Laurence Echard – Whig Historian

E-ISSN： 1469-5103|32|4|843-866

ISSN： 0018-246x

Source： The Historical Journal, Vol.32, Iss.4, 1989-12, pp. : 843-866

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Abstract

It was not an easy task in the early eighteenth century to write a complete history of England, and Laurence Echard courageously attempted to be the first to do so. For even if one could pick a way carefully through the Saxon/Norman period (on which most attention had centred up till this time), there still remained immense problems in the interpretation of the seventeenth century and its relationship back to the chosen version of this earlier time. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century Echard wrote or contributed to six volumes on the subject of English history, all of which contained at least some discussion of the English seventeenth century, but the results were confusing. In the very small amount of modern discussion on Echard's politics and historical works, this confusion is evident in a revealing contradiction.