of the accession of James III in September 1701, it is all too easy to be complacent about the subsequent course of modern history. Viewing the past, as we do, through the distorting lens of hindsight, we are often tempted to assume that there was something inevitable about the Stuarts’ success in withstanding the religious and political storms which caused so much upheaval in the rest of Europe during the seventeenth century. The world we know today may be said to owe much to James III, and perhaps more to his grandfather Charles I. But it is the great error of historical determinisn to imagine that their achievements were in any sense predestined. We should never underestimate the role of contingency, of chance - of what the mathematicians call ‘stochastic behaviour’.
If, for example, we look back further, to the victory of James’s grandfather Charles I over the Scottish Covenanters at the battle of Duns Law in June 1639, we can see clearly the contingent nature of the Stuart triumph. With the benefit of hindsight and historical research, we know that Charles’s army was larger and better funded than the Scottish forces which faced it across the Tweed. And we know that the King’s victory at Duns Law dealt a death blow not only to the Covenanters but to the Scottish Parliament and Kirk. Yet none of this was as clear to Charles’s commanders as it is to us now. The Earl of Holland, as John Adamson points out, was strongly tempted to retreat when first confronted by the Scottish forces under Leslie.
Of course, there are those historians who see no point in asking counterfactual questions. But let us venture to do so. What if Charles had backed down at the critical moment and sought some kind of settlement with the Scots? Under these circumstances, it seems clear that he would very quickly have found himself in the most acute political crisis to face the crown in over a century. Not only would he have been at the mercy of a militant kirk and a recalcitrant Edinburgh parliament. He would also have played directly into the hands of his opponents in England and Ireland.
With the benefit of hindsight we know, of course, that most of the old Puritans who had caused so much trouble in the reign of Charles’s father were to die out in the course of the 1640s. We know that the judges who had opposed Charles’s financial policies in the 1630s were also in their seventies. But had Charles returned to England without a victory in 1639 - and had he (as it seems reasonable to assume) demoted those who had been responsible for the expedition - there might yet have been time for one last offensive by that ageing generation. Fears of a ‘Popish plot’ were much exaggerated, as we know, and soon faded as the Thirty Years’ War drew to its close in 1648. But such fears were
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