Over the centuries – even in the present – how have the people living in Europe developed a separate “European” identity by contrasting themselves with an external (and/or internal) “other”, defined religiously, culturally, racially, or any other way?
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SchmidtTheEstablishmentofEuropeasaPoliticalExpression.docxThe Establishment of “Europe” as a Political Expression
H. D. Schmidt
Historical Journal, 9 (2), 1966
The intensive historical study of the idea of Europe, which has been carried out for the last twenty years, has failed to discover the time and circumstances that led to the adoption of “Europe” as a symbol of political interest. The main fault of past historical investigations lies in a concentration on literary works and famous men of letters and a neglect of political literature and diplomatic documents. Political expressions are the offspring of national and international conflicts. They become stereotyped symbols of loyalty or enmity and one criterion of their establishment in political life is the frequency of their use – and abuse – by one recognizable political group. When and how did this first happen to “Europe”?
It was in the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that “Christendom” slowly entered the limbo of archaic words and Europe emerged as the unchallenged symbol of the largest human loyalty. International endeavour during and after the Thirty Years War had as its aim what was usually described as “the public peace of Christendom” (“le repos de la chrétienté”), because all hope for a unitas reipublicae christianae had been brought to nought by the Reformation. In 1667 the Protestants of Western Europe still regarded the House of Hapsburg as the greatest danger to Protestant rule. The publication of The Buckler of State and Justice in French, German and English in that year had the purpose of changing that view of the international scene. It was the most influential political pamphlet published in the struggle now beginning against King Louis XIV of France. Its author, Lisola, desired to agitate in London in favour of an Austro-English alliance and to warn Protestants against the designs of France. Lisola modified the maxim of the balance of power, propounded in the 1630’s by the French Protestant duke of Rohan, by turning it against the power of France. He alleged that France was planning the establishment of a Catholic universal monarchy and becoming a threat to the liberty of Europe, to religion and to commerce. He thus forged an association that linked Europe with the concept of religious liberty, balance of power and expanding commerce.
In 1679 Henry Sidney gained the confidence of William of Orange and endeavoured to increase his popularity in England. By 1680 there are indications that in the minds of some Englishmen the term Europe had become associated with the Orange cause. In March 1680 the Dutch party among the Whigs proposed to insert the phrase “safety of Europe and the Protestant Religion” into the royal speech in the House of Commons, but nothing came of it. When the king did announce the conclusion of an alliance with the Netherlands and Spain on October 21 the step was explained as a measure “for the safety of England and the Repose of Christendom”. In the middle of the king’s battle against the Whigs the choice of those words cannot have been accidental. “Liberty of Europe”, even “safety of Europe”, like “safety of the Protestant religion”, with which these phrases were then usually linked, had assumed definite Whig associations.
Meanwhile the Whigs had prepared a memorandum on foreign policy that envisaged England as the strongest obstacle to an alleged design of Louis XIV to set up a universal monarchy. France must be prevented from dominating Europe by England, “famous for holding the balance of Europe and protecting the Protestant religion”. The memorandum was published anonymously in Holland under the title Discourses upon Modern Affairs of Europe and subsequently translated into Latin and German and published in Germany. If we make the frequency of a combination of “Protestant Religion” and “Liberty of Europe”, “Defence of Europe”, or simply “Europe” the criterion for the dating of Europe as a political party slogan established in Whig political tracts and pamphlets, we arrive at the conclusion that in England the term Europe had been definitely adopted by the Whig opposition between 1680 and 1681.
