The coup d'etat of 1714 - when the Whigs won 1714 年辉格党人赢取的那场政变 作者：Matt Ridley @ 2014-8-2

翻译：陆嘉宾（@晚上不买白天买不到）

校对：Pyro，沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）

来源：作者个人博客， http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-coup-d'etat-of-1714-when-the-whigs-won.aspx Was an English Enlightenment delayed by the Hanoverian succession? 汉诺威王室入继大统拖延了英格兰的启蒙运动吗？ The centenary of the start of the first world war is getting much more attention than the tricentenary of the accession of George I, which also falls this week. As far as I can tell, no new biographies of the first Hanoverian king are imminent, whereas books on the great war are pouring forth. You can see why.

相比于同在本周的一战爆发百年纪念，乔治一世登基三百周年就没有那么引人注目了。据我所知，短期内没有这位汉诺威王朝首位国王的新传记出版，而关于一战的书籍却是铺天盖地。原因是显而易见的。

The replacement of a plump, if benign, queen by an ‘obstinate and humdrum German martinet with dull brains and coarse tastes’ (Winston Churchill’s words), who presided over a huge financial scandal and died unlamented after a short reign, need hardly detain us.

乔治在位经历了巨大的财务丑闻，不久便去世了，无人哀悼。用丘吉尔的话说，他是个“固执、无聊、头脑迟钝、品味糟糕的德国呆子”——这样一位国王取代一位胖得恰到好处的女王。算了吧，我们不必为此多费口舌了。

But forget the royals and focus on what we might call the reshuffle among politicians that accompanied the change.

还是忘记这些皇室成员，让我们把注意力放到那些伴随这一变故的所谓“政治洗牌”上来吧。

Here’s how Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, described the last week of July 1714 in a letter to Dean Swift: ‘The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a world this is, and how does fortune banter us.’

第一代博林布鲁克子爵，亨利·圣约翰，在一封写给斯威夫特教长【 译注：即Jonathan Swift，文学家，《格列佛游记》作者，曾担任都柏林圣帕特里克大教堂教长 】的信中是这样描写1714年7月最后一周的：“牛津伯爵【 译注：Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford，安妮女王事实上的首席大臣 】在周二被罢免，女王在周日去世。这是一个怎样的世界，命运如此戏弄我们。”

The fall of the Jacobite-leaning Tories, led by Bolingbroke and his rival and former friend Oxford, with a coup d’état in the Privy Council by the Hanoverian-favouring Whigs, led by the Duke of Shrewsbury, on 30 July turned out to be a key moment in British history. It was never reversed, despite several attempts. In its own way it was as significant as 1215 and 1688.

发生在7月30日的两件事——博林布鲁克子爵及其前密友、现对手牛津伯爵所领导的亲詹姆斯派的托利党人失利，什鲁斯伯里公爵领导的亲汉诺威辉格党在枢密院政变成功——使这一天成为了英国历史上的关键时刻。尽管失败者数次试图反扑，但结果从未改变。这一年份在历史上和签署大宪章的1215年以及光荣革命的1688年同等重要。

The Tory Bolingbroke, a dazzling orator and spectacular libertine, had been stuffing positions of power with fellow Jacobites since becoming secretary of state and overshadowing his erstwhile ally the Earl of Oxford.

托利党人博林布鲁克能言善辩、风流成性，成为国务大臣之后一直忙于在重要职位上安插詹姆斯派党羽，压制前战友牛津伯爵。

But at an emergency privy council meeting on 30 July following the Queen’s stroke, he found himself outwitted by Shrewsbury, who unexpectedly summoned two fellow Whigs, the Dukes of Argyll and Somerset. The council got the barely conscious Queen to make Shrewsbury Lord Treasurer, then sat late into the night dispatching messages to alert garrisons and ensure that the Hanoverian succession was proclaimed.

但是在7月30日那次女王中风后的紧急枢密院会议上，他发现自己被什鲁斯伯里摆了一道。什鲁斯伯里出乎意料的招集了自己的两位辉格党同党——阿盖尔公爵和萨默塞特公爵。枢密院先是让几乎丧失意识的女王任命什鲁斯伯里为财政大臣，然后又连夜发送急件通知警备队保持警惕，以确保汉诺威王室宣告继位。

Had Bolingbroke prevailed at that meeting, we would probably have had a King James III, though there would almost certainly have been a civil war (instead of the minor fiasco of the Fifteen). Britain might have been more absolutist, more French influenced, more Catholic-tolerant and less commercial.

如果博林布鲁克在那场会议上取胜，我们也许会迎来一位詹姆斯三世国王，虽然那几乎一定会引发一场内战（而不是1715年詹姆斯党叛乱那种小闹剧）。不列颠也许会更加专制，受法国影响更大，更能容忍天主教，商业化也更少。

The stirrings of steam in the north that were to start the industrial revolution — the first faltering steps to turning heat into work — might have fizzled. The Act of Union with Scotland, agreed to some years earlier as part of the English insistence on the Hanoverian succession, might have unravelled.

北方那即将开启工业革命的滚滚蒸汽，也就是将热能用于生产活动的蹒跚尝试，也许就会胎死腹中。几年前通过的苏格兰联合法案——这是英国人坚持施加于汉诺威继承者的要求之一——，则可能就此解除。

At least, so goes conventional wisdom. In Churchill’s words, the outcome of that long meeting of the privy council was ‘No popery, no disputed succession, no French bayonets, no civil war’.

