Review of Napoleon and the British

https://www.napoleon-series.org/reviews/general/c_semmel.html

Napoleon and the British: Semmel, Stuart: 9780300090017: Amazon.com: Books

"What did Napoleon Bonaparte mean to the British people? This engaging book reconstructs the role that the French leader played in the British political, cultural, and religious imagination in the early nineteenth century. Denounced by many as a tyrant or monster, Napoleon nevertheless had sympathizers in Britain. Stuart Semmel explores the ways in which the British used Napoleon to think about their own history, identity, and destiny.

Many attacked Napoleon but worried that the British national character might not be adequate to the task of defeating him. Others, radicals and reformers, used Napoleon’s example to criticize the British constitution. Semmel mines a wide array of sources―ranging from political pamphlets and astrological almanacs to sonnets by canonical Romantic poets―to reveal surprising corners of late Hanoverian politics and culture."

I’m puzzled that a criticism of a book about Napoleon and the British is that the British view of Napoleon was uniquely British. I’d have thought that was pretty obvious from the title? George III and the divine right was alluded to, presumably to draw an equivalence with Napoleon’s monarchy. This is a false equivalence of course. Since the Restoration, the British constitutional system has been that the monarch reigns, but does not rule. Executive power rests with the King’s Ministers who are in turn subject to the rule of law and answerable to it. Parliament is sovereign, and the Hanoverians reign because of an Act of Succession. The Hanoverians dynasty therefore existed by invitation and consent, they were not foreign invaders or usurpers. The tyrannical characterisation popular in the US is utterly erroneous and more part of it’s own creation myth. The colonies may have been unfairly treated, but it was by a democratically elected government and a sovereign parliament, not a king. The British view of Napoleon, despite the resulting hyperbole and Ogre characterisation was at least founded in fact. He wasn’t ethnically French. He was a commoner. He came to power by military coup. He created the throne he sat on himself, out of thin air. He held executive power and ruled by Imperial decree. He was a nepotist, and placed his relatives on conquered or created thrones. These might be the basis of subsequent propaganda, but of themselves should be uncontrovertible. Whether we then go on to see his rule as providential, beneficial, harmful or tyrannical is immaterial. The fundamental differences remain and the comparison made to George III’s position by the reviewer is a specious one.