The advance of the Turks to the outskirts of Vienna in 1683 caused an eclipse in the popularity of Europe as a political term during the following years. For the last time Christendom served as the symbol of supreme loyalty when the “hereditary enemy of the Christian name” drove the “Christian forces” out of Hungary and appeals went forth for aid in the “bellum sacrum in rem Christianam”. The victories of Charles of Lorraine and Prince Eugene removed the Turkish danger. The rule of Louis XIV, on the other hand, assumed an even more sinister character with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1598) in 1685 and the royal plot to establish the Catholic Church in England. The old Whig slogans of “Popery and Arbitrary Rule”, “Liberty of Europe” and “Protestant Religion”, had not been forgotten. They became the watchwords of the Glorious Revolution. William of Orange landed in England on November 5 1688 with the avowed purpose of engaging “the King further in the Interest of Europe”. Subsequently he justified the revolution by asserting that England had been prevented from having “the share in the Balance of Europe that naturally belongs to it“. On 23 December 1688 Gilbert Burnet, chaplain to the prince of Orange, preached in the chapel of St. James in the presence of the prince. The phrases “Liberty of Europe” and “Interests of the Protestant Religion” were prominent features of that sermon. The House of Commons echoed them in its reply to a royal address on 19 April condemning the design of the French king “for the Subversion of Liberties of Europe“. Similar phrases became the stock-in-trade of many political pamphlets issued in support of the Anglo-Dutch alliance on either side of the North Sea. “Balance of Europe” was another prominent phrase then.
In England anti-Stuart tracts undertook to prove the thesis that the Stuarts had been the grave-diggers of the balance of Europe: “Twas King James the First, that made some small beginnings towards the breaking of the European Balance which was always held the safest Fence against a Western Monarchy.” William Penn’s famous peace plan of 1692, Essay towards the present and future peace of Europe, was based on the doctrine of a balance of power and was just one of many similar political tracts published in England and Holland in those years. The diplomatic negotiations that led to the Peace of Ryswick in 1697 still show a French preference for the term “Chrestienté”, while the English party, led by William III, use “Europe” as their preferred term. When William became impatient at the slowness of the imperial ministry in Vienna he wrote to Antonius Heinsius, the Grand Pensionary of Holland that he could no longer wait and would not allow the slowness of the imperial ministry “to ruin the cause of Europe“. When the peace was finally concluded, the diplomatic documents were published in English and the editor observed in the preface that at long last the kingdoms and states of Europe could enjoy a “happy balance” and that the effort of the English and their illustrious confederates had broken the chains “by which the Liberty of Europe was so strangely and artificially entangled“.
The death of Charles II of Spain in November 1700 and the French invasion of the Spanish Netherlands in 1701 once more upset the balance of Europe. William III was determined to resume the fight for his cause. On 14 February 1701 the Commons considered the motion “that this House will stand by and support his Majesty, and his Government; and take such effectual Measures as may best conduce to the Interest and Safety of England, the Preservation of the Protestant Religion, and the Peace of Europe”. Thereupon the political pamphleteers – in the absence of a national press – were called upon to broadcast the Whig interpretation of the international scene and to explain to the public that the freedom of commerce, the Protestant religion, and the balance of Europe would be lost if France were to gain control over all the Spanish dominions. The “Liberties of Europe” and the “Reformed Religion” became the leading political maxims of the last months of William’s reign.
On 11 November 1701 William dissolved Parliament in order to win a bigger support for his policy in the new Parliament. The French recognition of James III as king of England had an important share in rallying the nation behind King William III. The new House of Commons in January 1702 unanimously pledged their support of the Grand Alliance “pursuant to the Addresses and Advice of your most dutiful and loyal Commons of the last Parliament, for preserving the Liberties of Europe and reducing the exorbitant Power of France“. The changeover to the new reign passed without crisis and in spring 1702 Queen Anne was assured in the first parliamentary address upon her accession to the throne of the utmost vigour of the Lords to obtain under her reign “such a Balance of Power and Interest, as may effectually secure the Liberties of Europe”, and of the support of the Commons to maintain the alliances “for preserving the Liberties of Europe”.
The study of English and continental political pamphlets, state papers and official pronouncements offers conclusive evidence that the term Europe established itself as an expression in the fight against Louis XIV. It was associated with the concept of a balanced system of sovereign states, religious tolerance and expanding commerce. By 1681 “Europe” had assumed Whig and Orange overtones in England and was clearly a political word for the remainder of the Stuart reign. The triumph of William III and the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV brought about the first major stage in the long process of western secularization and the exchange of “Europe” for “Christendom” as the supreme political collectivity.
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