The English Landed Elite, 1540–1879: A Review

Abstract

Few historians have equalled Lawrence Stone as a collector of facts and a maker of big books. Take but three of his books especially relevant to this essay. The Crisis of Aristocracy amounted to 841 pages, Family, Sex, and Marriage to 800 pages, and the most recent of the three, An Open Elite?-which is written jointly with Jeanne C. Fawtier Stone'-falls off to a mere 566 pages. This mountain of historical fact and exposition is a monument to Stone's prodigious energy, thought-provoking ingenuity, and relentless curiosity. Although this essay begins with, and concentrates upon An Open Elite?, it will be led also to consider Stone's earlier works. In this latest book Stone returns to ground travelled over before. He has again much to say about the history of the family and the role of strict settlement, but his view is not quite the same as it once was. The accumulated baggage of earlier travels is, as it were, heaped together with baggage from his latest journey. A close look at An Open Elite? inevitably entails some looking at the corpus of Stone's work on the English aristocracy and gentry. Logically An Open Elite? falls into two parts. As the title indicates, the book discusses whether the English landed elite was open to newcomers, a question of importance in English social history. The book goes beyond this, however. Attempting to explain the stability of the core of the elite, it sets out salient features of the class, laying particular stress on its inheritance practices. This review accordingly also falls into two parts. The first-written by David Spring-discusses the question the title raises. The second-written by Eileen Spring-discusses inheritance practices as Stone sees them and has seen them, and also discusses related family matters to which he returns.