The Royalist Revolution

Monarchy and the American Founding

Eric Nelson

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780674979772
  9780674735347
• eBook ISBN:
  9780674736030
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize, Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey
Finalist, George Washington Prize
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2015

Generations of students have been taught that the American Revolution was a revolt against royal tyranny. In this revisionist account, Eric Nelson argues that a great many of our "founding fathers" saw themselves as rebels against the British Parliament, not the Crown. The Royalist Revolution interprets the patriot campaign of the 1770s as an insurrection in favor of royal power—driven by the conviction that the Lords and Commons had usurped the just prerogatives of the monarch.

"The Royalist Revolution is a thought-provoking book, and Nelson is to be commended for reviving discussion of the complex ideology of the American Revolution. He reminds us that there was a spectrum of opinion even among the most ardent patriots and a deep British influence on the political institutions of the new country."
—Andrew O'Shaughnessy, Wall Street Journal

"A scrupulous archaeology of American revolutionary thought."
—Thomas Meaney, The Nation

"A powerful double-barrelled challenge to historiographical orthodoxy."
—Colin Kidd, London Review of Books

"[A] brilliant and provocative analysis of the American Revolution."
—John Brewer, New York Review of Books

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction: “The War of Parliament”
• 1. Patriot Royalism: The Stuart Monarchy and the Turn to Prerogative, 1768–1775
• 2. “One Step Farther, and We Are Got Back to Where We Set Out From": Patriots and the Royalist Theory of Representation
• 3. “The Lord Alone Shall Be King of America”: 1776, Common Sense, and the Republican Turn
• 4. “The Old Government, as Near as Possible”: Royalism in the Wilderness, 1776–1780
• 5. “All Know That a Single Magistrate Is Not a King”: Royalism and the Constitution of 1787
• Conclusion: “A New Monarchy in America”
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Index