Early American history: key events and developments

¶ … King's Three Faces

The book The King's Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776 by Brendan McConville views the prevalence of royalists in colonial America, and their relationship with Great Britain and her royalty. He asserts the early colonists had a healthy relationship with their mother country, and wanted to keep it that way. He believes that concept carried through to the Revolution for many Americans, leading to his disquieting conclusion that colonial society was inherently supportive of the monarchy and its aims, rather than "antithetical to monarchy" (McConville 2006, 79), as is the accepted historical conclusion. The author examines the political culture of the time to reach his determination, indicating the depth and scope of his research and his analysis of that research.

His book breaks down the period of 1688-1776 into manageable sections detailing the myriad details that point to the support of monarchy in America, right up to the impending Revolution. Most historians note there were still innumerable royalists in the nation who refused to support the fight for independence. However, very few subscribe to McConville's ideas that this support existed in a majority of Americans, they simply supported their monarch, but did not support the Parliament that had emerged as the power in British government in the 1760s. Loyal to their monarch, they attempted to justify his actions, even though, as the author asserts, he had conceptually "three faces" that carried dissimilar conceptions to the people of the colonies. For some, he was the leader of the "divine-right monarchy" while others perceived him as an extralegal, extrainstitutional monarch at one with his meanest subjects" (McConville 2006, 143). In reality, the king was something between those two, and Americans had to perceive his three faces in order to come to terms with their own revolutionary ideals. The book is well written, and offers an intriguing view of a history most Americans think they already know.