"Among the educated upper classes a new phenomenon made its appearance β the Englishman who, so far from despising all who are not English, will offer praise only to "any country but his own". In the Stalin era we have become so familiar with this type of high-minded protest that we do not seem to realise how new it was in the age of Charles James Fox, well-endowed scion of the ruling order who chose to worship Robespierre from afar. As George Canning soon pointed out in one of his contributions to the propaganda published in the Anti-Jacobin, such "friends of humanity" would refuse even sixpence to a "needy knife-grinder" who admitted that his torn breeches testified to an ale-house brawl and not to the oppression of the poor; only kicks were suitable for wretches whom "no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance". For the first time the passions of high-minded anti-patriotism sounded their tin trumpets. The wars made certain that the existing order would face serious military and economic problems but could ignore the claims of moral outrage; generally speaking, the English, explaining that they would never be slaves, remained patriotic. But there was that small band of harbingers who saw virtue only abroad."
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The English (1992), pp. 197-198
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Elton
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Geoffrey Elton
Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton FBA (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg; 17 August 1921 β 4 December 1994) was a German-born British political and constitutional historian who specialised in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988.
35 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Geoffrey Elton β
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