至少，传统的看法就是这样的。用丘吉尔的话说，枢密院那次长时间会议的结果是“没有罗马天主教，没有王位继承争端，没有法国的刺刀，没有内战。”

However, there is another possibility. When not bonking, Bolingbroke was a philosopher, a religious free thinker greatly admired by Voltaire and Alexander Pope.

然而事情还有另一种可能性。当博林布鲁克并不沉迷于风月的时候，他是一位深受伏尔泰和亚历山大·蒲柏大力推崇的哲学家和宗教自由思想家。

His speeches and writings were read with avidity by the American founding fathers, who credited Bolingbroke with the idea that liberty means being free, ‘not of the law but by the law’.

其演讲和著作曾被后来的美国国父们如饥似渴地阅读，他们信奉博林布鲁克的这一理念：自由并不是“免于法律约束”的自由，而是“依靠法律而获得”的自由。

He invented the concept of an official political opposition and saw it as his duty to prevent the Whigs turning into a perpetual oligarchy. He proposed free trade with France.

博林布鲁克开创了正式政治反对派的概念，并将阻止辉格党成为永久性政治寡头视为己任。他还提出了与法国的自由贸易。

He was, in other words, a great deal more of an Enlightenment figure than the Whig who replaced him and, thanks to the blind support of George I and II, dominated politics for 20 years, while filling his pockets with ill-gotten gains: Robert Walpole.

换句话说，相比那个取代他的辉格党人——罗伯特·沃波尔，他远更像一位启蒙人物。而后者全靠乔治一世和二世的盲目支持，才主导政坛20年，并用不义之财塞满了自己的腰包。

Thus the cartoon version of history in which Whigs and Hanoverians brought liberty, parliament, Protestantism and trade, while Tories and Stuarts would have brought absolutism, Popery and civil war, may not be right.

因此，“辉格党和汉诺威王朝带来了自由、国会、新教和贸易，而如果换了托利党和斯图亚特王朝，带来的则会是专制、罗马天主教和内战”，这种卡通版历史可能是错误的。

You cannot quite help wondering if a Bolingbroke ascendancy might have given England a more vigorous Enlightenment, too, to rival those in France and Scotland. It has always puzzled me that the stars of the Enlightenment — Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Smith and co. — included plenty of Scots and French, but no Englishmen.

你会不禁想象，如果当时博林布鲁克占据了主导，他也许会给英格兰带来一个更为活跃、足以媲美法国和苏格兰的启蒙运动。我一直有一个疑问，启蒙运动的璀璨群星，如伏尔泰、狄德罗、休谟和斯密等，其中有很多苏格兰人和法国人，却从来没有英格兰人。

Had Bolingbroke persuaded James Edward Stuart to turn Protestant, as he had tried to, then many British people would have welcomed a Stuart king. The idea of a German-speaking monarch was not at all popular. Shrewsbury’s coup might well have failed.

博林布鲁克曾尝试劝说詹姆斯·爱德华·斯图亚特【 校注：即前述1715年叛乱的主导者，詹姆斯二世之子，史称“老僭王” 】改信新教，如果他得以成功，那么许多不列颠人将会欢迎一位斯图亚特国王。由一位讲德语的人来当君主，这个主意从来都不受欢迎。这样的话，什鲁斯伯里的政变也许会彻底失败。

As it was, it was a close-run thing. There were plenty of Protestants who favoured James. I recently found out that my ancestor, who was Tory mayor of Newcastle that year, refused to declare the accession of George despite being a staunch Protestant.

其实就那时的情况来说，局面还是比较胶着的。当时有很多支持詹姆斯党的新教徒。我最近才发现我的祖先Richard Ridley那年担任纽卡斯尔的托利党人市长。虽然他是一位坚定的新教徒，但也拒绝宣布乔治登基的消息。

A rival faction did declare it, so Richard Ridley sent his thugs to stamp it out, resulting in a Friday night riot on the Quayside (nothing much has changed).

但有一个敌对派别宣布了，他就派手下的那些恶棍去摆平这件事情，结果某个周五晚上还在码头区导致了一场骚乱（这种情况现在也好不了多少）。

Still, it all worked out in the end. Britain may not have loved its new king, nor the corrupt grandees who ruled in his name and promptly debauched the currency in the South Sea Bubble. But George did give sanctuary to Voltaire when he was exiled from France, and gradually the country did take advantage of the largest free-trade area in Europe (England and Scotland) to sow the seeds of prosperity and incubate freedom.

尽管如此，事情最后还是得以解决。不列颠人也许从未爱戴过他们的新国王，更别说那些打着他名号统治，还在南海泡沫事件中快速贬值货币的腐败高官了。不过乔治毕竟在伏尔泰被法国驱逐之后给予其庇护，而且这个国家也逐步利用欧洲最大的自由贸易区（英格兰和苏格兰）播下了繁荣的种子，并且孕育了自由。

Bolingbroke’s most famous work, The Idea of a Patriot King, was written at Alexander Pope’s behest much later in 1738 to influence George I’s grandson Frederick, Prince of Wales, into being a monarch who rose above faction, was a father to his country and championed trade.

博林布鲁克最著名的作品《爱国者君主的观念》晚至1738年才在亚历山大·蒲柏的请求下写成，其目的是用来引导乔治一世的孙子，威尔士亲王弗雷德里克，成为一个超越党派、扮演国家慈父角色、并拥护贸易的君主。

Which, if you think about it, is roughly what we have now.

仔细想想，我们现在所拥有的体制，大体就是如此。

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